A Sea Unto Itself

A SEA UNTO ITSELF
 

A NOVEL OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS.

BY

JAY WORRALL.

Fireship Press

www.fireshippress.com

A
 
Sea Unto Itself
 
by Jay Worrall

Copyright © 2013 Jay Worrall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN-13:978-1-61179-273-7: Paperback

ISBN 978-1-61179-274-4: ebook

BISAC Subject Headings:

FIC014000FICTION / Historical

FIC032000FICTION / War & Military

FIC047000 FICTION / Sea Stories

Cover Work: Christine Horner

Address all correspondence to:

Fireship Press, LLC

P.O. Box 68412

Tucson, AZ 85737

Or visit our website at:

www.FireshipPress.com

FOREWORD

The Long war between the United Kingdom and republican France entered its sixth year in 1799 with both sides finding reasons for optimism. January found the French in firm control of present day Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy (excluding Sicily). A large French army under the command of General Napoleon Bonaparte had recently established itself in Egypt, a strategically valuable country with extensive coastlines on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
 
Communications and supply from Europe, however, were severed by Admiral Horatio Nelson's fleet, which had not only decimated the Republic's naval power in the Mediterranean at the Battle of the Nile the previous August, but also held Egypt's principal port at Alexandria under close blockade.

The United Kingdom, for the moment, reigned almost supreme on the high seas, while French armies remained dominant on the European continent. A so-called Second Coalition—made up of Britain, Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and others—was formed at the behest of, and heavily subsidized by, London. The wealth that made these subsidies possible came from England's widespread and vastly profitable trade, a large portion of which derived from her troubled colonies in India.

Direct invasion of the British Isles by France remained impossible. As an alternative, in 1798 the young General Bonaparte suggested to the Directory in Paris an expedition to the east "to drive the English from all their oriental possessions." It was this plan, subsequently adopted, which led to the invasion of Egypt. It also envisioned cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Suez and obtaining control of the Red Sea. This would make French military and commercial access to the subcontinent much more direct than England's, which required sailing around the southern tip of Africa and back up the other side; a journey of some six to nine months.

Assessment of this threat by Pitt's government in London ranged from sober consideration to a more generally held incredulity that any such effort could seriously be contemplated. In July, 1798, a small squadron consisting of a fifty-gun warship, two frigates, and a sloop of war under Rear Admiral John Blankett was dispatched by the Admiralty for the purpose of sealing the exit to the Red Sea and preventing any French passage to India. In January, 1799, the thirty-two gun frigate Cassandra, under the command of junior Captain Charles Edgemont, sailed from Chatham with orders to provide reinforcement and to assist in certain intelligence gathering services. Unknown to Captain Edgemont, who in any case had more immediate problems to overcome at the time, the responsibility for thwarting French ambitions would come to rest on his shoulders and his shoulders alone.

A NOTE ON MEASUREMENTS
 

AND VALUES

Money
: It is not possible to directly equate the purchasing power of currency between the late 18th and early 21st centuries.
 
It has been suggested, however, that the value of an English pound in 1790 might be multiplied by a factor of
 
70 or 80 to give an approximate equivalent for the year 2000.
 
From pounds in 1790 to American dollars in the year 2000, the ratio might be 1:100–110.
 
English pounds were divided into shillings, pennies and farthings: 20 shillings to a pound; 12 pennies to a shilling; 4 farthings to a penny. A full loaf of bread cost about 4 pence.

Distance
: Units of measurement for distance at sea were not always standardized. The author has used:

1 league = 3 nautical miles = 5.6 kilometers.

1 nautical mile = 6076 feet (1.15 statute miles) = 1.9 kilometers.

1 cable length = about 200 yards (1/10 of a nautical mile) = 185 meters.

1 fathom = 6 feet (1/100 of a nautical mile) = 1.8 meters.

Time
: Time on British naval ships was measured in watches and bells. The day officially began at noon and was divided into seven watches, five of four hours each and two of two hours:.

Afternoon:noon to 4pmMiddle:midnight to 4am.

1st Dog4pm to 6pmMorning:4am to 8am.

2nd Dog:6pm to 8pmForenoon: 8am to noon.

First:8pm to midnight.

The ship’s bell was rung in cumulative half-hour intervals during each watch so that three bells in the afternoon watch is 1:30 p.m. and four bells in the middle watch is 2:00 a.m.

CHAPTER ONE

5 January, 1799.

Liverpool, England.

“Look, here is Mary Elizabeth,” Mrs. Penelope Edgemont said to her husband. The two were strolling, arm in arm, along Liverpool’s harbor so that he could show her the seagoing traders tied up along the quay. A gust of cold wind blew across the waterfront, kicking up swirls of dust and debris and rattling the blocks in Mary Elizabeth's rigging. Gangs of roughly dressed workmen moved around them, loading cargos from carts and barrows onto the merchantmen to be transported abroad, or offloading the same to be put into warehouses. While Charles Edgemont had anticipated a flood of questions about the different types of craft and the intricacies of their masts and sail arrangements, Penny seemed more interested in the names they had been given.

“Yes, Mary Elizabeth,” he said dutifully, reading from the weather-beaten red lettering across her transom.

“We have also seen the Alice Harding, Diana, and Elizabeth Bea. Canst thou tell me, are all ships named for women?”

Charles searched for an answer that would please. “Many are, especially traders. They are away for such lengths of time that it reminds their crews of wives and loved ones at home.” There was more to it than this, but it would be too complicated to explain.
 
Most seamen, from captains to ship’s boys, firmly believed that the name given their craft, and her fate, were inextricably linked. Women’s names were always comforting, conveying a sense of hearth and home. Discovery would be apt for a vessel on a voyage of exploration.
 
For warships, Ajax would naturally be formidable in battle; Centaur, a terror to its enemies; Hero, Intrepid, and Victory spoke for themselves. A captain had a natural advantage with a command named like that.

Penny squeezed his arm more tightly against her side. She was covered in a gray woolen cloak fastened with buttons in front up to her chin. In her free arm she held an oblong package, carefully wrapped in oiled paper and bound with rope yarn. Her eyes glistened and her cheeks were reddened prettily from the cold. Silken strands of fawn-colored hair escaped from the edges of her bonnet, teased by the wind. Charles had decided on the cloak himself and given it to her as a present. He remembered ordering it from the finest (or at least the most expensive) tailor in Chester soon after he had returned shipless from the Mediterranean, his precious frigate Louisa—herself with a woman’s name—now charred and broken on the seabed in a bay off faraway Egypt. Penny had reprimanded him about the buttons for her cloak as an extravagance, but then wore it anyway and seemed pleased. The bulk of the mantle also concealed the fact, growing more obvious daily, that she was moderately advanced in her expectancy, the culmination of which event was anticipated for the middle of March. The object she carried in her arm was a gift she had ordered for him in return from a shop specializing in nautical instruments. They had collected it earlier that morning: a beautifully made collapsing telescope with the finest hand-ground lenses from London in its own highly polished wooden case.

Charles and Penny had traveled to Liverpool in hopes of having a little time together before he was required to take up a new command waiting at the Royal Dockyard at Chatham. For the occasion he was dressed in civilian clothing, over which he wore an outer coat. He was without his sword, which as a gentleman and naval officer he was entitled to wear, but out of deference to his wife’s Quaker sensibilities had agreed not to. The absence of its familiar weight on his hip left him feeling vaguely naked.

“Tell me again,” she said, looking up at him. “What is the title of thy new boat?” This was a painful question for her, he knew. She seldom spoke about the necessity of his leaving again for the sea, and then only to address concerns about what clothing and other effects he should provide himself with.