More Utterly Useless Royal Navy Geekery

Last week I posted on the interesting way the book I am reading on French and British exploration of the Australian coast between 1801 and 1803 (under, respectively, Captains Nicholas Baudin and Matthew Flinders) intersected with Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels. In particular, I focused on the presence in both of Jacques-Felix-Emmanuel Hamelin, Baudin's second in command who later commanded the French naval forces in the defense of the islands of Mauritius and Reunion, novelized in O'Brian's The Mauritius Command.

Well, it turns out to be even better than this.

You see, Captain Flinders was forced to cut short his exploratory journey in 1803 when his ship, the Investigator, was deemed unseaworthy by the authorites at Port Jackson, New South Wales. Flinders then started for England as a passenger aboard a ship called the Porpoise which only got as far as the Great Barrier Reef, where it was wrecked. Flinders made it back to Port Jackson in a launch and set out again for England in command of a ship called the Cumberland. However, that ship proved crank as well and Flinders was forced to put into Mauritius for repairs.

Flinders, in the name of scientific enlightenment, had been sailing under a safe conduct pass from the French government. However, the pass was specific to the Investigator. When Flinders appeared at Mauritius commanding another ship, the local army commander, General Decaen, immediately jailed him as a spy. Flinders spent the next six years imprisoned on the island while Decaen did everything he could to ignore him.

Eventually, Flinders was released in a cartel ship. And where should his first stop be but with the advance Royal Navy squadron sent to open the Mauritius campaign? O'Brian readers will remember a certain Col. Keating, commander of the army forces involved. He was, in fact, a real person. The squadron, commanded by Lucky Jack Aubrey in the novel, was actually under the command of a certain Commodore Josias Rowley. Flinders met with both Rowley and Keating and dined with them several times before leaving the squadron.

Reading about this lead me to wonder if O'Brian ever considered putting the meeting with Flinders into his novel. I can certainly see where Jack Aubrey would be interested in discussing the surveys of the coasts, while Stephen Maturin would question Flinders about the various flora and fauna of the area.

This was interesting enough. However, there is more. Readers of H.M.S. Surprise will remember the climactic battle at the end where Aubrey and the Surprise help the East India Company's China Fleet to beat off an attack by a heavy French squadron under Admiral Linois. That incident, in fact, also really did occur - in February, 1804 off the island of Pulo Auro in the Straits of Malacca.

When the Investigator was condemned and Flinders left for England aboard the Cumberland, many of the officers and crew of both Investigator and the wrecked Porpoise also made plans to head home. They sailed for Canton in a merchantman called the Rolla and were received into the China Fleet there by Captain Nathaniel Dance of the Earl Camdon, who was elected commodore of the fleet. Fearing French attack on the unescorted merchies, Dance was delighted to take on Royal Navy personnel and parcelled them out among several of his ships, where Flinders' officers and men worked to get them into some sort of fighting shape.

Dance later reported the battle to the Honorable Court of the East India Company:

[F]inding they proposed to attack and endeavor to cut off our rear, I made the signal to tack and bear down on him, and engage in succession - the Royal George being the leading ship, and Ganges next, and then the Lord Camden [sic]. This manoeuvre was correctly performed, and we stood towards him under a press of sail. The enemy then formed in a very close line and opened their fire on the headmost ships, which was not returned by us till we approached him nearer.

The Royal George bore the brunt of the action, and got as near the enemy as he would permit him. The Ganges and Earl Camden opened their fire as soon as their guns could have effect; but before any other ship could get into action, the enemy hauled their wind and stood away to the Eastward under all the sail they could set. At 2 p.m., I made the signal for general chase, and we pursued them till 4 p.m., when fearing a longer pursuit would carry us too far from the Mouth of the Straits... I made the signal to tack, and at eight p.m. we anchored.

The Royal George had one man killed and another wounded, many shot in her hull and more in her sails; but few shot touched either Camden or Ganges, and the fire of the enemy seemed to be ill-directed, his shot either falling short or passing over us.

.......

I recieved great assistance from the advice and exertion of Lieutenant Fowler [RN, 1st Lieutenant of the Investigator], whose meritorious conduct in this instance I hope the Honorable Court will communicate to the Lords of the Admiralty.

(quoted in Ill-Starred Captains, pp. 434-435.)

Fowler was, in fact, rewarded for his efforts, as were the other officers involved. And it is clear that, here at any rate, he is the model for Lucky Jack Aubrey.

I love coming across this kind of historical information. In particular, I love the fact the Commodore Dance really did signal "general chase" to his fleet of merchies after the French warships turned tail. Aubrey's parallel command in H.M.S. Surprise is one of my favorite moments in the book.