The last few years of the century which passed so quietly at Steventon were times of continual change and stir in the larger world, a world in which both Francis and Charles Austen were taking an active part. But except for the personal matters that affected them, Jane does not refer to these events. It is true that from September 1796 to October 1798 we have no letters of hers, which may be due to the fact that she and her sister were not much parted then. This is one of the disadvantages of a correspondence carried on with such a near relation. But subsequently to this break the allusions to her brothers’ promotions and prospects are fairly frequent.
“Admiral Gambier, in reply to my father’s application writes as follows:—’As it is usual to keep young officers in small vessels, it being most proper on account of their inexperience, and it being also a situation where they are more in the way of learning their duty, your son has been continued in the Scorpion, but I have mentioned to the Board of Admiralty his wish to be in a frigate, and when a proper opportunity offers and it is judged that he has taken his turn in a small ship, I hope he will be removed. With regard to your son, now in London, I am glad I can give you the assurance that his promotion is likely to take place very soon, as Lord [197] Spencer has been so good as to say he would include him in an arrangement that he proposes making in a short time relative to some promotions in that quarter.’
“There, I may now finish my letter and go and hang myself, for I am sure I can neither write or do anything which will not appear insipid to you after this.”
Again, “Frank is made. He was yesterday raised to the rank of Commander, and appointed to the Petterel sloop now at Gibraltar.... As soon as you have cried a little for joy you may go on, and learn further that the Indian House have taken Captain Austen’s petition into consideration, and likewise that Lieutenant Charles John Austen is removed to the Tamar frigate.”
Nearly a month later—
“Charles leaves us to-night, the Tamar is in the Downs and Mr. Daysh advises him to join her there directly, as there is no chance of her going to the westward. Charles does not approve of this at all, and will not be much grieved if he should be too late for her before she sails, as he may then hope to get into a better station.”
And two days after, “I have just heard from Charles, who is by this time at Deal. He is to be second lieutenant, which pleases him very well. He expects to be ordered to Sheerness shortly as the Tamar has never been refitted.”
Frank apparently remained on the Petterel until he received promotion in the beginning of 1801, for his sister writes jestingly: “So Frank’s letter has made you very happy, but you are afraid he would not have patience to stay for the Haarlem, which you wish him to have done as being safer than the merchantman. Poor fellow, to wait from the middle of November to the end of December, and perhaps even longer, it must be sad work; especially in a place where the ink is so abominably [198] pale. What a surprise to him it must have been on October 20, to be visited, collared, and thrust out of the Petterall by Captain Inglis. He kindly passes over the poignancy of his feelings in quitting his ship, his officers, and his men. What a pity it is that he should not be in England at the time of his promotion, because he certainly would have had an appointment, so everybody says, and therefore it must be right for me to say it too. Had he been really here, the certainty of the appointment, I dare say, would not have been half so great, but as it could not be brought to the proof, his absence will always be a lucky source of regret.”
The real name of the ship was evidently the Petrel, but it is very variously spelt by other writers beside Jane, for orthography was not considered of great moment in the eighteenth century.
Captain Francis Austen had done good service on board and had well earned his promotion; in William James’s Naval History of Great Britain, his name is mentioned with praise. On the 20th March, 1800, in the evening, while the Mermaid, a twelve-pounder thirty-two gun frigate, under Captain R. D. Oliver, and the ship sloop Petrel, under Captain Francis William Austen, were cruising together in the Bay of Marseilles, the Petrel, which was nearer the coast than the Mermaid, came into action with three armed vessels; two escaped by running on shore, but the third, the Ligurienne of “fourteen long six pounders two thirty-six pounder carronades all brass” and with one hundred and four men on board to the Petrel’s eighty-nine,—for the first lieutenant and some of the crew were absent on prizes,—began to fight. They kept up a running fight of an hour and an half’s duration, within two hundred and fifty yards, and sometimes half that distance. Then the Ligurienne struck her colours, her commander being [199] shot. The Petrel was at that time only six miles from Marseilles. No one was hurt on the Petrel, though four of her twelve pounder carronades were upset, and the sails riddled with shot holes. The Mermaid apparently stood in the offing, giving moral support throughout. The Ligurienne was a fine vessel, only about two years old, and her capture must have meant good prize-money into the pockets of the captain and crew of the Petrel. After describing this action, Mr. James continues—
“Before quitting Captain Austen we shall relate another instance of his good conduct; and in which, without coming to actual blows, he performed an important and not wholly imperilous service.” On the thirteenth of August, the Petrel being then attached to Sir Sydney Smith’s squadron on the coast of Egypt, he was the means of burning a Turkish ship so as to prevent the French from stealing her guns, and for this service the Captain Pacha presented him with a handsome sabre and rich pelisse. Though his service seems to have landed the Turkish vessel “out of the frying-pan into the fire.”
Charles Austen had seen active service when only a lad of fifteen, and both brothers frequently took part in the small actions which were continually occurring on the seas.
There was, as we have seen, six years’ difference in age between them, but they were both at sea during some of the most glorious years in the whole annals of England. In spite of bad provisions, bad quarters, bad discipline, all of which will be again referred to, the English seamen at this time showed pluck and energy that was limitless. Britain was absolutely supreme on the seas. In 1794, Tobago, Martinique, St. Lucia, and Guadaloupe were all taken in less than a month. In the same year, Lord Howe, encountering twenty-six ships [200] which the French by great exertions had sent to sea, man?uvred for three days, but on the “glorious first of June” bore down upon them and broke their line, captured six, and dispersed the rest, while 8000 men were killed or wounded on the French side against 1158 of the English. On September 16 of the following year, the Cape of Good Hope was taken by the English under Sir James Craig. The Dutch made an attempt to retake the Cape in 1796, but the whole of the armament they sent was captured by Admiral Elphinstone. In 1797 the Spaniards, who had declared war against Great Britain, put forth their full naval strength to attempt to raise the blockade which bound the ports of France. They were met by Sir John Jarvis, who had only fifteen ships of the line against their twenty-seven, and half the number of frigates.
By the well-known man?uvre the Admiral broke the Spanish line, cutting off a number of their ships, and when three of the largest wore round to rejoin their comrades, they were met by Nelson and Collingwood. Two of these Spanish ships got entangled with each other, and Nelson, driving his own vessel on board of one of them, carried both sword in hand, and received the sword of the Spanish Rear-Admiral in submission; this was afterwards awarded to him for his own possession. The Spaniards were totally routed and comparatively few ships were taken; the battle, which earned its commander the title of Lord St. Vincent, is considered one of the most important in the whole history of England.
In October of the same year, the battle of Camperdown was gained by Admiral Duncan, and these two victories together, by making the British complete masters of the home seas allayed for a while the terror of a French invasion. The mezzotint by James Ward from [201] Copley’s famous picture, given in illustration, shows the variety of costume adopted by the British seamen at that time, the style of the officers’ dress, and gives a very good idea of the appearance of the picturesque old wooden sailing-ships in which such heroic services were performed.
The most amazing part of this splendid series of victories, all of which contained much boarding and hand-to-hand fighting, demanding personal pluck and endurance, is, that the sailors, as a mass, were either unwilling men pressed into a service which they disliked, or the very off-scourings of the country. On board there was bad food, bad water, wretched accommodation, and often rank brutality. There was the discipline of terror not of respect, and insubordination was only held down by fear.
The officers fared a little better than the men in regard to comfort, but it speaks well for young Charles Austen that he followed in his brother’s steps when he must have known by word of mouth of all the discomforts, to speak of nothing worse, which must be his lot on board ship.
For the sons of gentlemen, the first entrance into the navy was a most precarious venture, and the system, if system it can be called, so haphazard, that one marvels men should have been found to let their sons attempt it. A boy first obtained interest of some sort from an admiral or captain on board a ship, and was taken by him in any odd capacity for a voyage. He might go as “boy” or even as servant, and though nominally a midshipman, was in reality without a position or standing save what his patron allowed to him. He could not go in for an examination until he had served on board for six years, then he might do so to qualify for a lieutenancy. Once a lieutenant his position was secured, and he had authority and consequently a very different life. Captain [202] Edward Thompson, writing in the middle of the eighteenth century to a young relative who thought of following the sea for a trade, says, “Besides, the disagreeable circumstances and situations attending a subaltern officer in the navy, are so many and so hard, that, had not the first men in the service passed the dirty road to preferment, to encourage the rest, they would renounce it to a man. It is a most mistaken notion that a youth will not be a good officer unless he stoops to the most menial offices, to be bedded worse than hogs, and to eat less delicacies. In short, from having experienced such scenes of filth and infamy, such fatigues and hardships, that are sufficient to disgust the stoutest and bravest, for alas there is only a little hope of promotion sprinkled in the cup to make a man swallow more than he digests the rest of his life.”
The wonder is that such boys as went to sea picked up enough seamanship to pass any but the most practical examination. Navigation was in those days even more difficult than at present, owing to the dependence on the wind and the necessity for understanding the exact management of sails. There were no engineers who could make the vessel go in any direction the captain thought best at a moment’s notice; and the man on the bridge had a heavy responsibility.
That matters in regard to the service were improving is evident, for the same writer quoted above continues—
“The last war, a chaw of tobacco, a ratan, and a rope of oaths were sufficient qualities to constitute a lieutenant, but now education and good manners are the study of all.”
Yet the surroundings on board ship were enough to prevent any but the most earnest and determined youth from studying; food and accommodation were alike [203] revolting. “At once you resign a good table for no table, and a good bed for your length and breadth. Nay, it will be thought an indulgence too to let you sleep where day ne’er enters; and where fresh air only comes when forced. You must get up every four hours, and they never forget to call you, though you may forget to rise.
“Your light for day and night is a small candle which is often stuck on the side of your platter at meals for want of a better convenience. Your victuals are salt and often bad; and if you vary the mode of dressing them you must cook yourself ... in a man-of-war you have the collected filth of jails; condemned criminals have the alternative of hanging or entering on board. There is not a vice committed on shore but is practised here, the scenes of horror and infamy on board a man-of-war are so many and so great, that I think they must rather disgust a good mind than allure it.”
Smollet’s pictures of life on board are too well known to quote.
The between decks, where the men slept, had not been ventilated at all up to the middle of the eighteenth century, when a hand-pump was invented to expel the foul air, the fresh air being left to find its own way in. The noisome smells, the cramped space, the continual darkness and disorder, must have bred sickness and debility in many, which all the open-air life on deck could not counteract.
As for the food served for the men, it seems to have been loathsome. In Tracts relating to the Victualling of the Navy, we read of “sour tainted pickled meat. If such can be called food—human food—when dogs that I have offered it to have flaged their tails, ran away, and would not even smell to it;” of “rotten, musty, weevily flour,” and “as for the butter, cheese, [204] oil, ............