Frigate Commander

First published in Great Britain in 2004 by
Pen & Sword Maritime
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright © Tom Wareham, 2004

9781783032327

The right of Tom Wareham to be identified as Author of this Work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

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To Howard S. and Graham J.
and Old Comradeship

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
1 - Smuggling Patrol – HMS Perseus (1784 – January 1786)
2 - From Liverpool to London (March 1786 – May 1789)
3 - HMS Adamant and Nova Scotia (May 1789 – April 1791)
4 - Commander of the Orestes (April 1791 – May 1792)
5 - Newfoundland (May – November 1792)
6 - Commander at War (November 1792 – February 1794)
7 - Post Captain – Sidney Smith’s Squadron (February 1794 – April 1796)
8 - Strachan’s Squadron, HMS Melampus (April 1796 – March 1797)
9 - Love and Mutiny (March 1797 – May 1798 )
10 - Ireland (May 1798 – November 1798)
11 - Love’s Labours (November 1798 – November 1799)
12 - The West Indies (January 1800 – September 1801)
13 - Interregnum (October 1801 – June 1803)
14 - The Star Captain (July 1803 – June 1805)
15 - The Long Decline (1805 – 1843)
Appendix 1 - The Identity of Miss ‘M’
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Acknowledgements

I must first of all express my thanks to Mr Christopher Heath who is, to the best of my knowledge, the last descendant of the Moore family and who kindly gave his agreement to the extensive use of quotations from Graham Moore’s Journals.

Similarly I must register my gratitude to the Syndics of Cambridge University Library for giving me their permission as current owners of the Journals. The reading of the Journals themselves could not have been achieved without the good-humoured assistance of Godfrey Waller and his colleagues in the Manuscripts Department of the Library.

For illustrations I would also wish to thank the appropriate staff in the National Portrait Gallery and British Library; Andy King at the Bristol Museums and Art Gallery, and especially Eleanor Heron and her colleagues at the National Maritime Museum for their continued assistance on this and other projects.

Finally, my eternal thanks to Chris for her ongoing forbearance.

Tom Wareham, London, 2003

‘Memoirs are most to be depended on and certainly they must give the truest account of the manners of the times ...’

Graham Moore.

Foreword

In my last book,
The Star Captains
, I produced a study of the Royal Navy’s frigate commanders during the Great Wars with France, 1793 – 1815. The basis for this work was the employment records of the officers concerned, and in the interests of academic research, the work focussed on the statistical evidence drawn from those records. With the exception of one chapter, I largely avoided describing the military activities of the officers concerned or the strategic aspect of the wars themselves.

During the writing of
The Star Captains
I became increasingly conscious of the voices of the men themselves. Apart from the many, sometimes ponderous nineteenth century memoirs written by or about the officers at some time after the event, my research uncovered often tantalizing snippets of ‘unedited’ personal correspondence or journals which conveyed a much more realistic account of the experiences of the men involved. Although I tried to include some of this in
The Star Captains
, the nature of the work precluded this. Indeed, one reviewer commented, fairly, that the book did not really take the reader close to the spirit of the frigate captains themselves. Part of the aim of this current work, therefore, is to try to redress this, but, I hope, it is also much more than this.

During the course of my research – and probably like all similar historians – I acquire old or rare books on my subject. Several years ago I purchased one book in particular which struck me as being of special interest and curiosity. This was
A Memoir of Admiral Sir Graham Moore
, written in 1844 by Major General Robert Gardiner. The book, a slim volume of less than fifty pages, was largely formulaic, reminiscent of a great many books produced during the 19th century, after the death of their subject. What caught my attention very quickly was the inclusion in the memoir of a series of highly interesting and revealing quotations from Moore about his experiences as commander of a frigate during the war against Revolutionary France. Unlike many other similar quotations I had come across, these spoke with an immediacy which insisted they had not been written at any period after the events to which they referred. Very little searching revealed that Graham Moore had kept a personal journal and, hoping to find additional interesting material, I made my way to the library at the University of Cambridge to read it. To my dismay, when staff at the library produced the journal for me, I found myself confronted with all thirty-seven volumes of it. A rapid inspection of the neat, easily written pages made me realize that what I was looking at was way beyond the scope of
The Star Captains
. Choosing one volume at random, I began to read, and soon became totally entranced, at the end of the day realizing that Graham Moore’s journal was an historical gem.

Moore gives us what is, I think, a unique insight into what life was like for a naval officer on active service during the Great Wars. Following his career from his peacetime service as a Lieutenant, we follow him closely through various commands until he becomes one of the navy’s star frigate captains, commanding one of the most powerful frigates in service. However, what is most important is the detail that he provides about the exigencies of commanding a warship at the end of the eighteenth century. As his career progresses, we see him observing and learning from his experience of bad commanders, and then we see him implementing his own ideas about crew management. Of course, Moore did not always get it right, but his ideas and practices are enlightening and cannot fail to endear us to Moore as a man. Furthermore, much of what he says and does contradicts the traditional assumptions about life in the Royal Navy in the period.

There is, though, another unique side to Moore’s journal, because the pages record in consistent detail the social aspects of his life. We learn of the balls and assemblies that he attended, the dinners with brother officers, the intricate network of connections that attended the operation of ‘interest’, and the young man’s yearning for love and a happy marriage. This degree of portrayal of naval life is, as yet, available nowhere else outside the pages of fiction. Happily, what follows is not fiction.

Introduction

‘I see a number of the people who had cut their hair short and left off wearing hair powder, are now powdering and letting their hair grow again; they say the former fashion is looked upon with an evil eye by the People at the head of affairs, and that they consider it as a badge of Democratic principles. I am certainly neither a Democrat nor an Aristocrat, but I shall take the liberty of continuing to wear my hair short, which is more to my taste and I find it far more convenient.’

Graham Moore

Graham Moore was born in Glasgow on 14 September 1764. He was the fourth of six surviving children born to the well-respected physician and author Dr John Moore and his wife Jean or Jeannie. Graham’s grandfather, Charles Moore, was a church minister and Dr John Moore, born after Charles Moore relocated to Scotland, was educated at Glasgow Grammar School. He studied medicine at Glasgow University, where he probably met his future wife Jean Simpson, daughter of a professor at the University and a niece of the geometrician Robert Simpson. In 1747, Dr Moore befriended Colonel Campbell of the 54th Regiment, and appears to have served briefly with that regiment in the Low Countries as surgeon’s mate. He then went to Paris to complete his studies, in the process becoming the surgeon to the Earl of Albemarle.

The Moore boys benefited from a family environment where education was respected and, certainly as far as the boys were concerned, encouraged. John, the eldest son, born in 1761, was sent to Glasgow High School where he was encouraged to study history, poetry and literature. He was almost certainly followed by the other boys and it is abundantly clear that Graham’s studies followed a similar course.

John subsequently chose a career in the army and was destined to become a greatly loved General, killed at the Battle of Corunna in 1809. In keeping with contemporary expectations, medicine and the church provided professions for the other two sons.

In addition to being a physician, Dr John Moore was also, as the naval biographer John Marshall described him in 1823, ‘an author of some celebrity’. In fact Dr Moore produced several novels and three books about European countries – although of the latter more will be said later. His first novel
Zeluco
, published in 1786, was described as ‘a glorious story’ by his friend, the poet Robert Burns. It was also apparently read and appreciated by Lord Byron. In fact, Dr Moore’s creative output was greatly helped by his normal profession. He appears to have won the friendship and confidence of Elizabeth Gunning, the Duchess of Hamilton, almost certainly acting as her physician.

In 1772, the Duchess proposed sending her second son, the fifteen-year-old Douglas Hamilton (later to become the 8th Duke), on a Grand Tour of the Continent and Dr Moore was asked to accompany him as tutor, guide and physician. This connection with the Hamiltons was to be important in two respects: firstly, the tour of the Continent was to provide Dr Moore with the material for his first major work,
Society & Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany
which was published in 1779
¹
; secondly, Elizabeth Gunning was to provide powerful patronage for the Moores over future years. The Duchess’ husband, the 6th Duke of Hamilton, had died some years before, and she had subsequently remarried. Her new husband was John Campbell, Baron Sundridge, who was shortly to become the Duke of Argyll
²
.

When the party set off for the Continent, they were accompanied by the eleven-year-old John Moore, who had already set his heart on a career in the army. When, in 1775, the twelve-year-old Graham announced his choice of career to be the navy, John wrote from the continent:

I am pleased, my dear boy, that you wish to be a sailor, for I am sure you will be a brave one. I hope that, in some years after this, you and I will thresh the Monsieurs, both by sea and land; but I hope we won’t make war with the Spaniards; for the Spanish Ambassador is the best and kindest man I ever saw
³
.

The irony of this last statement could not have been anticipated.

Just weeks later, John learned that the newly created Duke of Argyll had obtained an ensigncy for him in the 51st Regiment of Foot and, leaving his father and Douglas Hamilton, he returned alone to London, where the family were now in residence. It is important to dwell for a moment on John Moore, because he was to play an important role in the life and career of Graham Moore. In many ways John Moore was a controversial officer; he was certainly blamed by those who saw the Peninsular campaign as a disaster, but others recognized qualities in him that made him an admirable commanding officer – especially in his attitude to the common soldier. However, the care which he took towards the men under his command may have given, at least, the impression of a cautious approach to military strategy. It was certainly this aspect which some of his critics latched on to following the withdrawal of the British army from Spain in 1809.