My blog of February 10th of this year – accessible through the
bar to the right – dealt with privateering action in the English Channel in
1793, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. It demonstrated that even at
this very early stage the naval warfare in the “Narrow Seas” between Britain and
the European coastline was to be of a quite savage nature, not unlike the battles
that were to be fought by British and German coastal forces in the same waters
in World War 2. The pace of action was not to let up in the years that followed
as French privateers, often of very small size, darted out to prey on British
coastal traffic and retired quickly to well-defended bases such as Calais. The
war against them was to be waged not by the mighty battle-fleets or their supporting
frigates but by small handy craft such as brigs and cutters, heavily armed for
their size. The following account, drawing largely on information in the same
W. Clark Russell book of 1889 as my previous blog, relates to another small-scale
but epic battle that was typical of this aspect of the larger conflict.
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| HMS Wolverine 1798 - her rounded civilian bows betray her civilian origin |
HMS Wolverine was a
civilian-owned collier before being purchased by the Royal Navy in 1798 for
conversion to an armed brig. Her armament was powerful – only two of her guns
were long 18-pounders and her others were all carronades, six of them
24-pounders and six 12-pounders. The carronades were murderously efficient
weapons at short range and gave a craft such as the Wolverine a “punch” out of all proportion to their size. She was to
see service immediately after commissioning by Commander Lewis Mortlock when
she supported a “Dieppe 1942” type raid on the port of Ostend. On January 3rd
1799 she was cruising off the French port of Boulogne, some twenty miles from the
English coast. Weather conditions were poor but two large French armed luggers were
spotted. These were later identified as the fourteen-gun Le Furet and the eight-gun Rusé,
all weapons being four-pounders. Their combined crews were roughly four times the
70 men carried by Wolverine – a
potentially decisive factor should it come to boarding. These were typical
privateers of the English Channel and such craft usually fled from
confrontation with naval units – their objective was capture of rich commercial
prizes rather than combat – and Mortlock realised that to bring them to action
it would be necessary to play the role of a merchantman, a ruse that Wolverine’s civilian lines would assist.
He accordingly hoisted Danish colours and, as expected, the luggers bore down on
him and hailed. Asked for his identity, Mortlock answered that he was en-route from
Plymouth to Copenhagen. All his guns
were manned, their crews out of sight and to all appearances Wolverine looked like an unarmed and attractive
commercial prize.
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| An armed French lugger of the period Le Furet and Rusé possibly looked similar |
Mortlock’s deception paid off. As the unsuspecting Le Furet drew close, British colours
were run up in place of the Danish and a full broadside unleashed. Given the
disparity in firepower the only French hope now lay in boarding. Le Furet accordingly ploughed on towards
Wolverine’s starboard quarter and crashed
her bowsprit between the mizzen-shrouds and the mast while small-arms fire were
poured on to her decks from the British tops. Close on Le Furet’s heels the Rusé came
in on Wolverine’s port bow. From both
luggers French boarders now poured across and Wolverine’s gunners had to abandon their weapons to join in the
close combat on deck. The four-to one disparity in crew numbers was firmly in
favour of the French and the fighting was now of a close, hand to hand, nature.
According to Russell’s account, one Frenchman in particular “was observed to be cheering his men and beating them forward with the
flat of his sword. The plucky rascal sprung to the top of the round house,
where he stood hysterically yelling to his people and flourishing his weapon.
Mortlock, supposing him to be the captain of the privateer, rushed at him. The
Frenchman snapped a pistol in his face; it missed fire; he drew out another
pistol but before he could level it Mortlock had plunged his half-pike into his
body and he went overboard.” The resistance seems to have been so resolute
that the French did not press their advantage with any great enthusiasm. A
diversion was created by men from Le
Furet throwing bags full of incendiary material through Wolverine’s stern windows and starting a
fire. This drew the British crew away to fight the conflagration and in the
confusion the French boarders withdrew, cut the lashings that bound their
luggers to the Wolverine, and made
off. Wolverine, scarred but
triumphant, retired to Portsmouth.
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| Lewis Mortlock - young, handsome and doomed |
Reading of such close actions one is often struck by how
light the casualties could be. Wolverine
lost two men, one of them Commander Mortlock, who had been badly wounded. He
died in his mother’s arms a week later and his funeral was attended by every
captain then in Portsmouth. A touching footnote is that his Newfoundland dog,
who had been on board Wolverine
throughout the action, survived unscathed. French losses were heavier – a total of
nineteen killed or dying of wounds shortly afterwards, plus many wounded who
survived. Among the dead were Le Furet’s
captain – possibly the “plucky rascal” whom Mortlock had slain – and three
officers from the Rusé. The disproportion
in losses may be partly explained by the surprise Wolverine unleashed on her unsuspecting attackers and another
factor is almost certainly that the British crew’s stricter discipline and
better training made them more effective than the privateersmen.
Commander Lewis Mortlock’s name is a forgotten one today,
yet he was one of the thousands of brave, promising, splendid men whose
professionalism was to save Britain and Europe from French domination. We owe
him, and those like him, a debt.
Britannia's Reach
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