Chapter I: Preface

While engaged during the last ten years in the task of mastering the original authorities for the history of the Napoleonic wars, I have had to peruse many scores of diaries, autobiographies, and journals of the British military and naval officers who were engaged in the great struggle. They vary, of course, in interest and importance, in literary value, and in the power of vivid presentation of events. But they have this in common, that they are almost all very difficult to procure. Very few have been reprinted; indeed, I believe that the books of Lord Dundonald, Kincaid, John Shipp, Gleig, and Mercer are well nigh the only ones which have passed through a second edition. Yet there are many others which contain matter of the highest interest, not only for the historical student, but for every intelligent reader. From among these I have made a selection of ten or a dozen which seem to me well worth republishing.

Among these is the present volume--the narrative of the three escapes of Donat O’Brien from French captivity, and of his subsequent services in the Mediterranean during the last years of the great French war. I imagine that no prisoner--not excluding Baron Trenck himself--ever made _three_ such desperate dashes for liberty as did this enterprising Irish midshipman. It is fortunate that he found the leisure, and had the skill, to narrate all his adventures. He had a talent for minute description, a wonderful memory, and a humorous way of looking on the world which will remind the reader of the spirit of Captain Marryat’s naval heroes.

It is not, I think, generally known that O’Brien’s escapes actually suggested to Marryat a great part of the plot of one of his best known books--_Peter Simple_. In that excellent romance the narrator (it will be remembered) actually escapes from Givet in company with an Irish naval officer, and goes through a hundred perils before reaching safety. It was a strange liberty to take with a living comrade, that Marryat actually names _Peter Simple’s_ comrade O’Brien, and utilises many touches from the real Donat’s adventures to make his tale vivid. In the end the fictitious O’Brien plays a great part in the story and marries the hero’s sister. What the retired captain thought, or said, on finding himself thus liberally dealt with in a novel is not recorded. But I fancy that he must have considered it hard that _Peter Simple_ should be reprinted some thirty times, while his own most interesting book never saw a second edition.

It is now very rare: in ten years of systematic searching of second-hand book shops, in quest of old military and naval autobiographies, I have only come on three copies of the work. I trust that by this edition it may be brought once more to common knowledge.

The reader will find in it a most wonderful study of the life of a hunted man, “a sort of Nebuchadnezzar living on cabbage stalks,” as O’Brien styles himself, during his miserable lurking in the cliffs of the Vosges. Almost as interesting is the sketch of the gloomy existence of the thousand “refractory” British prisoners in the _souterrains_ of the rock-fortress of Bitche. French writers have often denounced the Portsmouth pontoons, on which so many of their compatriots were forced to dwell. But they compare favourably with the underground dungeons in which Napoleon confined O’Brien and many another British sailor. In strong contrast with this part of the story is the short narrative of life in Verdun, where the _détenus_ on parole seem to have been allowed as much, and even more, liberty than was good for them. Roulette tables and race meetings were demoralising luxuries for men suffering from enforced idleness. From other sections of O’Brien’s narrative the reader may obtain curious side-lights on many features of the Napoleonic _régime_ in France--the ubiquity of the _gendarme_ and his natural prey, the escaped conscript, the bare and squalid life of the peasantry, the estrangement between the military caste and the _bourgeoisie_. There are also glimpses of Germany during the existence of the _Rheinbund_, when the people were united in a sort of tacit conspiracy against the governments who had made themselves the tools of Bonaparte. Not least interesting are the final chapters, in which O’Brien, free at last, shows us how British naval ascendency was maintained in the Adriatic, and helps us to realise the truth of the saying that “wherever a boat could float Bonaparte’s power found its limit.” It was to no purpose that he called himself king of Italy, annexed Dalmatia and Illyria, and established his brother-in-law at Naples: three or four British frigates, based on the island stronghold of Lissa, dominated the whole seaboard, ransacked every estuary, and destroyed whatever naval force was sent against them--even though it was on paper twice their own strength. Hoste’s battle of 13th March 1811 was, as far as mere disparity of numbers goes, a victory that can be compared to St. Vincent alone among all the long list of British successes at sea.

I have ventured to cut short O’Brien’s narrative at the end of the Napoleonic war. It went no further in his own first draft, which (as I have stated in the succeeding biographical note) was compiled before 1815. When he published his two-volume book, in 1839, he subjoined to his narrative of captivity and naval service three long chapters, detailing his visits and rambles in England and Ireland during the years of his middle age, his cruise to Brazil and Chile in 1818-21, and his continental tour with his wife in 1827. In these 150 pages there is so little matter to interest either the historical student or the general reader, that I have thought it well to omit them. For O’Brien, as for so many other British soldiers and seamen, “the joy of eventful living” ended in 1815.

For this excision, and for certain other small cuttings, I think that I may appeal with a clear conscience for the pardon that editors are wont to demand.

C. OMAN.

OXFORD, _September 1902_.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

Donat Henchy O’Brien was born in County Clare during the month of March 1785. Of his odd combination of names, the first was one common in the sept of the O’Briens since the earliest ages: it has nothing to do with St. Donatus, as the casual reader might suppose, but represents the old Erse Donough or Donoght.[1] His second name came from his mother, a Miss Henchy, sister of Counsellor Fitz-Gibbon Henchy, a Dublin lawyer of some repute in his day. Of Donat’s father we find nothing more in O’Byrne’s _Naval Biography_ than the characteristically Hibernian statement that “he was descended from one of the ancient monarchs of Ireland.”

Donat O’Brien entered the navy on 16th December 1796, when only eleven, starting even younger than the average of the midshipmen of those hard days. Apparently he owed his introduction to the service to Captain (afterwards Rear-Admiral) Edward Walpole Brown, whom he styles “his early patron.” His first vessel was the _Overyssel_ (64), a Dutch line-of-battle ship which had been seized in Cork Harbour in 1795, where it was lying when Holland was forced to yield to France and to become her subservient ally. In this vessel he served for three years, under Captains Young and Bazely, mainly in the North Sea squadron. He was present in her at the surrender of the Dutch fleet in the Texel on 30th August 1799, during the futile campaign of the Duke of York. Later in the same year the _Overyssel_ was engaged in the blockading of three Dutch men-of-war which had run into the port of Goeree. While in charge of an old merchant ship, which was to be sunk at the mouth of the harbour, for the more effectual shutting in of the fugitives, O’Brien was in great peril. The vessel was overset in a sudden gale, and he had a narrow escape from drowning, being saved at the last moment by a boat of the _Lion_ cutter.

From the _Overyssel_ O’Brien passed in December 1801 to the _Beschermer_ (54), another Dutch prize,[2] commanded by Captain Alexander Frazer. He was in her but a few months, as she was laid up in Ordinary at Chatham when the long negotiations for an accommodation with France were seen to be coming to a successful conclusion. In the spring of 1802, when the Peace of Amiens had been signed, O’Brien sailed in the _Amphion_, a 32-gun frigate, where he again had Captain Frazer as his chief. During the short suspension of hostilities the frigate was first cruising in British waters to suppress smuggling, and then engaged in a short cruise to Lisbon.

In January 1803 O’Brien completed his six years of service as a midshipman, and went up to London to pass his lieutenant’s examination. This being accomplished with success, he returned for a short time to the _Amphion_, but was in a few months moved, as a master’s mate, to the _Hussar_, a new 38-gun frigate commanded by Captain Philip Wilkinson.

The name _Hussar_ was unlucky: the last ship that had borne the name, a 28-gun frigate, had been lost by shipwreck off the French coast on 27th December 1796, the greater part of her crew being made prisoners. Her successor was to have precisely the same fate less than a year after she had been put into commission. She sailed from Spithead in May 1803, immediately after the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and was cruising in the North Atlantic and in the Bay of Biscay during the first months of the war. During the winter the _Hussar_ was ordered to join Sir Edward Pellew’s squadron off the coast of Spain, and was lying with him in Ares Bay, near Ferrol, when she was ordered home with despatches. Captain Wilkinson was told to communicate on the way with the Channel Fleet, which was lying off Cape Finisterre, under Admiral Cornwallis, engaged in the blockade of Brest. It was this diversion into French waters which caused the loss of the _Hussar_. On 8th February 1804 she ran ashore on the _Saintes_ rocks, and became a total wreck. The majority of the crew struggled ashore and fell into the hands of the French.

Here Donat O’Brien’s own narrative begins. He may be left to tell the tale of his own misfortunes and adventures from February 1804 till October 1813. Suffice it to say that he was a prisoner at Givet from 28th March till 16th July 1804. He was then transferred to Verdun, where he lay interned till the August of 1807, when he made his first dash for liberty in company with three other naval officers--Lieutenant Essel and two midshipmen named Ashworth and Tuthill. After making their way through countless dangers as far as Étaples on the coast of Picardy, they were seized by _douaniers_ when actually in sight of the sea and the English cruisers in the Channel. Their status being soon discovered, they were sent back to prison, after an Odyssey which had lasted from the 28th of August to the 18th of September 1807.

After recapture O’Brien and his companions were told off for confinement in the mountain-fort of Bitche, a bleak fastness in the Vosges, appropriated to refractory or undesirable prisoners of war. While on their journey thither, escorted by mounted _gendarmes_, the prisoners had a chance of escape--they made a sudden dash for a neighbouring wood and ran for their lives. In their flight they soon lost sight of each other, and, while the others were recaptured, O’Brien got away. He made for the nearest neutral frontier, that of Austria, and nearly reached his goal. After passing the Rhine, crossing the Black Forest, and working far into Bavaria, he was arrested on suspicion at Lindau on the Lake of Constance. It was soon discovered that he was an escaped English prisoner, and the Bavarian Government sent him back under escort to France. His second futile attempt to escape had covered the period from 15th November to 30th November 1807.

His two desperate dashes for freedom secured O’Brien a place in the most miserable subterranean casemate of Bitche. Nevertheless, after a year’s captivity this undaunted master’s mate once more escaped--this time in company with a midshipman named Hewson, a dragoon officer named Batley, and a surgeon named Barklimore. Having constructed a rope, they let themselves down from the three concentric walls of Bitche, a height of 200 feet in all, and got clear away.

This time fortune was with O’Brien. He and two of his companions (the third, Captain Batley, fell ill at Rastadt and had to be left behind) crossed South Germany in safety, and reached the Austrian frontier not many miles from Salzburg. The local officials politely acquiesced in a transparent fiction by which the fugitives pretended to be Americans, and allowed them to proceed to Trieste, where they were picked up by a boat of the _Amphion_, one of O’Brien’s old ships. The third voyage of this much-travelled man had lasted from 15th September to 7th November 1808.

We need not linger over his service in the Mediterranean on the _Amphion_, _Warrior_, and _Bacchante_. Suffice it to say that he became a lieutenant on 29th March 1809, and was promoted to the rank of commander on 22nd January 1813. He had seen much service during these four years, and had once been severely wounded in an unsuccessful attempt to board and capture a Venetian _trabaccolo_ off Trieste. The most important action in which he was engaged was Commodore Hoste’s victory off Lissa on 13th March 1811.

On being promoted to the rank of commander, O’Brien had to return to England, no ship being available for him in the Mediterranean. He arrived at Portsmouth on 4th October 1813, and took for some months a well-earned holiday. He was in hopes of seeing service against the Americans, but the times were unpropitious. Both the Napoleonic and the American wars were coming to an end, and, like so many other energetic naval and military men, O’Brien found himself placed on half-pay in 1814.

He only had one more turn of service afloat, in command of the _Slaney_, a 20-gun sloop, which cruised on the South American station from 1818 to 1821. The rest of his life--he was still only thirty-six years of age--was spent in enforced retirement: in the thirties and forties the navy was kept low, and there was little prospect of work for the half-pay captain.

On 28th June 1825 O’Brien married Hannah, youngest daughter of John Walmsley of Castle Mere, Lancashire, by whom he became the father of a large family, seven children in all. Two years after, he took his wife for a long tour round northern France, to show her the places of his imprisonments and escapes. It was this revisiting of old scenes that caused him to write the book which we have here reprinted. But he did not publish it till 1839, when it appeared, dedicated by permission to the young Queen Victoria. He had, however, already put out long before a shorter narrative of his escape, from which the two-volume book of 1839 was expanded. It had appeared in the _Naval Chronicle_ for the years 1812-15, in the strange form of sixteen “Naval Bulletins” addressed to no less a person than the Emperor Napoleon. The dedication of this original draft deserves reproduction--it runs as follows:--

“As your Imperial Majesty has long delighted in the compilation of
endless Bulletins, as they are styled, in which truth and candour
are never suffered to appear, it may perhaps amuse you, during some
of these pauses which occasionally occur in your systematic
destruction and humiliation of your fellow-creatures, to be enabled
to hear a little truth, and to trace the manner in which such a
humble individual as myself bade defiance to your persecutions,
and has at length returned to his duty as a naval officer,
notwithstanding all the dungeons, fetters, and insults which
distinguished your reign of despotism.”

The last of the “Naval Bulletins” appeared in the same number of the _Naval Chronicle_ as a narrative by Henry Ashworth, one of the companions of O’Brien’s first escape. From this, an incomplete story, which Ashworth did not survive to finish, certain parts of O’Brien’s tale can be corroborated and expanded.

O’Brien was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral on 8th March 1852. He survived five years more, and died on 13th May 1857 at Yew House, Hoddesdon, in his seventy-third year.

The not very flattering portrait of him which we have reproduced as our frontispiece was drawn by J. Pelham and engraved by J. Brown for the book of 1839.

CONTENTS

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