LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 Ohap.JlA Copyright No.8j£i1 
 
 sheitHaVsl & 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THE WESTMINSTER BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 BY 
 
 H. W. WILSON 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 BY 
 
 H. W. WILSON 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCC 
 
Copyright, ipoo 
 By Smally Maynard £sf Company 
 
 {Incorporated) 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall 
 
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 Lifortrt.1 y Of Oon.-rrd** 
 
 OCT 22 1900 
 
 Copyright entry 
 
 6CCPNP COPY. 
 
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 ORDM WiSlON, 
 
 
 George H. Ellis, Boston 
 
The photogravure used as a frontispiece 
 to this volume is from an engraving by J. 
 Andrews, from the portrait by J. Hoppner, 
 E.A. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 In this brief sketch of the great comman- 
 der who can be ranked after only Nelson 
 amongst his contemporaries, a certain 
 amount of space has been devoted to the 
 social condition of the navy during the time 
 of his service. This is necessary, even 
 within such narrow limits of space, as other- 
 wise misleading ideas might be formed con- 
 cerning Duncan's character. His refusal, 
 for instance, upon two occasions to go to 
 the West Indies, when the Monarch and 
 Blenheim were ordered there, might lead 
 men to conclude that he was an officer who 
 spared himself. It is not till we under- 
 stand under what sanitary conditions he 
 had passed his early years at sea that we, 
 who are accustomed to regard life in the 
 navy of our own day as healthier, if any- 
 thing, than life on shore, can realise that in 
 the middle of the eighteenth century most 
 constitutions were wrecked by it, not till we 
 turn to the lurid pages of Smollett or the 
 
viii PEEFACE 
 
 dustier records of Beatson that we learn 
 ivhat West Indian service meant. It could 
 be faced by only the young or healthy, and 
 even by them rarely with impunity. Not 
 until quite the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was there a real and sensible improve- 
 ment in the matter of sanitation on ship- 
 board. 
 
 A few details, as yet unpublished, from 
 the navy records in the Record Office, have 
 been embodied in the account of the Nore 
 mutiny, though this ivork makes no pre- 
 tence at originality. The author must ac- 
 knowledge his great indebtedness to the Earl 
 of Camperdown 1 s admirable biography of 
 his great ancestor, where is collected all the 
 material that remains for a biography of 
 the admiral, with the exception of the logs, 
 journals, and correspondence which are to 
 be found in the Record Office. These have 
 been examined, but they yield little that is 
 new or important. Unfortunately, in Dun- 
 can's case, no such correspondence is pre- 
 served as fills the seven volumes of Nicolas' 8 
 
PEEFACE ix 
 
 Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson. 
 Very few papers or letters dealing with the 
 private life and personality of the admiral 
 survive. We have no record of his thoughts 
 and opinions. Consequently ; he is a some- 
 what shadowy figure; and there is diffi- 
 culty in reconstructing his character, A 
 singular fatality, indeed, seems to have pur- 
 sued his letters. His intimate correspond- 
 ence with the great Lord Spencer, which 
 would have been of priceless value, perished 
 many years ago. 
 
 H. W. WILSON. 
 
CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 1731. 
 July 1. Adam Duncan was born in Dun- 
 dee. 
 
 1746. 
 April. Sailed on his first cruise in the 
 Tryal sloop, under his cousin, Com- 
 mander R. Haldane. 
 
 1747. 
 November. Transferred to the Shoreham 
 sloop. 
 
 1748. 
 February 24. His first action, attempting 
 to cut out a French privateer at Belle- 
 isle. 
 
 1749. 
 January. Midshipman on board the Cen- 
 turion, under Captain, the Hon. A. 
 Keppel, commodore in command of the 
 Mediterranean station. 
 
 1751. 
 Returns to England when the Centurion 
 is paid off. Unemployed till 1754, 
 
xii CHKOSTOLOGY 
 
 1754. 
 December 22. Appointed acting lieuten- 
 ant on board the Norwich. 
 
 1755. 
 January 10. Appointment confirmed by 
 the admiralty, and Duncan transferred 
 back to the Centurion. 
 
 1756. 
 July 10. Second lieutenant of the Torbay, 
 under Keppel. 
 
 November. The Torbay captures the 
 French frigate, Chariot Royal. 
 
 1757. 
 September. The Torbay takes part in an 
 unsuccessful attack upon the Isle of Aix. 
 October-November. She captures several 
 prizes and the privateer Eustan. 
 
 1758. 
 December 29. Wounded in the leg in 
 the Torbay 1 s attack upon Goree. 
 
 1759. 
 September 21. Promoted commander. 
 
CHRONOLOGY xiii 
 
 1759 (continued) 
 October 1. First independent command 
 of Royal Exchange, armed ship. 
 
 1761. 
 February 25. Promoted captain and ap- 
 pointed to the Valiant. 
 March 29. Sails to attack Belleisle. 
 June 7. Belleisle captured. 
 
 1762. 
 March 2. Sails on the Havana expedition. 
 July 30. Leads the storming party 
 against the Morro. 
 
 1764. 
 June 26. The Valiant paid off. Unem- 
 ployed till 1778. 
 
 1774. 
 Visits Italy. 
 
 1777. 
 Marries Henrietta Dundas. 
 
 1778. 
 May 16. Appointed to the Suffolk. 
 December 4. Transferred to the Monarch. 
 
xiv CHKONOLOGY 
 
 1779. 
 September 2-3. With Admiral Hardy's 
 fleet retreats before a superior Franco- 
 Spanish, force. 
 
 January 16. Takes part in the defeat of 
 Langara's fleet j captures the San Au~ 
 gustin. 
 
 1781. 
 Ordered to the West Indies. Is obliged 
 by his health to resign command of the 
 Monarch. 
 
 1782. 
 March. Appointed to command the Blen- 
 heim. 
 
 October 21. Takes part in Howe's action 
 with the Spaniards off Cape Spartel. 
 November. Eesigns command on the 
 Blenheim, being ordered to the West 
 Indies. 
 
 1783. 
 January 15. Appointed to the Foudro- 
 yant. 
 
 April 1. Transferred to the Edgar for 
 three years. 
 
CHEONOLOGY xv 
 
 1787. 
 September 24. Promoted rear-admiral. 
 
 1793. 
 February 3. Promoted vice-admiral. 
 
 1795. 
 February. Appointed to command the 
 North Sea fleet. Hoists his flag in the 
 Venerable. 
 
 June. Promoted admiral. 
 Summer, Offered and declines the Medi- 
 terranean command. 
 
 1796. 
 October. Unsuccessful attempt on the 
 Texel. 
 
 1797. 
 April 30. Mutiny in the Venerable sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 May 13. Mutiny in the Adamant sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 May 28. Sails for the Texel. Deserted 
 by all his fleet except the Adamant and 
 Venerable. 
 
 May 30. Blockades the Texel with these 
 two ships. 
 
xvi CHRONOLOGY 
 
 1797 (continued) 
 June 12. Joined by a Russian squadron. 
 June 14. Collapse of the Nore mutiny. 
 October 11. Defeats the Dutch fleet at 
 Cainperdown. 
 
 October 17. Created Viscount Duncan of 
 Camperdown. 
 
 December 20. Takes part in the solemn 
 thanksgiving for naval victories. 
 
 1799. 
 August 30. Dutch fleet in the Helder 
 captured by a joint expedition. 
 
 1800. 
 March. Decides to retire. 
 April. Strikes his flag. 
 
 1801. 
 January. Offers his services against the 
 Northern Coalition. 
 
 1804. 
 July. Again offers his services. 
 August 4. Dies at Coldstream on his way 
 home from London, wt. 73. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 
 
ADAM DUNCAN. 
 
 Adam Duncan, the future admiral 
 and founder of the noble house of Cam- 
 perdown, came into the world at a time 
 when the fortunes of his country seemed 
 at their lowest ebb. He was born on 
 July 1, 1731, when George II. had 
 been but four years on the throne, 
 when there were still old people who 
 could remember the rule of Cromwell, 
 when the union of Scotland with Eng- 
 land was only a recent memory, and 
 when the question which of the two 
 dynasties, Stuart or Hanoverian, was to 
 govern Great Britain, was far from being 
 irrefutably settled. In his own lifetime, 
 which was not immoderately long, since 
 it did not attain to the fourscore years 
 of the Psalmist, he saw the final choice 
 made. The momentous decision between 
 a policy of continental and colonial ex- 
 pansion was reached by this country. 
 He was a boy when the seventy years* 
 
2 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 struggle with France opened, in which 
 he played so splendid a part and which 
 finally ended in the establishment of the 
 British Empire ; his manhood saw Eng- 
 land at, it might seem, the summit of 
 glory ; his advancing years witnessed her 
 fall, but her fall not without honour ; 
 his old age saw her triumph once more, 
 though his eyes closed forever on the 
 world before the final defeat of Napoleon. 
 And thus his life covers the most inter- 
 esting and the most stirring period of 
 our history, — an epoch of romance and 
 adventure and hard fighting and hero- 
 ism rarely or never to be surpassed, the 
 adolescence of our modern empire, as the 
 u spacious times " of Queen Elizabeth 
 were the adolescence of the smaller unit 
 of the nation. 
 
 It is strange to contrast our own more 
 peaceful century with this turbulent 
 and stormy age. Between 1731 and 
 1804, which years limit the term of 
 Duncan's life, England was at war from 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 3 
 
 1739 to 1748, from 1756 to 1763, from 
 1775 to 1783, from 1793 to 1801, and 
 through 1803 and 1804. That is to say 
 through nearly one-half of the period 
 the nation's energies were centred upon 
 war. The struggles of these times were 
 all the more terrible, inasmuch as they 
 were protracted over long years, and 
 inasmuch as the utter absence of such a 
 thing as sanitary knowledge inflicted 
 the most fearful sufferings upon the 
 combatants. Thousands died in battle, 
 tens of thousands of fever and pestilence 
 and scurvy, till the death-roll of the 
 nations struggling for world-power at- 
 tained ghastly proportions. 
 
 The union of Scotland with England 
 had abolished the dualism which had 
 tied England's hands at many critical 
 seasons, and admitted Scotland and 
 Scotsmen to a full share in the trade 
 and exploitation of the empire. It gave 
 to England a new strength, gradually 
 identifying with her interests a race of 
 
4 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 unexampled courage, tenacity, and busi- 
 ness insight, which has written its glo- 
 ries in red on every field where Eng- 
 lishmen and Scotsmen have fought side 
 by side. Hateful at first to Scotland, the 
 union ended by giving her wealth and 
 prosperity and something more. For, if 
 it be said to-day that England rules the 
 world, it is also said that Scotsmen rule 
 England. The sacrifice of nationality 
 was wisely and rightly made. The day 
 of small and weak nations had passed. 
 
 When Duncan saw the light at Dun- 
 dee, the era of prosperity for Scotland 
 had as yet hardly begun. The soreness 
 generally felt in the country at the 
 union aided and abetted the efforts of 
 the Jacobites, who were everywhere 
 numerous and powerful. The Georges 
 were regarded as foreign sovereigns, who 
 knew little or nothing of Scotland and 
 probably cared less. They never visited 
 or showed the smallest interest in their 
 northern kingdom. But the Pretender 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 5 
 
 was still remembered. Only fifteen years 
 before Duncan's birth he had lodged in 
 the very place wherein the admiral was 
 born. He was of Scotch descent, and he 
 had all the Stuart grace of manner. 
 Quite apart from this, the deep and pas- 
 sionate loyalty of the Highlander chiefs 
 and tribes to the man whom they re- 
 garded as the representative of their 
 anointed king earned their support the 
 moment he showed himself. 
 
 All men in Scotland had to take one 
 side or the other, for faction ran high. 
 The house of Duncan, however, as Low- 
 landers who did not love the memory of 
 the Stuarts, were strong Whigs, and sup- 
 porters of the Georges. The admiral 
 had two elder brothers, in both of whom 
 the spirit of adventure asserted it- 
 self. John went to India, and died far 
 away from Dundee, in China, before he 
 had made a name. Alexander entered 
 the army in the terrible times of Cullo- 
 den $ and, if he did not climb to the sum- 
 
6 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 mits of glory, yet earned a solid reputa- 
 tion as a man of capacity, learning, and 
 courage. Adam, youngest of the trio, 
 entered the navy in 1746, at the age of 
 fifteen. 
 
 Little or nothing remains of his early 
 life. Though of the four great naval 
 victories which were won by the British 
 fleet in the final war with France, one 
 stands to his credit, — the other three 
 ranking amongst the achievements of 
 the immortal Kelson, — no pious chroni- 
 cler in his own lifetime gathered up the 
 scattered fragments of his story when 
 the people yet lived who remembered 
 him and who could have told of him. 
 No such records of his early days sur- 
 vive as survive in the case of Nelson. 
 He attained greatness only in his old 
 age ; and even then it was his hard fate 
 for the fame of Camperdown to be swal- 
 lowed up in the yet more brilliant 
 glories of the Nile, Copenhagen, and 
 Trafalgar, while men were only too eager 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 7 
 
 to forget the story of the great mutiny. 
 It has been left for after generations, 
 seeing events in their true perspective, 
 to mark the splendours of his work and 
 to collect what scattered wreckage of his 
 history floats on the sea of time. 
 
 Duncan' s first ship was the wretched lit- 
 tle sloop Tryal, a cockle-shell of one hun- 
 dred and forty-two tons, mounting eight 
 carriage guns and six swivels. Her com- 
 plement did not probably exceed seventy 
 men and boys. She was commanded by 
 his cousin, Eobert Haldane. In these 
 small vessels the conditions of life were 
 usually miserable both for officers and 
 men. The ship would be very wet, and 
 there was very little space below. Lord 
 Dundonald, who commanded the Speedy, 
 of one hundred and fifty- eight tons, a 
 vessel of much the same size, tells us that 
 his cabin was only five feet high, and that, 
 to shave, he had to remove the skylight 
 and put his head through. Presumably, 
 Duncan, when he joined the ship, did so 
 
8 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 as a captain's servant. Officers in those 
 days were allowed to take a certain num- 
 ber of young relatives or retainers with 
 them to sea, and these were generally 
 rated as servants. They filled much the 
 same place as the modern naval cadet. 
 
 The Tryal was despatched from Sheer - 
 ness to Leith, where Duncan went on 
 board her. She had charge of a con- 
 voy of transports, conveying stores and 
 re- enforcements to the troops then en- 
 gaged in stamping out the Jacobite re- 
 bellion. While she was at sea, the deci- 
 sive battle of Culloden was fought, and the 
 hopes of the Young Pretender crushed 
 for ever. She proceeded to cruise off 
 the west coast of Scotland with the ob- 
 ject of preventing Prince Charlie's es- 
 cape, but failed in this. After weeks 
 and months of dull and dreary cruising, 
 she at last got back to Plymouth in the 
 autumn of 1747. 
 
 If we wish to know what service in the 
 navy was like at this time, we have only 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 9 
 
 to go to the pages of Smollett and Edward 
 Thompson. So much of the great period 
 of Duncan's life is filled with his deal- 
 ings with the mutineers that it will he 
 well to note even at this early date the 
 causes at work which ultimately pro- 
 duced the great explosion of 1797. 
 Smollett wrote from the standpoint of 
 the warrant officer, — for such the sur- 
 geon was in these days, — hut he wrote 
 with a very considerable knowledge of 
 the navy, having himself served in Sir 
 Challoner Ogle's expedition to the "West 
 Indies, of 1740 and 1741. Though a 
 novelist, he is a realist rather than a 
 romancer, and can generally be trusted. 
 Thompson was a captain in the navy, of 
 good reputation and service. He wrote 
 of a later period than Smollett, but in 
 broad outline the two descriptions coin- 
 cide. 
 
 What is most striking in Smollett's 
 narrative is the absolute impunity with 
 which the caprices of captains could be 
 
10 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 gratified. Officers of the lower ratings 
 could be put in irons, and men barbar- 
 ously punished or even killed, without, 
 it would seem, the smallest account being 
 afterwards demanded from the captain. 
 There was no redress, and consequently 
 the miseries of the seamen under a 
 brutal officer must have been extreme. 
 The food on board was filthily bad. 
 
 Our provisions [says the hero of Smollett's 
 story] consisted of putrid salt beef, to which 
 the sailors gave the name of Irish horse; salt 
 pork of New England, which, though neither 
 fish nor flesh, savoured of both ; bread from the 
 same country, every biscuit whereof, like a 
 piece of clockwork, moved by its own internal 
 impulse, occasioned by the myriads of insects 
 that dwelt within it ; and butter served out by 
 the gill, that tasted like train oil thickened 
 with salt. Instead of small beer, each man was 
 allowed three half-quarters of brandy or rum, 
 which were distributed every morning. 
 
 In an age when the secret of distilling 
 water had been forgotten, and all the 
 ship's supply had to be carried in hogs- 
 heads and butts, the water was usually 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 11 
 
 foul and putrid. In the expedition of 
 1741 against Carthagena, — in a tropi- 
 cal climate, — only one quart a day 
 was allowed each man for all purposes. 
 That is to say, the whole complement of 
 a large fleet was subjected to the daily 
 and hourly torture of thirst. 
 
 With such food and such water, it is 
 scarcely to be wondered at that any fleet 
 which kept the sea for any time became 
 sickly, or that thousands of men were 
 swept away by fever and scurvy. Not 
 many years before Duncan's entrance 
 into the navy, Admiral Hosier, in the 
 West Indies, with a fleet the comple- 
 ment of which reached only 4, 750 men, 
 lost in two years four thousand officers 
 and men. Ten years later the Stirling 
 Castle, with a total crew of 480, after a 
 few months' cruise in the Channel, re- 
 turned to port with only 160 fit for duty. 
 Anson's squadron, on his famous voyage 
 round the world, was in such a state when 
 it reached Juan Fernandez that in the 
 
12 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 Centurion only twenty men out of four 
 hundred could be mustered for work. 
 In this ship "they buried four, five, 
 and sometimes six men a day." Even 
 Boscawen's fleet, in 1755, was depleted 
 by "jail fever,' 7 a form of virulent ty- 
 phus, due to disregard of the most ele- 
 mentary sanitary rules. Upwards of two 
 thousand seamen died of the distemper. 
 Far later returns speak eloquently of the 
 unnecessary and preventable waste of life 
 which occurred in the British fleet. Be- 
 tween 1774 and 1780, 175,990 men were 
 raised for the navy, of whom only 1,243 
 were slain in action ; while no less than 
 18,541 died of sickness, and 42,000 de- 
 serted. In the war of 1756-63, 184,893 
 men were raised ; and, though only 
 1,512 fell in battle, but 49,673 men re- 
 mained at the close of the struggle. 
 The others had melted away through 
 disease and desertion. These stupefying 
 figures give us a better idea of the mis- 
 eries and hardships of the seaman's lot 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 13 
 
 than even Smollett's ghastly picture, 
 painted with the sceva indignatio of the 
 man of letters and science. 
 
 The most terrible feature of the time 
 was the suffering of the sick and the 
 wounded. The ship of the line's hospi- 
 tal, or sick-bay is thus described by 
 Smollett : — 
 
 Here I saw about fifty miserable, distem- 
 pered wretches, suspended iu rows, so huddled 
 one upon another that not more than fourteen 
 inches' space was allotted for each with his bed 
 and bedding, and deprived of the light of the 
 day as well as of fresh air, breathing nothing 
 but a noisome atmosphere of the morbid steam 
 exhaling from their own excrements and dis- 
 eased bodies, devoured with vermin hatched in 
 the filth that surrounded them, and destitute 
 of every convenience necessary for people in 
 that helpless condition. 
 
 There is plenty of evidence to show 
 that this picture was not exaggerated ; 
 and there is good reason to think that 
 Captain Oakum, the inhuman tyrant, 
 who declared that he would have no 
 sick men in his ship, flogged the 
 
14 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 sufferers from fever, sent the dropsical 
 aloft, and compelled those who spat 
 blood to work at the pumps, really 
 existed. Indeed, no sacredness attached 
 to the lives of human beings — provided 
 they were not of rank — in these days. 
 Like the Turkish army, which in the 
 1897 campaign saw no use in wounded 
 men, and therefore did not trouble itself 
 about them, the British navy of the 
 middle eighteenth century never con- 
 cerned itself with the sick or suffer- 
 ing. They might rot or starve for all 
 it cared. 
 
 The discipline seems to have been as 
 miserable as the sanitation. In Roder- 
 ick Random's ship, when anything hap- 
 pens, the officers and men run con- 
 fusedly to and fro, hallooing and shout- 
 ing. The ships were crammed with jail- 
 birds, smugglers, and poachers, or some- 
 times, when there was especial want of 
 men, the admiralty, with exquisite hu- 
 mour, sent on board sick and debilitated 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 15 
 
 Greenwich x>ensioners. If these died, the 
 country was saved the cost of their pen- 
 sions. If they lived through it all, they 
 were proved malingerers. It was like 
 the dilemma which beset the unhappy 
 woman accused of witchcraft, — and 
 only four years before Duncan's birth a 
 woman was burnt in Scotland for witch- 
 craft, — if she floated on a pond, she was 
 guilty, and was burnt at the stake : if 
 she sank, she was innocent, but was, 
 unfortunately, drowned. As for the 
 officers, Thompson gives us this beauti- 
 ful picture of the lieutenant of 1758-63 : 
 "A chaw of tobacco, a rattan [with 
 which to belabour the laggards among 
 the men], and a rope of oaths were suf- 
 ficient qualifications to constitute a lieu- 
 tenant ' ' ; but he notes that since then a 
 great improvement had taken place. 
 
 At a time when any affectation of devo- 
 tion to the interests of the country or the 
 navy was laughed at as hypocrisy j when 
 corruption was everywhere rampant, 
 
16 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 under rulers who in no sense stirred or 
 appealed to the finer qualities which 
 then, as always, were to he found in the 
 hearts of Englishmen ; when Horace Wal- 
 pole wrote that, if the Pretender came, 
 England would look on and say, " Fight, 
 dog! fight, bear!" when Henry Fox 
 could say, "England is for the first- 
 comer" ; when the watchword of the 
 squires was, "If the French come, I'll 
 pay, but devil take me if I'll fight," — it 
 is little wonder that men showed them- 
 selves the cowards and knaves every one 
 pretended to think them. In no other 
 period of our naval history are the 
 instances of misconduct, or even gross 
 cowardice in action, so many and so 
 painful. After every great battle there 
 was a rich crop of courts- martial on 
 captains or admirals who would not 
 "go down to the fight." After the bat- 
 tle of Toulon, in 1744, the captains of 
 the Dorsetshire, Eoyal Oak, Rupert, Chi- 
 chester, Boyne, and Essex, were all pun- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 17 
 
 ished for misconduct, where they did not 
 abscond or die on their way home. The 
 two admirals quarrelled, and failed to 
 support each other ; and they also were 
 brought to trial, when the senior officer, 
 who was probably the less guilty of the 
 two, was cashiered. The first lieutenant 
 of a British ship of forty guns was shot 
 for cowardice in surrendering to a 
 French privateer. Superior British 
 squadrons in one instance, under Peyton, 
 in the East Indies, in 1746, got out of 
 the enemy's way ; or in another instance, 
 under Captain Mitchell, of the Lenox, 
 remained in presence of the inferior 
 enemy, and dared not close and fight 
 a decisive action. Captain Mitchell's 
 only punishment was a fine and dismissal 
 from the service. Last and more famous 
 of all was Byng's weak action at Mi- 
 norca, which was most terribly punished, 
 though, certainly, his conduct had been 
 far less reprehensible than that of many 
 of the officers mentioned above. 
 
18 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 "With this sort of spirit abroad in the 
 navy, there is little wonder that British 
 successes were few and far between, and 
 disgraceful reverses all too common. 
 Quarrels and discussions between the 
 army and navy occurred, whenever the 
 two forces attempted to co-operate. At 
 Cartagena, at Santiago de Cuba, at 
 Quiberon, such disputes, when combined 
 with the usual slackness of either service 
 at this time, issued in unsuccess, and 
 wasted the lives of hundreds of British 
 soldiers or seamen. 
 
 Yet, in spite of this rottenness upon 
 the surface, the navy and the nation 
 were sounder than might have been 
 supposed. If there were plenty of Cap- 
 tain Oakums and Captain Whiffles, 
 there were men of the stamp of Bos- 
 cawen and Hawke, waiting patiently to 
 do the work when their time should 
 come, and when the incompetence of 
 the lordlings and men of influence who 
 engrossed the most profitable commands 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 19 
 
 should be discovered by some master 
 mind. The nation was neither so cow- 
 ardly nor so weak as the pessimists strove 
 to represent it. It only waited for the 
 coming of a man. And, when the first 
 and greatest Pitt — the one British 
 statesman since Cromwell who has thor- 
 oughly understood the use of a navy — 
 attained to power, it was seen of what 
 great things the race was capable, well 
 and bravely led. 
 
 Duncan was, fortunately, saved from 
 the corrupting influence of his times. 
 He came from a small and remote 
 Scotch country town, where men still 
 worshipped God, and where it was not 
 the first and greatest requisite to i ( trifle 
 well," and live an infamous life. He 
 saw, in all probability, the best side of 
 the service. He was, for the most part, 
 in his early days, either under his own 
 family connections, who would naturally 
 temper for him the asperities of sailor 
 life, or under distinguished officers, such 
 
20 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 as Keppel, who were of aristocratic de- 
 scent, but yet were keen on the service, 
 and with whom, we may c *ure, his 
 family had interest. Yet for the 
 
 officers, who had far bet" ; iood than 
 the seamen and who were n it, like them, 
 packed into the merest fraction of space 
 between decks, the life was very trying. 
 Few of our admirals of this period en- 
 dured much service at sea without con- 
 tracting disease ; and the subordinate 
 officers in stations such as the West 
 Indies died very fast, — a fact to which, 
 in later days, Horatio Nelson owed, in 
 great part, his rapid promotion. 
 
 Throughout his life Duncan was noted 
 for three things, — his gigantic stature, 
 his grace of persor and of character, and 
 his unaffected piety. In all that we see 
 or read of him he was one of the most 
 lovable of men. And what he was in 
 old age, when he became famous, that 
 surely he was in youth, when he was yet 
 obscure. A certain want of fine breed- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 21 
 
 ing, as Admiral Coloinb lias pointed out, 
 marked Nelson, as it marked Napoleon, 
 probable Arse in Nelson's case he did 
 not asso. oth many of kis equals in 
 
 kis youtk, 't served in a small skip 
 during tke ea;ly years of kis life. Tkere 
 is no trace of tkis in Duncan. From 
 first to last ke was courtly, dignified, at 
 kis ease. Wkerever ke went, kis tall, 
 kandsome figure attracted attention. 
 Wken walking through the streets of 
 Chatham as a young man, it is said 
 crowds came out of their houses and 
 followed him for the mere pleasure of 
 looking upon one so comely of form. 
 
 From the Tryal, Duncan passed with 
 his cousin to the Shoreham, a small frig- 
 ate of twenty guns, none of calibre 
 above the nine-pounder. Such craft, 
 in those days, did the work which is 
 done by our modern protected cruisers. 
 They scouted, guarded commerce, and 
 looked after the enemy's cruisers. They 
 were small and weak ships, and, as their 
 
22 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 unfitness for hard work at sea was real- 
 ised, were gradually replaced by larger 
 vessels of thirty-two guns and thirty-six 
 guns, firing a far heavier broadside. 
 
 Early in 1748 the Slwreham put to sea 
 to cruise at the entrance of the Channel 
 and in the Bay ; in other words, the Bay 
 of Biscay. She pretty quickly had 
 fighting to do. In January and Feb- 
 ruary she captured a Brest ship ; sent 
 in her boats at Belleisle to cut out a 
 privateer, and failed in this enterprise, 
 though her men had the satisfaction of 
 destroying the enemy's vessel ; retook a 
 French prize, and captured the Valeur, 
 a privateer of sixteen guns. In wars 
 with France the chops of the Channel 
 always swarmed with privateers, Eng- 
 lish or French, which preyed upon mer- 
 chantmen, but gave a wide berth, when 
 they could, to men-of-war. At this 
 date the shipping trade of France was 
 still considerable and flourishing, so that 
 the losses to commerce were generally 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 23 
 
 very evenly distributed between Eng- 
 land and her neighbour. In the spring 
 the Shoreham joined Admiral Hawke's 
 squadron, and returned with him to 
 Plymouth when peace was made. 
 There she ran aground, but was got 
 off and put out of commission. 
 
 Here Duncan's service with his cousin 
 ended. Still a midshipman, he was en- 
 tered on board the Centurion, fifty, Cap- 
 tain The Hon. Augustus Keppel, in 
 1749, whose interest had somehow or 
 other been enlisted in his cause, and 
 who seems henceforward to have worked 
 in every way to advance him. In her 
 he made an uneventful cruise to Algiers 
 and the Mediterranean, returning in 
 1751, and then for three years passed 
 his time ashore, as there was nothing 
 doing in the navy, and no attempt was 
 made to keep up a large force of officers 
 and men in time of peace. In 1754, 
 however, Keppel once more went to 
 sea, as commodore of the North Amer- 
 
24 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ican station, in the Centurion, and seized 
 the opportunity of a vacancy in the 
 Norwich, which accompanied him, to 
 appoint Dmican as acting lieutenant in 
 her. The commission was confirmed. 
 Thus, at the age of twenty- three, he 
 reached that position in the service 
 which Nelson, the favourite of fortune, 
 attained at eighteen. Duncan, how- 
 ever, had no such powerful influence 
 behind him as supported the young 
 Nelson and carried him rapidly to cap- 
 tain's rank. Nelson was a captain at 
 twenty, Duncan only at thirty. Nel- 
 son obtained his flag as rear-admiral at 
 thirty- eight, Duncan not till he was 
 fifty- six. 
 
 The cruise of the Centurion, to which 
 ship Duncan had been almost at once 
 transferred from the Norwich, was on 
 this occasion as uninteresting as before, 
 except that he must have witnessed 
 the disembarkation of the unfort- 
 unate General Braddock's force. Ee- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 25 
 
 turning to England after Keppel, 
 Duncan followed him on board the 
 Torbay, seventy-four, which ship cruised 
 with Hawke's fleet on the outbreak of 
 war with France, blockading Brest and 
 Eochefort. She captured many prizes, 
 amongst others the French frigate 
 Chariot Royal, of thirty- six guns, and 
 then returned to Spithead for the court- 
 martial on Byng. Through the spring 
 and summer of 1757 the Torbay was with 
 the Channel fleet ; and she was one of 
 the ships which conveyed Sir John 
 Mordaunt's unlucky expedition to the 
 Isle of Aix. The lion-hearted Wolfe, 
 the future conqueror of Quebec, sailed 
 with the troops, and urged action in vain 
 upon his general. Little was attempted, 
 nothing done ; and the nation was 
 deeply irritated at a discreditable fail- 
 ure. But, before success could be 
 achieved in these conjoint expeditions, it 
 was necessary to place at the head of 
 the soldiers officers who were something 
 
26 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 more than hidebound pedants or court 
 favourites. Pitt quickly grasped the 
 fact. Mordaunt was a serviceable warn- 
 ing to him. 
 
 There is little need to dilate on the 
 Torbatfs service. What Duncan did 
 on board her we can never know : what 
 she did we can only learn from the bare 
 outlines of her log. Constant slight 
 brushes with the enemy's cruisers, the 
 loss from time to time of a mast or spar, 
 the capture of a hostile cruiser or two, 
 and a cutting out expedition now and 
 then were the most striking incidents 
 of her cruise. A chapter of any of 
 Marryat's sea novels will fill in the 
 picture. The excitement was varied 
 by the explosion of her fore-magazine at 
 Spithead on August 27, 1758 ; but both 
 Keppel and Duncan escaped with their 
 lives, and the ship, it would seem, was 
 not very seriously damaged, since she 
 was speedily at sea again. Keppel was 
 after this placed in charge of a small 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 27 
 
 conjoint expedition, to capture the 
 French settlement of Goree on the west 
 coast of Africa. In the attack upon the 
 place Duncan, now first lieutenant of 
 the Torbaij, received his first and only 
 wound in action. He was shot in the 
 leg, but the injury was not serious. The 
 Torbay returned to England, to service 
 with the Channel fleet, as before ; and 
 late in 1759 Duncan was promoted com- 
 mander and given command of a most 
 unpromising craft, the Royal Exchange. 
 This vessel was simply an armed mer- 
 chantman, and, like the auxiliary 
 cruisers of the American line in the 
 Spanish- American War, kept her own 
 merchant crew on board. Many of her 
 men were foreigners, others of the crew 
 were boys, all were undisciplined j and 
 Duncan got quit of her as speedily as he 
 could, and was unemployed for some 
 months. 
 
 In 1761 he went back to Keppel, but 
 now as flag-captain of the flagship 
 
28 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 Valiant, and shared in the successful 
 expedition to Belleisle. Then in 1762 
 the Valiant sailed with Albemarle and 
 Pocock on a conjoint expedition, to try 
 a stroke upon Havana, as Spain had 
 joined France against us. Duncan per- 
 sonally superintended the disembarka- 
 tion of the army, and probably directed 
 the service of the battery constructed 
 ashore by the seamen of the Valiant, 
 and known as the " Valiant's battery." 
 When a breach was made in the walls 
 of the Morro, he led his men through it, 
 armed only with a stick, and on the 
 surrender of the place burnt two Span- 
 ish ships of the line on the stocks and 
 took possession of nine others. The ex- 
 pedition must have been very profitable 
 to a comparatively poor man, as he was, 
 since he received £1, 600 as prize money. 
 The admiral in command drew no less 
 than £122,000, while the unhappy sea- 
 men had to be content with £3 14s. lOd. 
 each. Although at this period it was 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 29 
 
 one of the common seaman's grievances 
 that, while he risked his life jnst as 
 much as his superior officer, he re- 
 ceived an absurdly small share of prize 
 money , yet his complaint was not re- 
 dressed till well on in the present cen- 
 tury. 
 
 On her way to Jamaica the Valiant 
 made several rich captures, and then, as 
 peace was proclaimed, returned home. 
 Once more Duncan was sentenced to a 
 long period of inactivity ashore, passing 
 fourteen uneventful years in the flower 
 of his age upon half-pay. In this period 
 he spent several years at Bath or Chel- 
 tenham, visited Italy, and married a 
 wife, Miss Dundas, niece of the future 
 Lord Melville, the colleague of the 
 second Pitt. 
 
 In 1778 a fresh war with France 
 began; and Duncan received command 
 of the Monarch, a vessel of the line of 
 seventy- four guns, and in her served 
 with the Channel fleet. He had the 
 
30 ADAM DUNCAX 
 
 painful duty of sitting in a court-martial 
 which tried his old friend and superior, 
 Keppel, for a lamentably inconclusive 
 battle in the Channel. The misfortune 
 arose really from the absurd fighting 
 orders of the time, which compelled 
 squadrons to form in line of battle for 
 action, and allowed an enemy to get 
 away while they were forming. Dun- 
 can's action in after life at Camperdown 
 showed that he, at least, could disdain 
 this pedantry. Keppel was acquitted 
 triumphantly ; and then his second in 
 command, Palliser, was tried for miscon- 
 duct, and also cleared. 
 
 At this date the British navy was 
 badly handled and in want of a great 
 admiral. Duncan was there ; but per- 
 haps his high capacity was as yet un- 
 known, and his connection with Keppel, 
 a strong "Whig, may have stood him in 
 bad stead with a furiously partisan Tory 
 ministry. Commands were handed over 
 to aged or mediocre officers, with the 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 31 
 
 most indifferent result. Howe, a good, 
 if not superlative, admiral, was driven in 
 disgust from his command. Hood, by 
 far the best of the men high up in the 
 navy, and really a great and capable 
 leader, was not afforded an opening. 
 Rodney, who was inferior in most re- 
 spects to Hood, but who could deal with 
 lazy subordinates in the masterful fashion 
 of St. Vincent, was the one exception 
 amongst the admirals employed from 
 1778 to 1782, and at least won battles. 
 Yet even he did not follow up his one 
 great victory, as a Nelson, a Hood, or a 
 Duncan, would have followed it up. The 
 consequences of this failure to prefer 
 merit to rank and age were disastrous to 
 the nation. There is reason to think 
 that the revolted colonies could easily 
 have been subdued, had the British 
 forces on sea and land been properly 
 handled, and that Spain and Holland, 
 perhaps even France, would never then 
 have joined against us in the war. It is 
 
32 ADAM DUNCAK 
 
 all the more melancholy to reflect that 
 there were plenty of capable officers in 
 the navy, had the rnlers of this country 
 cared to take the trouble to search for 
 merit and capacity. 
 
 Under an aged and an ailing admiral 
 the Monarch cruised with the Channel 
 fleet, and in the summer of 1779 with 
 this fleet ran from a combined French 
 and Spanish Armada. The sight filled 
 two officers, at least, in the British fleet, 
 with indignation. Jervis, the future 
 Lord St. Vincent, and Duncan both 
 raged inwardly ; and it is possible that, 
 had either of them been in command, the 
 decisive battle of the war would have 
 been fought then and there. But the 
 odds were grievously heavy, — thirty- 
 eight ships against sixty-six, a far greater 
 disproportion than any British admiral 
 in recent times has confronted with suc- 
 cess. It was expected that the allied 
 fleet would cover the passage of an army 
 of invasion, so that the peril to England 
 
ADAM DOTCAN 33 
 
 was extreme. But, strangely enough, it 
 did nothing except cruise aimlessly for 
 a few days in the Channel, and then dis- 
 perse. 
 
 After this dismal experience the Mon- 
 arch went out with Bodney to Gibraltar, 
 and with him took part in the complete 
 defeat of a Spanish squadron under Lan- 
 gara, on January 16, 1780. Duncan was 
 very hotly engaged with three of the 
 enemy's ships of the line ; and one of the 
 three struck to him, but from the heavy 
 sea could not be secured, and escaped. 
 In this action, of eleven Spanish ships of 
 the line, four were taken, four blown up, 
 sunk, or driven ashore, and only three 
 escaped. But then as now the Spaniards 
 were a contemptible enemy at sea j and 
 it was commonly said, " A Spanish ship 
 chased is a Spanish ship taken," in so 
 little respect was the Spanish navy held 
 by British seamen. 
 
 From the relief of Gibraltar, for which 
 purpose Bodney had been sent out, Dun- 
 
34 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 can in the Monarch returned to Channel 
 service ; but presently, his ship being 
 ordered off to the unhealthy station of 
 the West Indies, where twenty years 
 before his constitution had been griev- 
 ously impaired, and his doctor advising 
 him under no circumstances to return to 
 the tropics, he resigned his command, 
 and was unemployed for nearly a year. 
 It is clear that the admiralty did not re- 
 gard his action with disfavour, since he 
 was in March, 1782, appointed to a 
 better vessel than the Monarch, the ship 
 of the line Blenheim, of ninety guns. In 
 her he sailed with Howe's fleet to the 
 second relief of Gibraltar, now closely 
 pressed and in sore straits. The work 
 of escorting out a large convoy of slow- 
 sailing victuallers and transports Howe 
 managed admirably. 
 
 On the fleet's return, upon October 
 20, in the neighbourhood of Cape Tra- 
 falgar, — soon to be far more famous, — 
 there was a sharp brush with a supe- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 35 
 
 rior Franco-Spanish squadron, the Yictory 
 on this day, as twenty-three years later, 
 carrying the flag of the British com- 
 mander-in-chief. The Blenheim was one 
 of the ships most hotly engaged, and suf- 
 fered some loss. On her return to Eng- 
 land she was ordered out to the West 
 Indies $ and Duncan quitted her, receiv- 
 ing at the time a letter of the most com- 
 plimentary tone from Howe. He then 
 was appointed to the Foudroyant, a still 
 finer ship, but only for a few weeks, as 
 after the conclusion of peace in January, 
 1783, she was paid off. He passed from 
 her to the Portsmouth guardship Edgar, 
 which he commanded through three un- 
 eventful years, and then in the autumn 
 of 1787 was promoted rear-admiral. 
 
 It will not have escaped the reader 
 that, though Duncan served well and 
 faithfully through this his third war, no 
 great exploit comparable with Nelson's 
 wearing from the line at St. Vincent 
 stands against his name. But, if the facts 
 
36 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 are carefully scrutinised, it will be found 
 that he was singularly unfortunate in 
 his lack of opportunities. No real 
 chance of making a name came to him. 
 The government of the day was not 
 quick to discern and employ the most 
 enterprising men in the navy. No 
 ' ' organiser of victory ' ' in the shape of 
 Lord Spencer had yet revealed himself, 
 to rise above seniority. And, if the 
 administration of the navy had been run 
 upon the same lines during the final 
 struggle with France, it is probable that 
 Nelson would have come down to us 
 as nothing more than a dashing junior 
 officer. From 1787 to 1795, the third 
 year of the war with France, Duncan 
 remained on land unemployed, rising 
 automatically by seniority in the inter- 
 val from rear-admiral to vice-admiral. 
 The only fact which is recorded of him 
 in this interval is that he intervened in 
 a riot in Edinburgh to protect his wife's 
 mother, Mrs. Dundas, who from the 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 37 
 
 close connection of the Dundas family 
 with Pitt's Tory government was spe- 
 cially obnoxious to the Scotch Eadicals. 
 On this occasion Duncan had his little 
 finger badly broken. When war with 
 France began in 1793, he could not 
 obtain a command, in spite of strenuous 
 efforts which he is known to have made 
 and in spite of his marriage relations 
 with the close friend of the prime min- 
 ister, which were of more importance, 
 perhaps, in those days than the su- 
 premest capacity where place was an 
 object. 
 
 Fortunately for this country, at the 
 close of 1794 Lord Spencer succeeded 
 Lord Chatham as first lord of the ad- 
 miralty. The six years through which 
 this great man had the direction of our 
 navy are amongst the most splendid in 
 British history. He made it his task to 
 seek out and employ talent. Sir John 
 Jervis was sent out to the Mediterra- 
 nean under him ; under him Nelson was 
 
38 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 given his first independent command, 
 which issued in the magnificent vic- 
 tory of the Nile j under him Duncan 
 was at last appointed to the North Sea 
 fleet. " What can be the reason/' he is 
 said to have asked, "that 'KeppePs Dun- 
 can ' has never been brought forward ? " 
 As there was no answer to this question 
 except the explanation that Duncan's 
 merits had been overlooked, the ad- 
 miral was in February, 1795, given 
 charge of the North Sea fleet, the third 
 station in point of importance, the other 
 two being the Mediterranean and the 
 Channel. 
 
 The circumstances which required the 
 presence of a strong squadron in the 
 North Sea were these. In the course 
 of 1794 Holland had been conquered 
 by the French troops, the Prince of 
 Orange driven from his dominions, a dis- 
 orderly republic of the French type 
 under French protection established 
 in the country, and the Dutch navy 
 
ADAM DOTCAN 39 
 
 added to the forces of France. As this 
 navy included thirty-seven ships of the 
 line — all, it is true, of small size — and 
 forty-four frigates, transferred from the 
 coalition against France to the new- 
 French coalition against England, this 
 was a serious embarrassment and danger. 
 Three of the Dutch warships were seized 
 in British ports on the outbreak of war 
 with Holland. Most of the others were 
 concentrated in the Texel, the deeper of 
 the entrances to the Zuyder Zee. But 
 as yet only three or four of the Dutch 
 ships of the line were in a condition to 
 take the sea. It was Duncan's task to 
 watch these ships closely and prevent 
 their leaving port, to blockade the Dutch 
 coast and cut off all the Dutch trade. 
 Being a nation which subsisted upon 
 commerce, the Hollanders might be 
 brought to book by this method of press- 
 ure. Duncan sailed for his station in 
 the Venerable, seventy- four, in February. 
 He had a very scratch force under his 
 
40 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 orders. The Venerable was a vessel 
 built for war ; but two of his ships of 
 the line, of fifty-six and fifty-four guns 
 respectively, were converted East India- 
 men, weak in scantling, not stoutly tim- 
 bered, and none too seaworthy. They 
 did not, however, draw much water j and 
 light draught was a prime necessity for 
 operations in the shallows of the Dutch 
 coast. Besides these unpromising craft, 
 he had one sixty-four-gun ship, two 
 frigates, and some luggers and cutters. 
 His squadron was constantly changing ; 
 for, whenever vessels were required for 
 other stations or for convoy duty, they 
 were withdrawn from his command of 
 necessity, inasmuch as the British navy 
 was now sorely taxed by the struggle. 
 He was stripped of frigates ; yet the 
 spirit of Nelson in 1805 — " I am not 
 come forth to find difficulties, but to re- 
 move them ' ? — breathed in his heart, 
 and, though he may at times have remon- 
 strated, he never fretted. In the summer 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 41 
 
 he was re-enforced by a Russian fleet of 
 twelve sail of the line and six frigates, 
 under Vice- Admiral Hanikov and Rear- 
 Admirals Makarov and Tate. Makarov 
 was an ancestor of the distinguished 
 Russian admiral of our own day. Tate 
 was an Englishman, of whom many 
 were at this date to be found in the Rus- 
 sian fleet. Admiral Hanikov was placed 
 under Duncan's orders, nominally ; but 
 the situation was painful and undig- 
 nified for the British commander-in- 
 chief, and demanded all his tact. Here 
 was he, with a promiscuous collection 
 of British odds and ends, while a power- 
 ful and homogeneous Russian force 
 was subordinated to him. Compared 
 with their ships, his cut a lamentable 
 figure. It is true that the battle effi- 
 ciency of the Russians at this date was 
 by no means high, and that, poor though 
 the British ships might look, they had 
 plenty of fight in them, as was proved 
 at Camperdown. The Russian admiral, 
 
42 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 though he seems to have been an excel- 
 lent and tactful officer at the bottom, 
 had to stand a good deal on his dignity 
 to satisfy the Empress Catherine and ap- 
 pease such opinion as existed in Eussia. 
 Hence no end of trouble about such pal- 
 try matters as salutes and who should 
 fire the morning gun. Meantime there 
 were reports that the Dutch were on the 
 eve of putting to sea, though their fleet 
 was known to be very ill-manned. 
 
 Yet Duncan, whose soul was above 
 petty annoyances, whose one thought 
 was the service of his country, had his 
 whole heart in his work, distasteful 
 though it might seem. The proof of it 
 was in the fact that he declined the 
 most magnificent command that the ad- 
 miralty had to offer him, — that of the 
 Mediterranean fleet. It was, perhaps, a 
 misfortune both for himself and for his 
 country that he arrived at this decision ; 
 yet few will blame him for resolving to 
 carry through the work that he had in 
 
ADAM DUKCAN 43 
 
 hand. But in the Mediterranean the 
 chances of distinction were innumerable, 
 the harvest of glory to be reaped ex- 
 ceedingly rich. With his leadership, 
 we may confidently assert, St. Vincent 
 would have been afar more decisive battle 
 than it actually was. Still, Jervis, who 
 ultimately went out and whose claims 
 were pressed by Duncan himself, was 
 certainly the second best of the senior 
 officers in the navy j and he worked 
 wonders. 
 
 Duncan was thorough in his work. 
 Insufficient attention has been directed 
 to the skill and seamanship which 
 kept poor, badly manned ships close up 
 to the enemy's ports whenever the wind 
 blew from the east. The blockade of 
 Brest about this time was conducted in 
 a very half-hearted manner by the Chan- 
 nel fleet, which always had the pick of 
 the warships in home waters. But Dun- 
 can in his command displayed all the 
 daring which two years later he evinced 
 
44 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 in his attack at Carnperdown. And the 
 greatness of the performance is enhanced 
 by the fact that the commander-in-chief 
 was not in the flower of age, when bold 
 and decided action comes most naturally 
 to men. He was already old, and his con- 
 stitution had been wrecked by the ter- 
 rible climate of the West Indies. 
 
 In August, during one of Duncan's 
 absences from his station, to water and 
 refit his ships, the Dutch put to sea. 
 They were seen and watched by the 
 daring little lugger Spider; and it was 
 not long before their enemies, in the 
 shape of the British and Eussian fleets, 
 were after them. The sortie, however, 
 appears to have been simply for exer- 
 cise ; and they returned to port before 
 they could be brought to battle. But 
 their movements unquestionably made 
 the British government very anxious ; 
 and urgent appeals were sent out from 
 Lord Spencer to Duncan to strike a hard 
 blow as soon as possible against them. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 45 
 
 It is a startling fact, which illustrates 
 the low quality of the British ships un- 
 der Duncan, that on this occasion the 
 Russians, though uncoppered and foul, 
 sailed better than their allies. 
 
 In October of this year and upon Dun- 
 can's station occurred a serious mutiny, 
 which was a premonitory symptom of 
 the extreme discontent existing in the 
 lower ranks of the navy. The battle- 
 ship Defiance was lying in Leith Roads, 
 when on October 18, 1795, a party of 
 seamen rose, flung round-shot about be- 
 tween decks, — a method of showing dis- 
 content, — and seized the ship. The 
 foremost guns were loaded and pointed 
 aft towards the officers through loop- 
 holes in a barricade of hammocks. The 
 captain, Sir George Home, hearing what 
 had happened, came off from the shore, 
 followed by an armed party from the 
 ship of the line Asia in the latter' s boats. 
 He was allowed to come on board ; but 
 the armed party were warned off, and 
 
46 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 muskets fired at them through the port- 
 holes. The crew broke into the stew- 
 ard's room to get at the grog, and among 
 other mutinous acts snapped a pistol at 
 a steward's mate. A letter was written 
 to the captain, complaining that the men 
 were kept on board like convicts, that 
 they had no liberty, that their grog was 
 heavily watered, and so forth. 
 
 They first refused to admit any marines 
 on board, — seemingly there were none 
 in the ship when the mutiny broke 
 out, — and then, with a strong tincture 
 of sedition, suggested that certain of the 
 men who were "Boyalists" should be 
 removed when the marines did come on 
 board. They asserted that they were 
 flogged by the officers with u bosun' s- 
 mates' canes," and had no hope of 
 redress for their wrongs from the quar- 
 ter-deck. They wound up by calling 
 themselves a " dutiful ship's company 
 upon honourable terms." 
 
 Two captains went on board to inquire 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 47 
 
 into these grievances, and with the aid 
 of the ship's officers and the loyal 
 amongst the crew seized eight of the 
 ringleaders. As the eight, however, 
 were being led over the side to go on 
 board the Asia, the mutiny broke out 
 again ; and the prisoners had to be re- 
 leased. Next day troops arrived and 
 forced their way into the shij), though 
 guns were pointed at the boats in which 
 they came, and shot thrown into them, 
 to sink them. Finally, fifteen of the 
 mutineers were brought to trial before a 
 court-martial, and nine sentenced to be 
 hanged, five to receive three hundred 
 lashes with the cat-of-nine-tails, and one 
 one hundred lashes. That the discon- 
 tent was not confined to the North Sea 
 fleet was proved by the fact that almost 
 simultaneously there were similar out- 
 breaks in the Windsor Castle, Terrible, and 
 Culloden on the Mediterranean station. 
 The truth was that the seamen were in 
 many respects extremely badly used j and 
 
48 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 the French ideas of "liberty, equality, 
 and fraternity," fermenting in many 
 men's minds, accentuated the sense of 
 exasperation. Some seasonable reforms 
 might at this period have averted further 
 mischief $ but, unhappily, Lord Spencer 
 and the admiralty board were blind to 
 this internal danger. That Duncan real^ 
 ised the many wrongs of the seaman was 
 clearly shown by his subsequent action 
 in 1797. He is known to have made 
 many representations on their behalf in 
 his private correspondence with Lord 
 Spencer, which unhappily has perished, 
 though possibly even he did not yet 
 understand how threatening the situa- 
 tion was becoming. In the light of 
 these earlier mutinies, however, in which 
 many of the grievances afterwards put 
 forward in the great rising of 1797 were 
 pressed upon the notice of the authori- 
 ties, it is impossible to pretend, as have 
 some of the historians, that the great 
 explosion came suddenly and without 
 warning. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 49 
 
 The winter of 1795 and the early 
 months of 1796 passed in the monoto- 
 nous blockade of the Texel, Duncan's 
 mainstay still remaining, much to his 
 indignation, the Eussian fleet. He com- 
 plains, and not without reason, that he 
 is the first British admiral that ever was 
 ordered on service with foreigners only. 
 The worst of it was that Eussian seaman- 
 ship was hardly equal to the severe trial 
 of winter cruising. Indeed, a good many 
 British officers roundly declared that this 
 country could have done just as well 
 without the Eussians, and thus have 
 saved no small amount of money, since 
 we had, by the terms of our military un- 
 derstanding with Catherine, to victual 
 the eight thousand Eussian seamen of 
 the fleet and to keep the eighteen ships 
 in good order. 
 
 In the autumn of 1796 the position 
 grew more dangerous for England. The 
 first object of the French in conquering 
 Holland was to facilitate the invasion 
 
50 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 of England. It is doubtful whether the 
 cooler heads across the Channel believed 
 in such a scheme, but the fiery Hoche 
 certainly did. The first blow was to be 
 struck at Ireland, with which country 
 the French authorities maintained con- 
 stant relations and of whose disloyalty 
 they had no substantial doubts. Expe- 
 ditions were simultaneously to be directed 
 upon that island from the Texel and 
 from Brest. Upon the shore of the 
 Channel the equipment of that flotilla 
 of invasion began, which five years later 
 was to claim Nelson's attention. The 
 Spanish navy was added by alliance to 
 the strength of France and Holland. 
 The danger of the British position was 
 aggravated by a series of bad harvests at 
 home, which led the privy council in the 
 prevailing scarcity to call upon English- 
 men to put their households on an allow- 
 ance of one quartern loaf a head a week, 
 and by a great rise in prices, which bore 
 cruelly upon the poor. The ominous cry 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 51 
 
 of "Bread and peace!" was heard in 
 the streets. 
 
 Anxious to strike a heavy blow at 
 and to disable one at least of their 
 enemies, the British government de- 
 cided upon an attack on the Island of 
 Texel and an attempt to destroy the 
 Dutch fleet with fire-ships. It was 
 known that the Dutch were extremely 
 discontented with their new masters, and 
 that the Dutch navy was by no means 
 devoted to France. Duncan, however, 
 when the scheme was broached to him, 
 opposed it. To effect anything con- 
 siderable, a large body of troops must 
 necessarily have been employed ; and to 
 disembark and re-embark them upon 
 a storm-swept, harbourless coast, in 
 the face of a vigilant enemy, during 
 the winter months, was a very dan- 
 gerous enterprise. Lord Spencer re- 
 minded the admiral, in words which 
 anticipate his instructions to Nelson 
 before the Nile campaign, of the 
 
52 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 fact that risks must be run to achieve 
 great success, and that, if there was fail- 
 ure, it would lie at the doors of the 
 admiralty. This was proper, generous, 
 and high-spirited counsel to give ; and 
 no man could be the worse for such a 
 reminder. Yet Duncan's objections 
 were based upon the exact knowledge 
 which the seaman possesses, and events 
 proved that he was right. He gave the 
 most loyal and hearty support to the 
 scheme of the ministry ; yet it miscar- 
 ried, not through any fault of his, but 
 through the inevitable malice of cir- 
 cumstances. The failure led him to 
 fear that the ministry would suspect he 
 had acted half-heartedly, and thus pained 
 him the more. He tendered his resigna- 
 tion, but it was very rightly refused. 
 
 On this expedition he gave out to his 
 fleet a plan of battle in case he found 
 it practicable to go in and attack the 
 Dutch in the Texel. The plan reveals 
 the tactician behind the man of courage 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 53 
 
 and of action. Duncan is known to 
 have studied the work of that well-known 
 writer upon tactics, Clerk of Eldin ; for 
 he was not one of those foolish people 
 who believed that a commander-in-chiefs 
 one duty in the presence of an enemy 
 was to go at him, no matter how. He 
 saw that there was a right and a wrong 
 way of going at the enemy. His instruc- 
 tions provided for anchoring his own 
 ships by the stern, — a manoeuvre of 
 which Nelson availed himself at the 
 Nile and which may have been sug- 
 gested to him by Duncan's dispositions. 
 It enabled any ship engaged to move 
 forwards or backwards by the simple 
 expedient of shortening in or paying out 
 — veering, that is to say — cable. But 
 what differentiates Duncan's plan from 
 Nelson's is that Duncan does not seem 
 to contemplate the concentration of his 
 whole force upon a detail of the enemy 
 and of so crushing his adversary piece- 
 meal. The superior generalship and 
 
54 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 audacity of Nelson enabled him to im- 
 prove upon Duncan's plan. 
 
 For the rest, Duncan, like Nelson, left 
 his captains a free hand in matters of 
 detail. Like Nelson, he had frequent 
 interviews with them, and took care that 
 they should be saturated with his ideas. 
 He does not, however, appear to have 
 entertained as much as did his great 
 junior, who devoted no small part of 
 his income to hospitality in the fleet. 
 Duncan lived, says Captain Hotham 
 who served under him, in a very fru- 
 gal manner, and kept little state. Hav- 
 ing a family dependent upon him and 
 not being a rich man, it was want of 
 money, and not any want of generosity 
 in his disposition, that compelled him 
 to restrict his entertainments. He was, 
 however, of a retiring disposition by 
 nature. 
 
 After this unsuccessful expedition, 
 Lord Spencer suggested that it would 
 be best during the severe winter weather 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 55 
 
 for the main body of the fleet to lie at 
 Yarmouth, which was distant about one 
 hundred and twenty-five miles from the 
 Texel, leaving only light ships, such as 
 cutters and frigates, to watch the pro- 
 ceedings of the enemy, who could now 
 count upon a force of twenty-one ships 
 of the line. The French plan of cam- 
 paign might be suspected to be this : 
 Two or more of the many blockaded 
 squadrons were to force their way to 
 sea, or seize an opportunity when the 
 blockading fleets were refitting or 
 driven off their station by gales. The 
 French squadrons would then unite at 
 some prearranged rendezvous, and fall 
 upon one of the blockading British fleets 
 before it could be warned. The British 
 plan was to frustrate such a scheme by 
 rendering it impossible for any of the 
 blockaded fleets to put to sea without 
 being promptly brought to action or 
 hotly and closely pursued. The pieces on 
 the chess board — that is to say, the vari- 
 
56 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ous battle squadrons — are thus given by 
 Admiral Colomb for the year 1796. 
 They varied somewhat from day to day. 
 
 France, Holland, England and 
 
 and Spain. Russia. 
 
 Battleships. Battleships. 
 
 26 
 29 
 2 
 31 
 20 
 5 
 
 Toulon 15 North Sea . . . 
 
 Cartagena ... 18 Channel . . . 
 
 Cadiz 3 Irish coast . . 
 
 Ferrol 26 Mediterranean . 
 
 Guarnizo .... 7 West Indies . . 
 
 Brest 21 North America 
 
 Texel 21 The Cape . . . 
 
 Newfoundland . . 7 India 
 
 Havana 18 
 
 136 
 
 5 
 
 126 
 
 Thus, the enemy had a very consider- 
 able advantage in numbers, though this 
 was to a great extent neutralised by the 
 divided commands and manifold jealous- 
 ies which are weaknesses inseparable 
 from an alliance of three powers. 
 
 For the escape of the Dutch fleet in 
 the Texel an east wind was a necessity 
 in days when shirks had to rely entirely 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 57 
 
 upon sail power. Consequently, when 
 the wind was from the west, the British 
 blockade could he safely relaxed. The 
 Dutch anxiously watched the weather- 
 cock 5 but, when the British fleet was 
 absent, the wind blew steadily from 
 the west, and, when the wind was in 
 the east, Duncan was always off the 
 anchorage. At the close of the year, 
 however, a French expedition did slip 
 out of Brest harbour, owing to the care- 
 less watch maintained by Bridport in 
 the Channel ; and, though it achieved 
 nothing, we had to thank fogs and bad 
 weather, and the chapter of accidents 
 generally, and not any acumen on the 
 part of the admiral in charge of the 
 Channel fleet. Moreover, the expedition 
 caused very great uneasiness ; for the dis- 
 content of Ireland was perfectly well 
 known in London, and, had any consid- 
 erable French force landed there, the 
 consequences might have been most dis- 
 astrous. 
 
58 ADAM DUKCAN 
 
 All through the winter of 1796-97 
 this menace of invasion was maintained 
 by the enemy. Large forces were held 
 ready at Brest, at Dunkirk, and at the 
 Texel. The equipment of a flotilla of 
 long boats was pushed steadily forward 
 by the French authorities, and from 
 time to time there were alarms that the 
 enemy had put to sea. Great prepara- 
 tions were made in England to meet the 
 invader on his landing, should he escape 
 the vigilance of our fleets. Every one 
 armed and drilled in the militia, yeo- 
 manry, or volunteers. Women and 
 children — and some timorous men — 
 removed from the eastern and southern 
 seaboard, to be safe when the enemy 
 came at last. 
 
 In March there was a report that the 
 Dutch were out, and the British fleet at 
 once hurried towards the Texel to meet 
 it. Duncan had been considerably re- 
 enforced and could now muster thirteen 
 ships of the liue, fourteen frigates, and 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 59 
 
 nineteen small craft, besides three Eus- 
 sian battleships and five Eussian frig- 
 ates. Unfortunately, the report proved 
 groundless : the Dutch fleet never moved. 
 The wind came round from the east to 
 the west, and Duncan was recalled to 
 Yarmouth. 
 
 It was after this fruitless voyage that 
 the great mutiny in the British fleet 
 began. In March, Lord Howe, who was 
 always regarded by the seamen as their 
 trustiest friend, received several peti- 
 tions from ships in the Channel fleet, 
 urging the need of an increase in the 
 seaman's pay, as, owing to the great rise 
 in the price of food and of the necessa- 
 ries of life which had occurred since the 
 outbreak of war, both the seamen them- 
 selves and their wives and families were 
 in terrible penury. They bitterly com- 
 plained that, while the pay of soldiers 
 and militia had been augmented, the 
 royal navy was forgotten. They pro- 
 tested that they were actuated by no 
 
60 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 spirit of sedition or disaffection, but by 
 want. Unhappily, Howe paid no atten- 
 tion to these petitions ; and the next 
 incident was that the Channel fleet at 
 Spithead refused to put to sea. The 
 admiralty were informed by Lord Brid- 
 port that it was impossible to use vig- 
 orous measures against the mutineers, 
 inasmuch as the whole fleet was con- 
 cerned. 
 
 The word "mutiny" is, perhaps, an 
 anomaly as applied to the state of things 
 now existing in the British fleet, since 
 u mutiny" has associations of violence 5 
 but none as yet was shown to the officers. 
 The men seem to have despaired of 
 obtaining redress for their grievances by 
 any other method than the one adopted. 
 They protested their loyalty to the 
 crown at every juncture, and there is 
 no reason to doubt their protests. A 
 petition was now laid before the admi- 
 ralty from the seamen, asking for certain 
 definite reforms. It opened with the 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 61 
 
 sanguine anticipation that the admiralty 
 and nation would 
 
 acknowledge our worth and good services both 
 in the American war and this, for which good 
 services your lordship's petitioners do unani- 
 mously agree in opinion that their truth to the 
 nation and laborious industry in defence of their 
 king and country deserve some better en- 
 couragement than they meet with at present. 
 
 The demands were as follows (they are 
 given in Italics to distinguish them from 
 the author's comment) : — 
 
 1. Wages to be raised. This was sim- 
 ple justice, when the soldiers' pay had 
 been increased, and the price of all 
 necessities had greatly advanced. 
 
 2. Provisions to be of better quality and 
 to be supplied in full weight, sixteen ounces to 
 the pound ; bread, and not flour, to be issued 
 in port, and vegetables to be supplied. It 
 was a great grievance that meat was 
 only served out fourteen ounces to the 
 pound, the other two ounces by a ser- 
 vice custom having become the purser's 
 
62 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 perquisite. Cheese dwindled down to 
 eleven and two-thirds ounces to the 
 pound. This caused soreness, and led 
 the men to think they were cheated by 
 their officers. It was not unreasonable 
 to ask for fresh bread and vegetables, 
 when circumstances rendered their sup- 
 ply possible. Vegetables were most nec- 
 essary to health on long cruises. 
 
 3. The sick to be better attended to, and 
 their necessaries not to be embezzled by the 
 surgeons. Too often the sick and 
 wounded were left to rot or starve. A 
 report dated March 25, 1797, by the 
 surgeon of the depot-ship and flagship 
 at the Nore, the Sandivich, gives a good 
 idea of the state of things prevailing. 
 An " infectious complaint, " probably 
 typhus, had broken out on board. The 
 men seized by this complaint, the report 
 proceeds, ' ' are dirty, almost naked, and 
 in general without beds. " It is of little 
 avail to prescribe medicines to " un- 
 happy sufferers who are so bare of com- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 63 
 
 mon necessaries and compelled to mix 
 with the throng by lying on the decks. ' ' 
 The number on board was fifteen or six- 
 teen hundred, when there was room, 
 perhaps, for, at the outside, a thousand 
 men. The authorities were warned that, 
 if the number was not lessened, many 
 must fall victims to contagion and 
 disease, and that the situation was re- 
 plete with anxiety. This was only three 
 weeks before the mutiny began. 
 
 4. Liberty on shore to be given, when 
 liossible. Generally speaking, the men 
 were confined on board, when in port, 
 for fear of desertion ; and for years they 
 might never set eyes on their wives and 
 families and homes. 
 
 5. The wounded to receive pay till they 
 recovered or were discharged. Their pay 
 was stopped when in hospital. In fact, 
 men were punished for their sufferings 
 m their country's service. 
 
 6. These and other grievances to be re- 
 dressed. Many complaints were made 
 
64 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 by the crews of tyranny and brutality 
 on the part of individual officers. The 
 tales of one captain's doings, who was 
 strenuously denounced for his ill-treat- 
 ment of his men, recall Smollett's Cap- 
 tain Oakum. Another committed sui- 
 cide because the admiralty would not 
 receive him. Investigation was after- 
 wards made as to the justice of these 
 complaints $ and, while some were capri- 
 cious and unjustifiable, the great major- 
 ity were ascertained to have foundation. 
 The demands of the seamen were so 
 reasonable, the sympathy of the nation 
 was, on the whole, so evident, the best 
 officers in the navy so clearly realised 
 reform was necessary, and the posi- 
 tion of the country robbed of its right 
 arm, the fleet, was so perilous, that the 
 admiralty granted the petition and a free 
 pardon to all that had been concerned in 
 the mutiny. The movement had rapidly 
 spread from Spithead to Plymouth, the 
 Nore and the North Sea fleet. But, 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 65 
 
 though the petition was granted, it was 
 not acted upon at once. Parliament 
 did not immediately vote the sums re- 
 quired for the increase in pay and in the 
 allowance of provisions. Short weight 
 of meat and cheese was still served out. 
 The men, distrustful and irritated at the 
 delay, began to think they were being 
 trifled with. At the end of April and 
 early in May, 1797, there was an alarm- 
 ing recrudescence of the mutiny. Sev- 
 eral ships belonging to Duncan's fleet 
 were at the Nore ; and on May 2 four of 
 these hoisted the red flag, sent many of 
 their officers ashore, and anchored across 
 the river Thames, where they began a 
 quasi-blockade of the port of London. 
 At Yarmouth, where the rest of the 
 North Sea fleet was lying, it will be seen 
 that there was further trouble. 
 
 From this day dates the mutiny at 
 the Nore, which was a far more danger- 
 ous affair than the original Spithead 
 mutiny. The ships concerned in it 
 
66 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 were, with few exceptions, units in 
 Duncan's fleet. The men composing 
 their crews had been hurriedly scraped 
 together, were strange to their officers 
 and to discipline, and included many 
 educated persons amongst their number, 
 who would naturally feel and resent the 
 brutalities of the service more than the 
 rough hands from the merchant service. 
 They were for these reasons more prone 
 to insubordination and readier to go to 
 extreme lengths when mutiny showed 
 itself. On April 30 there was an out- 
 break in Duncan's own flagship, the 
 Venerable, then lying in Yarmouth 
 Eoads. Her crew assembled on the 
 forecastle and in the shrouds, and sud- 
 denly gave three cheers. The Nassau 
 at once followed her example. Duncan, 
 in the Venerable, acted with the most 
 admirable tact and firmness. He mus- 
 tered the officers. The marines — who 
 rarely or never made common cause 
 with the seamen, and who, even to-day, 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 67 
 
 fraternise rather with the stoker than 
 the bluejacket proper, so enduring are 
 service traditions of hostility — fell in 
 under arms. Then he went forward 
 among the mutineers. His noble and 
 splendid appearance, his known affec- 
 tion for and sympathy with the common 
 seaman, and the simple eloquence with 
 which he appealed to every great motive 
 in his men had great influence with 
 them. He refused to permit his ad- 
 miral's flag to be lowered and replaced 
 by the red standard of revolt. He was 
 ready, too, to go to extremes j for it was 
 with difficulty that his chaplain re- 
 strained him from cutting down an in- 
 solent mutineer on the spot. Five ring- 
 leaders were seized and brought aft to 
 him on the quarter-deck, in the presence 
 of the whole crew. He sternly rebuked 
 them, showed them the wickedness of 
 mutiny at such an hour, and then par- 
 doned them. 
 Most admirals of the day would have 
 
68 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 court- mar tialled them and hanged them, 
 or at least have taken care that they 
 were flogged within an inch of their 
 lives. Accordingly, Duncan has been 
 censured for his mildness. But so 
 strong and so deep was the current 
 of mutiny that violent repression at 
 this juncture was altogether inexpedient 
 and impossible.* Nor was this gener- 
 ous humanity fruitless. Through the 
 trials of May and early June the Vener- 
 able 1 s crew stood by their admiral, and, 
 so doing, rendered the greatest of ser- 
 vices to their country. After genera- 
 tions cannot indorse the attacks made 
 upon Duncan in his own time. Eather, 
 he seems in his deep sympathy with his 
 
 * An attempt at a court-martial on a muti- 
 nous seaman led to the great outbreak of May 
 12 at the Nore. Because at a later date Lord 
 St. Vincent was able by the exercise of extreme 
 severity to stamp out the mutinous spirit in 
 the Mediterranean fleet, it by no means follows 
 that similar measures would have had a like re- 
 sult in the North Sea fleet. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 69 
 
 men and tenderness for them, and in his 
 aversion to savage punishment, to have 
 been ahead of his age, — ahead of such 
 great admirals as Hood and Jervis and 
 even Nelson. 
 
 In the Nassau the mutiny was tempo- 
 rarily got under. It may be noted that 
 an address of this ship's company sheds 
 light upon the maladministration which 
 produced the mutiny. It states that 
 nineteen months' wages were due, and 
 that the seamen were " in want of almost 
 every article of wearing apparel that 
 may conduce to render our lives comfort- 
 able in this situation of life." A few 
 days later the Standard rose, but by ex- 
 postulation was recalled to loyalty. To 
 stem the tide of insubordination, Dun- 
 can made the circuit of his ships, going 
 on board each, addressing the crew, and 
 examining into grievances. Of the 
 speeches which he delivered, only one 
 remains, addressed to the crew of the 
 Venerable; and, as it illustrates the ad- 
 
70 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 miral's character, the most striking pas- 
 sages in it deserve repetition; — 
 
 My lads, surrounded as Britain is with ene- 
 mies, still we have nothing to fear if the fleet 
 strictly adheres to its former character, which 
 never shone Avith more brightness than dur- 
 ing this war. . . . The regard we owe our coun- 
 try and our families, I think, should animate us 
 to exert ourselves in a particular manner, and 
 not flinch at the appearance of danger. You 
 see me now grown gray with fifty-one years' 
 service. In every ship I have had the honour 
 to command I have endeavoured to do justice 
 both to the public and the men I commanded, 
 and have often been flattered with particular 
 marks of their regard ; and I still hope, in spite 
 of all that has happened, this ship's company 
 have not lost their confidence in me. Both my 
 officers and I are always ready to redress any 
 supposed grievances, when asked in a proper 
 manner. 
 
 In all my service I have maintained my au- 
 thority, which I will not easily part with. I 
 shall take this opportunity of mentioning a 
 thing that has too often offended my ears in 
 this ship. I mean the profane oaths, and I will 
 say blasphemy, that too much prevails,— I really 
 believe often without meaning. But, if there is 
 a God,— and everything round us shows it,— we 
 ought to pay Him more respect. In the day of 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 71 
 
 trouble the most abandoned are generally the 
 first to cry for assistance and relief to that God 
 Whose name they are daily taking in vain. 
 With what confidence they expect it, they 
 know best. I am always happy to see you 
 cheerful and at play, but the noise and tumult 
 that seems at that time to prevail amongst you 
 looks more like a lawless set of men than a 
 well-disposed ship's company. 
 
 I hope you will attend to this; and, if what I 
 have said makes any impression, I shall expect 
 to see it by much alertness in doing your duty 
 and in obedience to your officers. God bless 
 you all ; and may He always have us under His 
 gracious protection and make us better men! 
 
 The men are said to have been deeply 
 moved — some even to tears — by this 
 noble appeal. They responded with a 
 letter from the ship's company, protest- 
 ing their sorrow at what had happened, 
 asking the admiral — who, as they said, 
 had proved to them a father — for his par- 
 don, assuring him of their future obedi- 
 ence and promising that they would fight 
 to the last if laid alongside the enemy. 
 Nor were these idle words. The Ven- 
 erable 1 s crew in the weeks that followed 
 
72 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 identified themselves with one of the 
 most heroic deeds that stand in the brill- 
 iant records of the British navy, and 
 finally effaced the stain of April 30 by 
 their surpassing devotion. 
 
 Yet there were more outbreaks in the 
 fleet. On May 3, in the House of Lords, 
 the Duke of Bedford made a speech, 
 which under the circumstances can only 
 be described as a wicked one, suggesting 
 that the gOA^ernment was not going to 
 carry out its promises to the seamen j and 
 an injudicious order was issued about the 
 same time by the admiralty, urging up- 
 on captains that the strictest discipline 
 should be maintained, and that at the 
 smallest show of mutiny the ringleaders 
 should be seized and brought to punish- 
 ment. There was at once a fresh out- 
 break at Portsmouth. At the Nore the 
 ships, which had for a week been pass- 
 ably obedient, rose again on May 12 j and 
 on the 13th, at Yarmouth, the Adamant 
 mutinied. In conformity with his custom, 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 73 
 
 Duncan went on board, and addressed 
 the crew. He told them that he did not 
 care a rap for any violence they pur- 
 posed against him, and that, though he 
 preferred to be loved rather than feared, 
 he would with his own hand kill any 
 one who showed himself insubordinate. 
 Towering head and shoulders above 
 them, he turned to them, and asked if 
 any man dared to challenge his author- 
 ity. A man did venture to do so, when 
 Duncan, whose enormous strength was 
 famous, seized him by the scruff of the 
 neck and held him with one arm, dang- 
 ling over the ship's side, while he bade 
 the crew look at the fellow who would 
 depose him from his command. His 
 manhood, his words, his assertion of his 
 physical advantage, weighed with the 
 men. The Adamant returned to obedi- 
 ence, and afterwards shared the Venera- 
 Me's glory. 
 
 Meantime at the Nore the state of 
 things grew worse and worse. The 
 
74 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 Sandwich, Inflexible, Directory Champion, 
 Brilliant, Inspector, Proserpine, Calypso, 
 Swan, and Tysiphone had all hoisted the 
 red flag, reeved ropes to the yard- 
 arms (to hang seamen who did not sup- 
 port the mutiny), elected committees, 
 and sent objectionable officers on shore. 
 Richard Parker, who had served in the 
 navy as a midshipman in the opening 
 year of the war, and who had been de- 
 graded to the ranks for insubordina- 
 tion took the lead. Delegates were de- 
 spatched by him to Yarmouth to stir 
 up Duncan's crews, and to Portsmouth; 
 while day by day the revolted seamen 
 paraded the streets of Sheerness, with 
 bands playing and coloured papers in 
 their hats, bearing the inscription, u Suc- 
 cess to the delegates of the fleet." They 
 threatened to renew the blockade of the 
 port of London, if their demands were 
 not complied with ; and the government 
 was absolutely helpless, for it had no naval 
 force upon which it could rely to send 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 75 
 
 against them. Even the soldiers and the 
 militia were not altogether to be trusted. 
 Seditions proclamations were one fine 
 morning found posted up in the most 
 important barracks of the kingdom. 
 How critical was the situation was 
 shown by the price of consols, which in 
 May never rose above 49^, and were 
 seldom above 48 J. A monetary crisis 
 added to the general embarrassment 
 and alarm. And, although the news 
 of Jervis's victory over the Spaniards 
 at St. Vincent had come in oppor- 
 tunely to cheer the spirit of the na- 
 tion, there was the gravest fear as to 
 the issue of the twofold struggle, with 
 the mutinous fleet at home and with the 
 enemy abroad. 
 
 The Nore mutineers' demands went 
 far beyond those of the Spithead muti- 
 neers. Over and above all the conces- 
 sions made to the latter, they required 
 that liberty should be given as a matter 
 of right to every man in rotation, when 
 
76 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ships came into port ; that unpopular 
 officers should not be employed again in 
 the same ship, without the consent of 
 the company j that all who had deserted 
 should be pardoned ; that prize money 
 should be more equally divided ; and 
 that the articles of war should be recast, 
 and deprived of such clauses as were 
 likely to inspire " terror and prejudice 
 against His Majesty's service." They 
 also required the admiralty board to 
 come down to Sheerness, and confer with 
 them. Fortunately, on May 16 the 
 Channel fleet had returned to something 
 like order, though for some weeks 
 longer discipline could not be vigor- 
 ously enforced. This fact strengthened 
 the admiralty's hands. With some ex- 
 ceptions the demands were refused. 
 Troops and militia were poured into 
 Sheerness. The guns at Tilbury were 
 manned, and the furnaces for hot shot 
 kept in heat, in case the mutineers 
 should make a dash at London. A gen- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 77 
 
 eral exodus from Sheerness began, and 
 shops were closed in apprehension of a 
 conflict. There was actual firing at 
 Tilbury upon a boat-load of mutineers ; 
 and the boom of the guns was heard in 
 London, — the first shots fired in anger 
 near the capital since the day when 
 the Dutch sailed up the Medway and 
 attacked Chatham. 
 
 On receiving the reply, the mutineers 
 proceeded at once to action. A line of 
 ships was moored across the Thames, and 
 no vessel was permitted to pass it. The 
 close blockade of London began, — a 
 measure infinitely dangerous to the capi- 
 tal at a time when communications by 
 land were slow and difficult, before the 
 railway and canal system had been de- 
 veloped, and when London depended 
 upon the sea for its coal and innumer- 
 able other supplies. 
 
 In great alarm the admiralty ques- 
 tioned Duncan as to whether his fleet 
 could be trusted to act against the muti- 
 
78 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 neers. The answer could not be doubt- 
 ful. Even if the North Sea fleet could 
 be persuaded to put to sea against the 
 Dutch, — which was at least questionable, 
 — it could certainly not be induced to 
 act against the revolted sailors, who 
 were its crews' own countrymen and 
 friends. Moreover, day by day there 
 were fresh symptoms of mutiny. The 
 Trent refused to weigh anchor, when 
 ordered; and, though the crew of the 
 Venerable offered to " chastise" her, 
 probably any such action would have 
 been prevented by the other ships. Ac- 
 cordingly, Duncan pointed out to the 
 authorities "the disagreeable jealousy 
 from all other parts of the fleet ' ? which 
 any attempt at coercion by his squadron 
 must bring upon his men, though he 
 stated himself ready to execute orders, 
 if given, and could express complete 
 reliance upon his own Venerable. Her 
 crew, indeed, had once more sent him an 
 address, protesting their devotion : — 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 79 
 
 We will not [it said], as long as life will per- 
 mit, in any respect see either you or the flag 
 insulted. . . . While life remains in our hodies, 
 we will endeavour always to comply with your 
 wish and obey your command ; and, if necessity 
 require, you may depend on it we shall give you 
 a sufficient proof thereof. ... It would appear 
 unnatural for us to unsheathe the sword against 
 our brethren, notwithstanding we would wish 
 to show ourselves like men in behalf of our 
 commander, should necessity arise. 
 
 The admiralty decided not to test so 
 severely the North Sea fleet. But its 
 services were now required in another 
 direction, as news arrived from the Texel 
 that the Dutch fleet, with eighteen 
 ships of the line, twenty-two frigates 
 and sloops, and forty-two transports, was 
 on the eve of putting to sea, to attempt 
 the invasion of England. It had doubt- 
 less been emboldened by the mutiny, 
 which by paralysing the British fleet 
 had given the best of openings to the 
 enemy, and expected to be unopposed. 
 
 Duncan was directed to put to sea 
 from Yarmouth, and to proceed at once 
 
80 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 off the Texel, and there remain so long 
 as the wind blew from the east. But, 
 when he issued orders to weigh, the 
 Nassau and Standard refused to obey. 
 At this juncture arrived fresh and con- 
 tradictory instructions for Duncan with 
 his ships, or such as he could trust, to 
 prepare for an attack upon the mutineers 
 at the Nore, and to place his squadron in 
 a convenient position for that purpose. 
 The order was dated May 27, 1797 ; but it 
 was so much waste paper. It must have 
 reached Duncan on the 28th. By noon 
 on the 29th he was left with only his own 
 Venerable, the Adamant, Agamemnon, and 
 Glatton. An hour later the Agamemnon 
 and Glatton, though the former's ship's 
 crew had served loyally and brilliantly 
 under Nelson in other and happier 
 days, and though the latter' s men had a 
 remarkably good character, abandoned 
 him. Thus the admiral was deserted by 
 his fleet, and from twelve sail of the line 
 saw his force reduced to two. Far from 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 81 
 
 being ready to fight the Nore mutineers, 
 the revolted ships in the North Sea fleet 
 were prepared to fire upon the Vener- 
 able and upon the admiral's flag. 
 
 The mutineers of the North Sea fleet 
 assembled at Yarmouth, and took counsel 
 as to what they should do. It was finally 
 decided that four of the ships should 
 proceed to the Nore, and re-enforce the 
 mutineers at that anchorage. A fifth had 
 gone off before this decision was arrived 
 at, of her own accord. At this very 
 moment the wind showed an inclination 
 to come round to the east, thus render- 
 ing it imperative for the Dutch fleet and 
 army of invasion to be closely watched. 
 Strong appeals were made to the muti- 
 neers, but in vain. In this extremity the 
 heads of the admiralty went down to 
 Sheerness to try if any expostulation 
 could prevail upon the men at the Nore 
 to return to their duty. They were met 
 with impossible demands. There was 
 talk among the mutineers of a " Float- 
 
82 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ing Bepublic, ' ' and Parker had assumed 
 the style of " President." When the 
 rest of the North Sea fleet began to come 
 in, the tone of the rebels rose. Parker 
 had now twenty- four sail under his 
 orders, — a most formidable force. Effi- 
 gies of William Pitt, the prime minister, 
 were strung up at the yard-arm of sev- 
 eral ships, which led the London press 
 to report that the mutineers were taking 
 the lives of their officers, and greatly in- 
 creased the universal terror. Several 
 midshipmen and surgeons who had be- 
 come especial objects of dislike to the 
 crews were ducked, — dropped, that is 
 to say, from the yard-arm, tied hand and 
 foot, into the sea, and only hauled out 
 when at the last gasp. In short, there 
 was a dangerous outbreak of violence 
 against the officers. At the other end 
 of England a great conspiracy was de- 
 tected among the marines at Plymouth, 
 and no less than one hundred and fifty 
 men were found to have been sworn in. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 83 
 
 Yet at this juncture the nation was 
 saved by the firmness of the government 
 and by the heroism of Duncan. How- 
 ever just in the first instance the de- 
 mands of the mutineers, however inex- 
 pedient the delay in acceding to them, 
 matters had reached a pitch where fur- 
 ther concession was impossible and where 
 severity was absolutely essential, if the 
 navy and the nation were to survive. 
 All supplies were cut off from the muti- 
 neers ; and a royal proclamation was is- 
 sued, forbidding any intercourse with 
 them. Thirty thousand troops assem- 
 bled in arms between Dover and Graves- 
 end. All seamen who ventured ashore 
 were arrested. The buoys and beacons 
 in the Thames mouth were removed, to 
 prevent the escape of the ships to the 
 enemy. For there was talk amongst the 
 most extreme of the mutineers of carry- 
 ing over the fleet to the enemy. Al- 
 ready, however, a more moderate party 
 was showing itself among the men. 
 
84 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 Many of them — indeed, the great major- 
 ity — had never had any intention of 
 going to extreme lengths, and viewed 
 the suggestion of treason with horror. 
 Meanwhile Duncan, with the Venerable, 
 Adamant, and three small vessels, had 
 proceeded to the Texel. Inside the port 
 lay ninety-five hostile ships, fourteen of 
 the line ; but this great seaman was not 
 of a temper to shrink from confronting 
 such odds. His second in command, 
 whose gallantry at Camperdown after- 
 wards proved him a man of no com- 
 mon courage, urged him to retire to 
 Leith for safety. Duncan met this 
 counsel with a smile. Never did ad- 
 miral show greater audacity and deci- 
 sion than he, in this supreme hour of 
 his country >s fate. He sent for the cap- 
 tain of the Adamant, and instructed him 
 to fight her, side by side with the Vener- 
 able, till both ships went down. The 
 spirit which burnt in him he infused 
 into his men. He summoned the crew 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 85 
 
 of the Venerable, and told them, in his 
 plain heroic style, what he expected of 
 them. The Venerable was to hold her 
 post off the Texel, whether the Dutch 
 fleet came out or not. If they came out, 
 the water was shallow enough to suffer 
 her flag to fly above its surface after 
 she had been sunk. If she survived, he 
 would call upon his crew to act against 
 the Nore mutineers. 
 
 The crew stood by him. They soared 
 to his height of devotion, and answered 
 that they would obey. And so for three 
 days, while the wind blew from the 
 east, this miraculous Scotsman kept his 
 battleship moored at the entrance to 
 the channel, at a point so narrow that 
 no vessel could pass, and made signals 
 to the Adamant in the offing, which 
 passed them on in turn to a mythical 
 fleet, out of the Dutchmen's sight. To 
 bewilder and deceive the enemy, he tried 
 every stratagem. Now the Venerable and 
 Adamant flew admiral's flags. Next day 
 
86 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 they passed from the lofty estate of flag- 
 ships to the humbler position of ordi- 
 nary captain's commands. Now one ad- 
 miral's flag was of the blue and now of 
 the red, to give the impression that a 
 half-dozen of flag-officers and a score 
 of battleships were off the port. As it 
 was the usual British custom to keep the 
 bulk of the blockading force at some 
 distance from the blockaded port and 
 only one or two ships close in, this de- 
 vice succeeded brilliantly. The Dutch 
 were convinced that a strong fleet was 
 still off the Texel, notwithstanding the 
 mutiny. Thus the blockade was a 
 triumph of skill as well as of courage. 
 
 He knew [says his biographer] the critical 
 state of public affairs, that it required the most 
 bold and decisive measures ; and, whatever the 
 result might have been, he determined to abide 
 its issue. 
 
 What might not a leader so bold, 
 so capable, so ready to face the extrem- 
 est risks in his country's service, have 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 87 
 
 effected, in the flower of his age, in the 
 terrible days of the American war, when 
 England vainly sought a great admiral 1 
 During these eventful hours, when the 
 life of his country trembled in the bal- 
 ance, and any moment might have wit- 
 nessed a furious attack upon his two 
 battleships by overwhelming numbers, 
 he delivered another of his famous ad- 
 dresses to his men, instinct, as are all 
 his spoken words, with a spirit of lofty 
 devotion: — 
 
 To be deserted by my fleet [he said] in the face 
 of an enemy is a disgrace which, I believe, never 
 before happened to a British admiral ; nor could 
 I have supposed it possible, My greatest com- 
 fort under God is that I have been supported by 
 the officers, seamen, and marines of this ship, 
 for which, with a heart overflowing with grati- 
 tude, I request you to accept my sincere thanks. 
 , . . May God, Who has thus far conducted you, 
 continue to do so ; and may the British navy, 
 the glory and support of our country, be restored 
 to its wonted splendours and be, not only the 
 bulwark of Britain, but the terror of the world. 
 But this can only be effected by a strict adher- 
 ence to our duty, and obedience ; and let us pray 
 
88 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 that Almighty God may keep us in the right 
 way of thinking. God bless you all ! 
 
 Between the 5th and the 10th of June 
 the crisis passed. Two fresh battleships 
 joined Duncan on the first date. On the 
 second, Sir Eoger Curtis arrived with 
 seven more. His men had returned to 
 their duty, though on the way round 
 from Spithead there was some trouble as 
 to the short weight of meat, which, 
 after all the dangers and crises of the 
 two past months, was still issued with 
 an indifference to results almost crim- 
 inal. They all protested their loyalty 
 and their abhorrence of ' ' French prin- 
 ciples." With eleven British ships of 
 the line, Duncan had no fears. The 
 Dutch had let slip the favourable mo- 
 ment. It is now known that their 
 seamen also were mutinous for want of 
 pay. The situation had been saved by 
 Duncan's happy audacity. 
 
 At the Nore the conflict with the 
 mutineers, after some days of great un- 
 
ADAM DUKOAN 89 
 
 certainty, issued in the complete triumph 
 of authority. On June 5, it is true, the 
 London Oracle noted that no less than 
 one hundred and fifty colliers were lying 
 in the Thames, detained by the muti- 
 neers ; but already in the revolted fleet 
 difficulties were beginning to arise as to 
 provisions and water. The seamen of the 
 Plymouth and Portsmouth ships plied 
 the mutineers with proclamations call- 
 ing upon them to return to their duty. 
 Many of the Channel ships even went 
 so far as to offer "to defend our king 
 and country against domestic as well as 
 foreign foes. 7 ' The " Floating Kepub- 
 lic," with its president, had more than 
 a suggestion of French lawlessness about 
 it, and was detestable even to the more 
 liberally inclined Englishmen. 
 
 Under these circumstances the re- 
 volted fleet began to melt away. At 
 it greatest strength it had mustered 
 fourteen ships of the line, five frigates 
 and seven small craft, — a truly formid- 
 
90 ADAM DOTCAN 
 
 able force. On June 9 several of the 
 ships loosed their foretopsail, as if to put 
 to sea. On this suddenly two ships of 
 the line ran out from the rebel fleet, and 
 under a heavy fire made for the shelter 
 of the Sheerness batteries. One ran 
 aground, and was for an hour cannonaded 
 by the mutineers, but very half-heart- 
 edly, as only one man on board her 
 was wounded, and little damage done. 
 On the following days other vessels 
 copied their example, and there were 
 signs that the ringleaders meant to 
 escape to France in a small ship. 
 
 The mouth of the Thames was, how- 
 ever, most vigilantly watched by cruis- 
 ers ; and only about twenty were able to 
 get away in boats, among whom were 
 none of the most conspicuous men. On 
 the 14th the Sandwich submitted. Par- 
 ker asked her crew whether they would 
 give the ship up or stand by the dele- 
 gates and ringleaders. The crew wished 
 not to be the last to surrender, and, as 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 91 
 
 they could see the mutinous fleet daily — 
 indeed, hourly — diminishing, answered 
 that the ship should be' given up. Par- 
 ker passed at once from the estate of 
 "President of the Floating Bepublic" 
 and acting rear-admiral of the rebels 
 to that of a prisoner whose death could 
 alone atone for his misdeeds. He was 
 confined at once, then put in irons and 
 sent ashore under a strong guard. A 
 week later a court-martial met to try 
 him. He behaved himself with dignity 
 and courage, protested that he had taken 
 command unwillingly and had through- 
 out restrained the mutineers; and the 
 general tendency of the evidence was 
 that, though he was unquestionably 
 guilty of mutiny, he had not been inso- 
 lent to the officers or permitted inso- 
 lence. He was sentenced to death, and 
 was hanged on board the Sandwich on 
 June 30. 
 
 On the eve of execution he wrote 
 a dying confession, designed, it would 
 
92 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 seem, to put a stop to the ill-treatment 
 of seamen in the navy. 
 
 I am to die [he said] a martyr in the cause 
 of humanity. I know the multitude thinks 
 hard things of me, . . . but my conscience testi- 
 fies that the part which I have acted among the 
 seamen is right. . . . How could I indifferently 
 stand by and behold some of the best of my 
 fellow-creatures cruelly treated by the very 
 loorst? ... I here solemnly declare that I was not 
 an original mover in the disturbances. ... I am 
 the devoted scapegoat for the sins of many. . . . 
 By the laws of war I acknowledge myself to be 
 legally convicted ; but by the laws of humanity 
 (which should be the basis of all laws) I die 
 illegally. 
 
 From first to last he denied that the 
 mutineers had maintained any treason- 
 able correspondence with France or 
 with the revolutionary party in Eng- 
 land, and after a close study of the rec- 
 ords of the mutiny the writer is inclined 
 to believe that he spoke the truth. At 
 the execution his conduct made a deep 
 impression on the officers He met his 
 fate like a man, with the words : — 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 93 
 
 I acknowledge the justice of the sentence 
 under which I suffer, and hope my death may be 
 deemed a sufficient atonement and save the 
 lives of others. 
 
 Thus passed from this mortal stage a 
 strangely interesting figure. The sea- 
 men, it is said, adored him to the last ; 
 and it is certain that he was no common 
 man. 
 
 We may rest assured that the trouble 
 would never have gone to serious lengths, 
 had not the seamen had real and 
 serious grievances. The risks for the 
 leaders were very great, since any fail- 
 ure meant for them death or flogging with 
 three hundred or five hundred lashes. It 
 is satisfactory to note that no very bloody 
 vengeance was wreaked upon the Nore 
 and North Sea fleet mutineers. All 
 the ringleaders, except the handful who 
 had escaped, were seized and tried by 
 court-martial, and a very large num- 
 ber sentenced to death. But only in a 
 few cases was the sentence carried out. 
 
94 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 The most notorious and the most forward 
 of the prisoners were hanged. The 
 others were detained in prison till the 
 victory of Camperdown gave the looked- 
 for opportunity of exercising mercy. It 
 was recognised by all the best naval 
 officers that there was a great deal to be 
 said for the men. Duncan had in the 
 past made repeated representations on 
 their behalf to the admiralty, — not 
 always, unfortunately, with success. 
 " Looking, as he did, on the seamen as 
 his children," says his historian, Lord 
 Camperdown, i l he could not feel harshly 
 towards them." He had urged the 
 establishment of a naval militia, from 
 which men might be drafted into the 
 navy, instead of the cruel and unfair 
 press. He had also advised a more even 
 distribution of prize money. But he was 
 ahead of his time, and the navy had to 
 wait a generation before these changes 
 were made. 
 
 The mutiny, though suppressed in the 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 95 
 
 home squadrons, smouldered on in our 
 foreign fleets. At the Cape, on the 
 Mediterranean, in the West Indies, and 
 on the Newfoundland station there were 
 dangerous outbreaks. Many grievances 
 still remained unredressed j and so late 
 as 1805, in the opinion of capable judges, 
 the temper of the men was very bad, and 
 another rising was apprehended. For 
 various reasons it did not take place, 
 but towards the close of the war the 
 moral of the navy declined. There was 
 much unpunished cruelty to the men on 
 the part of officers, and, in return, some 
 skulking in action by the men. 
 
 Duncan's services to his country in 
 the time of the mutiny should never be 
 forgotten. They are an even stronger 
 claim upon the gratitude of posterity 
 than the great victory of Camperdown, 
 and at the time they were very justly 
 commended by Pitt. It would seem that 
 the bold blockade of the Texel saved 
 England from invasion, since it is not 
 
96 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 probable that the Dutch sailors would 
 have refused to go out, had they seen 
 that no British fleet was watching them ; 
 and the consequences of the landing of a 
 powerful invading force, commanded by 
 such a general as Hoche, could not but 
 have been most disastrous at a moment 
 when England was divided and hesitat- 
 ing within and hard pressed without. 
 
 For many weeks after the mutiny had 
 ended — all through the summer and 
 autumn — the blockade of the Texel was 
 continued by Duncan with unremitting 
 vigilance and steadily increasing forces. 
 A Franco-Dutch force of thirty-six thou- 
 sand men was still waiting to cross the 
 North Sea, but it was never given the 
 chance. The idea of " corking up" the 
 entrance to the harbour — an operation 
 which, a century later, the Americans 
 attempted at Santiago — was discussed 
 between the admiral and Lord Spencer. 
 But it was never carried out, — prob- 
 ably, we may guess, because the admiral 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 97 
 
 wanted to get the Dutchmen out and 
 strike a decisive blow against them. In 
 August a series of heavy gales began, 
 which sorely tried the very indifferent 
 vessels of the blockading fleet j yet Dun- 
 can still held steadily to his station, 
 amidst the admiration of Europe. Not 
 till September 26 did he put back to 
 port, and then only under express orders 
 to refit. The Dutch were known to have 
 disembarked the troops. All danger of 
 invasion had passed, and no one could 
 have anticipated what did actually 
 happen. 
 
 Off the Texel was left Captain Trollope, 
 with the Russell, Adamant, and some small 
 craft, to keep a watch on the enemy. 
 Meanwhile Duncan's ships had, to some 
 extent, to be scattered for repairs, which 
 were needed after the gales. Three 
 ships of the line were sent to the Nore, 
 three more to other points. The rest 
 filled up with stores at Yarmouth. 
 They were engaged in this work when 
 
98 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 early on the morning of October 9, 1797, 
 a lugger came in, flying the signal that 
 the Dutch fleet was at sea. This was 
 indeed startling news. A number of 
 the officers and men were on shore : the 
 ships would necessarily be in great dis- 
 order j but without a moment's hesita- 
 tion or delay Duncan stood out, carrying 
 with him eleven ships. Three more 
 joined him in the afternoon, and he 
 pushed for the Dutch coast to fight the 
 decisive battle. 
 
 Precisely what motives led the Dutch 
 government to order out its fleet at such 
 a juncture is hard to decide. The ex- 
 pedition to Ireland had been seemingly 
 abandoned. There was not much to be 
 gained by fighting, and very much to 
 be lost. It was certain that the Dutch 
 ships after their long stay in harbour 
 would be in no condition to face even a 
 scratch British fleet, the units of which 
 were inured to keeping the sea and ac- 
 customed to a close blockade of a diffi- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 99 
 
 cult and dangerous coast. Nor had the 
 Dutch the excuse of superior force. In 
 number of ships of the line they were 
 just equal to Duncan, deducting his ves- 
 sels absent for repairs. In weight of 
 metal they were heavily outclassed. 
 Admiral de Winter, the Dutch com- 
 mander-in-chief, had in vain protested 
 against the folly and uselessness of a 
 sortie. The only result of opposing rash 
 action was that his courage was sus- 
 pected. He was ordered to fight near 
 the coast, if the enemy was inferior ; if 
 the enemy was slightly superior, he was 
 to remember that Dutch admirals had 
 often prevailed against odds ; if much 
 superior, he was to avoid action. 
 
 Accordingly, on October 7 his ships 
 came out. They were seen at once by 
 the daring British scouts, and word was 
 immediately sent to Duncan at Yar- 
 mouth and to the admiralty. The Brit- 
 ish cruisers strove in every way to 
 embarrass their enemy. They broke in 
 
100 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 upon his gun signals with confusing sig- 
 nals of their own j they hoisted flags as 
 if communicating with a large British 
 fleet to windward of them and out of 
 sight of the Dutch j and they gave 
 ample evidence not only of courage, but 
 of superb seamanship by the style in 
 which they kept touch with the hostile 
 force. They must have felt that this 
 force was their prey, when they saw that 
 there was much confusion in the Dutch 
 fleet and that no real attempt was made 
 to chase them off. De Winter stood 
 slowly down the coast of the Nether- 
 lands, towards the mouth of the Maas, — 
 as was suspected, but incorrectly, with 
 the intention of proceeding to Brest and 
 forming a junction with the French fleet. 
 Duncan was hurrying meanwhile to 
 the Texel, with a gale behind him, to 
 place himself in the line of the Dutch 
 retreat. Thence he was moving south- 
 ward, when on the morning of October 
 11 the masts of a cruiser came over the 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 101 
 
 horizon, with the signal of the enemy's 
 approach flying. The day was dark 
 and tempestuous. The wind blew in 
 sudden squalls. At 9 A.M. the Venera- 
 ble signalled to prepare for battle, the 
 work of an hour or more in each ship, 
 since the decks had to be cleared, the 
 yards secured, and the guns cast loose 
 and run out. A few minutes later the 
 detached squadron formed its junction 
 with the British fleet, raising the fight- 
 ing strength to sixteen ships of the line, 
 of which, however, nine were of small 
 size. The names of the ships were as 
 follows : — 
 
 74 guns. 
 
 Venerable 
 
 64 guns. 
 
 Agincourt 
 
 
 Monarch 
 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 
 Russell 
 
 
 Ardent 
 
 
 Montagu 
 
 
 Veteran 
 
 
 Bedford 
 
 
 Director 
 
 
 Powerful 
 
 
 Monmouth 
 
 
 Triumph 
 
 50 guns. 
 
 Isis 
 
 64 guns. 
 
 Belliqueuse 
 
 
 Adamant 
 
 Frigates and small craft : Beaulieu, 40 guns ; 
 Circe, 28 guns; Martin; Rose; King George; 
 Active; Diligent; Speculator. 
 
 At this date it was unusual for frig- 
 
102 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ates and small craft to fight in the line 
 of battle. They commonly kept out of 
 the contest, and were fired upon by 
 neither side. It was their duty to re- 
 peat signals, tow disabled ships, secure 
 beaten enemies, watch the hostile 
 cruisers, and save life. 
 
 As the British fleet drew nearer, the 
 Dutchmen came into full view. They 
 had fifteen sail of the line and one frigate 
 in line of battle, as follows : — 
 
 74 Brutus 9 
 
 " Staten Generaal 6 
 
 " Vrijheid 5 
 
 72 Jupiter 13 
 
 68 Haarlem 14 
 
 " Cerberus 12 
 
 " Leijden 10 
 
 " Admiraal de Vries .... 4 
 
 " Gelijkheid 1 
 
 64 Wassenaar 7 
 
 " Hercules 3 
 
 56 Alkmaar 15 
 
 " Batamer 8 
 
 " Beschermer 2 
 
 54 Delft 16 
 
 44 Mars 11 
 
 Figures after the ships show their place in 
 the line. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 103 
 
 Besides these were five frigates and 
 five brigs. These smaller vessels were 
 not in the line of battle, but were inside 
 it, between it and the Dutch coast, placed 
 so as to sweep with their broadsides the 
 intervals in the line of battleships. 
 From the British fleet the enemy bore 
 south-west. The direction of his line of 
 battle was, roughly, from south south-east 
 to north north-west ; and he was moving 
 northwards. The direction of the wind 
 was generally north-west, veering north- 
 wards during the morning, so that the 
 British fleet had the inestimable advan- 
 tage of the weather gage, enabling it 
 to compel battle and to determine the 
 moment and the conditions of collision. 
 
 Duncan's fleet, being rather a scratch 
 assemblage of indifferent ships than a 
 homogeneous force, such as Nelson in 
 1798 led to such brilliant victory in 
 the Mediterranean, could not be ex- 
 pected to manoeuvre with machine-like 
 precision. Some ships, which should 
 
104 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 have been present, were missing : others 
 had only recently joined ; and there was 
 some confusion and uncertainty in the 
 fleet itself as to the position of the vari- 
 ous ships in the line of battle, due, with- 
 out doubt, to the hurried departure 
 from Yarmouth and the difficulty of 
 communicating between the ships in 
 tempestuous weather. In fighting qual- 
 ity the North Sea fleet stood high, be- 
 cause the valour of the war-trained offi- 
 cers and the skill of the practised sea- 
 men would necessarily make themselves 
 felt in the combat. In fleet drill it was 
 seemingly most indifferent, as we should 
 anticipate where the units were con- 
 stantly changing. Its order at the 
 moment when the Dutch came into sight 
 was very scattered. About 9.20 Duncan 
 signalled to his ships to "form on the 
 starboard line of bearing," which would 
 bring all the battleships abreast into 
 a single sloping line, the direction of 
 which was, roughly, north-east and south- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 105 
 
 west. This sloping line would be gen- 
 erally parallel to and heading towards 
 the Dutch line. Advancing abreast of 
 each other, the British ships would thus 
 all simultaneously strike the Dutch line, 
 and engage ship to ship in the old- 
 fashioned way. 
 
 This line abreast was, however, for 
 various reasons, never properly formed. 
 The signal was seemingly not understood 
 by some ships, as passing squalls of rain 
 obscured the flag-hoists. Other ships, 
 scattered by the haste of their advance, 
 were not able to get into position before 
 a slight change of course — steering 
 more to the south — brought the line of 
 bearing, such as it was, into a loose line 
 ahead. At 10. 15 Duncan issued a fresh 
 order : the fleet was to give chase ; that 
 is to say, the individual ships were ab- 
 solved from all necessity of maintaining 
 any formation, and were to chase the 
 enemy as rapidly as they could. But, 
 though this order was bold and judi- 
 
106 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 cious, it would have the demerit of bring- 
 ing isolated British ships into collision 
 with the whole Dutch fleet j and, when 
 Duncan saw clearly that the Dutchmen 
 were not running away, but only drift- 
 ing slowly inshore, he took steps to con- 
 centrate his fleet. First, he directed the 
 British rear to make more sail, and then 
 the van to shorten sail. At 11.8 the 
 British fleet was a second time ordered 
 to form starboard line of bearing. It 
 does not appear that this signal was gen- 
 erally acted upon. The fleet was in 
 very scattered order, and probably many 
 ships did not see the signal. The day 
 was advancing. The Dutch were steadily 
 drifting inshore upon the shallows ; and, 
 these once reached, the British fleet could 
 only close at the most terrible risk. Im- 
 mediate action was necessary. No more 
 time could be spent in getting the scat- 
 tered fleet into a mathematically correct 
 line of battle. At 11.25 Duncan sig- 
 nalled to his ships each to steer for and 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 107 
 
 engage an antagonist. Ten minutes later 
 lie directed Yice- Admiral Onslow, in 
 command of the lee division, to attack 
 the enemy's rear. Last of all, about a 
 quarter to twelve, he directed the whole 
 fleet to pass through the gaps in the 
 enemy's line, and engage the enemy to 
 leeward. 
 
 Hitherto on this dull October morn- 
 ing none of Duncan's signals or tactical 
 ideas, so far as we can gather these from 
 his signals, had risen far above me- 
 diocrity. Before this he is revealed only 
 as a hard-fighting, bold, but common- 
 place sea officer ; though by a curious 
 accident, immediately after the order 
 to the van to attack the enemy's rear, 
 a signal had been hoisted by mistake 
 in the flagship, directing the British 
 weather or rear squadron to attack the 
 enemy's centre. This order would have 
 exactly anticipated the plan under 
 which Trafalgar was fought eight years 
 later. It may have contributed to the 
 
108 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 decisiveness of the victory on the present 
 occasion j for, though hauled promptly 
 down, it was seen elsewhere, and it is 
 quite possible that among the rear ships 
 were some that acted upon it. But the 
 decision to pass through the Dutch line 
 and engage the enemy to leeward was a 
 magnificent inspiration. It was risky, 
 of course, for the wind was blowing 
 straight upon the dangerous coast of 
 Camperdown, not far distant ; and dis- 
 abled ships, of which there must be no 
 few after a fierce battle with a stubborn 
 enemy, would be in great danger. But, 
 in Nelson's splendid words, " Nothing 
 great can be achieved without risk" ; 
 and Duncan's manoeuvre would effect- 
 ually deprive the Dutch of all chance of 
 retreat. At the same time, in rough, 
 squally weather there were distinct tact- 
 ical advantages in engaging to leeward 
 of an enemy, especially where, as in this 
 case, the ships on both sides were small. 
 The vessels to windward would find it 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 109 
 
 dangerous to open their lower- deck ports 
 on the engaged side ; while the guns, on 
 recoiling inward after firing, would be 
 apt to run out again by force of gravity 
 before they could be secured and loaded, 
 thus slowing the rate of firing. 
 
 Duncan himself had been on deck 
 since six o' clock. He showed all the sober 
 elation of a commander who is certain 
 of winning, but knows that the enemy 
 will make a fierce fight. He afterwards 
 told of the exhilaration he had felt at 
 the superb sight of the two large fleets 
 closing for battle. For himself he enter- 
 tained no fears. His whole attention 
 was riveted upon the giving of orders 
 and the directing of the movements of his 
 ship. As the Venerable bore down, he 
 called his officers on deck, 
 
 and in their presence prostrated himself in 
 prayer before the God of hosts, committing 
 himself and them with the cause they sus- 
 tained to His sovereign protection, his family to 
 His care, his soul and body to His providence. 
 
110 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 This simple and solemn act of devotion 
 performed, he could leave the issue of 
 life or death to God. The spirit of the 
 fleet was excellent. As the ships neared 
 the enemy, the crews cheered tumultu- 
 ously. The weather was now dark and 
 showery. The village of Camperdown 
 showed through the rain squalls twelve 
 miles off to the east south-east. 
 
 Exactly in what order the British fleet 
 opened battle cannot be determined. As 
 far as can be gathered from the logs of 
 the vessels engaged and from Dutch and 
 English accounts, a large group of British 
 ships under Vice- Admiral Onslow first 
 came into collision with the enemy. This 
 group, led by the Monarch, attacked the 
 Dutch rear. A second, led by Duncan in 
 the Venerable, attacked the sixth ship 
 from the Dutch van from a quarter to 
 half an hour after the battle had begun 
 in the Dutch rear. Duncan had the 
 famous signal, " Engage more closely, " 
 flying ; and it was needed, for, shameful 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 111 
 
 to relate, there was more than one Brit- 
 ish ship backward in entering the battle. 
 In particular, the Agincourt, Captain 
 Williamson, attracted unenviable atten- 
 tion. She should have been at hand to 
 support Duncan. Instead, however, of 
 using every effort to get into action, her 
 captain shortened sail and hovered out 
 of effective range. 
 
 A little after half-past twelve Onslow, 
 and some minutes later Duncan, struck 
 the Dutch, passing through their line 
 and engaging on both broadsides. The 
 Dutch reserved their fire till the last 
 moment, but then discharged two broad- 
 sides in rapid succession, with most 
 deadly effect. It is probable that, when 
 the line had been forced, the causes 
 already noticed as likely to affect the 
 action of the windward ships came into 
 play and slowed the Dutch fire, as it is 
 recorded that the British got off three 
 shots to the Dutch one. The Venerable 
 passed astern of the Staten Generaal, fly- 
 
112 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ing Eear- Admiral Storij'sflag, wore, and 
 engaged her. Duncan had picked as his 
 antagonist the Vrijheid flagship of the 
 Dutch commander-in-chief, Admiral de 
 Winter, but was unable to close with her 
 at once, as the Staten Generaal shot up 
 into the gap through which he had in- 
 tended to pass, and compelled his atten- 
 tion. The Venerable was some minutes 
 very hard pressed, indeed. She had 
 upon her hands the Vrijheid, Staten 
 Generaal, and possibly the Wassenaar; 
 while a Dutch frigate and a brig from 
 time to time fired at her. In this hour 
 of trial, Duncan's calm fortitude was an 
 example to his officers and men. As the 
 Venerable was going down to the battle, 
 an officer inquired how many ships she 
 was going to engage. "Beally, sir," 
 said Duncan, with the politest irony, "I 
 cannot ascertain ; but, when we have 
 taken them, we will count them." It 
 seems to have been a matter of honour 
 in the British navy of that day not to 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 113 
 
 duck the head at the unnerving whiz of 
 round-shot ; for there is a story of his 
 gently reminding a young midshipman 
 of the entire uselessness of that instinc- 
 tive act. 
 
 The Venerable once in the midst of the 
 press of enemy' s ships, the battle was for 
 her a mere question of endurance and 
 hard pounding. The Dutch seamen 
 fought admirably, — so admirably that 
 her position was for an hour a very 
 critical one. The absence of the Agin- 
 court and other ships which should have 
 been at hand to give her support made 
 her task all the more difficult, and 
 greatly increased the danger. The Belli- 
 queuse, however, commanded by a fiery 
 Scotch captain, Inglis, had now engaged 
 the Wassenaar astern. The little Ardent 
 had bravely closed with the far larger 
 Vrijheid ahead, and was suffering se- 
 verely. In quick succession her gallant 
 captain, Burges, — whose monument with 
 amazing want of patriotism the authori- 
 
114 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ties of St. Paul's recently endeavoured to 
 remove from its conspicuous position in 
 the cathedral, to make way for an artist, 
 — and her master were struck down : 
 her crew was decimated twice over ; yet, 
 in the fierce excitement on the bloody 
 decks, even women went to the guns. 
 So sustained and so desperate was the 
 contest in the centre that it was not till 
 the British ships of Admiral Onslow's 
 division, fresh from their victory over 
 the Dutch rear, began to arrive that the 
 enemy in the centre was battered to 
 pieces and compelled to surrender. 
 
 In the rear, by a lucky chapter of 
 accidents, Onslow's whole division con- 
 centrated upon the four last Dutch ships. 
 So crushing and effective was this con- 
 centration that the conflict in this direc- 
 tion was quickly terminated. At half- 
 past one the Dutch Jupiter struck, and 
 her example was speedily followed by 
 others. The Agincourt had attached her- 
 self to Onslow's division, — whether or not 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 115 
 
 she properly belonged to it is uncertain ; 
 and she, now the fight was won, fired into 
 one of the surrendered ships in an at- 
 tempt to show her prowess without in- 
 curring any serious risk. But others of 
 the division, with a correcter instinct of 
 what was required of them, moved for- 
 ward up the Dutch line towards the fu- 
 rious battle which was still raging in the 
 centre. Captain Bligh, of the Director, 
 in particular, a harsh and tyrannical 
 but most capable officer, deserves espe- 
 cial praise for the tactical insight which 
 led him to press forward to his com- 
 mander-in-chief's assistance at the earli- 
 est possible opportunity. His example 
 was followed by the Powerful, and after 
 some hesitation by the Montagu. The 
 arrival of this formidable re-enforcement 
 at once produced a decisive effect. The 
 Director, though hotly engaged, and the 
 Montagu had suffered very slight loss. 
 The Director placed herself upon the port 
 quarter of the Vrijheid, some twenty 
 
116 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 yards off, and poured in upon the 
 Dutch flag-ship a most appalling fire. 
 The dreadful hail of iron which was 
 now raining upon the Dutchmen from 
 not one, but three or four British ships, 
 thus reversing the situation earlier in 
 the afternoon, did its work Foretop- 
 gallantmast, foretopmast, foremast, main- 
 topgallantmast, maintopmast, mainmast, 
 and, last of all, the mizzenmast came 
 crashing down in quick succession. And 
 it was time. The Ardent was already an 
 unmanageable wreck, with one-third of 
 her complement dead or disabled. She 
 still fired desperately ; yet, save for this 
 seasonable succour, her peril must have 
 been extreme, since the Dutch ships 
 were executing against her that very 
 concentration which the British van had 
 employed so profitably against their rear. 
 The Venerable, too, had lost heavily. 
 All her masts were gravely wounded. 
 Forty-five shot had hulled her betwixt 
 wind and water. The pumps could 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 117 
 
 scarcely keep the inflow under. But 
 her men were inspirited by the sight of 
 the Dutch flags fluttering down in the 
 rear, and greeted each surrender with 
 cheers. As for her admiral, as a sea- 
 man who went through the battle by his 
 side wrote of him, "He was heart of 
 oak 5 . . . and, as to a broadside, it only 
 made the old cock young again." He 
 and the pilot were the only men un- 
 touched upon the Venerable' s quarter- 
 deck. When the maintopgallantmast of 
 the British flagship, with the colours, 
 was shot away, a seaman named Craw- 
 ford went aloft, and nailed a fresh flag 
 to the mast. While engaged in this, a 
 shot struck the mast and drove a splinter 
 right through his cheek, necessarily in- 
 flicting great pain. Yet he came down 
 amongst his cheering fellow-seamen with 
 the brave words, " Never mind: that's 
 naught." In this spirit the crew took 
 the punishment which the enemy in- 
 flicted. For a close action the Venera- 
 
118 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 ble J s battle was unusually protracted. 
 She was fiercely engaged for two to two 
 and a half hours, though experience 
 against the French had shown that their 
 ships rarely resisted a fierce battering for 
 more than an hour. But the Dutch 
 were better seamen, more skilful gun- 
 ners, and more obstinate fighters than 
 their allies. 
 
 Some moments of terrible anxiety 
 were caused the other British ships, 
 when a Dutch sixty- four, the Hercules, 
 close to the Venerable, took fire. She 
 was at first mistaken for the British flag- 
 ship. The fire, however, was quickly 
 got under, and the mistake recognised. 
 In the Staten Generaal a fire also broke 
 out, but was extinguished. Towards 
 three this ship retreated from the line in 
 a state of dreadful confusion, with her 
 rigging and sails shot to pieces, and un- 
 able to work her guns. The Yrijheid, 
 as we have seen, was in as bad or even 
 worse a case. Not a single officer re- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 119 
 
 mained unwounded. The captain had 
 received a mortal injury. All her col- 
 ours and all her masts had been shot 
 away. She floated on the surface of the 
 sea, a mere disabled target. At last, about 
 three or soon after, she surrendered to 
 a hail from the Montagu ; and with her 
 fall the battle ended. The firing died 
 away along the line, and it was possi- 
 ble to reckon the harvest of victory. 
 
 Of the sixteen ships which had formed 
 the Dutch line of battle, nine had 
 struck. Of the others, one or two at 
 the earliest opportunity had bolted. In 
 this ignominious category was the Be- 
 schermer. Further, two frigates were 
 captured. In all, seven Dutch ships of 
 the line — including the Mars y which 
 was, strictly speaking, a frigate — es- 
 caped 5 but most of them were sadly 
 knocked about, and in none of them was 
 there any fight left. The battle was de- 
 cisive in that it destroyed the Dutch 
 navy. Never again did this force cause 
 
120 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 serious uneasiness. More than one-half 
 of the enemy's ships in line were taken, 
 though these were in such a wretched 
 plight, riddled and dismasted, that they 
 were worthless as prizes. On the British 
 side no ship was lost ; but the Ardent was 
 so much knocked about that she was fly- 
 ing signals of distress, and all the others 
 were badly wounded in their hulls. It 
 was noted as evidence of the Dutch sea- 
 men's good gunnery that the Monarch, 
 which led into battle, showed no trace 
 of damage in her masts and sails. Her 
 injuries were all concentrated in her 
 hull. 
 
 To pursue the remnants of the Dutch 
 was, after such a fierce battle, virtually 
 impossible. Signals of distress were fly- 
 ing from the captured ships in all direc- 
 tions, and these humanity could not 
 wholly disregard. Nor were there many 
 British ships in a condition to pursue. 
 The afternoon was closing in, the lee 
 shore was very near at hand, soundings 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 121 
 
 showed only nine fathoms, and the wind 
 was rising with heavy showers of rain. 
 What remained of daylight was there- 
 fore employed in securing and patching 
 up the prizes, putting the British ships 
 in order, and getting a good offing. 
 
 The force and the losses of the two 
 combatants may thus be reckoned : — 
 
 British. Dutch. 
 Ships 16 16 
 
 Broadside ! f™ 5 ™ n 51 l 
 
 ( lbs 11,501 9,857 
 
 Men 8,000 7,157 
 
 Loss 1,040 1,160 
 
 The loss of life on either side was 
 great. Among the prisoners were three 
 Dutch admirals, including the comman- 
 der-in-chief, the heroic De Winter, as 
 tall of stature as Duncan himself. 
 
 The victory of Camperdown was the 
 most decisive that a British fleet had 
 won since the days of the Seven Years' 
 War. It was greater in its results than 
 the 1st of June, 1794, which was, indeed, 
 
122 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 if the truth be told, a very insignificant 
 success. With twenty-six British against 
 twenty-six French ships, Howe only 
 made six prizes, and altogether failed to 
 deal a smashing blow. In the battle of 
 St. Vincent, which was fought eight 
 months before Camperdown, a British 
 fleet of fifteen sail captured four sail of 
 a Spanish fleet of twenty-seven. The 
 odds in this latter case may appear to 
 have been far greater than those en- 
 countered by Duncan at Camperdown. 
 But in all probability they were less, 
 since the Spanish seamen and admirals 
 were notoriously incapable, while the 
 Dutch have always been terrible enemies. 
 What added to the lustre of the victory 
 at Camperdown was the boldness with 
 which it had been snatched by Duncan's 
 daring manoeuvre of interposing his 
 ships between the Dutch line and the 
 shore. 
 
 A short message had been despatched 
 to England by Duncan at the moment 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 123 
 
 when the VrijJieid struck and victory was 
 assured. The tidings were received with 
 the utmost joy and relief j for there had 
 been very general uneasiness lest the 
 Dutch should avoid a battle and get 
 back to port, and perhaps some fear lest 
 the recent mutiny in the fleet should 
 have affected its efficiency as a fighting 
 machine. On October 14, when the 
 news reached London, the church bells 
 pealed, the Tower guns fired salutes, 
 and the streets were illuminated. Four 
 days later, when the full despatches ar- 
 rived, there were fresh illuminations and 
 fresh manifestations of joy. Duncan 
 was at once created a peer with the title 
 of Yiscount Duncan of Camperdown. 
 His gallant vice-admiral, Onslow, was 
 made a baronet. Most grateful of all, 
 perhaps, both to the admiral and the 
 fleet he led, was the pardon of one hun- 
 dred and eighty of the unhappy mu- 
 tineers. Duncan in person presented 
 their petition, and he had the satisfac- 
 
124 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 tion of reflecting that his skill and val- 
 our had saved from death or scourging 
 men whom he pitied rather than blamed. 
 Gold medals were struck to commemorate 
 the success, Parliament voted its thanks, 
 and at the public expense a monument 
 was erected to the memory of Captain 
 Burges, who had died the hero's death 
 for his country. 
 
 As showing the general feeling of 
 gratitude to Duncan in England, this 
 letter from Lady Spencer, the wife of 
 the first lord of the admiralty, may be 
 quoted : — 
 
 What shall I say to you, my dear and victori- 
 ous Admiral ? Where shall I find words to con- 
 vey to you the slightest idea of the enthusiasm 
 created by your glorious, splendid, and memo- 
 rable achievements? Not in the English lan- 
 guage; and no other is worthy of being used 
 upon so truly British an exploit. As an English 
 woman, as an Irish woman, as Lord Spencer's 
 wife, I cannot express to you my grateful feel- 
 ings. But amongst the number of delightful 
 sensations which crowd upon me since Friday 
 last, surprise is not included. The man who 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 125 
 
 lias struggled thro' all the difficulties of everlast- 
 ing N. Sea Cruizes, of hardships of every kind, of 
 storms, of cold, of perpetual disappointments, 
 without a murmur, without a regret, and lastly 
 who most unprecedently hraved an enemy's fleet 
 of sixteen or twenty sail of the line, with only 
 two Men of War in a state of mutiny to oppose 
 them: That Man, acquiring the honour and 
 glory you have done on the 11th of October, did 
 not surprize me. But greatly have you been 
 rewarded for your past sufferings. Never will 
 a fairer fame descend to posterity than yours, 
 and the gratitude of a great nation must give 
 you feelings which will thaw away all that re- 
 mains of your Northern mists and miseries. 
 God, Who allowed you to reap so glorious an 
 harvest of honour and glory, Who rewarded your 
 well borne toils by such extraordinary success, 
 keep you safe and well to enjoy for many years 
 the fame He enabled you to acquire on this 
 most distinguished occasion. 
 
 Ever yours with gratitude and esteem, 
 
 Lavinia Spencer. 
 
 As one of Duncan's aunts in writing to 
 Dundas put it, the victory was all the 
 more valuable and opportune, since the 
 nation was a in a chicken-hearted way, 
 low-spirited by the war, murmuring at 
 
126 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 taxes (though necessary), grumbling and 
 
 dissatisfied in every county. " 
 
 In December a royal procession to 
 St. PauPs took place, to give thanks for 
 the three great naval victories of the 
 war. Duncan was present in person j 
 and with the two wagons conveying the 
 French and Spanish flags taken in the 
 war went a third, with the Dutch flags 
 captured by his skill at Camperdown. 
 
 Of the three Dutch admirals who were 
 taken in the battle, De Winter, the com- 
 mander-in-chief, was received on board 
 the Venerable. He had, as the Irish 
 rebel, Wolfe Tone, who was present in 
 Holland with the army of invasion, put 
 it, defended himself like a lion, and dis- 
 played unusual courage and obstinacy. 
 Duncan received him with the most deli- 
 cate kindness, praising him for his gal- 
 lantry in words which must have come 
 as balm to heal the anguish of defeat. 
 Throughout De Winter had played the 
 man and the patriot. He had warned 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 127 
 
 his government of the utter folly of 
 fighting, and could at best feel that the 
 disaster was none of his work. But he 
 felt just indignation at the ignominious 
 manner in which certain of his ships had 
 fled from the line of battle, and, in his 
 reports to the naval committee which 
 managed or mismanaged the affairs of 
 the Dutch fleet, adverted strongly to this 
 point. There is a story that he asked 
 Duncan at table whether this defection 
 had not been the chief cause of his 
 defeat, — a question which Duncan is said 
 to have dexterously and wisely evaded. 
 It was none of his business to contribute 
 to the removal of the cowardly or in- 
 capable captains in the Dutch fleet. 
 
 De Winter was taken to London, 
 where he was kindly received, and 
 where he won the golden opinion of all. 
 His wife being dangerously ill, he was, a 
 month after the battle, sent back on 
 parole to his country. There he was ac- 
 quitted of all blame for the defeat, and 
 
128 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 declared to have gloriously supported 
 the honour of his flag. He remained 
 the firm friend of Duncan, and main- 
 tained a correspondence with him long 
 after his release. The last letter of his 
 which remains expresses an ardent de- 
 sire for an honourable peace between 
 England and Holland. But this was not 
 to be. So long as Holland remained 
 under the heel of her French conqueror, 
 which was until the events of 1813 is- 
 sued in the general overthrow of the 
 French, so long she had of necessity to 
 be counted by England as an adversary. 
 There was one unpleasant episode 
 after the battle. Captain Williamson 
 of the Agincourt was tried by court-mar- 
 tial at Sheerness for his conduct in the 
 action. The charges against him were 
 two : the first, of disobedience to the sig- 
 nals and not going into action ; the sec- 
 ond, of cowardice or disaffection. The 
 first charge was held to have been 
 proved in part. The second and far 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 129 
 
 graver charge was considered not to 
 have been proved. Williamson was 
 sentenced to be placed at the bottom of 
 the captains' list, and pronounced inca- 
 pable of ever again serving in the navy. 
 There seems to have been a strong feel- 
 ing against him ; for Nelson wrote of the 
 verdict that it was a most lenient one, 
 and maintained that death was the 
 proper penalty for such " gun-shyness " 
 as the AgincourVs commander had dis- 
 played. Duncan is said to have refused 
 to give evidence in his favour, with the 
 words : — 
 
 For myself I do not care ; but how can I bring 
 my ship's company [who had suffered sorely 
 through want of the Agincourt's support] back 
 to life? 
 
 Through the winter of 1797-98 Dun- 
 can, from the bad state of his health and 
 the fact that his services were no longer 
 urgently required at sea, remained on 
 shore. Early in 1798 he visited Dundee 
 and Edinburgh, where he was splendidly 
 
130 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 received. Not till the summer of that 
 year did he again hoist his flag, on this 
 occasion in the Kent, which had replaced 
 the battered Venerable. He had now 
 under his orders no less than sixteen 
 British sail of the line with forty smaller 
 craft, while a Eussian squadron often sail 
 of the line was also with him. This 
 ample force watched the coast of Hol- 
 land to prevent the despatch of any 
 assistance to General Humbert, who 
 with a small body of French troops had 
 invaded Ireland. In November the 
 British fleet returned to port, and Dun- 
 can went home on sick leave. As in the 
 previous year, he spent the winter of 
 1798 ashore. In the summer of 1799 he 
 once more returned to the blockade. 
 The British government had now ar- 
 ranged with Eussia for the despatch of a 
 joint expedition of thirty thousand men 
 to Holland. At the same time it was 
 hoped that the remnants of the Dutch 
 fleet might be induced to come over, as 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 131 
 
 the Dutch seainen were known to be very 
 ill-disposed towards the Dutch govern- 
 ment. 
 
 At this particular juncture the French 
 Admiral Bruix with a large fleet escaped 
 from Brest, and sailed into the Mediter- 
 ranean. The position was a very dan- 
 gerous one for the British squadrons, 
 since they were scattered, and might have 
 been overwhelmed and defeated in de- 
 tail. Ee- enforcements were hurried off 
 from every quarter by the admiralty to 
 the Mediterranean ; and, as usual, Dun- 
 can was stripped of his best shij)s. But 
 Bruix did nothing at all. Having en- 
 tered the Mediterranean, he left it again 
 as soon as he could, without a decisive 
 action, and returned to Brest. His aim- 
 less movements served only to puzzle the 
 British strategists. 
 
 In August, 1799, the British expedi- 
 tion for Holland sailed. Duncan's health 
 had now once more given way, but he 
 clung bravely to his post. It must be re- 
 
132 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 menibered that lie was now a very old man 
 for active work, that his constitution had 
 years before been broken in the West 
 Indies, and that he had spent his early 
 life in the navy in days when the sani- 
 tary conditions were fearful. These 
 facts explain his constant enforced with- 
 drawals from the fleet to recruit his 
 health on shore. Nature was warning 
 him that the time for his retirement had 
 come. 
 
 When the British force, twelve thou- 
 sand strong, under General Abercromby, 
 arrived off the Dutch coast, it was de- 
 cided to attack from the land side the 
 Helder batteries which prevented ac- 
 cess to the Texel anchorage, where lay 
 the Dutch fleet. The weather, however, 
 turned very stormy ; and it was impos- 
 sible to land till August 27. On that 
 day a considerable force occupied the 
 Helder works without any resistance. 
 Simultaneously, the Island of Texel was 
 seized. The Dutch fleet was thereby 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 133 
 
 left at our mercy. Admiral Storij, who 
 had escaped from Camperdown, and who 
 was in command of it, was summoned to 
 surrender by Admiral Mitchell, Dun- 
 can's second in command, and, as the 
 Dutch seamen declined to fight, had no 
 choice but to obey. One seventy -four, 
 five sixty -eight's, two fifty-four's, two 
 forty -four's, and two smaller vessels thus 
 fell into British hands. This splendid 
 success obtained, Duncan at once re- 
 turned to England in very bad health. 
 His service at sea was over ; for, though 
 he once again returned to his fleet, he 
 never got further than Yarmouth. 
 
 This bloodless capture of a large 
 squadron was thus the close and consum- 
 mation of Duncan's long service career. 
 It covered him with fresh glory, and won 
 yet more enthusiastic congratulations 
 and thanks from the admiralty and from 
 his friends. Yet, as his subordinate, 
 Admiral Mitchell, had had the u entire 
 management and direction of the expe- 
 
134 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 dition," it would be unjust to him to 
 attribute the great results which were 
 obtained to Duncan, and to Duncan 
 alone. The commander-in-chief had the 
 wisdom and magnanimity to leave the 
 conduct of affairs to an officer who was in 
 good health, and who understood his 
 work. It may be noted, as a matter of 
 great credit to all concerned, — the two 
 admirals and General Abercromby, — 
 that there was no friction of any kind 
 between the two services, but that they 
 worked harmoniously together, and this 
 at a time when discord was only too 
 common. 
 
 In the end, as might have been ex- 
 pected, a crushing force was concen- 
 trated by the French and Dutch against 
 the Anglo-Eussian expedition. It was 
 now commanded by the incompetent 
 Duke of York, who had replaced the 
 competent Abercromby. After two in- 
 decisive battles, in which there was 
 great mismanagement upon the British 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 135 
 
 side, the expedition was compelled to 
 evacuate Holland. But it had completed 
 the work begun by the navy at Camper- 
 down, and may be said to have finally 
 destroyed the Dutch fleet. 
 
 On Duncan's return to England, some 
 soreness was caused him by the refusal 
 of the admiralty to promote the Kent 1 8 
 first lieutenant, Mr. Clay, whom he had 
 sent home with despatches, whereas 
 Admiral Mitchell's first lieutenant was 
 immediately promoted. It should be 
 said that it was the almost invariable 
 practice, after a victory or a success such 
 as this, to promote the commander-in- 
 chief's first lieutenant ; and not to do so 
 was a distinct slight to Duncan. More- 
 over, Clay had other claims. He had 
 been severely wounded at Camperdown, 
 and had been awarded a pension as 
 incapable of further service, though 
 subsequently, on his recovery, this pen- 
 sion had been withdrawn. Duncan's 
 letter was treated with disrespect by the 
 
136 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 authorities, who returned no answer. 
 Feeling that he had deserved something 
 different from this, he was tempted to 
 write very bitterly to the admiralty, 
 and also, it would seem, suspended his 
 friendly and confidential correspondence 
 with Lord Spencer, the head of the 
 admiralty. 
 
 Lord Spencer, however, was in no 
 mood to quarrel with a man who had 
 done his country such inestimable ser- 
 vice. He wrote to Duncan in private a 
 kindly and generous remonstrance, point- 
 ing out that "the proper and regular 
 mode of conveying your wishes for the 
 promotion of any officer is through me 
 in a private communication." And at 
 the earliest opportunity he promoted 
 Clay. Thus the difference which had 
 arisen between the two was healed. 
 
 Duncan had always held that duty 
 commanded him to serve his country till 
 the war was ended. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 137 
 
 I cannot [he had written to a relative in 
 1796] bring myself to believe it will be right to 
 think of retirement till the war is over, however 
 comfortably I may think myself circumstanced. 
 . . . Till you make a peace, there will be no rest 
 for me. 
 
 But failing health and the completion 
 of his work — perhaps also the feeling 
 which he more than once expressed, that 
 young commanders are better than old — 
 were now working to make him recon- 
 sider his resolve. In the North Sea the 
 war was practically over. All danger 
 from Holland had ceased ; and now 
 throughout the world the star of Britain 
 was in the ascendant. Nelson's brilliant 
 victory of the Nile in mid-1798 had 
 thoroughly cowed the French navy. 
 In March, 1800, Duncan finally decided 
 to retire, and in April struck his flag on 
 board the Kent, and departed to Scotland. 
 
 There in serenity and repose, with the 
 consciousness of having rendered to his 
 country true and faithful service, he 
 spent the evening of a noble life. But 
 
138 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 the spirit of self-sacrifice which burnt in 
 him called him forth from his retirement 
 early in 1801, when the Northern Coali- 
 tion threatened England. He offered 
 the admiralty his assistance ; but it was, 
 perhaps wisely, declined by Lord Spen- 
 cer, who reminded him that, however 
 willing the spirit, the body could scarcely 
 be trusted. Yet it is much to be wished 
 that Duncan had been sent to Copen- 
 hagen, as Nelson's superior, in place of 
 Sir Hyde Parker. He understood Nel- 
 son, and with him might have won a 
 bloodless victory over the Danes ; while, 
 as his conduct at the Helder showed, he 
 was perfectly ready to give a capable 
 subordinate the free rein which Sir 
 Hyde Parker grudged. 
 
 Duncan continued for the most part at 
 his Scotch home till in his seventy-third 
 year, in July, 1804, when the position of 
 his country was once more a critical one, 
 he journeyed to London to offer for the 
 last time his services. But, if the spirit 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 139 
 
 was willing, the body was now more than 
 ever weak. He was attacked with illness, 
 which made any command quite impos- 
 sible, and on his return home died on 
 August 4, 1804, near Coldstream. Thus 
 he may be said almost to have fallen in 
 harness, with one single thought in his 
 heart — the service of his country — to 
 the very last. 
 
 Thus ended a career of signal dignity 
 and beauty, — a career in which there is 
 nothing to censure and very much to 
 praise. Unlike his greater contempo- 
 rary, Nelson, Duncan was happy in his 
 private life. No glaring scandal in his 
 case estranged the sympathy of old 
 friends. He cultivated a restraint which 
 was lacking in the younger admiral. 
 His modesty was not the least striking 
 feature in his character, when success 
 and praise flowed in upon him in full 
 tide. "This Duncan, " it was said of 
 him with absolute truth after all the 
 rejoicings over Camperdown, "hath 
 
140 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 borne his faculties so meekly ! ' ' Per- 
 haps the country was accustomed to a 
 breezy air of self-assertion in its admirals, 
 and was surprised at his reticence and 
 quiet. He courted no popularity, — not 
 that a man is the worse for desiring the 
 praise of his fellows : that is, at the 
 worst, an honourable failing, — and he 
 would probably not have countenanced 
 those triumphal tours of Nelson which 
 displeased the good taste of the fastidi- 
 ous not a little. 
 
 Yet there were times when he could 
 fling his cloak of restraint aside. He 
 assuredly was no starched lay figure in 
 the hour of stress and battle, even if 
 few of those wonderful touches are re- 
 corded of him which set Nelson above 
 his contemporaries as a master in the 
 art of appealing to the heart of the com- 
 mon seaman. Nothing better has ever 
 been achieved by the navy which Dun- 
 can adorned than that magnificent 
 blockade of the Texel with only two 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 141 
 
 ships ; and the terms of his assurance to 
 his men that he meant to fight the Ven- 
 erable till she sank at her moorings were 
 in the very Nelson style, — great-hearted, 
 bold, undaunted, with just a dash of the 
 theatrical. 
 
 As an admiral, Duncan showed very 
 high, if not the highest, capacity. What 
 distinguishes his method of action from 
 that of Nelson, whom posterity has pro- 
 nounced the greatest seaman of all time, 
 was that he never seems to have con- 
 templated crushing a part of the enemy's 
 force with the whole of his own. It was 
 this method which at the Nile and Tra- 
 falgar brought such brilliant success ; 
 but it is only fair to remember that at 
 Copenhagen, where he was likely to en- 
 counter a peculiarly desperate resistance, 
 Nelson departed from it, — it must be 
 presumed with good reason. At Cam- 
 perdown, through accident, and not 
 through Duncan's dispositions, so far as 
 these are recorded in the signal logs of 
 
142 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 the flagship, a concentration of the Brit- 
 ish fleet upon a portion of the enemy 
 did actually take place, and proved won- 
 derfully effective. Duncan's orders, as 
 given out by signals, were for "each 
 ship to steer for and engage her oppo- 
 nent after passing through the Dutch 
 line. 77 It is clear, then, that he pur- 
 posed a ship to ship battle. The fact, 
 however, remains that he, like Nelson 
 at Copenhagen, could rely upon a con- 
 siderable preponderance of force, having 
 sixty guns, or about twelve per cent, 
 more than the Dutch, on the broadside, 
 with an advantage of sixteen hundred 
 and fifty pounds' weight of metal, or 
 about one-sixth. It was generally held 
 about this time that a preponderance 
 of one-fourth in weight of metal gave 
 absolute certainty of success. Now at 
 the Nile and Trafalgar the British fleets 
 were distinctly inferior in force, and 
 were thus, in a manner, compelled to a 
 concentration upon a detail of the en- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 143 
 
 emy. Duncan may have considered 
 that his superiority insured victory, and 
 rendered the adoption of any such 
 scheme unnecessary. He is known to 
 have been a careful student of what 
 works then existed on tactics, and it is 
 not probable that he altogether over- 
 looked the possibilities of a concentra- 
 tion. Desiring to destroy the whole 
 Dutch fleet, and well aware that the 
 proximity of the shoals and of the 
 Dutch coast gave unusual facilities for 
 escape, he may have desired to prevent 
 what did actually happen, — the flight 
 of several of the unengaged Dutch ships 
 from the line. Moreover, with such a 
 fleet as he commanded, — the units of 
 which were, in many cases, strange to 
 each other, — he may have feared the 
 very grave danger which is always apt 
 to arise when a concentration is effected 
 upon a part of the enemy, — the risk of 
 friend firing into friend, which has a 
 very bad effect upon moral. So able 
 
144 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 an officer as Saumarez objected to Nel- 
 son's plan of action at the Nile for this 
 very reason. It is instructive to note 
 that several logs of the British ships en- 
 gaged at Camperdown recorded the fact 
 of receiving shot from the misdirected 
 guns of friends. The Lancaster 7 slog, in- 
 deed, shows that the fire discipline of 
 that ship was bad, since we find the 
 incident of her firing into the British Isis 
 narrated, with the remark, " Ordered 
 the people to cease firing, for that was 
 one of our own ships, but could not 
 stop them from firing. " We may con- 
 trast this with the perfect discipline of 
 the Theseus at the Nile. 
 
 We had not been many minutes in action 
 with the Spartiate [says the Theseus' s captain], 
 when we observed one of our ships place her- 
 self so directly opposite to us on the outside 
 of her [the Spartiate] that I desisted firing on 
 her, that I might not do mischief to friends. 
 
 "With such ships and crews as this, the 
 possibilities were infinitely greater than 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 145 
 
 with the odds and ends which formed 
 the North Sea fleet. 
 
 Two other charges have been brought 
 against Duncan. The first is that he 
 changed his plan of action at the last 
 minute. The signal logs and evidence 
 taken at the Agincourt court-martial, 
 which have been examined and pub- 
 lished by Admiral Sturges Jackson, 
 however, show conclusively that this 
 was not the case. A signal hoisted by 
 mistake in the Venerable led to the 
 erroneous idea of such a change being 
 entertained. 
 
 The second charge is that Duncan 
 attacked with his fleet in great disorder. 
 This fact seems from the logs to be unde- 
 niable, though it should be noted that 
 the Dutch accounts speak distinctly of 
 the British ships advancing en Schiquie?*, 
 or in a line of bearing, which was the 
 formation ordered. The same charge 
 has been brought against Nelson for the 
 manner in which at Trafalgar he brought 
 
146 ADAM DUNCAK 
 
 his fleet into action. Observers at Cadiz 
 npon that memorable morning watched 
 with exultation, we are told in the Naval 
 Chronicle, the approach of "the mad 
 Englishmen in confusion and disorder." 
 Yet the end and object of naval tactics 
 is to crush the enemy, and there are times 
 when true genius will brush aside the 
 rules which are meant rather for the 
 guidance than for the enslavement of 
 leaders. The British fleet at Camper- 
 down was in disorder from causes over 
 which Duncan could have no control, — 
 the gale that had been blowing and the 
 vehement pursuit of the Dutch. To 
 have delayed while a mathematically 
 correct line was being formed would 
 have given the Dutch time to reach the 
 shoals. Far, then, from Duncan deserv- 
 ing censure for the manner of his attack, 
 he merits the highest praise for refusing 
 to be bound by pedantry and for daring 
 to run the risks which were inseparable 
 from such confusion. 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 147 
 
 In one respect the career of Duncan 
 was most remarkable. It may be said, as 
 a general rule, that few old commanders, 
 whether on land or sea, have distin- 
 guished themselves. Nelson's whole 
 brilliant career was compressed into the 
 short term of forty-seven years. He was 
 famous at the age of thirty-eight. But 
 Duncan did not make for himself a place 
 amongst our very greatest admirals until 
 1797, when he was sixty-five years old. 
 He was sixty-six when the battle of Cam- 
 perdown was fought. The sea service is 
 more favourable to old commanders than 
 the land, where greater physical fatigue 
 must necessarily be encountered ; and 
 amongst the distinguished naval officers 
 of the time were not a few who won 
 their spurs in old age, — the most note- 
 worthy, Howe and St. Yincent. Yet 
 Howe showed a certain timidity in 
 checking the British pursuit after the 
 battle of June 1, and even St. Yincent 
 in the great battle from which he took 
 
148 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 his title showed a strange indifference to 
 gathering in the full harvest of victory. 
 "Few officers/ 7 it was said by Admiral 
 Sir Eichard Dundas, "are really good 
 for much after fifty or fifty-five years of 
 age." " No general over sixty years of 
 age should be employed," said Napo- 
 leon. "At sixty one is good for noth- 
 ing." Duncan is the most famous and 
 by far the most brilliant exception to 
 this sound generalization. At no point 
 can it be said with justice that the work 
 he did could have been better done by 
 a younger man. In the great year of 
 his command, 1797, he showed all the 
 vigour, dash, and perseverance of youth. 
 
 This is all the more striking, inasmuch 
 as in his old age his health was never 
 good. But the iron will which ruled the 
 body sustained him, and held in check all 
 physical weakness till his task was per- 
 formed. 
 
 In his treatment of his men, Duncan's 
 tenderness and humanity have already 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 149 
 
 been noticed. The interests of the com- 
 mon seamen constantly engaged his at- 
 tention, both before and after the great 
 mutiny. He viewed with especial dis- 
 favour the press as a means of getting 
 men, disliking, in all probability, its 
 capriciousness. As Napoleon justly said, 
 it spared the gentleman and carried off 
 the common fellow, and was therefore 
 grossly unjust. He was just as averse to 
 the current practice of shipping for the 
 navy jail-birds. It is true that in many 
 cases these were minor offenders, — 
 poachers and smugglers and ne'er-do- 
 wells rather than hardened criminals ; 
 but the intermixture of such elements 
 could not but have had a bad moral 
 effect upon the other men. Amongst 
 the suggestions found in the admiral's 
 papers are many that have long since 
 been carried out in the reformed navy 
 of our own day. Pay to be regularly 
 given, gratuities for long and excellent 
 service, and more liberty are the chief 
 
150 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 of these recommendations. In the great 
 mutiny, under severe provocation, he 
 countenanced no excessive severities j 
 and probably one of the greatest pleas- 
 ures which his victory at Camperdown 
 brought him was the fact that it led to 
 the pardoning of so many of the mis- 
 guided mutineers. His feeling to the 
 seamen was that they were his children, 
 — wayward and disobedient children it 
 might be at times, but still children, 
 deserving his protection and love. That 
 such an admiral in the supreme hour of 
 battle could depend upon the devotion 
 of those over whose interests he had 
 so faithfully watched is only what we 
 should expect. The wounded seaman 
 in hospital after Camperdown, who met 
 some stranger's invectives against ad- 
 mirals and wars with the words : "Only 
 a leg ! only a leg ! Hurrah ! Duncan for- 
 ever ! ' ' was but a type of thousands 
 more who purchased with their heroism, 
 skill, and devotion to their chief and 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 151 
 
 country that great victory over the 
 Dutch. 
 
 Amongst his private characteristics 
 was his saintliness of life. Duncan was 
 the model of the Christian admiral. 
 The sustaining force of religion was with 
 him through all the trials of war ; and, 
 as His last act before going into action at 
 Camperdown was to ask the Almighty 
 for His protection, so his first act after 
 battle was in the sight of all to offer up 
 praise to the Higher Power "Which had 
 given him success. In such simple faith 
 as his there is something inspiring and 
 elevating. Yet, because he was a Chris- 
 tian in the truest sense of the term, he 
 did not frown upon the joys of life. In 
 private society he was a cheerful and 
 excellent companion, welcome wherever 
 he showed himself. 
 
 In dealing with his allies, the Eus- 
 sians, he displayed exceptional tact. 
 No quarrel, hardly even a dispute, arose 
 between him and the Eussian com- 
 
152 ADAM DUNCAN 
 
 manders- in- chief. The management of 
 an allied fleet is proverbially difficult; 
 and in this case it was certainly en- 
 hanced by the great weakness of the 
 British squadron at the outset, and by 
 the fact that Eussia had little or nothing 
 to gain by hazarding her ships to enable 
 Great Britain to destroy the naval power 
 of Holland. The moment the Anglo- 
 Bussian forces on land encountered re- 
 sistance, quarrels began between the two 
 allied armies, thus illustrating by a 
 strong contrast Duncan 7 s good manage- 
 ment in maintaining such excellent rela- 
 tions at sea. 
 
 He died full of years and honours, 
 leaving a name which will ever be cher- 
 ished and esteemed by his countrymen. 
 His retirement from active service, his 
 modesty which avoided displays and 
 demonstrations, and the critical state of 
 the war did, indeed, cause his death to 
 pass at the time almost unnoticed ; and 
 afterwards, as has been pointed out al- 
 
ADAM DUNCAN 153 
 
 ready, the glory of his achievements was 
 obscured by the greater brilliancy of 
 Nelson's fame. But with a revived in- 
 terest in the past of our navy his career 
 has once more received attention. A 
 Duncan and a Venerable figure amongst 
 our newest and most formidable battle- 
 ships. A Camperdown has for ten years 
 done sterling service in the British fleet. 
 It is well that our seamen of to-day 
 should be reminded of such a figure. 
 He should never be forgotten by them, 
 whether in the hour of thought or 
 action. 
 
BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE. 
 
 I. The chief authority for the facts of 
 Duncan's life is the Earl of Camper- 
 down's Admiral Duncan, published 
 by Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. in 
 1897, and illustrated with three por- 
 traits and a plan of Camperdown. Lord 
 Camperdown gives the sources upon 
 which he drew as follows, and the au- 
 thor of this work has examined most of 
 them afresh and independently : ' ' Al- 
 most every naval history contains no- 
 tices of him [Duncan] which are worth 
 collecting and collating. The standard 
 works about the British navy, such as 
 the Naval Chronicle, the Annual Register, 
 James's Naval History, Charnock's Naval 
 Biography, Beatson's Memoirs, Ealfe's 
 Naval Biography, Schomberg's Naval 
 Chronology, Brenton's Naval History, 
 Admiral Sir Charles Ekin's Naval Bat- 
 tles, have been consulted ; and also the 
 biographies of Viscount Keppel, by the 
 
BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE 155 
 Hon. and Eev. Thomas Keppel, and of 
 Earl St. Vincent, by Jedidiah Tucker.' ' 
 To these must be added : — 
 
 II. Great Sea Fights, Volume I., ed- 
 ited by Admiral T. Sturges Jackson and 
 published in 1899 by the Navy Eecords' 
 Society, which contains the logs of all 
 the ships that took part in the battle of 
 Camperdown, and also gives extracts 
 from the evidence heard by the court- 
 martial which sat to try Captain Will- 
 iamson for misconduct in the battle. 
 The volume is invaluable, as the logs are 
 supplemented by useful notes and by a 
 short introduction. 
 
 III. Admirals' Despatches, North 
 Sea, Volumes VI. and VII., in manu- 
 script in the Public Eecord Office. Con- 
 tain Duncan's official correspondence 
 with the admiralty during the most 
 eventful period of his command. 
 
 IV. Nore and Sheerness, 1797. A 
 large bundle of papers in the Eecord 
 
156 BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE 
 Office, dealing with the Nore and North 
 Sea mutinies. There is an immense 
 amount of interesting material to be 
 found here. 
 
 V. The Trial, Life, and Anecdotes 
 of R. Parker, 1797. A pamphlet giv- 
 ing many curious particulars of Parker, 
 but not very trustworthy. 
 
 VI. The Oracle, 1797. A daily news- 
 paper. File in the British Museum. 
 
 VII. Courts-martial, Vol. LXXVIIL, 
 manuscript in the Record Office. Gives 
 the trial of Parker and other mutineers. 
 
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