The Capture of the Jeune Estelle, Charles Austen’s Premier Prize

Dear Readers,
I am happy to be backing blogging again.
Continue to stay safe.
Sheila

During the Napoleonic wars, the mission of the North American squadron of the Royal Navy was to disrupt enemy trade and to protect British and colonial commercial activities. The British ships were expected to engage enemy warships and armed privateers in combat and to apprehend merchant ships transporting enemy trade goods and supplies. As an incentive for this dangerous work, the officers and men of the British ship that captured an enemy vessel or merchant man were offered the prospect of receiving a share of the value of the vessel and/or its cargo. The legitimacy of the capture, according to the law of prize, had to be proven in a Vice Admiralty court. The court had the power to condemn the capture as lawful prize and to order its sale by public auction. The resulting prize money, less costs, would be distributed among all those aboard the British vessel at the time of capture, in proportions and according to rank. Prize taking was a chancy but significant perk of naval conflict.

While serving on the North American station, Charles Austen had the good fortune to capture or co-capture thirteen vessels, at least eight of which provided him with prize money. The records for these cases are very incomplete but the account of the seizure and condemnation of the French privateer, La Jeune Estelle (4 guns), reveals a nearly complete anatomy of a prize case. This capture was Charles’s most valuable prize, according to existing records. Here is how the business proceeded from the moment of capture to the distribution of prize money. 

On 19 June 1808 Charles was cruising off the coast of South Carolina in his sloop of war, HMS Indian (18 guns) when, as reported in the ship’s log, “a strange sail [was] sighted.” Immediately, the Indian went into action. According to Charles’s official report of the event, it became a vigorous encounter. The Indian’s chase guns were fired, killing one Frenchman and wounding another.[1] Eventually, after a tense chase of 1½ hours, the Indian “hove to, boarded and took possession of the [vessel].”[2] She proved to be the French schooner, La Jeune Estelle, enroute from St Mary’s River (near St Augustine’s, Florida) to the French colony of St Domingo, with a crew of 25. She carried a cargo of mixed supplies.[3]

Fig. 1: HMS Atalante, sister ship to Indian (18 guns). The Indian captured the Jeune Estelle at latitude 32 degrees north and longitude 68 degrees west.

Charles was required to continue his mission at sea, but he sent “a lieutenant, master’s mate and midshipman with 20 men to navigate [the prize] to Bermuda”[4] where proceedings before the Vice Admiralty Court followed swiftly. James Christie Esten (Charles’s brother-in-law) acted as Advocate General for the crown’s claim to the vessel and cargo, and, since they were unquestionably enemy property, it is not surprising that on 25 July the court ruled to condemn both as the lawful prize of the Indian, its captor.[5]

Charles had sent the prize to Bermuda because part of her cargo included perishable foodstuffs such as “superfine flour, pork, beef, fish, herrings, bread, cheese, lard, pease and hams.” She also carried “soap, tallow, oil in baskets, small shot, pig iron, a new cable, two hawsers,” and an unspecified amount of claret in casks.[6] According to a notice in the Bermuda Gazette, the agents acting for Charles were Edward Goodrich and Archibald Snedden of Bermuda, while George R. Hulbert represented the interests of Admiral Warren, Charles’s commander-in-chief, and Austen and Maunde in London were Charles’s bankers, the Austen being Charles’s brother, Henry.

The cargo was sold at the premises of Edward Goodrich in St George’s, Bermuda for the gross sum of £2539.11s. 4d. in Bermuda currency.[7] Charles must have been delighted to eventually learned how well the sale had gone.

Fig.2: The Home of Charles’s Bermuda Prize Agent, Edward Goodrich

Fig. 3: An Auction of Prize Goods, known as a Vendue.

The vessel, the Jeune Estelle, was, as expected, also sold because the eventual payout notice in the Bermuda Gazette refers to “a distribution of the net proceeds of the said vessel and cargo.” Unfortunately, there is no record of the price it fetched though it must have been of some value as the prize crew from the Indian were able to navigate it to Bermuda after the capture.  

Yet before there could be any distribution of prize money, a large number of expenses, inevitably incurred in the course of the condemnation and sale, had to be paid. Agent George Hulbert’s account book reveals the extent of these deductions.[8] James Esten, Advocate General before the court, received £50. Court charges were £28. 5s. 6d. Pilotage, the cost of delivering cargo after sale, the fee for customs house entry and custody, the cost of storage and wharfage, altogether amounted to £38. 16s. 11d. Other bills included £2. 13s. 4d. for hiring a cooper for 2½ days to repair flour casks, £3. 10s. for the recording of agency power, and £3. 6s. 8d. for advertisements in the Bermuda Gazette. The 5% duty payable to the Greenwich Hospital[9] amounted to £129. 19s. 6d and a like sum was charged as fees by the agents. The total costs, fees, and duties amounted to £380. 11s. 5d. The net fund of prize money for distribution was £2158. 19s. 11d. Once the claims were settled, the court ordered the distribution of the prize money and advertised to this effect in the Bermuda Gazette.

According to a prescribed formula, Charles, as Indian’s captain, received a ¼ share of the net proceeds, Admiral Warren received ⅛ share, and the officers and men received smaller shares according to their rank. Charles’s prize money amounted to £539. 16s. 11¾d.  plus, presumably, an unknown amount from the proceeds of the sale of the vessel. The total would have been a sizable sum for Charles compared with his annual salary of £246. 3s. 10d. as commander of a sloop of war.

Fig. 4: Payout Notice for the Jeune Estelle, 24 September 1808.

Charles’s benefits from the Jeune Estelle were not only personal and financial. The payout of prize money boosted the morale of his crew and lined their pockets with cash as well. The Indian’s recruitment notice in April 1805 had promised seamen they would win “plenty of Spanish doubloons and dollars”- that is prize money. Charles delivered on this promise.

Fig. 5: The Indian’s Recruitment Notice.

Moreover, his official report of the episode to Admiral Warren appeared on the front page of the London Gazette, 20-23 August 1808. This was pleasing publicity for him and gratifying for the Austen family at home in England to read public acknowledgement of Charles’s recent capture. Moreover, there was Fanny, who Charles described as “his lovely and beloved wife [who rejoiced] at all the good that befell me.”[10] Making Fanny happy always gave Charles great pleasure. The prize money from the Jeune Estelle was surely a means to this end.

Exploring the saga of the prize, the Jeune Estelle, yields a fascinating snapshot of a significant aspect of Charles Austen’s naval career on the North American Station.

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[1] Charles Austen to Admiral Sir John Warren, 27 June 1808, ADM 1/498/fol.283. The National Archives (TNA), Kew, London, England.

[2] See Indian’s logbook, 19 June 1808, ADM 51/1868, NA.

[3] In capturing La Jeune Estelle Charles was interfering with France’s attempt to support her colonies in the West Indies.

[4] The Indian’s logbook, 19 June 1808.

[5] List of Ships and Vessels Captured by His Majesty’s Ships of War and Brought to the Port of Bermuda for Adjudication from June 7th 1808 to the 18th  Day of May 1810, List of Prizes, VA 221,1-4, Bermuda Archives, Hamilton, Bermuda.

[6] Bermuda Gazette, 23 July 1808.

[7] In the currency used, “£” stands for pound, “s” for shilling, and “d” for penny. There were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pence in a shilling. Bermuda currency fluctuated in relation to the British pound which was more valuable. 

[8] George Hulbert’s Cash Book 1808-1812, HUL/23, National Maritime Museum (NMM), Greenwich, London.

[9] The Greenwich Hospital at Greenwich, London, administered a pension fund for seamen wounded in naval service. 5 % of any distributed prize money was required to be contributed to this fund.

[10] Charles Austen’s Journal, 10 May 1815, AUS/102, NMM.

Influences of Jane Austen’s Naval Siblings on Mansfield Park

Dear Reader, 

Please note, I will be taking a break from blogging. You can still reach me at: sheilajohnsonkindred@gmail.com

Keep safe.

Sheila

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Mansfield Park is known as one of Jane Austen’s naval novels.[1] The heroine, Fanny Price, has a brother William, who is trying to make a career in the navy. Portsmouth, the Royal Navy’s largest and most important base of the period, is involved in eight chapters and a significant scene in the plot takes place in the Portsmouth Dock Yard

Fig. 1: Portsmouth Harbour.[2]

It has been long suggested that Jane’s sailor brothers, Francis and Charles, were available to advise her on matters of technical naval vocabulary and authentic naval references.[3] Brian Southam thought it was probably Francis Austen, the brother known to be a stickler for accuracy, who identified the corrections Jane needed to make in her description of William Price’s vessel, HMS Thrush, as its makes its way out of Portsmouth harbour to its anchorage at Spithead.[4] Whichever brother advised her, she  took this counsel seriously and included these recommendations in the second edition of Mansfield Park.

Fig. 2: Mansfield Park.[5]

Other details in the novel correlate with actual experiences and actions of the sailor brothers. Four of the named vessels which Jane locates in Portsmouth harbour match ships associated with Francis and Charles. Francis had been captain of the Canopus and the Elephant; Charles was a midshipman and lieutenant on the Endymion and became captain of the Cleopatra. Additionally, Jane has William Price give his sister Fanny “a very pretty amber cross” (254), a detail which echoes Charles’s generosity in May 1801, when he gave each of his sisters a topaze cross with gold chain.

The influence of Jane’s sailor brothers’s on her creative processes should not be undervalued, but to see them as Jane’s sole source of naval information within her family would be wrong. Doing so ignores the possible contributions made by Fanny Palmer Austen, who was Charles Austen’s young wife. I have argued elsewhere that there are interesting parallels between Fanny’s experiences as a naval wife and those of several female naval characters in Persuasion.[6] Similarly, Fanny’s understanding and expertise about the world of naval dockyards could have been useful  for Jane when she was writing Mansfield Park.

Take, for example, the important scene in the novel when Henry Crawford contrives to visit Fanny Price at Portsmouth. A persistent suitor, he attempts to curry favour with her once more. At this point in the novel, there is a measure of suspense. Might his suit yet succeed?  Although “he had seen the dock-yard again and again” (402) Crawford is happy to join Fanny, her sister Susan and her father on another visit to the Yard. “Once fairly in the dock-yard,” Mr Price (their guide) is usefully distracted by a friend “who was come to take his daily survey of how things went on” (402). Left alone, “the young people sat down on some timbers in the yard, or found a seat on board a vessel in the stocks[7] which they all went to look at” (403). Thus Austen depicts the Yard as offering a convenient location where, under the cover of an ordinary visit, other matters could be raised. This is an option that Crawford exploits fully by corralling Fanny in a tete a tete[8] as he tries to impress her with his concern for the tenants at his estate, Everingham. Fanny is interested: “it was pleasing to hear him speak so properly… to be the friend of the poor and oppressed… She was willing to allow he might have more good qualities than she had been wont to suppose” (404-05). Though Fanny is still wary of him, Henry makes some headway on this occasion.

Fig. 3: Portsmouth at the time of Mansfield Park[9]

According to Brian Southam, “her familiarity with Naval  Portsmouth Yard enabled Jane Austen to conduct Fanny [Price] and Henry Crawford through the Dockyard.”[10] He thought that  living as she did at Southampton for almost three years,[11] she must have become familiar with Portsmouth, its harbour and its dockyard. But Jane’s sister, Fanny Austen, had lived and experienced the work and society of Naval Yards in Halifax and Sheerness. Perhaps Austen was intrigued to hear from Fanny about the daily business of these Yards and the social life which took place within them.

Details of William Price’s life as a midshipman are also informed with the knowledge of Jane’s siblings. One instance is a passage describing an entertainment that William Price attends while on shore at Gibraltar. Austen initially imagined the event taking place at Government House, but, not being sure whether the location was appropriate, she sought more information about Gibraltar. She did find an answer. Having read Sir John Carr’s book, Descriptive Travels in the Southern and Eastern Parts of Spain (1811), Jane wrote Cassandra that “there is no Government House at Gibraltar - I must alter it to the Commissioner’s.”[12] Although she could double check Sir John Carr’s claim with Francis or Charles, who had served in the Mediterranean, Fanny could also confirm the use of Commissioner’s Houses for social gatherings in other places. She was certainly aware of, and likely attended, balls and entertainments regularly held at the home of Captain Inglefield, the Commissioner at the Naval Yard in Halifax, Nova Scotia.[13] Fanny had also stayed in the home of  Commissioner and Mrs Lobb at the Sheerness Yard in Kent, England and would know about its social role on that base.[14]

Fig. 4: The Commissioner’s House, Halifax, as seen from the harbour.[15]

While William was socializing at Gibraltar, we learn that he paid attention to the ladies and particularly noticed the headgear worn by “Mrs Brown, and the other women, at the Commissioner’s” (235), an item of apparel which he found bizarre.[16] The inclusion of this small detail about fashionable dress enriches the description of the event and invites the reader to visualize the movement, the colour and the spirit of the proceedings.

Jane Austen only occasionally mentions details of dress in her novels, so this reference to headwear is an interesting inclusion. It would be fun to know just what style of headwear William found so surprising, even “mad.” The action in Mansfield Park was likely set between 1808-1809, but the novel could also have drawn on details from the period leading up to 1813.[17] This time scale adds to the possibility that Mrs Brown and the others each wore some fanciful variant of a “feathered bandeau,” that is a  head band decorated with a tall, waving  ostrich feather. Such headgear is depicted in various contemporary prints, including the caricature, “Lumps of Pudding” by Henry Bunbury and William Health, 1811.[18]  

Whether Fanny shared with Jane anecdotes about how woman dressed at fashionable entertainments in Halifax cannot be traced. Yet, if Jane was interested in descriptions of style trends in colonial locations, Fanny was a source she might have consulted. Fanny was qualified on this subject as her interest in the intricacies of dress is evident from her letters.[19]

Jane Austen’s naval brothers, Francis and Charles, and her sister-in-law, Fanny, were individually important to her and valued as family members. They also contributed to her powers as a writer, as witnessed by some of the effective naval details in Mansfield Park which seem to relate to their lives and experiences.

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[1] The other naval novel is Persuasion.

[2] “Portsmouth Harbour” by Thomas Rowlandson, early 19th c. 

[3] Her nephew, James Austen Leigh, author of A Memoir of Jane Austen, 1870, wrote that “with ships and sailors she felt herself at home, or at least could always count on a brotherly critic to keep her right.” See the edition edited by Katheryn Sutherland, OUP, 2002, 18. According to Brian Southam, “the sailor brothers played an important part in the writing of Mansfield Park and Persuasion, the two naval novels.” See “Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers Francis and Charles in Life and Art,” Persuasions 2003, 34.

[4] All subsequent page references are to R. W. Chapman’s edition of Mansfield Park (MP), Oxford, 3rd edition, 1934. See vol.3, ch. 7, 380, ll.19-20 and ll.25-26 for the description of the Thrush’s movements.

[5] Edition published by OUP, Oxford World Classics.

[6] See Sheila Johnson Kindred, Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister (JATS), ch. 9, 192-99.  

[7] The vessel was under construction.

[8] Although Susan is also present, Henry manages to get Fanny’s full attention as if they were in conversation on their own.

[9] From Brian Southam, Jane Austen and the Navy, 2000, 213.

[10] See Brian Southam, “Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers Francis and Charles in Life and Art,” Persuasions, 25 (2003), 41.

[11] Southampton is 19 miles from Portsmouth.

[12] The Commissioner was the local administrator of the Yard. See Letter 78, 24 January 1813, in Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Le Faye, 2011, 207. This correction to her draft of MP is found in Book 2, ch. 6, 235. 

[13] See my blog, “Fanny Palmer Austen and the Halifax Naval Yard,” posted 28 February 2020.   

[14] There was, strictly speaking, a difference between a Dock Yard and a Naval Yard. Portsmouth was known as a Dock Yard due to its full-service facilities for building, repairing and refitting naval vessels. In comparison, the Yards at Halifax and Gibraltar were classified as Naval Yards. They were smaller facilities whose work forces repaired and refitted naval vessels. Even given this distinction, in common parlance Naval Yards were often referred to as Dock Yards.

[15] “HMS Asia off the Naval Yard”, c. 1797, by G. G. Lennox, from the cover of Ashore and Afloat, Julian Gwyn, 2004.

[16] Notably, this reference to female headgear shows that William is forthright and not afraid to express his opinion. It is a touching detail that when he sees Fanny decked out in headwear similar to that of the ladies in Gibraltar, he is not critical. He says: “Fanny can reconcile me to any thing (235).

[17] See Clive Caplan, “Naval Aspects of Mansfield Park,” Jane Austen Society Report for 2006, 70-71.

[18] See Hilary Davidson, Dress in the Age of Jane Austen, Yale University Press, 2018, endpapers. For more images about dress in “Lumps of Pudding” see https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2017/09/12/lumps-of-pudding-several-feet-of-dancing-fun-in-jane-austens-time/.

[19] See JATS, 68, 144, 148.

Fanny Palmer Austen at the Halifax Naval Yard

For a woman of genteel birth, Fanny Palmer Austen lived in a number of unusual places. One of these was inside the British Naval Yard in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In May 1810 she sailed from Bermuda to Halifax in the company of her husband Charles, who was flag captain to the Admiral commanding the North American Station. Fanny, Charles and their young daughters were offered accommodation as guests of Admiral Sir John and Lady Warren within the Admiral’s quarters, which was an apartment in the hospital building within the Naval Yard. Shortly after her arrival, Fanny described her living arrangements to her sister Esther. She wrote: “Lady Warren has kindly given us the room Mrs. Sedley [Lady Warren’s daughter] used to have, which is on the same side as the Drawing Room, so that we are not at all inconvenienced by the noises of the hospital which you have heard Mrs Territt [niece of Admiral Warren]  complain of” (2 June 1810).[1]                       

Fig. 1: The Halifax Naval Yard seen from above.[2]

Fig. 2: Detail from Fig.1: Buildings in the Yard, from the Hospital (far left) to the Commissioner’s house (far right).[3]

Once Fanny had settled, she found her new location had many distinctive features. The hospital, which was situated at the far northern end of the Yard, benefited from a pleasing rural setting, close to pasturage and small crop fields. The building also had some architectural merit. Constructed “of wood and finished with clapboard, with a shingled roof, it had a graceful colonnade at the west front entrance”[4] and a porch. The Admiral’s apartment, which occupied the most southern section of the structure, faced towards the harbour. Thus, it was well located for observing the continuous marine activity close at hand, a pastime of interest for Fanny and her young daughter, Cassy.

However, the immediate surrounds of the hospital also included a ‘lunatic house”, a morgue and the hospital’s burial ground.  Although these facilities were out of Fanny’s sight, their existence could hardly enhance the ambiance of her location. Moreover, as time went by, there was no escaping the fact that only a thin partition separated the Admiral’s apartment from the working hospital. No doubt the sounds coming from distressed patients and drunken convalescents were all too audible.

Fig.3: View of the hospital from the harbour.[5]

Furthermore, Fanny could not ignore the proximity of the busy working Yard and its unmistakable noise and smells: the ringing of the Yard’s bell to regulate the work hours, the turning of the capstans at the Sheer Wharf, the thumping of hammers, the clanging of anvils and caulking irons, and the smells of pitch, hot metal, wood, paint, saltwater, rope and oily smoke.

Fanny’s family circumstances changed markedly on July 1st when Charles, as captain of HMS Swiftsure (74 guns), sailed in a squadron charged with transporting the first Battalion of the 7th Fusiliers from Halifax to the Rock of Lisbon. Once off loaded, the men would proceed to join other British regiments fighting in the Spanish Peninsular War. Fanny knew the squadron faced many dangers. In addition to the threats posed by enemy vessels cruising on the North Atlantic, the weather at sea could be fierce and destructive of wooden sailing ships. Moreover, should hostile warships locate the squadron in the waters off Portugal, they would be a stationary target while transferring troops and their equipment to landing craft.

Fig. 4: HMS Swiftsure (74 guns) in Halifax harbour [6]

Fanny was left behind with her children to endure her isolated situation and to manage her anxiety about Charles’s well being as best she could.  Her happy times at the local balls and entertainments in Halifax with her beloved husband were now a thing of the past, and although she was comfortably placed in the Warrens’s apartment, her freedom of movement became more restricted. She would need an escort to venture into the town in order to fulfill shopping commissions for friends or for herself.

Fanny was also expected to fit in with the activities of her host and hostess during Charles’s absence. Her relations with the vigorous and forceful Lady Warren on occasion tested her resolve to be diplomatic. She was at Lady Warren’s beck and call, sometimes reluctantly accompanying her on a continuing round of official visits or attending her ladyship on outings to satisfy her hostess’s curiosity about local life in Halifax.[i] But as Sir John had recently promoted Charles to the rank of post captain, Fanny knew that the Admiral had a good opinion of Charles, which could prove valuable as his career advanced. Thus, Fanny was ever mindful not to displease Lady Warren.

Even so, Fanny counted some events at the Admiral’s apartment as pleasing distractions. Her letters record her pleasure when “General Hodgson and family dined at the Admiral’s” (4 August). Mrs Hodgson, recently arrived in Halifax from Bermuda, was able to bring Fanny news of her Bermuda family, especially tidings concerning her sister Esther and her brother-in-law, Chief Justice James Christie Esten.

Another memorable dinner guest was Col James Orde, who was, by reputation, socially accomplished and generally charming. Fanny seemed pleased to see him, telling Esther that she had “never found him more agreeable” (4 August). However, Orde’s behaviour subsequently came under serious question. In 1811 he eloped with Margaret Beckford, daughter of the richest man in England. At the time of their marriage, Jane Austen voiced her suspicions to her sister Cassandra, writing that “she thought too well of an Orde, to suppose that she [Margaret] has not a handsome Independence of her own.”[ii] But if Orde’s marriage to Margaret was really to court her money, as Austen implied, he was to be sorely disappointed for when William Beckford learned of their elopement, he promptly disinherited his daughter. The following year James Orde was court martialed upon a charge of tyrannical use of flogging while commanding the 99th Regiment in Bermuda. He was found guilty but excused from punishment only because the Prince Regent intervened.

Fig. 5: Captain John Inglefield by Robert Field

While Fanny was resident at the Yard, she could expect invitations to entertainments hosted by the Warren’s nearest neighbour of rank, Commissioner Captain John Inglefield, the chief administrator of the Yard. She may have even known the Commissioner from an earlier visit to Halifax.In 1809 a local observer spoke enthusiastically of dining at the Commissioner’s, who he describes as “the gayest of gay.”  It is known that Inglefield gave a dinner on 18 October 1809 when Fanny and Charles were on shore while the Indian was being repaired at the Naval Yard. His parties regularly included visiting naval officers and their wives and could well have included Fanny and Charles as guests on this occasion.

The Commissioner’s parties were held at his elegant official residence, which included a fine ballroom. Yet, a little of his company may have gone a long way as he was apparently “pompous, flowery and indolent.” [iii] Fanny may have found Inglefield’s company a mixed blessing and his chequered marital history may have made Fanny uncomfortable. In 1786, he demanded a separation from his wife on the grounds that she was making advances towards a nineteen-year-old man servant. Ann Inglefield denied this accusation, sued her husband for desertion and won.

By living at the Yard, Fanny had an intimate view of the landward life of the navy.  As part of the Warrens’s household, she was close to sources of information about the squadron’s progress on its mission to Portugal. Not surprisingly, she was much relieved when Admiral Warren told her that the Swiftsure had been sighted by American vessels near the Azores on 12 July (12 August). Thus she knew that the squadron had safely crossed the Atlantic. Through her stay, Fanny also learned more about the shore side activities required to maintain a squadron of war ships.[10] In consequence, she was able to better appreciate the Yard’s role in keeping Charles’s vessels in safe working condition. In addition, the complexities of Fanny’s relationship with Lady Warren gave her a fuller understanding of the scope of the social obligations and duties expected of her as she continued to support Charles in his career. Fanny Austen was gaining greater insight into the naval world she was committed to share with Charles.        

Fig.6: The Commissioner’s House at the Halifax Naval Yard.[11]

[1] Fanny’s letters to her sister Esther in Bermuda are fully transcribed in my book Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister, (JATS), MQUP, 2017, 2018.

[2] George Parkyn titled this aquatint, “View from Fort Needham near Halifax” (Art Gallery of Nova Scotia).

[3] Fig. 2 and 3 are details from illustrations in Julian Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, The British Navy and the Halifax Naval Yard Before 1820, University of Ottawa Press, 2003.

[4] See Julian Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, 44.

[5] Detail from George Parkyns’s aquatint, “Halifax from Davies Mill”.

[6] “Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, The Swiftsure …” by Alexander Croke (Art Gallery of Nova Scotia).

[7] See JATS, 55-58.

[8] Jane Austen, Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye, 4th ed., 2011,196.

[9] See JATS, 67.

[10] Fanny had been with Charles in Halifax in the Fall of 1809 when the Indian was under repair at the Yard for several months. Thus she already had some understanding of the Yard’s purpose when she arrived in Halifax the next year with Charles on the Swiftsure. However, she was not resident at the Yard in 1809, but lived somewhere in the town of Halifax. Thus, her earlier observations about the Yard’s buildings and services would be less comprehensive than those made in 1810. See my blog “Captain Charles Austen and HMS Indian at the Halifax Naval Yard,” posted on 31 January 2020.  

[11] From the Naval Chronicle, February 1804.

[i] See JATS, 55-58.

[ii] Jane Austen, Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye, 4th ed., 2011,196.

[iii] See JATS, 67.

Captain Charles Austen, and HMS Indian at the Halifax Naval Yard

Fig. 1: Captain Charles Austen by Robert Field, 1810

While Charles Austen was serving on the North American Station of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, he was constantly cruising at sea. He was required to protect British trade, to interdict American trade with Napoleonic Europe, to escort convoys of British ships carrying troops and trade goods, and to capture French Privateers or armed enemy warships, when the chance occurred. He and his fellow captains patrolled the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Florida and the waters around Bermuda. Such extensive cruising took a “heavy toll on masts, yards, sails and rigging and, when ships struck a ledge or shoal, on their copper bottoms.”[1] In consequence, Charles depended on the extensive facilities of the Halifax Naval Yard and the capabilities of its workforce for repeated repairs to his sloop of war, HMS Indian (18 guns).

Fig. 2: HMS Atalante, sister ship to HMS Indian (18 guns) and built to the same design

Between 1805-1810, Charles profited from the Yard’s skilled sail makers, caulkers, joiners and shipwrights and the services of the careening wharf. He was particularly grateful for the Yard’s services, when, in July 1806, the Indian urgently required an increase and rebalancing of her ballast.[2] Without this corrective, the Indian would have been endangered when working off a lea shore[3] because she could not have carried enough sail.

Fig.3: View of the Halifax Naval Yard, including the sheer legs standing tall by the shore.[5]

Selections from the Indian’s logbook for the Fall of 1809 reveal a profile of the range of services the Halifax Naval Yard provided for her after four years of wear and tear at sea. According to the entry for 15 September, the men “unbent the sails and sent them ashore to the Dockyard.”[4] Apparently not all the sails were in acceptable condition for two months later, men were “employed fitting a New Main Sail.” On 25 September, the main mast was taken out, and the rigging was examined. This task would have required the removal of the running rigging, consisting of the ropes used to work the sails and yards (the spars on which the square sails were set) as well as the standing rigging which supported the mast. Apparently, this was not sufficient for on 7 November, Yard workers were employed “rattling down the Top Mast Rigging.”

On 16 October the men “erected a pair of sheers and got out the Mizzen Mast.” The “pair of sheers” employed for this task was a two-legged lifting device specially designed for extracting or positioning masts. Three days later, the workers “hoisted in the New Mizzen Mast and stepped it.”

Fig.4: Model of Sheer Legs used in the Halifax Naval Yard.

Caulking and careening were essential parts of any refit. On 26 October there were “eleven caulkers caulking” the Indian. Caulking made watertight the seam between two planks, in particular those on the ship’s bottom and exposed decks. The caulkers pressed oakum[6] or strips of hot tarred ropes into a seam and then sealed it with hot pitch.

During November 1and 2, the work force was “readying [the Indian] for heaving down” and subsequently “transported [the] ship to the Careening Wharf.” At the careening wharf the vessel was hauled out of the water by careening capstans (winches) on each side of the wharf and then rolled on its side in order to clean, caulk and repair her exposed bottom. As this procedure was crucial to maintaining the seaworthiness of a ship, the Navy insisted that its vessels were regularly careened.

While the Indian was still at the Yard, some smaller repairs were accomplished. On 15 November “3 Joiners from the Dock yard [were] fitting benches in the Gun Room” and the next day “2 Shipwrights from the Dockyard [were] making Fore Hatchway Ladders.”  

After two months of repairs and refits the Indian was once again ship shape and sea ready. No doubt Charles Austen was thankful for the security provided by all this expertise being available at the Naval Yard in Halifax, Nova Scotia when he needed it. [7]  

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[1] See Julian Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, The British Navy and the Halifax Naval Yard Before 1820, University of Ottawa Press, 2003, 129.

[2] I am indebted to Julian Gwyn’s informative Glossary in Ashore and Afloat for the meaning of technical terms associated with refitting and repairing a naval vessel.

[3] For the requisition to reposition the Indian’s ballast, July 2006, see HAL/A/3,130,131, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. Ballast was additional weight, often stones, put in the ship’s hold to provide greater stability.

[4] Although the logbook refers to the “Dockyard” strictly speaking, the Halifax facility was a “Naval Yard.” See Gwyn, p. 16-17. All logbook entries are from ADM 51/1991, The National Archives, Kew, England

[5] This aquatint is by George Parkyns, titled “View from Fort Needham near Halifax, 29 April 1801, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

[6] Oakum consisted of string-like hemp fibre sourced from old ropes. 

[7] After 1809, there were some facilities available for servicing naval vessels at the developing Bermuda Naval Yard. However, during the time Charles was serving on the Station, the major expertise and extended facilities for repairs and refits were best had at the Halifax Yard. Any major rebuilding of a vessel was done at one of the Home Yards in England.

Fanny Palmer Austen and her Family Celebrate Christmas

“We spent our Christmas [1813] in Town with our friends,” [1]  wrote Fanny to her sister, Esther Esten. Esther would know exactly what Fanny meant. “Town” was London and the “friends” were the Palmer family - their parents, sister Harriet and Esther’s son, eight-year-old Palmer Esten, who was at boarding school in England.

Unfortunately, the family circle was incomplete as Esther, her husband James, and their younger son, Hamilton, were at home in St George’s, Bermuda, where James was the Chief Justice of the colony. Worse still, Fanny’s brother, Robert John, remained incarcerated in a French prisoner-of-war camp in Verdun.

We can imagine the Palmers’ Georgian town house at 22 Keppel Street, near Russell Square, cheerfully decorated for the holiday celebration. We know that there were gifts to open and admire. Charles Austen surprised and delighted his nephew Palmer with “a present of a very handsome Model of the Indian which has been carved on board [the Namur]”[2]

HMS Atalante. Charles Austen’s vessel, Indian, an 18 gun sloop of war, was her sister ship and built to the same design.

Palmer knew the actual Indian well as he had travelled on her several times between Bermuda and Halifax when Charles was serving on the North American Station of the navy. His aunt Fanny probably counted amongst her gifts a smart red morocco pocket diary for 1814.

Fanny Austen’s pocket diary for 1814.

This she used as an accounts book, and it has become an intriguing source about how Fanny managed her household in 1814. Fanny enjoyed the conviviality and festive mood of Keppel street well into January.  

 I too am going to take a Christmas holiday This means a short break from blogging, but I shall be back, dear reader, in the New Year.    

Wishing you all the joys of the holiday season,

Sheila

[1] Fanny Austen to Esther Esten, 8 March 1814, Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister (JATS), 154.

[2] Ibid.