Manxmen at Sea in the Age of Nelson, 1760-1815

By Matthew Richardson

The Isle of Man is predominantly a maritime nation. For many generations its menfolk have made their living from the sea, sometimes as fishermen, but often as crewmen aboard merchant vessels or warships. Indeed, such were their skills of seamanship that they were in great demand for the latter in time of war.

As smugglers, or as privateers they made their living on the waves, in the Atlantic, Caribbean or Pacific. Whether taken by a Press Gang, or enlisted voluntarily, the Manx saw action in some of the greatest naval events between 1760 and 1815. The Isle of Man had a high degree of literacy and education even among the poor at this time, and consequently a significant body of first-hand evidence has survived from those who served below decks, aboard merchant ships, privateers and warships.

Some, such as Peter Heywood, were eyewitness to the most famous event in naval history, the Mutiny on the Bounty. Others, such as John Quilliam climbed the naval career ladder, served with Nelson and gained distinction at the greatest sea battle in history, Trafalgar. One, Captain Hugh Crow, fought against the French, made his fortune in the slave trade, and commanded the last legal voyage.

In this book we meet them all, and their words echo to us across the waves and down the centuries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Apr 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9781399044516

Matthew Richardson

Matthew Richardson is Curator of Social History at Manx National Heritage. He has a long term interest in military history, in particular the First and Second World Wars. This is his eleventh book for Pen and Sword, and is the culmination of many years of study and research into the role of the Isle of Man between 1939 and 1945\. He is fortunate enough to have met and spoken with many of the contributors whose words appear in this book.

Book preview

Introduction

The book which you are about to read explores the experiences of Manx seafarers in the Georgian era, as fishermen, as captains of merchant ships, as slave traders and in the Royal Navy. In this era the Manx were highly regarded for their skills as seamen, often honed since boyhood, and consequently they were to be found in some of the most dramatic events and bloodiest battles of the age.

Thanks to church schools, the Isle of Man was unusual in the late eighteenth century in having a high standard of literacy among its working and poorer people. This has left us with a rich bounty of first hand, eyewitness testimony from those who went to sea in those years.

This legacy has enabled their stories to be told either in their own words, or in the words of those who were there alongside them; to preserve the authenticity of their ways of speech, their testimony has been edited as little as possible, and original modes of spelling and grammar retained. This brings with it a sense of immediacy, which belies the more than 200 years which separate our world from theirs. Whilst the attitudes and opinions expressed herein may not always be in accord with our values today, they none the less reflect the realities of life at that time.

Chapter 1

The Seven Years’ War

Our story begins in the heart of the eighteenth century, in the 1750s. The bulk of the people of the Isle of Man at this time made their living from the sea, either as fishermen around the Manx coast, or as crewmen on vessels trading with Africa, the Americas and elsewhere. The Island was then under the rule of the Dukes of Atholl, and lay outwith the authority of the British government – a situation which was becoming a cause of increasing friction between the two parties. The day-to-day administration was under the control of a Governor, at the time this was Basil Cochrane, whose main duty was to supervise the collection of the Duke’s revenues, particularly those derived from the import of goods. The outstanding aspect of Manx commercial life at that time was smuggling, or the ‘running trade’ as it was known. In most cases, the contraband was brought into the Isle of Man quite openly, the importers paying the comparatively light Manx duties, and the illegality began only when the produce of the Mediterranean, the West Indies and America was run across to England and Scotland.

The Seven Years’ War disrupted commerce to a large extent, but after only a couple of years of peace, the world of the Manx mercantile class was again turned upside down, this time by a more direct and permanent attack on their interests – the Revesting Act of 1765 – which brought the Island’s customs duties under the control of the British Crown, and with it an end to what had been the main source of income for the Manx of all classes for several generations.

In the 1750s the Duke of Atholl’s jurisdiction in the waters of the Irish Sea extended some nine miles out from the shores of the Isle of Man. far enough, says the historian George Waldron, who was a commissioner appointed by the British Government to observe events in the Island, that it offered easy sanctuary to a merchant ship intent upon evading a revenue cutter. One result of this trade was the growing importance of Douglas in this era. It was the main import and export centre of the Island, with numerous cellars and warehouses in which merchants could store their goods.

There was much tension between the local officials – officers of the Duke – and the customs officers patrolling the nearby coasts, attempting to keep Manx contraband out, and as the decade progressed there was increasing harassment of Manx commerce by the representatives of the British authorities. Captain George Dowe, of the sloop Sincerity, belonging to the custom house at Whitehaven, was one such representative. On 26 June 1750, the crew of the Sincerity boarded a wherry on which a Manxman named Hugh Read was a hand. Armed with firearms and cutlasses, they said they would cut the wherry’s crew to pieces. They brought the wherry alongside the sloop, and Captain Dowe, coming out of the cabin, ordered the crew of the smaller boat to come aboard. One of them, Patrick Cregan, was slower than the rest and the captain struck him with his sword. He said he would not be satisfied until he ran it through their hearts’ blood. After they had been kept aboard for three hours and had been threatened with irons, they were allowed to go.

It was said that Captain Dowe intended to do some meritorious thing by force in the Isle of Man, to gain a reputation with the British authorities. After a while some of the smugglers saw no reason why they should pay the Manx duties either, and the result was that goods which had not been ‘entered’ were constantly being seized, in the name of the Lord of the Isle, by the local revenue officers, styled ‘Searchers’. Sometimes these Searchers were resisted, and it was not unknown for riots to break out at Manx ports as a result.

The other main articles of Manx commerce at this time were Guinea goods. These were trade items bought in from the East Indies, which were exported to West Africa to be bartered on the coast for slaves. The Island acted as a clearing house for beads, fabrics and suchlike and many ships called at Douglas to collect these goods. Direct Manx involvement in the so-called ‘triangular trade’ between Europe, West Africa, the West Indies and back to Europe was also significant, with some fifty-three of the slave ship captains operating out of Liverpool at this time identified as being Manx. In addition, huge numbers of Manx seafarers were employed as crewmen on slave ships out of that port.

The Isle of Man is perhaps unique in that a considerable number of wills made by ordinary people have survived from this era, and we can ascertain from these documents not just the sheer numbers who describe themselves as a ‘mariner’, but also the fact that a voyage off the coast of Africa or to the West Indies was undertaken with great apprehension, for many of these men knew they would not return. Malaria and other tropical diseases took their toll, and one Manx sailor named William Cottiman wrote from Liverpool to advise that his cousin had died in this way whilst a crewman on a slave ship:

This with my love to you acquinting [sic] you of my safe arrival here 26 of last month and saw my Brother in Jamaca [sic] he will be aft home in 6 weeks time or thereabout … Remember my love to Bridget Cottiman, and tell her that her son Dan Cottiman cooper is dead butt [sic] the ship will not be at home this 4 or 5 months yet. She may write to Daniel Corlot taylor or Philip Cottiman and they will tell her what she must do to get his effects.

Subsequently his brother wrote to the dead man’s mother:

I received your letter which you said you was informed of your sons Death there is news from the ship and says that there [sic] Cooper is Dead which I am very sorry to hear but we can Do nothing concerning his affairs not till the ship comes home she is att [sic] Barbadoes [sic] now and as soon as she comes home I shall let you know of it and then you may do as you think proper to come over or no the Ship is called the Salisbury the Captains name is Thomas Mastone, and as soon as she comes I shall let you know.¹

Two other Manx sailors, John and Thomas Bridson, died around the same time aboard the Duke of Argyle, another Liverpool slave ship, under the command of Captain John Newton. Newton is particularly remembered for the fact that he underwent a religious conversion, and later when a Church of England minister became a staunch opponent of the Africa Trade. One of his later anti-slavery publications lists, as a reason for abolition, the physical dangers to which slave crews were exposed:

The loss [of seamen] in the African trade is truly alarming. I admit that many of them are cut off in their first voyage, and consequently, before they can properly rank as seamen; though they would have been seamen if they had lived. But the neighbourhood of our sea-ports is continually drained of men and boys to supply the places of those who die abroad; and if they are not all seamen, they are all our brethren and countrymen, subjects of the British government. The people who remain on ship-board, upon the open coast, if not accustomed to the climate, are liable to the attack of an inflammatory fever, which is not often fatal unless the occurrence of unfavourable circumstances makes it so … Strong liquors, such as brandy, rum, or English spirits, the sailors cannot often procure, in such quantities as to hurt them; but they will if they can; and opportunities sometimes offer, especially to those who are in the boats: for strong liquor being an article much in demand, so that without it scarcely a single slave can be purchased, it is always at hand … The risk of insurrections is to be added. These, I believe, are always meditated; for the men slaves are not easily reconciled to their confinement and treatment; and, if attempted, they are seldom suppressed without considerable loss; and sometimes they succeed, to the destruction of a whole ship’s company at once. Seldom a year passes, but we hear of one or more such catastrophes; and we likewise hear, sometimes, of Whites and Blacks, involved, in one moment, in one common ruin, by the gunpowder taking fire, and blowing up the ship.

As well as these dangers, Newton spoke of the moral corruption to which the crews were subject, as their hearts grew hardened to the savage punishments which they inflicted upon the male slaves, to the advantage which was routinely taken of the female slaves, and to the wanton cruelty of the business generally:

These instances are specimens of the spirit produced, by the African trade, in men, who, once, were no more destitute of the milk of human kindness than ourselves … From the women, there is no danger of insurrection, and they are carefully kept from the men; I mean, from the black men … the captain of an African ship, while upon the coast, is absolute in his command; and if he be humane, vigilant, and determined, he has it in his power to protect the miserable: for scarcely any thing can be done, on board the ship, without his permission, or connivance. But this power is too seldom exerted in favour of the poor women slaves.²

Into this already dangerous world of smuggling and slavery was shortly to come another factor. The Seven Years’ War had begun incrementally, in 1754, with fighting in the Ohio Territory of North America between forces belonging to the rival colonies of France and Great Britain; it subsequently grew to include other dominions around the world, including British and French possessions in India. At its peak, the war also spread to mainland Europe, with the major protagonists being Great Britain and Prussia on the one hand, and France, Spain and Austria on the other. Although it began far away, the effects of the war were felt locally almost at once. The seas around the Island soon swarmed with privateers, armed merchant ships both British and French, manned by desperate men seeking plunder, in many cases only to be distinguished from pirates by the so called ‘letters of marque’ which they carried from their respective governments. These documents protected a merchant captain, should he be captured by an enemy power, by proving that he acted under the authority of his government. For many in the Isle of Man the major concern in this conflict would be its disruptive effect upon trade. This was two-fold, for whilst the privateers interfered with the business of the Douglas merchants to a considerable degree by harassing oceangoing vessels in home waters, the naval authorities were also engaged in a ruthless campaign to find seamen for the fleet. Cochrane again wrote to the Duke in May 1755 complaining that:

When this letter will go from the Island I know not. Boats very seldom goes or comes from the other side, the sailors being affeared of being Pressed by the Men of War who are constantly upon our Coast.³

The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War had found the Royal Navy woefully undermanned, and as hostilities continued it was increasingly bedevilled by desertion, particularly from its ships when in North American ports. The result was the regular impressment of civilian sailors in Manx waters, in order to make up the shortfall.

On our coast there is such a warm Press for seamen and lookout for smuglers [sic] that our sales are greatly affected…⁴

So wrote merchant George Moore in 1757 to a French contact with whom he corresponded regularly, regardless of the existing state of war. The impressment of Manx seamen from merchant vessels was to be a recurring phenomenon in time of conflict over the next fifty years, and it was via this route that many local seafarers became involved in the Seven Years’ War. William Curphy was one such, who was taken from a merchantman and soon found himself in a pitched battle off the shores of West Africa. The enemy-held island fortress of Gorée lay off Dakar on the coast of modern Senegal. Its position gave the French a base from which to menace the British trade route to India, and it was therefore strategically important for Britain to capture it every time she was at war with France. On this occasion, the task was entrusted to Commodore the Honourable Augustus Keppel, who had been sent out after Commodore Marsh’s failure against Gorée in May 1758. Ranged against Keppel’s more powerful squadron, the French surrendered the island after a short bombardment. Curphy writes to his mother, brothers and sisters in the Isle of Man:

I was turned over from the Salamander fireship October the 17th to the Prince Edward forty gun ship and were oblig’d to sail the next day to the Coast of guiney, to a place called the Island of goree, to take it, which we did on the 29th day of December with some small loss from the french, which we expect some prize money for very soon. But we took a french ship comeing home, which we expect to receive about twenty pounds a man for. She is richly laden from St Damingo a letter of Mark and only our own ship’s company to share it for we parted all the rest of the fleet about a week before we took her. [I] Rcvd no money from the Salamander but we expect to receive it before the ship saile again from Portsmouth I wrote a letter at goree and sent it to you. Pray let me know whether you rcvd it or not last December, and pray write to me as speedy as you can direct to me on board the Prince Edward manawar at Portsmouth or elsewhere commanded by Captain William Fortisque.

Curphy goes on to describe the fate of a fellow Manx sailor, who probably died from a tropical disease:

I am very sorry for haveing it to let you know that Ewan Garret is dead, which devise you will let his mother know. He died the 25th day of January last upon the coast of guiney. He had about one pound sixteen shills in money when he died … which I got when he died and the officer took it from me and keeps it until farther directions from his mother, which I desire she will write to our Captain for it for me to get it to her and it shall be safe for her until I come home with it to her, which I hope will be very soon for there is a great many ships a paying off and I hope we shall not go out no more. So I shall write you for his will and power and receive his wages and bring it home to you. He was two years and five days in the King’s Service and I know what he received of wages and what he got from the purser.

I have got all the papers he had very safe and when I receive an answer from you I shall let you know in my next letter how much there is due to him. He first had a fever and