Melancholy Circumstances

Any Briton sitting down to read his copy of The Times or Morning Post in March 1800 was by then used to the fact that the long war with France had reached a stalemate and that the French conquering armies stretched from the Netherlands to Rome. Admittedly Sir Horatio Nelson had roundly defeated the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile eighteen months earlier, destroying eleven out of thirteen ships of the line, but in the scales of war this victory was balanced against Napoleon's creation of five republics — the Ligurian (Genoa), the Helvetian (Switzerland), Cisalpine (Milan), Roman (the Papal States) and the Parthenopean (Naples).

The recently collapsed coalition of Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia against the citizen armies of Revolutionary France had anyway seemed a feeble affair to a realist, who was rarely disappointed in his wait for news of defeats and duplicity. Nevertheless, life in London went on quite normally; indeed, although the first two weeks of the month were chilly with showers and a brisk wind, theatres were busy.

The Times of 14 March announced the only performance that season of Dryden's Alexander's Feast, set to music by Handel. It listed the singers and noted that Mr G. Ashley was "the leader of the band" while his son, Mr J. Ashley, played the organ. The next day's Times gave the usual Court News. The Duke of York, who presided over the Army's affairs at the Horse Guards as Commander-in-Chief, had spent two hours with the King at the Queen's House, and then the King had held a levee at St James's Palace which was "thinly attended."

The Times also reported that: "Yesterday was the period fixed on some time since for twenty-four of the largest troopships to be in readiness at Portsmouth. We are informed by a very respectable authority that eighteen thousand men are under orders for immediate service. Admiral Knowles will conduct the naval part of the expedition, of which Sir Charles Stuart will have the command-in-chief."

The only thing that The Times did not reveal was the actual destination of the force, but anyone frequenting the fashionable salons would not have needed telling, because secrecy was almost unknown: gossip spread details almost as soon as they were decided at the Admiralty or Horse Guards. For the French the London newspapers were a good source of intelligence.

However, a few days later the roles of newspapers were reversed, although the intelligence reported in the official French newspaper, Le Moniteur, was alarming. On Friday, 28 March, The Times in the section headed "News from France" said:

MINISTRY OF MARINE

Extract of letter from the Ordonnateur of Marine at Brest to the Minister of Marine and Colonies [in Paris] dated March 15th: "Citizen Minister — a frigate or large English cruiser called the Danae, mounting 22 guns of 32 pounders, her crew consisting of 150 men, struck yesterday without firing a shot, in consequence of the movement directed by the intrepid temerity of five French sailors belonging to St Maloes [sic]. She was taken possession of by the corvette Colombe, which has conducted her to Conquet. As soon as I shall have received the details of this extraordinary event I shall instantly transmit them to you.

"Note — I have since heard that the Danae entered Brest at the same time with the convoy of French ships from the Channel, under the escort of the Colombe."

The Times then added:

Telegraphic despatch from Brest of 23rd March. Najac, Ordonnateur of Marine at Brest to the Minister of Marine:

"The convoy, the entry of which into the Road [at Brest] has already been announced to you by a telegraphic despatch, consists of French ships laden with provisions and other stores for the combined naval army. I immediately sent off to Paris the five Frenchmen who prevailed on the crew of the Danae to rise, and three Englishmen, in pursuance of your order of 21st March."

The news item naturally became the main subject of excited conversation and speculation in every London salon and club and, of course, at the Admiralty: mutiny was the most dreadful word in the naval vocabulary. Everyone could remember the bloody mutiny in the Hermione off Jamaica less than three years earlier when some of the crew murdered Captain Hugh Pigot and all the commission officers, tossing them overboard before sailing the ship across the Caribbean to a port on the Main and handing her over to the Spanish.

Since then the public had occasionally been reminded of the Hermione horror when the Navy caught a mutineer, tried and then hanged him. The fact that Pigot was a sadist had never been made public, but most people knew he had been stabbed to death in his cabin one night and his body thrown out through a window.

Now, according to the Moniteur, the Danae's crew had mutinied and handed her over to the French. What had they done to the captain and officers? Surely she was the frigate commanded by the Earl of Carysfort's young son, Lord Proby?

It was an alarming Friday, and everyone waited anxiously for Saturday's edition of The Times, which told them:

Yesterday official advices were received in Town from Plymouth, containing the melancholy circumstances of the capture of the Danae frigate, which was mentioned in the Paris papers.

On Wednesday arrived at Plymouth a cartel from Brest, which brought over the purser, surgeon and captain's clerk of the Danae, of 20 guns, Captain Lord Proby, with five other English persons that had been taken prisoners.

It appears that Captain Lord Proby had been cruising on the coast of France, with a squadron under his command, and on the evening of the 14th instant, while most of the officers were below, a mutiny broke out on board, in which ten Frenchmen appeared to be the ringleaders, headed by an Englishman of the name of Jackson, said to be of Liverpool. The Frenchmen were lately taken [from] on board the Bordelais, and permitted to enter into the English service ... Captain Proby and the Master of the Danae are wounded ... As soon as the mutineers carried their point, they made sail for Brest harbour, and on their arrival were seized by the officers and crews of the ships lying there ...

The Lord St Vincent schooner, of 14 guns, one of the Danae's squadron, returned to Plymouth on Wednesday, not having...