Horatio Nelson Speaks to the 21st Century?

Barbary Wars

The novels of the Cutler Family Chronicles span the years 1774 to 1815 and have, as backdrops, the creation of the U.S. Navy and the emergence of the United States as an overseas commercial power during the Age of Sail.

During the last fifteen years of this period the United States became inevitably embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars that were ravaging Europe. During America’s quasi-war with France in the late 1790s, and again during the First Barbary War in the early nineteenth century, Great Britain viewed the fledgling United States as an ally, either because we were fighting the same enemy – France – or because Britain and her overseas colonies desperately wanted to buy what America had to sell. Aside from exchanging private recognition signals with American warships and escorting American merchantmen through pirate-infested waters, the Royal Navy opened its bases in the West Indies and the Mediterranean to American naval vessels.

Admiral Horatio Nelson

The early years of the Napoleonic Wars were also the capstone years of England’s most revered naval hero: Horatio Nelson. Richard Cutler, the main protagonist in the Cutler Family Chronicles, comes to know Nelson primarily because his wife Katherine, a young woman born and raised in the shadow of English aristocracy, was once engaged to marry the dashing young post captain. Although Katherine never again sees Horatio after she weds Richard Cutler and sails to America, the two sea officers have several occasions to cross tacks with each other during the years preceding the epic sea battle off the southwest coast of Spain in 1805 that immortalized Nelson’s life. 

One such occasion (in the recently published A Call to Arms) is in November of 1803 prior to a grand fete hosted by Sir Alexander Ball, the British governor of Malta, at the island’s magnificent San Anton Palace. Adm. Horatio Lord Nelson, commander in chief of British forces in the Mediterranean, and Captain Richard Cutler, USN, are meeting in private before the gala affair begins. With them in the small but comfortably appointed room are Captain Jeremy Hardcastle, RN, Richard’s brother-n-law and Nelson’s life-long friend, and Agreen Crabtree, Richard’s first officer in USS Portsmouth. A story that Jeremy has to relate to Richard and Agreen follows an account by Agreen regarding an earlier encounter between Portsmouth and a Tripolitan corsair. After the corsair captain strikes his colors and surrenders his ship, he orders his gun crews to open fire on the American frigate as she is lowering away her boats, an act of cowardice and dishonor that kills a number of defenseless American sailors. Captain Cutler immediately orders all sail clapped on and chases after the corsair, fleeing for her life toward the safety of Tunis. Portsmouth overtakes the corsair and reduces her to matchwood.

 What Jeremy Hardcastle has to relate is historically accurate in detail, as is the gist of Nelson’s response to Agreen’s comment. (Note: also historically accurate is the treachery of the corsair captain.)

We should listen carefully to what Nelson has to say.

    “It started right here off Malta,” Jeremy explained. “For no apparent reason two Algerian corsairs attacked one of our sloops of war. The sloop managed to escape into Grand Harbor, and a frigate was dispatched to hunt down the two corsairs and sink them. Which she did. The dey of Algiers, a chap named Mustapha, was so enraged he ordered British citizens in Algiers imprisoned and their property confiscated. When Horatio learned of that, he led Victory and a squadron of seven frigates from Toulon to Algiers and immediately started bombarding the city. Within an hour, the dey sent out a boat to the flagship under a white flag. Horatio paid it no mind. He kept the guns hot until the outer wall of Algiers had collapsed and fires were burning within the city. Finally, the dey had himself rowed out to the flagship, pleading to Horatio and Allah for mercy. I can’t speak for Allah, but Horatio agreed on the condition that he release British citizens from prison, restore their possessions, and compensate them for their trouble. And on the condition that Mustapha promise never again to impugn England’s honor. Thus far, he has acted the angelic school boy, bowing and scraping before a stern school master. Is that a fair summation, Horatio?”
    “I daresay it is,” Nelson responded.
    “And I daresay the dey learned a hard lesson that day,” Agreen added, setting off a round of chuckles.
    “I agree with you, Agreen,” Nelson said gravely,” and I am not trying to be witty in saying that. Mustapha learned the same lesson as your corsair captain. And those with Western minds must learn it as well: that the only thing these Arab despots seem to understand is brute force. That is the only anecdote to their tactics. They use diplomacy as either a tool to get what they want or as a delaying tactic. That is one reason I would not have an Arab in my fleet, except as a prisoner.”

Putting aside for the moment the politically correct world in which we live, had the State Department heeded Nelson’s words more diligently, would the four Americans killed during the terrorist attack on Benghazi last September be alive today?

I simply pose the question.

The “Volcano Ship” USS Intrepid

Destruction of Fire Ship Intrepid

In late summer 1804 the war against Tripoli was not going well. True, the third U.S. naval squadron sent to the Mediterranean under the command of Commo. Edward Preble had twice assaulted the capital and destroyed a number of enemy batteries and gunboats. But despite Preble’s impressive efforts the fortress city still stood in defiance of the United States, and the bashaw (king) of Tripoli, who had initiated the war, remained contemptuous of U.S. naval strength. His corsair fleet remained largely intact in the harbor below his castle, and the 115 cannon in the city’s defenses remained trained on the American ships standing offshore, hardly touched by the withering broadsides of USS Constitution and the other ships in the squadron, including a number of bomb ketches on loan from the king of Sicily.

Commodore Edward Preble

Worse, Preble had received a dispatch from Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith with the unwelcome news that a fourth squadron was underway from Portsmouth, Virginia, under the command of Commo. Samuel Barron. Since Barron had seniority over Preble, Preble’s days in the Mediterranean were numbered. If he were to make a meaningful contribution to the successful conclusion of the war, he needed to act quickly. After mulling over his options he settled on a course that no one could have suspected, not even his loyal squadron commanders whom he referred to affectionately as “my boys.”

What he decided to do was transform the captured ketch Intrepid into what he designated as a “volcano ship” – an extreme version of the more familiar term “fire ship.” If the ketch could steal in to Tripoli harbor under cover of night and a Mediterranean rig, reach the very walls of Tripoli and set off an explosion for the ages, in one bold stroke the entire pirate fleet could be destroyed and considerable damage done to the city itself.

Every carpenter in the squadron was put to work planking up her magazine in the hold and loading it to the brim with five hundred barrels of powder, five tons in all. On the deck directly above the magazine, one hundred 13-inch shells and fifty 9-inch shells were carefully stacked within a rectangular wooden bin built to accommodate them. Under the watchful eye of the squadron commanders, two holes were drilled into the bulkhead of the magazine amidships. Into these were inserted gun barrels stuffed with fuses that were connected to a main fuse at the end. These two main fuses were connected on the outside to a shallow trough of powder that ran the length of the ketch on the starboard side forward to a scuttle near her bow and aft to her companionway.

The train of powder could thus be fired from either the bow or the stern of the vessel. The length of the two main fuses was set to burn for eleven minutes before the main fuses set off the smaller fuses inside the gun barrels. The smaller fuses were timed to burn for four minutes before they ignited the powder in the magazine. Once the train of powder was lit, the thirteen Americans had fifteen minutes to get off Intrepid and board the pinnace and cutter being towed behind the ketch. The schooner Nautilus would be hove to close in to the reefs, to pick them up and convey them back to the flagship, escorted by the schooner Vixen and the brig of war Syren.

Commodore Preble chose Lt. Richard Somers to command Intrepid. Every squadron commander had begged for the honor, but Somers got the nod. Joining him as volunteers were Midshipman Henry Wadsworth (Longfellow’s uncle), Midshipman Joseph Israel, and ten carefully selected American sailors.

Lt. Richard Sommers

At eight o’clock in the evening of September 3, 1804, Intrepid sailed from the squadron standing several miles offshore from the city of Tripoli. She made it through the Western Passage into the harbor of Tripoli. Then, with a white blinding eruption of light and an ear-rupturing concussion that could be heard and felt well out to sea, she exploded – as it turned out, prematurely, before she reached the city walls. Why, no one is certain to this day. The most likely explanation is that Intrepid was approached by Tripolitan gunboats and Lieutenant Somers set off the charge himself. Earlier, aboard Constitution, he had vowed to do just that in such a circumstance, preferring death to the dishonor of surrendering and the disgrace of turning over vast quantities of munitions to the enemy. The twelve American heroes sailing with him understood that preference when they volunteered.

Following is a scene from chapter 12 of A Call to Arms. It depicts an exchange between Commodore Preble and Lt. George Reed, acting captain of Nautilus. The morning after the explosion Preble had signaled Nautilus to come alongside the flagship and report.

“Lieutenant Reed, what can you tell us?” Preble shouted through a speaking trumpet.

Reed raised his own trumpet from the larboard railing of the schooner. All eyes aboard the flagship were riveted upon him. He hesitated as he delivered his reply, as if fearful that speaking aloud of such things would somehow cause them to become a reality.

“Sir,” Reed reported, “we followed Intrepid until two or three minutes before the explosion…We thought she had reached her destination, but alas…she had not. From what we observed this morning…there has been little or no damage…either to Tripoli or to its navy. And sir…It is my sad duty to report…that Captain Somers and every member of his crew…have vanished.”

“Repeat that, Lieutenant. And speak up, man! Vanished, you say?”

“Yes sir,” Reed replied more distinctly. “Vanished. There is no indication either of the crew or the two boats. No indication whatsoever.”

“So what you are telling me, Mr. Reed, is that the crew of Intrepid has either perished or been taken prisoner.”

“Yes sir. We…I fear so, sir.”

“Dear God, Henry…” (Midshipman Ralph) Izard whispered to himself, staring out blankly to the area where Intrepid had exploded. (Midshipman) Jamie (Cutler) placed a hand on his shoulder, as much to comfort himself as his friend. Both of them realized, as well as anyone, that not one of the thirteen Americans had been taken alive. Jamie felt the warm damp of tears in his eyes and tried, unsuccessfully, to blink them away.

“Very well, Mr. Reed,” Preble shouted through the trumpet. “Please advise Mr. Smith and Mr. Stewart (captain of Vixen and Syren, respectively) to rejoin the squadron. You may continue to reconnoiter, but stay out of effective range of the shore batteries. We shall suffer no further casualties this day.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

It was, ironically, that very afternoon, as the squadron continued to reel from such a devastating loss of shipmates, that the topgallants of USS President and USS Constellation were sighted bearing down from the north. The Mediterranean campaign of Commodore Edward Preble, so full of promise, had come to an end.

The Strategic Importance of Malta

The Emperor Napoleon
in His Study at the Tuileries
by Jacques-Louis David, 1812

Located at the geographical center of the Mediterranean Sea, fifty miles south of Sicily, the tiny island of Malta (less than 10% the size of Rhode Island) has for centuries held a strategic importance far greater than its hundred-twenty square mile area might suggest. Catholic to its core – St. Paul himself ministered on the archipelago after being shipwrecked there -- Malta had teetered back and forth at the epicenter of a seemingly endless struggle between Greeks and Romans, Phoenicians and Turks, and Arabs and Spanish for supremacy in the Mediterranean.

In 1551, Barbary pirates landed on Gozo, an island adjacent to Malta, and took the entire population of 5,000 men, women and children back to North Africa as slaves.  Twelve years later, the Knights of Malta, led by Frenchman Jean Parisot de la Valette, successfully repelled an assault by a vast Ottoman fleet that nonetheless succeeded in causing considerable damage to the island and its defenses.  Nor did a treaty between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the late 1700s bring any sort of reprieve to the long-suffering Maltese people. In 1798, on his voyage to conquer Egypt with his "Army of the Orient," Napoleon Bonaparte seized possession of Malta and left behind a sizable garrison under the command of a trusted commander, General Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois. The general’s mission, Bonaparte publicly declared, was to hold at all costs an island so vital to French interests and supply lines he would rather keep it out of British hands than any village in France.

As profiled in A Call To Arms (Volume IV of the Cutler Family Chronicles to be released in October by the Naval Institute Press.), "Vaubois’s tenure on Malta proved to be ephemeral. Reinforced with weapons and manpower furnished by the kingdom of Sicily, the citizens of Malta, outraged by the French Republic’s hostility to Catholic doctrine, rose up in defiance. Their revolt was enthusiastically supported by the Royal Navy, which blockaded the islands and brought its unique blend of firepower to bear against the French. In 1800, to show their appreciation for British assistance and to protect themselves in the future from would-be molesters, the leaders of Malta formally petitioned the government of King George the Third to grant their island royal dominion status. Sir Alexander Ball, a former British naval officer much beloved by the Maltese, graciously accepted on behalf of His Britannic Majesty. Soon thereafter, Horatio Lord Nelson, Vice Admiral of the Blue and commander-in-chief of British forces in the Mediterranean, declared Grand Harbor at Valletta – one of the finest deep-draft harbors in the world – the new headquarters for the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet."

In 1803, Lord Neson invited Commodore Edward Preble, commander of the U.S. Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron, to use Valetta as his base from which to wage war against Tripoli.  Preble politely declined the offer, preferring for his purposes the harbor of Syracuse on the island of Sicily.

Postscript:  After playing a significant role during World War II due to its proximity to both Allied and Axis shipping lanes, Malta achieved its independence in 1964, but with Queen Elizabeth II retaining the title of Queen of Malta and remaining as de facto head of State.  A governor-general acting in her interests wielded administrative control over the island.  In 1971, Malta declared itself a republic within the British Commonwealth of Nations, with an elected president as head of State.

The Lore Of Port Royal, Jamaica

Illustration of pre-1692 Port Royal, Jamaica.

Port Royal, Jamaica has a rich history. Founded in 1618, it is located at the end of a spit of land at the mouth of Kingston Harbor.  From its earliest days it served as a refuge for English privateers preying on Spanish treasure ships sailing home from the New to the Old World.  When the British Parliament began limiting the number of letters of marque – official documents that essentially transformed a privately owned vessel into a government-sanctioned ship of war -- many privateers tossed aside the thin veil of legitimacy and resorted to outright piracy.

Whatever their means of income, the wealth they amassed and liberally circulated in Port Royal turned that commercial center into one of the gaudiest and most depraved ports-of-call in the seven seas.  To quote from The Power and the Glory, the third volume of the Cutler Family Chronicles:  

“Richard Cutler knew something of the history of Port Royal, as did most people familiar with the West Indies.  Situated at the western tip of a long, thin spit of land shaped like an ostrich leg with an Italy-shaped boot at its western end, it was, in its heyday in the late 1600’s, the largest, richest and most debauched British municipality in the Western Hemisphere, justly earning its dubious distinction as “Sodom of the West Indies.”  With an economy heaped in gold bullion plundered by English privateers off Spanish treasure fleets, Port Royal served as a safe-haven for pirates, buccaneers, cutthroats, and other low-lives keeping intimate company with the thieves, whores and other opportunists keen to pick a farthing or a florin from an unsuspecting tar dead to the world on a alehouse floor or in a dark alley rife with the stench of human waste and proliferation.  In 1680, Port Royal was said to host a tavern for every ten residents.  Inside those taverns, or on the streets outside, prostitutes brazenly plied their wares, their oft-used bodies tantalizing pie-eyed sailors too long away at sea.  

Henry Morgan, Pirate of the
Caribbean, 18th century lithography.

Tottering at the tip of the societal pyramid, the town’s few respectable citizens – merchants, mainland planters, an Anglican priest or two -- pooled their resources and appointed Henry Morgan, the renowned buccaneer and sworn enemy of propriety and Puritanism, as lieutenant governor.  It was a seemingly insane gamble that paid off.  Elevated from the base to the apex of society, Morgan found religion and set about to clean up the unholy mess, publicly hanging many of those with whom just a few weeks before he had been in cahoots.  His efforts, however, proved too little, too late.  At eleven forty-two in the morning of June 7, 1692, in what was widely perceived as divine punishment for its manifold sins and wickedness, Port Royal was rocked to its core by a violent earthquake that sent much of the city sinking, Atlantis-like, into the sea.  Those few who managed to survive the holocaust fled across the bay to the mainland, where, in collaboration with the sugar planters and wealthier merchants already living there, they established a new commercial center.  With the devastation of Port Royal fresh in their minds, these citizens of Kingston, as the new community came to be called, lived and worked and prayed as paragons of sobriety and Christian morals – until memories faded. 

What remained of Port Royal, meanwhile, was appropriated by the Royal Navy and re-built as its flagship base in the West Indies.”

At the end of the eighteenth century, as the United States and France waged an undeclared war known to history as the Quasi-War, the Royal Navy opened all of its West Indian bases, including its flagship base at Port Royal, to the fledgling American navy.  Why?  Because as Rear Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson famously explained to My Lords of the Admiralty, “Every American gun aimed at a French warship is one less English gun aimed at a French warship.”  Such good feelings between the United Sates and Great Britain were to extend into the first four years of the 1800’s.  After that, relations deteriorated, due to England’s fight for national survival against Napoleon and the commercial war in which the United States found herself inevitably entangled.   Despite the war raging in Europe and subsequent events, Port Royal retained its vitality (if not its depravity) until 1905, when Great Britain closed what was once one of its premier navy yards in the Western Hemisphere.