Through the efforts of a dedicated team of volunteers, the Royal Navy Captains’ letters project is working on cataloguing 564 boxes of Royal Navy Captains’ letters of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, (1793–1815), making their content searchable on The National Archives’ catalogue, Discovery, by keyword and date.
In previous blogs, I reported the completion of this work for such Captains whose surnames begin with the letters A to C. I can now report the completion of the work for surnames D to M, amounting to 219 boxes consisting of 39,584 letters and thousands of enclosures. In this blog, I'll go through some of the information and stories we've found.
Edmund Dod
In these letters can be found 29 by Edmund Dod. As an experienced Royal Naval Officer, aged 54, in September 1792 in command of HMS Charon he was sent to Africa. On his return to Woolwich, England, on 18 September 1793, Dod wrote about this voyage enclosing a detailed report with his observations about the Western coast of Africa and remarks about its ports, harbours and Slave Castles. He also notes the best directions for sailing and the best places for anchoring along the coast and for wood, water and provisions.
Best directions for sailing into and out of ports and for avoiding dangers
Cape Appolonia [Apollonia] in the Coast of Africa, 10 February 1793
In running along the Coast tis advisable not to go in less than 20 fathoms in that depth and near Cape Appolonia you’ll see four remarkable hills run along till you bring those hills to bear N.N. E. then you’ll see the Fort.
Extract from Edmund Dod’s report dated 18 September 1793. Catalogue reference: ADM 1/1714/85
Sea Fencibles in Suffolk
This project has also brought to light many letters about the Sea Fencibles and its personnel and operations. The Sea Fencibles were formed in 1793 and active until 1810. They were basically a naval home guard tasked as a defensive anti-invasion force consisting of fishermen and resident locals, formed into district units along British coasts, usually commanded by retired or serving Royal Navy officers.
In a letter dated 20 September 1807 (ADM 1/1769/88), the commanding officer of the Sea Fencibles at Aldeburgh district in East Suffolk, William Edge, provides a list of 37 men who had volunteered their services within his district between the River Stour and Southwold in recovering captured Danish ships of war.
Thomas Eshelby's ill health
Among the 173 letters by Edward James Foote is one dated 1 September 1801 from HMS Seahorse at Spithead. In it he describes when the ship left Le Havre on the 9 July 1801, that the ship’s surgeon, Thomas Eshelby was so ill he thought he would die. Eshelby was one of the most highly regarded surgeons of the Royal Navy having successfully carried out the above-elbow amputation of Horatio Nelson’s right arm in 1797.
Landed at Weymouth in a serious condition, Eshelby eventually recovered, and having been offered the opportunity of serving on another ship he insisted on staying on HMS Seahorse, much to Foote’s satisfaction. Foote describes Eshelby to be a ‘very skilful Surgeon and very humane and attentive to his patients’.
I beg leave to add in justice to this Gentleman that as far as I can judge, he is a skilful Surgeon, and that he is most truly humane and attentive to those under his care, I have had enumerable instances during nearly four years he served under my command.
James Foote’s letter dated 20 September 1807. Catalogue reference: ADM 1/1800/100
Rats and ruses
Enclosures to a covering letter dated 27 August 1800 (ADM 1/1847/127), Thomas Graves, Captain of HMS Cumberland, reveals in graphic detail, the perennial problems that rats could wreak upon Royal Navy ships even at sea. While off the Yarmouth Roads, Graves, requests that his ship be allowed to go into dock to have a massive infestation of rats dealt with.
The ship’s gunner, responsible for the ship's cannons and ammunition, explains that despite attempts by poison and traps to deal with the rats, the 'vermin are increasing to an alarming degree' and provisions are being destroyed. While the HMS Cumberland’s purser, who kept the ship's accounts, details that rats gnaw the cartridges, spilling the gunpowder, and that the stench of the rotting carcasses of the rats killed with poison in the magazine cause illness.
The contents of a letter dated 30 July 1800 by Philip Hue, HMS Actaeon at Liverpool, reveals how newly recruited men used tobacco to aid their discharge from service. Hue describes how these men became sick by drinking repeated doses of boiling water steeped in tobacco. This concoction put the men into a 'lingering state', which the ship’s surgeon declared resulted in debility and fever.
Since my last letter of the 28th enclosing a report of survey on the new raised men I have this moment discovered the cause of their complaints a quantity of tobacco has been steeped in boiling water and taken by the supernumeraries which throws them by repeating the dose into a lingering state. The Surgeon informs me this will cause debility and feverish, the three men whom I proved to have taken it were immediately punished, nine others with the same complaints now acknowledge themselves to be well and the Surgeon has put them out of his list to do their duty.
Philip Hue’s letter dated 30 July 1800. Catalogue reference: ADM 1/1923/96
Mutiny and perils at sea
A letter dated 16 June 1797 by John Inglis, HMS Belliqueux (ADM 1/1990/14), is about one of the most infamous episodes in Royal Naval history, the Nore Mutiny of 1797, which followed an earlier mutiny in Spithead. In it Inglis describes the events surrounding the capture of his ship by mutineers and their actions listing their names. Many historians believe that the actions of the HMS Belliqueux mutineers directly led to the wider mutiny at the Nore, where other Royal Navy seamen mutineers demanded better working conditions including improved pay and more leave.
A letter dated 2 September 1803 by Richard Jones (ADM 1/1992/75), Sea Fencibles, Swansea, underlines the importance of navigation, cartography and surveying to the Royal Navy of Britain’s coastlines. With his letter Jones encloses a large map of the sea Coast of Glamorgan with the Mud Banks in the Peninsular of Gower Land. In his letter he remarks with regards to the Coast from Cardiff to Chepstow, that he has only spoken of it in general terms, the greater part of it being within the River Severn, a navigation so dangerous from the rapidity of the tide as well as the Sands, it would be impossible for any kind of vessel to approach without any experienced pilot.
Further perils at sea are highlighted in letters of Charles Henry Knowles, HMS Daedalus, the Downs dated 13 July 1794. Knowles reports his arrival together with HMS Ceres and a convoy from Halifax without the brig Porcupine, which had left the convoy on 21 June 1794. Knowles feared the brig may have been lost in the islands of ice which were floating about the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.
On the same day HMS Daedalus passed a ship stranded on one of the icebergs. He encloses a pencil sketch of icebergs and a vessel, which was wrecked on the ice as HMS Daedalus picked her way between them.
Sketch of a vessel, with Charles Henry Knowles' letter, dated 13 July 1794. Catalogue reference: ADM 1/2016/70
Prize money and details on the Battle of Trafalgar
Apart from the voluminous original handwritten letters by captains unearthed by this project, many other types of documents can be found, for example, a printed proclamation regarding the payment and distribution of prize money included in a letter by John Lawson of Dundee dated 16 January 1808 (ADM 1/2077/44).
A fascinating insight about the aftermath of the Battle of Trafalgar, on 21 October 1805, can be found in a letter by Captain Robert Moorsom, dated 22 January 1806 (ADM 1/2152/42), who is writing to the Admiralty about an Victualling Office objection to his purser on HMS Revenge issuing a dram of whisky to HMS Revenge’s crew after the battle because they were so fatigued. The Victualling Office (the administrative body responsible for supplying food, drinks, and other provisions) argued that the purser was not allowed to issue wine or whisky to the crew without an official order from the Admiralty.
About the author
Bruno Pappalardo is a Principal Records Specialist (Naval) and supervisor of the volunteer Royal Naval Captains’ letter project at the National Archives.
