In 1804 Napoleon’s boast, “Let us be masters of the Channel for six hours and we are masters of the world,” loomed over England like a thunderhead. And, in 1803, Robert Fulton had offered him a steamboat designed to tow troop landing barges in the invasion of Britain. Fortunately for England, the First Consul was skeptical. “Bah,” he remarked to his secretary, Bourrienne, “these projectors are all either intriguers or visionaries. Don’t trouble me about the business.”
If Bonaparte was contemptuous, Henry Addington was not. The British Government had no use for a steamboat, but there were other reasons why the Prime Minister of England took a great deal of interest in the activities of Robert Fulton.
In October, 1801, due to the hostility of the French Minister of Marine, Fulton had been forced to put aside his cherished plan for the submarine blockade of England, and to give up, temporarily, his work on the submarine. Some lime after the treaty of peace between France and England was signed at Amiens in March, 1802, Fulton had written to his old friend Earl Stanhope giving him “general Ideas of my plan and experiments.” On May 13, 1802, at a secret session of the House of Lords, Stanhope had spoken with great anxiety regarding the submarine, and in 1803 formed a committee which made a report to the Prime Minister on “the principles and powers” of the invention.
In this leisurely fashion did His Majesty’s Government get round, in May, 1803, to sending an agent to Fulton with an invitation from the Foreign Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury, to come to England and explain his theories of submarine warfare. Fulton was frankly incredulous. “There must be some mistake,” he objected. It is “neither the interest nor policy of the British Government to Introduce such a Vessel into practice.” That may be true, the agent replied, but the Ministry wished to be fully acquainted with Fulton’s inventions and preferred to have him working for England rather than against her.
Fulton thereupon drew up a general description of his proposed submarine, omitting only the details of her construction. He insisted upon having a fee of £10,000 for coming to England, and set the price for his invention at £ 100,000. These terms were not as grasping as they seem. Fulton had spent years developing what he believed to be the most potent naval weapon of the age. He had every right to demand full value for it. The negotiations took up a full year, and on April 29, 1804, having received a cipher letter from Hawkesbury assuring him that “should you be disposed to accept Active employment from the British Government you may rely on the most liberal treatment, proportioned to your efficient Service,” Fulton left Paris on the first leg of the journey to England.
Fulton has been criticized for going over to France’s greatest enemy, especially when France and England, having abrogated the Treaty of Amiens in May, 1803, were again at war. Since he apparently believed that the principles of the French Revolution and those of the American Revolution were identical, his action seems like the rankest kind of treachery. However, by this time lie saw that Bonaparte, far from being the hope of Europe, had become its glory-mad master and that those who had looked to him for inspired leadership found themselves merely exchanging one form of tyranny for another. “Bonaparte ...” Fulton said, is “in a state which Lord Somers compares to that of a wild beast unrestrained by any rule, and should be hunted down as the enemy of mankind.”
Fulton went to England just as he had gone to France in 1797, expecting to stay only a short time on his way home to the United States. He intended to give the British Government a complete description of his submarine and torpedoes so that any competent engineer could construct and operate them; then, after ordering a steam engine—that which later drove the Clermont —return to America. Instead, after spending seven years in France, he remained in England for two more.
Assuming, for the purpose of secrecy, the name of Robert Francis, he arrived in London on May 19,1804 (the day after Napoleon declared himself Emperor of the French) to find that Addington, the Chamberlain of his day, had given place to William Pitt. No one mourned Addington’s fall except Napoleon. If England was jubilant Fulton must have been doubly so. The former Prime Minister had been more or less forced into having Fulton come to England; Pitt, on the other hand, became enthusiastic and later supported Fulton against the opposition of the Admiralty.
On May 21, his third day in England, Fulton was interviewed by Lord Hawkesbury, who was now Home Secretary. On the very next day Fulton suggested that a torpedo attack be made on the flotillas at Brest and Boulogne and said that he stood ready to go aboard a warship to direct the raid. This offer was not taken up, but a short while later the Ministry referred Fulton’s complete plans which were practically the same as those rejected by the French—to a commission consisting of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, Henry Cavendish, the chemist, Major William Congreve, inventor of the Congreve Rocket, and John Rennie, the civil engineer, over which Captain Sir Home Popham, R.N. (who seems to have acted as liaison officer between Fulton and the Admiralty), presided.
Fulton’s proposed submarine was, in the technical sense, far superior to the Confederate Hunley and was very nearly the equal of the early Hollands. Further comment is unnecessary—Fulton’s meticulous description speaks for itself.
She is 35 feet in length, he said, 10 in beam, and 8 in depth. She carries provisions for 20 days in addition to thirty 100-pound “submarine bombs.” Managed by a crew of 6, the vessel can sail like an ordinary fishing boat, “descend under water at pleasure . . . move forwards, or backwards, to the right or left ...” and remain submerged for 7 hours without having to replenish her air supply. “To renew the air, it is not necessary the Vessel should appear above water, but approaching the Surface two tubes project, through one of which the mephitic air is discharged, through the other fresh air is drawn into the Vessel, which operation can be performed in 3 or 4 minuets. ...” And, if necessary, a measure of air can be let off at regular intervals from a copper tank holding one cubic yard of air at a pressure of 20 atmospheres, so that the boat need not surface for another 5 hours, or 12 in all. Thus she may remain below all day and recharge her tank at night.
The pressure hull of the submarine “is composed of cast brass cylenders 6 feet in diameter ... 6 feet long [and] . . . one inch thick, which will be of a strength to resist the pressure of more than one hundred perpendicular feet of water; Three or more of such cylenders may be screwed together at the flanges to make a length of 18 or 24 feet,” the ends being hemispherical “to resist the pressure of the water in all directions.” The brass hull and a conning tower 3 feet in diameter and 3 feet high are fitted into an ordinary sailing vessel. While the main ballast tanks are outside the pressure hull, its lower part is occupied by the “balancing chest,” or auxiliary tank. “When the outer chambers are full, the Vessel still being from three to five hundred pounds lighter than water, water is then let into the balancing chest,” until positive buoyancy is reduced to the point where the manually operated vertical and horizontal propellers can force her under.
It is curious to note that Fulton discarded the hydroplanes which had been so successful in his earlier submarine. As in the Nautilus, the mast and sail are lowered and made fast to the deck before submerging. The depth is determined by a simple glass lube bathymeter. An ingenious device modeled after a petcock makes it possible to send a small buoy containing written messages back and forth between the submarine and the surface. By means of thick, conical glass ports in the dome of the hatch cover, observations may be made when only a foot of the conning tower is exposed.
The ballast tanks are divided into three separate compartments so that water can he pumped fore or aft to trim the boat. The cargo of mines or torpedoes is carried in special chambers over the tanks. Access is had to the “submarine bombs” through separate hatches in the spar deck. These “bombs being the weight of water will in plunging displace their volume of water; and not add or deminish the weight of the Vessel; this is the best mode of arranging the bombs, for, were they inside, each one when taken out would require to be replaced with its weight of water.”
Unlike the Nautilus, this boat was not intended to make direct torpedo attacks. She was, rather, a submarine mine layer
contrived ... to approach the fleets and harbours of the enemy in the night, there anchor her . . . submarine bombs under water, or leave them to the tide or use them in any other way which time and practice may point out . . . retire . . . for another cargo and deposit them in like manner on the coast, or in the mouths of rivers or harbours or among fleets at anchor, and thus place such numbers as would render it impossible for any Vessel to move through them without the imminent danger of being blown up and totally annihilated.
Such a vessel, Fulton continues,
cannot be taken in consequence of the case with which she can hide under water during the day. She . . . must be considered as a masked battery which can lie secure in the neighborhood of an Enemy, watch an opportunity to deposit a cargo of Bombs and retire unperceived.
Basically, the submarine bomb was a copper canister containing 100 or more pounds of powder which was detonated by a common gunlock. It had two modifications. The torpedo—2 or 3 pounds specifically heavier than salt water—was suspended below a cork float, and before being dropped overboard the clockwork firing mechanism was adjusted to go off at a definite time. Used singly or in tandem, the torpedoes were fitted with lines designed to foul the enemy’s anchor cable so that the tide would force one or both of them under the ship’s bottom.
The mine was 10 to 15 pounds lighter than water. Anchored 5 or 10 feet below the surface, it went off when a ship struck its flaring trigger. Fulton states that he knew how to regulate the mines so that, by destroying themselves at any given time within 12 months after being sown, they would not constitute a menace to navigation after the need for them had passed.
The average price is £18. and each bomb ... is of a power to do as much execution as a fireship which costs 2 or 3 thousand; 6,600 of them may be made for £120,000. or the . . . cost of one first-rate Ship of the line. When engines of such destructive powers can be multiplied to so great a degree, and at an expense which cannot be felt by an opulent nation, the practice of them may produce novel and serious consequences.
For some reason Fulton was not allowed to appear before the Commission and explain his ideas. “The Commissioners never saw Fulton, never heard of Fulton,” said John Rennie in 1818. “A packet of sealed papers and drawings was sent to them as coming from a person of the name of Francis, and on these documents alone they delivered, as they were desired to do ... a sound and honest opinion.” It is characteristic of Fulton that he warned the British that the purpose of his submarine was “to enable the weaker maritime nations to attack the stronger.’ But he pointed out that “where a nation commands the seas as in the present state of the British marine, the seamen can approach sufficiently near the enemy’s harbours ...” to use the mines and torpedoes from rowboats. By this means several hundred contact mines “might be anchored in the passages leading to the Texel, Havre, Brest or other ports of the Enemy which would render it impossible for any Vessel to move in or out.”
Naturally the Commission rejected the submarine and recommended that experiments be made only with the torpedo. The mines were turned down without a trial, apparently because it was believed that the enemy could easily remove them. Within a few weeks a contract was drawn up between Fulton, Pitt, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Melville. Under it Fulton was to receive a salary of £200 a month while in government service; the dockyards and arsenals of the Royal Navy were to be placed at his disposal and he was to be allowed a credit of £7,000 with which to construct his “mechanical preparations.”
It was also stipulated that if the government decided not to make use of the plan, then the matter was to be submitted to a commission composed of two members chosen by Fulton and two by the Cabinet. If the commission decided that the invention was feasible but that it would be imprudent to usher such a device into naval warfare, then Fulton was to be paid £40,000 “for demonstrating the principles and making over the entire possession of his submarine mode of attack.” From this it will be seen that the British were less interested in using Fulton’s submarine and torpedoes than in keeping them out of the hands of the French.
If the plan were implemented, he was to be given the £40,000—in addition to (lie £10,000 he had already received merely for leaving France—as soon as he had torpedoed a French warship. The contract was to run for 14 years, and as long as Fulton superintended its operation he was to receive one- half of the computed value of all torpedoed vessels; if he were dismissed by the government, or resigned, he was still to receive one- quarter of the value.
On July 20,1804, after signing the contract at the Prime Minister’s country home on Putney Heath, Fulton “Breakfasted with Mr. Pitt ...” and explained “the general principles of Submarine navigation and . . . attack . . . which appeared to make a very strong impression.” Again Fulton stressed the fact that it would be better to use the torpedoes and mines from rowboats than from a submarine. All that is necessary, he said, is two ordnance vessels to carry 20 well-constructed 12-oared cutters and a large number of submarine bombs, with a clock- maker and an armorer to keep them in good order and ready for action. Each cutler should have a crew of 12 oarsmen, a coxswain, 2 men to manage the bombs, and 5 marines to keep up a running fire with musketoons and blunderbusses in case of attack. In order to develop an experienced, efficient force, the 400 men of the cutters should be berthed aboard the ordnance vessels and have no other duties than manning the boats and handling the bombs. The ordnance vessels, Fulton continues, should be attended by a sailing cutter and two gun brigs. The commander of this special flotilla should be directly responsible to the admiral of the fleet, and not subordinate to the commander on any station. “For, as this plan is to attack, the enemy in roadsteads and harbours, where the usual practice of war cannot get at them, the two modes of practice are totally different and should not interfere with each other.” The whole cost of the establishment would not exceed the annual upkeep of one frigate. The flotilla
would be constantly on the watch, taking every advantage of dark nights, and all other favorable circumstances, the gun-brigs and . . . [the sailing cutter] could so far approach the enemies’ fleets in many cases to cover the boats, or at least carry them so near the enemy as to lessen the fatigue of rowing; and the ordnance vessels carrying the boats in the hold, the nature of the attack could not be suspected by the enemy.
Mr. Pitt observed that, “This is an extraordinary invention which . . . [seems] to go to the destruction of all fleets.”
“It was invented with that in view,” Fulton remarked candidly. (“As I had no desire to deceive him or the government,” Fulton wrote in his notebook, “I did not hesitate to give it as my opinion that this invention would lead to the total annihilation of the existing System of Marine war.”)
“But in its present state of perfectionment,” replied Mr. Pitt, “those who command the seas will be benefitted by it while the minor powers can draw no advantage from what is now known.”
“True, unless plunging or submarine vessels were introduced into practice,” Fulton answered. “It probably would be years before any nation could bring to perfectionment such a vessel ... at all events there would be time to fit future politics to future circumstances. If at present the french preparations can be destroyed by . . . | torpedo] attack, it will convince Bonaparte and the whole world that frenchmen can never make a descent on England, for any future fleet prepared by them may be burnt in like manner.”
On that morning in July, while Pitt and Fulton discussed the defense of England over the breakfast table, the white tents of the Grande Armee covered the hills of Boulogne. Along the French coast facing England, at Etaples, Boulogne, Vimereux, Ambleteuse, Ostende, Calais, Havre, and Dunkerque, but mainly at Boulogne, 120,000 men—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—daily carried out mock landing operations from 1,300 corvettes, gun brigs, pinnaces, and flat-bottomed boats. Napoleon planned that Nelson be decoyed away from his station off Toulon and sent on a wild-goose chase to Egypt, that the French squadrons at Toulon, Rochefort, and Brest, including a Dutch squadron at the Texel and one ship which was to slip out of Cadiz—in all, 46 ships of the line and 11 frigates carrying 30,000 additional troops—were to evade the blockade, obtain local command of the Channel for three or four days, and convoy the invasion flotilla across the Straits of Dover. Napoleon himself waited at Boulogne to embark at the head of the expedition, requiring, as he put it, “only a favorable wind in order to plant the Imperial Eagle on the Tower of London.”
There had been such scares before. Off and on since 1793 the French had collected armies and tried to assemble fleets for the invasion of England. When troops were concentrated at Boulogne in August, 1801, a squadron under Nelson promptly attacked the port but was twice driven off before it could seriously damage the flotilla. Again, in the summer of 1803 the British subjected Boulogne to a brief bombardment, then withdrew in the face of heavy lire from the coastal batteries. The French would not come out and the British could not get at them. And there, in a perfect stalemate, matters rested. I he blockade went on, day in and day out, in fair weather and in foul; there were numerous minor engagements, but the threat of Admiral Bruix’s force, snug behind its pier at Boulogne, still existed. Orthodox tactics kept the flotilla in check but had completely failed to destroy it. Finally as a last, desperate measure, Pitt decided “to make the . . . [torpedo] attack on Boulogne as soon as the engines could be prepared.”
By some chance Fulton’s steamboat scheme was resubmitted to Napoleon at Boulogne. This time the Emperor realized its importance and immediately dictated a letter, dated July 21, 1804, to Champagny, Councillor of State in the Marine Department:
I have just read the project of Citizen Fulton, engineer, which you have sent me much too late, since it is one that may change the face of the world. Be that as it may, I desire that you immediately confide its examination to a Commission. ... A great truth, a physical, palpable truth is before my eyes. It will be for these gentlemen to try and seize it and see it. . . . Try and let the whole be concluded within eight days, as I am impatient.
Naturally, no report was ever made. Nobody knows what Napoleon said when he found out where Fulton was and what he was doing.
On the other side of the Channel, Pitt, although convinced of the value of Fulton s plan, allowed the Admiralty to scrap it almost entirely. Late in the summer of 1804 a number of spherical torpedoes, joined together in pairs by a length of line, were loaded aboard Captain E. W. C. R. Owen’s frigate l’Immortalite. The ship took up her position off Boulogne and the surprise value of Fulton’s invention was frittered away by sending a few men to attack the flotilla from a gig. The raids were conducted with great skill and daring. The torpedoes, with detonators set to explode in 10 minutes, were dropped so close to the leading vessels of the flotilla that the crew of the gig frequently suffered casualties from volleys of musketry. In the morning the raiders sometimes saw a French gunboat with her jib boom blown off, but no other damage seems to have been inflicted. This was due to the fact that these first torpedoes were not quite properly balanced and exploded too close to the surface. It took Fulton more than a year to correct this defect.
At last, when the enemy was “on the alert and had a just apprehension of the dangerous powers of these engines” and had taken to mooring a small boat ahead of each gunboat to fend off any tide-borne torpedoes, Captain Sir Home Popham was directed to organize a fleet attack on the Boulogne Flotilla, but on a far larger scale than Fulton had contemplated. Comparisons of this sort are usually specious, nevertheless it may be said that Fulton was thinking in terms of a task force -one in which torpedo boats, ordnance vessels, gun brigs, and a sailing cutter took the place of torpedo bombers, carriers, cruisers, and destroyers -and that the very size of the Catamaran Expedition, as it came to be known, impaired its efficiency.
Even the size of the torpedo was increased. Huge, clumsy, and ineffectual, the “coffer” —as the British termed it—was simply a watertight, lead-lined wooden box 21 feet long and 3 feet 3 inches broad. Filled with about 40 barrels of powder, it was well caulked, tarred, enclosed in canvas, and given a final coating of hot pitch. Each coffer weighed about 2 tons and was ballasted with cannon shot, so as to float awash like a great log. A grapnel and its line, buoyed up by cork floats, was attached to one end and was intended to be hooked to the enemy’s cable so that the coffer would swing round and explode alongside the ship.
The catamaran was patterned after a raft used by the natives of the Coromandel coast and consisted of two timbers about 9 feet long and 9 inches square, held parallel to each other by a bar and a couple of wooden struts. A sailor, wearing a uniform of black guernsey and a black cap which covered his face, sat, half immersed, on the crossbar. Relying on the fact that the catamaran was almost invisible, he was to tow a coffer up to a French gunboat and affix it to the enemy’s anchor cable. After pulling out the pin which put the clockwork detonator in operation, he was to paddle back to his own ship and let the tide carry the coffer into position.
Admiral Lord Keith, with Sir Home Popham as his second in command, led the first Catamaran Expedition, while Fulton and Lord Melville accompanied him as observers. The impending attack on Boulogne was supposed to be a state secret, yet we find gossipy Joseph Farington noting in his Diary that Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, “in conversation about Buonapart said . . . that within ten days something extraordinary would happen.” Not content with throwing out mysterious hints, West later confides “that the French invasion fleet will be destroyed in their Harbours by some extraordinary means which they cannot prevent.” The French spies must have had an easy time of it!
During the latter part of September Lord Keith’s fleet the 74-gun flagship Monarch, three 64’s, two 50’s, four sloop-rigged fire ships, a number of frigates, gun brigs, bomb ketches, and sailing cutters (50 or 60 vessels altogether) cruised off Boulogne, “for no other reason that I can conceive,” said Admiral Crawford, then a midshipman in H.M.S. l’Immortalite, “except to put the enemy on his guard and give him timely notice of our intentions.”
Observing, on the afternoon of October 1, that about 150 vessels of the flotilla were moored in a double line outside the pier, Keith resolved to attack them. The fleet cast anchor about 5 miles from the French line and during the day the Monarch, accompanied by 3 frigates, sailed into the harbor and re-anchored just out of gunshot range. The French, “who were perfectly awake to all that was going forward,” took every defensive precaution possible. The major part of the flotilla was drawn in close to shore, the coast defenses were ready, and much of the field artillery carried in the invasion boats was formed into batteries along the beach. Admiral Bruix also dispatched a small force to observe closely the activities of the British. For a night and a day the Monarch and her consorts remained at anchor, doing nothing. Late in the evening of October 2, Keith reconnoitered the harbor in a sailing cutter and at 9:15 gave the signal to advance. Fifteen minutes later the alarm was sounded in the flotilla. Shortly, “the whole bay was lit up by vivid flashes of musketry that was soon increased to noonday brightness by a blaze of artillery. ...” The French defended themselves bravely, but no counterattack was either planned or made. This was not due entirely to ineptitude, which is comparatively excusable, but to lack of the offensive spirit. Indeed, the contrast between French and British naval tactics throughout the Napoleonic wars is typified by the methods of the two commanders: Bruix issued his orders from a gun brig anchored in the forward line, while Keith led the British attacks in his barge.
The first fire ship blew up at 10:15 p.m.; one after another the remaining three were sent against the French line. Failing to sink the lire ships by gunfire, the French vessels drew apart and disengaged themselves from those which managed to grapple. They all exploded harmlessly, wounding a few men only with (lying splinters. The catamarans and some launches, which were also used to low the “internals,” entered the engagement at every opportunity. “We came within pistol shot of a Corvette,” says one British officer, “before we let go our coffers under a fire of shot and shells from the shore. The first explosion . . . was very great and seemed to strike the enemy with general consternation.” Six other coffers went off at irregular intervals, but only one appears to have done any damage. An enemy pinnace ran afoul of it more or less by accident and was blown up with the loss of 21 of her crew, increasing the French casualties to 27. The last coffer exploded at about 3:30 the next morning, and at 4:14 a.m. the British withdrew without having lost a man.
Lord Keith soberly reported that the flotilla seems to have sustained no very extensive injury, “although it is evident that there has been considerable confusion among them. ... I think it my duty to state . . . my conviction that, in the event of any great accumulation of the enemy’s force in their roadsteads, an extensive and combined operation of a similar nature will hold forth a reasonable prospect of a successful result. Nevertheless, the hired press of the administration acclaimed the attack as a great victory.
The opposition papers quickly exposed the imposture. In a flood of irony the only sound criticism was voiced by Sir Evan Nepean, the former Secretary to the Admiralty. “I think,” he writes, “that we might better have taken our chances of getting the enemy’s craft at sea, than to have attacked them with torpedoes. We may expect the enemy to retaliate at one time or another and it appears to me, that if navies are to be destroyed by such means as have been pursued, our naval strength can no longer be counted on.”
On “Friday Morn, October 5, 1804,” Lord Granville, the newly appointed Ambassador to Russia, rebukes his mistress for “blabbing out at Supper last night what 1 had been telling you just before about the means made use of to ... ” attack the Boulogne Flotilla. “1 hope you have not told any one of the attempt that is to be made upon the pier at C . ...” The expedition to Calais did not get under way for more than two months, yet it seems to have rather surprised the French. This time, evidently, Lady Bessborough and the rest of the blabbers had not been overheard.
The second objective of the torpedo was the destruction of Fort Rouge, a battery erected on piles, which guarded the mouth of Calais Harbor. Lord Keith “directed Captain Sir Home Popham, of the Antelope ... to hold in view a favorable opportunity for making this attempt.” On the night of December 8 the Antelope, the Dart, and the gun-brig Locust sailed boldly into the harbor to cover the advance of two coffers and the fire-ship Susannah. The Susannah was anchored against the piles and exploded according to schedule, but one coffer could not be got into place and the other, when moored, would not go off. No lives were lost on either side; the damage to the fort was negligible.
The project was shelved for a time, but Pitt never lost faith in the torpedo. Fulton continued to receive his salary of $1,000 a month. Idleness, however, even well-paid idleness, chafed him. By March, 1805, his steam engine, constructed by the firm of Boulton and Watt, was packed up and ready for shipment to the United States. On July 18 he complained to Mr. Pitt that he had twice written to Lord Barham, the new First Lord of the Admiralty (Henry Dundas, Lord Melville, had been impeached for the irregular manner in which he handled his accounts as Treasurer of the Navy), without receiving an answer, and concluded therefore that the government intended to make no further use of the torpedo. He wished to sail for America about September 1, and requested an interview with the Prime Minister so that arrangements might be made either to employ his system of attack or dissolve the contract. Fulton says that Sir Home Popham knows all there is to know about torpedoes and if it is thought proper to use them, that can be done as easily without the aid of the inventor as with it. “As to the submarine Vessel my opinion ever has been that it would not be good policy in this government to introduce it into practice. Consequently you will not want me to construct one.”
Writing to Pitt again on August 9, Fulton re-emphasized the importance of creating a torpedo task force and said that if this measure were not adopted he despaired “of doing any good for Government or honour to myself.” If his inventions were insignificant, he continued, he expected nothing for them, but if, as he believed, they were “capable of working a total revolution in marine war,” then the Government must either use them systematically or terminate the contract and recompense him for suppressing them.
Pitt turned the letter over to Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for War, who penned a very diplomatic reply to Lord Parham concerning the defenses of Boulogne:
We . . . wish to have the best means of satisfying our friends on the question of Boulogne, which, under all the difficulties it seems to present, deserves at least to be considered. With this in view, perhaps, your lordship would see no objections to order Sir S. Smith and Captain Owen of the Immortalite up to town to be with you on Monday morning, bringing with them the late Ordnance Survey and any information they may have . . .
From then on the Admiralty had little to do with the third Catamaran Expedition except to act as a clearinghouse for Castlereagh’s orders. On September 10 he requested Barham to have Fulton’s torpedoes—which had been stored at Portsmouth—placed aboard the armed defense ships Sceptre and Diadem and to attach these vessels to Sir Sidney Smith’s squadron. On the 19th, after conferring with Fulton, Castlereagh directed that military surveyors be sent off to make new charts of Boulogne, ordered Major Congreve to have 500 of his rockets ready for use in the expedition, and suggested that Smith immediately select 128 intelligent and enterprising seamen permanently to man 9 torpedo boats and 10 catamarans. Prize money for torpedoing a ship of the line was set at £1,000; a frigate brought £600; a sloop of war or a corvette, £400; a smaller armed decked vessel, £200.
Castlereagh had overridden Admiral Lord Barham without a qualm, but in the midst of all these instructions he checks himself to ask Commodore Smith’s opinion of the enterprise and indicates that if Sir Sidney regards it with disfavor it will not be undertaken.
An examination of Castlereagh’s correspondence reveals that he intended to send Smith’s squadron into the Bay of Boulogne to attack the outer line of French gunboats with torpedoes and drive it back in confusion so that the British could move up to within 2,500 yards and set fire to the remainder of the flotilla—which was drawn in close to shore- by bombarding it with Congreve Rockets. Having destroyed or badly damaged the greater part of the flotilla, Smith was to sail for Cadiz to harry the Franco- Spanish fleet with torpedoes and rockets. (But, said Lord Barham sharply—and Castlereagh, as usual, ignored the advice— “if you do not immediately send Sir Sidney off to Cadiz, without thinking of Boulogne, that part of the project which bids fairest for success will be lost. The combined squadrons now lie in a huddled, disorderly state at Cadiz. If the rockets can be of use, a better opportunity cannot be desired. . . . ”)
Castlereagh explained his project to Lord Nelson at a conference attended by Pitt, Fulton, Congreve, and Sir Sidney Smith. Nelson was sufficiently impressed with Fulton’s “task-force” proposal to offer Commodore Smith
the command of his [Nelson’s] inshore squadron in the Mediterranean, with full powers to act as circumstances might render practicable in attacking the enemy in their own harbours and in their coast communications both by sea and land.
However, Nelson’s opinion of the rocket attack on Cadiz, written aboard the Victory on October 1, 1805, was cautious and reserved:
Even should no Ships be burnt, yet it would make Cadiz so very disagreeable that they would rather risk an Action than remain in Port. I do assure your Lordship that myself and many thousands in the Fleet will fall under the greatest obligations to Colonel Congreve. But I think, with your Lordship’s assistance, we have a better chance of forcing them out by want of provisions. . . .
Within two days Nelson’s attitude had undergone a sea-change:
About twelve sail of the line are anchored in the great Bay; and if gun-and guard-boats, which I should suppose are pretty numerous, do not prevent them, the way is open to Mr. Francis. But 1 have but little faith; however, that is for His Majesty’s Ministers: he shall have every assistance from me.
The rockets, if the account of them is true, must annoy their fleet very much; but 1 depend more upon hunger for driving them out, and upon the gallant officers and men under my command for their destruction, than any other invention. But rely, these gentlemen shall have every justice done their plans.
The Trafalgar Campaign is too well known to require more than a brief sketch of the events leading up to October 21, 1805. The unexpected death, on August 20, 1804, of Admiral Latouche-Treville, the commander of the French squadron at Toulon, forced Napoleon to postpone the invasion of England until the following year. On March 30, 1805, Admiral Villeneuve, Latouche’s successor, slipped through Nelson’s blockade of Toulon and tried, clumsily, to carry out his part of the Emperor’s commands, which called for a series of thrusts and feints directed towards dispersing the British so that the French fleets could assemble in force off Boulogne to protect the flotilla as it poured troops into Kent or Essex. Villeneuve led Nelson on a stern chase from Toulon to Cadiz, from Cadiz to the West Indies, thence back to the coast of Spain. On July 22 Villeneuve ran into Sir Robert Calder in a fog off Finisterre and after an indecisive action took refuge in Cadiz. Napoleon raged at Boulogne: “What a fleet! What sacrifices for nothing! What an Admiral! All hope has vanished! Villeneuve instead of entering the Channel has retired to Cadiz! He will be blockaded there!” Realizing that the invasion of England was now impossible, Napoleon, swiftly withdrawing his army from the coast, marched against Austria and Russia. Nelson came home to England for a short rest, then joined forces with Colling- wood off Cadiz on September 28. Nelson tried for weeks to entice the enemy into giving battle. Villeneuve sat tight. After a while Nelson became more or less reconciled to the idea of smoking the enemy out and told one of his captains that while he expected the Admiralty to send out 3 fire ships
I should not be surprised if Mr. Francis and his catamarans were sent, and Colonel Congreve with his rockets—but all this keep to yourself, for officers will talk, and there is no occasion for putting the enemy on their guard. When these arrive we two will consult how to manage them. . . .
Until the requisite number of rockets had been manufactured and the survey of Boulogne completed, it was impossible to execute Castlereagh’s plan; but Sir Sidney Smith, while cruising off that port on September 30, went out in the night at the head of his boats to float a number of coffers and copper torpedoes against the outer line of the flotilla. The result was lugubrious. Six of the “carcasses” went off without effect and the remainder were washed up on the beach. The British had one man wounded, while 4 Frenchmen were killed at daybreak by the explosion of a torpedo that they had foolishly tried to tow ashore.
Castlereagh was not in the least dismayed by this latest in a series of failures, and serenely prepared to launch the full-scale attack on Boulogne. While Nelson, cruising off Cadiz, was desperately in need of frigates, one-third of Lord Keith’s fleet was “waiting on Sir Sidney Smith.” Barham and Keith exchanged vitriolic letters concerning coffers, catamarans, rockets, and Sir Sidney Smith, but neither had the power to countermand the orders of the Secretary for War. Commodore Smith continued his sorties.
On the night of October 1, 1805, Captain Seccombe steered his 8-oared cutler for a gun brig in Boulogne Roads. He dropped a pair of torpedoes, the connecting line fouled the anchor cable perfectly, and as he drew away both went off. The brig was violently canted over but, to his astonishment, she was not destroyed. Lieutenant Payne, of l’Immortalite, had a similar experience. Fulton therefore tested a torpedo in a tub of brine and explained that the French “owed the safety of the two brigs to the trifling circumstances of the torpedoes not being properly balanced when in water, and the coupling lines not being tied to a bridle, so as to make the torpedoes sheer under the bottoms of the brigs.”
To re-establish the utility of the torpedoes Fulton decided or rather found it imperative—experimentally to destroy a small vessel. A prize of war, the stout Danish brig Dorothea, was anchored in Walmer Roads, opposite Walmer Castle, Pitt’s official residence as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Fulton loaded one torpedo with 170 pounds of powder, and, using the other as a counterpoise, united the two with 18 fathoms of light line; since the brig drew 2 fathoms, he suspended the torpedoes from floats so that they would hang 15 feet below the surface. On September 14, 1805, he announced that he would blow up the Dorothea at 5:00 p.m. the next day. “Urgent business called Mr. Pitt and Lord Melville to London,” but Admiral Halloway, Commodore Smith, Captain Kingston, Lieutenant Colonel Congreve, Captain Owen—Owen, whose low opinion of the torpedo merely echoed that of the Navy in general, offered to remain on board the Dorothea during the experiment and the major part of the officers of Lord Keith’s fleet were present. They followed Fulton to the water’s edge and watched him signal his boats with a handkerchief tied to the end of a cane. The long, 8-oared galleys each of which carried a torpedo in the stern -darted past the bow of the Dorothea and dropped them to port and starboard of her. In exactly 15 minutes, as Fulton took pleasure in informing Lord Castlereagh,
the explosion took place. It lifted the brig almost bodily, and broke her in two. The ends sunk immediately and in one minute nothing was to be seen of her but floating fragments; her main-mast and pumps were thrown into the sea; her foremast was broken in three pieces; her beams and knees were thrown from her decks and sides, and her deck planks were rent to fibres. In fact, her annihilation was complete, and the effect was most extraordinary. The power, as I had calculated, passed in a right line through her body, that being the line of least resistance, and carried all before it. At the time of her going up she did not appear to make more resistance than a bag of feathers, and went to pieces like a shattered egg-shell.
It is unfortunate that Fulton had not been allowed, as he wished, to experiment with and improve the torpedo in the autumn of 1804, for the “submarine bombs” used during August 1804 September 1805 were totally useless.
An official report followed Fulton’s letter in the mail and Castlereagh, as yet unaware of Nelson’s death at Trafalgar, sent it to the Admiral on October 27, saying,
With respect to the enemy’s fleet at Cadiz, 1 hope your lordship will either have the glory of destroying it at sea, or that we shall find the means, sooner or later, of getting at them in port. 1 have not thought it desirable to send either Mr. Congreve or Mr. Francis to your lordship till they have provided themselves with all the necessary means of giving effect to the respective modes of attack.
Castlereagh adds that the power of the weapon, which has been satisfactorily ascertained by an experiment upon a vessel purchased for that purpose, depends upon “circumstances and must be more or less liable to failure, according to the position of the enemy’s fleet.” But, if skillfully used, it will destroy any ship, however large.
I cannot but feel . . . that it may be frequently applied with effect; and, in cases where it docs succeed, its effect cannot be counteracted subsequent to the explosion; whereas, the fire occasioned by the rockets may, like any other fire, be extinguished by the exertions of the ship’s company.
I hope to forward both these weapons soon to your lordship and T am sure your lordship will facilitate their application.
The special charts of Boulogne were placed in Sir Sidney Smith’s hands during flic latter part of October. While waiting for the rockets to be prepared he decided to try out the improved torpedo. On October 27 Lieutenant Charles F. Payne of H.M.S. Bloodhound made the usual raid on one of the Boulogne Flotilla. Both Smith and button refrained from explaining why, since the torpedo exploded, the French brig remained unharmed.
At last the rockets were delivered and Smith’s squadron appeared in full force off Boulogne on November 17. Night after night “Our people rowed very gallantly in . . . and broke through” the line of gun brigs “in various places, running right under their bows to throw the carcasses,” but the attacks failed because the brigs against which they were directed had been moored with two bow anchors (the simplest anti-torpedo device on record), the cables of which detected the torpedoes so that they exploded innocuously. Sir Sidney Smith notified Lord Castlereagh that his last venture into the bay, on November 21, had died a-borning, due to bad weather. He exuberantly endorsed Fulton’s “task-force.” By next summer, he said, we shall be able successfully to attack the invasion flotilla, but the sooner we go south to Cadiz and destroy what is left of the Franco-Spanish licet, the better.
Fulton, however, was not at all satisfied. He had repeatedly urged that his “invention ... be arranged into a system by itself,” and said to Lord Castlereagh on November 25 that,
“After thirteen months’ essay and argument, I have still to plead that it may be systematized, and this I do, believing it in the best interest of Government; for, as to myself, having shown how to construct the carcasses, and apply them with simplicity and certainty, little more can be required of me; it must be for regular bred seamen to use them and seek opportunities to destroy the enemy.
On the same day Fulton transmitted to Sir Sidney Smith a long and carefully worked out plan for the establishment of a torpedo squadron, consisting of 2 frigates, 1 or 2 sailing cutlers to carry dispatches, and 2 armed store ships to accommodate 20 torpedo boats, which squadron, he asserted,
can move from place to place with facility; may be here, at Brest, Fcrrol, or Cadiz, in a few days; and will always be ready to act at a moment’s warning, which is essentially necessary to take advantage of winds, tide, and other circumstances. . . . When I consider this little squadron, it is like a grain in the scale of British power; when 1 contemplate what it may perform with little risk, 1 see the probability of its annihilating all that remains of French and Spanish fleets—I say annihilating, for . . . such must ... be the consequence of prosecuting this new invention with intelligence and vigour.
No sooner had this been posted than Fulton dashed off a detailed memorandum for an attack to be made the following spring by 50 torpedo boats on the French squadron at Brest. He thought that the whole squadron could be torpedoed in a single night, perhaps without the loss of even one of the raiders; but, he reasoned, even if 500 half the attacking force were sacrificed, the casualties would be inconsequential compared to those suffered in a fleet action of the same magnitude.
What is wanting is boats, men, and powder. I have every other thing requisite. . . . Should this system clear the roads of Brest, it will also sweep every other open port of the enemy. The prudent measure is to be well prepared, and watch a favorable moment for the attack.
The large wooden coffers having been discarded for the time being, only the copper torpedoes were to be employed.
Castlereagh did not wish to send Sir Sidney Smith to Cadiz until the flotilla had been destroyed. Everything was held in abeyance and Fulton, anxious to begin work on the steamboat, applied, not for the £40,000 promised him in the contract, but for £60,000, and the continuation of his present salary (to be forfeited if he revealed the secrets of the torpedo) of £2,400 a year for life. He assured Lord Castlereagh
that great as this demand may appear to be, I am not much interested in its success, for by agreeing to let my invention lie dormant I feel that I abandon a Subject in which there is the most Philosophic and honorable fame and perhaps the interest of my country, which is dearer to me than all consideration of wealth. However, I hope America And England will so well understand their Mutual Interest, that it will not be necessary for me to introduce my Invention into practice for our own defense. And I have no desire to use it to the advantage of any other Nation.
Nevertheless, to enforce his demands, Fulton threatened to turn his “system, which must, of necessity, sweep all military marines from the ocean,” over to the French. He pointed out to William Pitt, on January 6, 1806, that
it must be observed that I did not come here so much with a view to do you any material good as to show that I have the power, and might, in the exercise of my plan to acquire fortune, do you an infinite injury, which Ministers, if they think proper, may prevent, by an arrangement with me.
I did, however, zealously endeavor to be of service, and have proved that infinite good may be done. Hut I presume Lord Barham has not had time to take into consideration the peculiar situation in which I stand, nor to consider my invention in all its consequences. . . .
Pitt never answered the letter. He lay, sick unto death, in the little house on Putney Heath. His heart had been broken by the impeachment of Melville, one of his closest friends; the French triumphs at Ulm and Austerlitz on October 17 and December 2, 1805, just about killed him. When he died on January 23, 1806, his Cabinet was swept away. Lord Grenville, a political poor relation, inherited the Premiership. It soon became apparent to Fulton that there was no prospect of his getting £60,000 and an annuity from Grenville. When Fulton asked for the £40,000 to which he was rightly entitled, he found the Government unwilling to pay that too. In August, 1806, his claims were placed before a board of arbitrators, as provided for in the contract with Mr. Pitt. The negotiations, however, were so protracted and involved that, since they have been thoroughly covered by General Parsons’ excellent work, Robert Fulton and the Submarine, it is unnecessary to discuss them. Suffice it to say that Fulton spent the best part of 1806 pleading his case and that in February of that year Sir Sidney Smith was assigned to regular sea duty. Smith, now a rear admiral, protested vigorously but without avail to William Windham, Castlereagh’s successor as Secretary for War:
Surely Lord Nelson’s death ought not to operate so disadvantageous^ to us as to change our system into a simple and passive one of defence, when active offensive operations toward destroying the enemy’s means of annoying us and our allies are so much more efficacious to that end. ... I anxiously await your answer to this to know whether I am to expect to be set at liberty and enabled to go to work; if not, anybody who likes the jog-trot system [and there are many] may as well take my station, for they would do better in it than one who does not like it.
It is possible that the improved torpedo, employed by a properly organized squadron, might have justified Smith’s hopes; but, though Russia and Austria, England’s allies in the Third Coalition, lay humbled in the dust, no longer was Britain in peril of invasion. The day of desperate remedies was past. Grenville refused to make use of an invention that might all too easily be turned against England.
In his efforts to persuade the Grenville Ministry to adopt his torpedoes Fulton made the mistake of describing the Dorothea experiment to Admiral of the Fleet Lord St. Vincent. The Admiral “reflected for some time, and then said Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed, to encourage a mode of war which they who commanded the seas did not want, and which, if successful, would deprive them of it.”
The arbitrators also decided that Fulton’s “submarine mode of warfare” was valueless to England. They conceded that the submarine was practicable and admitted that torpedoes and mines could sink ships, but ruled that Fulton had accomplished so little with his torpedo that he did not merit £40,000; neither did they think it worth that sum to keep Fulton from making the “system” available to France, disposing of his contention that 12,000 mines, if anchored in the Channel, “would cut off the greater part of the commerce of . . . England ...” and force Britain “to submit to any terms Bonaparte might think proper to dictate,” by saying that the mines would be washed ashore by storms. In any event, they stated, “a few vessels with cables stretched could sweep the Channel and destroy the bombs.”
Fulton refuted these objections to his own satisfaction and to that of two of the arbitrators. He was allowed, as he wrote to Joel Barlow in September, 1806, “the £10,000 which 1 had received, with £5,000 salary, total £15,000. ... My situation now is, my hands arc free to burn, sink, and destroy whom I please, and 1 shall now seriously set about giving liberty to the seas by publishing my system of attack.”
Towards the end of October, 1806, Fulton sailed from Falmouth to continue his torpedo experiments in the United States and to complete a far grander work by constructing the Clermont. He was convinced, when he left England, that if torpedoes “have not been fairly tried, and no execution has been done, the fault is not in me or the engines, but in the Government.” This was very close to the truth, but the main cause of Fulton’s failure —a very rare cause indeed—was that his tactical theories had outstripped his weapons.