Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. Part 2

'I have the honour to command one of H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte's_ boats on service, and if there is any work, expect to cut no small caper. I have seen the plan of attack; all our fire is to be on the mole head. Us, the _Leander_, _Superb_ and _Impregnable_ are to be lashed together and as near the walls as possible. _Minden_ engages a battery called the Emperor's Fort, and _Albion_ stands off and on to relieve any damaged ship. As soon as the Mole is cleared, we are to land; glorious enterprise for the boats.

'Give my love to dearest Uranie and Lady C. [Footnote: Dowager- Marchioness of Clanricarde, his stepmother.] &c. &c.

'Your affecte.

'C. YORKE.'

The British fleet with its allied Dutch squadron arrived off Algiers on August 21. Lord Exmouth had sent in advance a corvette with orders to endeavour to rescue the British Consul, a humane effort which, however, succeeded only in rescuing that gentleman's wife and child, and resulted, on the other hand, in the capture of the boat's crew of eighteen men. The captain of the corvette reported that the Dey refused altogether to give up that official, or to be responsible for his safety, and also that there were 40,000 troops in the town, in addition to the Janissaries who had been summoned from distant garrisons. The Algerine fleet, he said, consisted of between forty and fifty gun and mortar vessels, as well as a numerous flotilla of galleys. Works had been thrown up on the mole which protected the harbour, and the forts were known to be armed with a numerous artillery and to be of excellent masonry with walls fourteen to sixteen feet thick. The Dey, thinking himself fairly secure behind such defences, was prepared with a determined resistance.

On August 27, Lord Exmouth sent a flag of truce restating his demands and giving a period of three hours for a reply. Upon the expiration of that term and on the return of the flag of truce without an answer, he anch.o.r.ed his flagship just half a cable's length from the mole head at the entrance of the harbour, so that her starboard broadside flanked all the batteries from the mole-head to the lighthouse. The mole itself was covered with troops and spectators, whom Lord Exmouth vainly tried to disperse before the firing began by waving his hat and shouting from his own quarter-deck as the flagship came to an anchor at half-past two in the afternoon.

'As soon as the ship was fairly placed,' writes Lord Exmouth's biographer, 'the sound of the cheer given by the crew was answered by a gun from the Eastern Battery; a second and a third opened in quick succession. One of the shots struck the _Superb_. At the first flash Lord Exmouth gave the order "Stand by," at the second "Fire." The report of the third gun was drowned by the thunder of the _Queen Charlotte's_ broadside.'

Thus opened an engagement which is memorable among the attacks of fleets upon land fortifications, and which fully justified Lord Exmouth's opinion that 'nothing can resist a line-of-battle ship's fire.' The Algerine tactics were to allow the British squadron to come to an anchor without molestation, and to board the vessels from their galleys while the British crews were aloft furling sails, for which purpose they had thirty-seven galleys fully manned waiting inside the mole. To the surprise of the enemy, however, the British admiral had given orders for the sails to be clewed from the deck, instead of sending men aloft for the purpose, and the British ships were thus able to open fire the moment they came to an anchor. The result of this smart seamanship was an instant disaster for the Algerines; their galleys were all sunk before they could make the few strokes of the oar which would have brought them alongside, and tremendous broadsides of grapeshot from the _Queen Charlotte_ and the _Leander_ shattered the entire flotilla, and in a moment covered the surface of the harbour with the bodies of their crews and with a few survivors attempting to swim from destruction.

On the molehead the effect of the British fire was terrible; the people with whom it was crowded were swept away by the fire of the _Queen Charlotte_, which had ruined the fortifications there before the engagement became general, and then crumbled and brought down the Lighthouse Tower and its batteries. The _Leander's_ guns, which commanded the princ.i.p.al gate of the city opening on the mole, prevented the escape of any survivors.

The batteries defending the mole were three times cleared by the British fire, and three times manned again.

'The Dey,' wrote a British officer on the _Leander_, 'was everywhere offering pecuniary rewards for those who would stand against us; eight sequins were to be given to every man who would endeavour to extinguish the fire. At length a horde of Arabs were driven into the batteries under the direction of the most devoted of the Janissaries and the gates closed upon them.'

Soon after the battle began, the enemy's flotilla of gunboats advanced, with a daring which deserved a better fate, to board the _Queen Charlotte_, and a few guns from the latter vessel sent thirty-three out of thirty-seven to the bottom. Then followed the destruction of the Algerine frigates and other shipping in the port, which were set on fire by bombs and sh.e.l.ls and burned together with the storehouses and the a.r.s.enal.

The Algerines, none the less, made a most determined resistance, and maintained a fire upon the squadron for no less than eleven hours. Young Charles Yorke was in command of a tender of the flagship which was moored near to his parent ship, and was consequently in the midst of the hottest fire, within sixty yards of the mouths of the enemy's guns, throughout the engagement. Long before that period had elapsed, however, he found himself running short of ammunition, and taking one marine in his dinghy, pulled in her to the _Queen Charlotte_, climbed her side and made his way to the quarter-deck, where, saluting Lord Exmouth, he said, 'Sir, I am short of ammunition.' 'Well, my lad,' replied the admiral, 'I cannot help you, but if you choose to go below, and fetch what you want yourself, you are very welcome.' Charles Yorke, wishing for nothing better, again saluted and withdrew. He then descended into the flagship's magazine, and single-handed brought up 1368 lbs. of ammunition, which he lowered over her side to his single marine in the dinghy, and in her returned to his gunboat to resume his firing until the close of the action, when, by the aid of a land breeze, which turned about half-past eleven into a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, the fleet was able to draw out from the batteries. Nothing had been able to resist the concentrated and well-directed fire, and the sea defences of Algiers, with a great part of the town itself, had by this time been shattered and reduced to ruin.

This success was only purchased at heavy cost, for the British casualties, considering the size of the squadron, were enormous, the _Impregnable_ being the chief sufferer. One hundred and twenty- eight men were killed and 690 wounded, while the Dutch lost thirteen and fifty-two respectively. The _Leander_ had every spar injured and her rigging cut to pieces, and when her cables were at last shot away, was unable to set a single sail, and so was drifting helplessly ash.o.r.e, when a fortunate change of wind allowed her boats to bring her to a second anchorage. On the flagship the enemy's fire was so hot that Lord Exmouth himself escaped most narrowly, being slightly wounded in three places, and the skirts of his coat were shot away by a cannon-ball.

When the morning broke, the admiral found that he had brought the Dey to reason. Having first beheaded his prime minister, that potentate released the British Consul and the boat's crew he had detained before the action, handed over the ransom money he had extorted from captured subjects of Naples and Sardinia in exchange for their freedom, amounting to no less than 382,000 dollars, and undertook, 'in the presence of Almighty G.o.d,' to release all Christian slaves in his dominions, to abandon the enslavement of Christians for the future, and to treat all prisoners of war with humanity until regularly exchanged, according to European practice in like cases. About 1200 slaves, the bulk of them Neapolitans and Sicilians, were embarked on the 31st, making, with those liberated a few weeks before, more than 3000 persons whom Lord Exmouth thus had the satisfaction of delivering from slavery. He sailed away from the city without leaving a single Christian slave, so far as could be gathered, in either of the Barbary States.

Charles Yorke's conduct at this engagement was fully recognised by Captain Brisbane, who, when the young midshipman came to leave the _Queen Charlotte_ a few months later, wrote his certificate in the following terms:

'These are to certify the princ.i.p.al officers and commissioners of His Majesty's navy that Mr. Charles Philip Yorke served as midshipman on board H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte_ from the 11th day of July to the 16th October 1816, during which time he behaved with diligence and sobriety, and was always obedient to command. His conduct at the battle of Algiers was active, spirited, and highly meritorious.

'(Signed) JAMES BRISBANE,

'_Captain._'

Charles Yorke's share in this action, together with his later services, is recorded on a tablet, next to a similar one to Lord Exmouth, in the English chapel at Algiers, by his daughter, the writer of the present memoir.

It may be added that he always cherished the memory of the distinguished admiral under whom he served on this occasion, and that in later years he purchased from Sir William Beechy's studio a portrait of Lord Exmouth on his quarter-deck at Algiers, in full dress and orders as the naval fashion then was, which hung on the great staircase at Wimpole.

Still in his seventeenth year, Charles Yorke had not yet served long enough for promotion, and was transferred on October 17 of the same year, 1816, to the _Leander_, commanded by Sir David Milne, who had been second in command at Algiers, and was then under orders for the North American station at Halifax, where the _Leander_ shortly sailed.

CHAPTER III

THE NORTH AMERICAN STATION. 1817-1822

A few letters which my father wrote home from the Halifax station, covering a period of about twelve months from July 1817, I set out here as giving better than any comment of my own an account of his life and experiences in Nova Scotia at that time. They present a self-reliant character, and the young midshipman who was so early recognised by his superior officers as efficient and capable was found worthy of a small, but most important, command soon after joining this station. His father, Sir Joseph Yorke, who lost no opportunity of watching his son's progress in his profession, was a little nervous at his undertaking a responsibility of the kind, but how well his superiors' confidence was justified will be evident from his letters. Young Yorke was full of pride in his little sloop the _Jane_, and there is no hint in his letters of the risk and danger of this service. As a fact, she was an exceedingly difficult craft to handle, and if not unseaworthy, was, to say the least, an unpleasant vessel in a sea, with decks constantly awash, and the character she bore in the service appears in her nickname the _Crazy Jane_. I have often heard my father describe this as a most arduous and dangerous service, and say that life upon the _Jane_ was 'like living on a fish's back.' In her he made voyages to Bermuda from Halifax and back with despatches and ships' mails in very heavy weather, and I find the following note referring to this service in my mother's handwriting:

'C. commanded the _Jane_ at the age of nineteen, carrying mails from Bermuda to Halifax during winter months when ordinary mail was struck off, during which perilous service he had not a man on board who could write or take an observation. This _crazy Jane_ was hardly seaworthy, and he finished her career and nearly his own by running her into Halifax Harbour in the dark, all hands at the pump.'

His certificate from Sir David Milne contains the following pa.s.sage:

'Mr. Charles Philip Yorke, Midshipman of H.M.S. _Leander_, commanded the _Jane_, Sloop, tender to the said ship bearing my flag, from the 23rd of December 1817 to the date hereof, during which time he took her twice in safety from Halifax to Bermuda, and from Bermuda to Halifax, and was at sea in her at different other periods, and conducted himself at all times so as to merit my entire approbation.' Dated 28th December.

H.M.S. 'LEANDER,' HALIFAX:

July 10, 1817.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'I almost fear my letters have not reached you, for the May packet has arrived, and no letters. But silence I always take in a favourable light, so I conclude you are all well and happy; indeed I had a letter from Lady St. Germans which informed me so.

'I am, thank G.o.d, very well and like my station very much; it is really a very pleasant place, and the inhabitants attentive and hospitable. I am now very well acquainted all over Halifax thanks to Captain Lumley's kindness; pray tell him so, for the family he introduced me to is very pleasant and kind, so that it is a great comfort to go on sh.o.r.e, and to be able to spend your evenings among friends instead of being obliged to go to a dirty tavern.

'I have been on several very delightful fishing parties, and have never returned with less than three or four dozen fine trout. This will make the English sportsmen stare, but the fishing here is beyond everything I could have imagined. The shooting has not come in as yet, and does not until August, and then it will be very fine.

'The way I go fishing is this. I have got an Indian canoe, and I just jump into it with my gear, paddle on sh.o.r.e, shoulder it, and carry it to the lakes. I am become quite an Indian in the management of this canoe, and with the expense of only one ducking. I was upset in the harbour, but swam on sh.o.r.e and towed the canoe and all with me quite safe. I can paddle this canoe much faster than any gig in the fleet.

'We are now just on the point of sailing for Shelburne with Ld. and Lady Dalhousie, and I fancy shall be absent about ten days. The _Jane_ has not yet arrived, so I am still a mid, not a captain, but expect her hourly. Last Monday we mids of the _Leander_ gave a grand entertainment to the inhabitants of Halifax and officers of the fleet; a play, ball, and supper, which went off remarkably well. _The Iron Chest_ was the play; the _Wags of Windsor_ the farce. I did not perform being steward of the supper, but merely spoke the prologue. Our stage was very large and scenery very good, and on the whole, nothing could go off with more _eclat_ than it did.

'The girls of Halifax are pretty, generally speaking, and certainly rather ladylike in their manners, but not very accomplished, but there is one thing very formidable in their structure, which is tremendous hoofs, so that a kick from one of them would make you keep your bed for a week. But they certainly are 50 degrees better than the Bermudians, they are very affable and agreeable, which is the great point to an indifferent person.

'Now I have tired your patience with lots of nonsense, which in fact is all the news I have to tell, so you must excuse it. Give my kindest love to Lady Clanricarde, Urania, and all the boys, not forgetting little Agneta, who by this time must be grown and improved much.

'I remain, my dear Father,

'Your most affectionate son,

'C. P. YORKE.'

SIR J. S. YORKE,

_Admiralty._