Nelson's Right Hand Man

The Life and Times of Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Fremantle

E.J. Hounslow

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780750965040
• eBook ISBN: 9780750969468
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

This is the story of Thomas Fremantle, one of Britain's greatest naval captains and Lord Nelson's closest friend and ally. The two, bound in friendship, were part of a Navy that ensured Napoleon could never invade Britain. The naval campaign culminated in the great victory at Trafalgar and, with the fleet in mourning for the loss of Admiral Nelson, it was Thomas Fremantle who towed the shattered Victory and Nelson's body back to Gibraltar. Promoted to Vice Admiral, Fremantle liberated the whole of the Adriatic from the clutches of the French revolutionary government and in doing so captured many ships, thus earning him and his family a fortune in prize money. Yet, there is more to Thomas Fremantle's story than his accomplishments at sea. He was also a lover, a husband and a doting father to his large family. Together with Betsey Wynne, the woman he wooed and subsequently married in Italy, he created a domestic idyll in the small Buckinghamshire village of Swanbourne. It is through Betsey's comprehensive diaries that we are able to gain a fascinating insight into her husband, the man behind the uniform.

1

INTRODUCTION

By the end of the eighteenth century Britain had one of the most dominant fighting forces the world had seen since the eclipse of the Roman legions. The Royal Navy ruled supreme over the world’s oceans, exerting control, protecting the empire’s trade and demonstrating Britain’s power such that this small maritime nation was able to build, and retain, one of the world’s largest empires. The Royal Navy possessed no ‘secret weapon’, nor any significant technological advantage unknown to other navies. What it relied upon was the quality of the crews and officers manning the ships. Their offensive spirit gave them self-confidence and a belief that, man for man, they could out-sail and out-fight any opposition.

Other nations might covet the size of the markets and the riches the British derived from their empire, but until they could defeat them at sea, there appeared to be little possibility of changing the status quo. The Royal Navy had such influence on Britain’s defensive strategy that even 100 years later, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Jacky Fisher, was able to boast, ‘The Empire floats on the Royal Navy.’¹ At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, a challenge was to emerge. Napoleon Bonaparte had gathered his fearsome Armée de l’Angleterre along the northern coast of France. Numerically superior to anything Britain could muster and already master of the vast majority of Continental Europe, Napoleon boasted, ‘Let us be masters of the Channel for six hours and we are masters of the world.’² He would have undoubtedly needed more than six hours but it was no idle boast. He had already divided and beaten the land-based coalitions that British subsidies had cobbled together and were he to gain control of the Channel, albeit for a limited period and if the weather was suitable, the vast armadas of invasion barges stored in Boulogne and along the northern coast of France could have transported the troops, artillery and supplies such that a successful occupation of the British Isles appeared a serious threat.

Britain’s main credible defence against invasion was sea power, not just to police the Channel but to actively blockade the enemy fleets in their home ports, to attack French interests throughout the Mediterranean and the Caribbean and, where possible, to intercept and prevent trading vessels reaching France and assisting their war effort. That they were able to carry out these tasks successfully was mainly due to the skill and efforts of men such as Thomas Francis Fremantle. The experienced, battle-hardened officers commanding the Royal Navy vessels and fleets were at the peak of their profession and at the apex of this group was Nelson’s ‘band of brothers’. They were a small number of tough, aggressive sea captains who were both his professional colleagues of choice and, in many cases, his close, personal friends. Among this latter group was Fremantle.

A mark of the confidence that ran through the Royal Navy was contained in a letter that Admiral John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, wrote to the Board of the Admiralty in 1801 stating, ‘I do not say they [the French] cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea.’³ How the British navy achieved and then exercised this dominance is intertwined closely with the story of Fremantle for, from the age of 11 until his untimely death at the age of 54, the Royal Navy was central to his life. It was not to be the whole story, for Fremantle was also a family man and his life was influenced strongly by his wife, Elizabeth Wynne, usually known as Betsey. The Royal Navy was instrumental in bringing them together but her strength of character and her ability to build a home for the family in rural Buckinghamshire provided another narrative thread running through this story. It is also through her inveterate diary-keeping that we are able to get a glimpse of her husband, the private man behind the uniform.

How was Britain able to ensure that naval standards remained so high? The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were hardly known as periods when merit automatically met with career advancement. Rather, it was an age of vested interest, family networks and, in many cases, blatant nepotism. This, after all, was the age when army commissions were often bought and sold like any other commercial product, and promotions during peacetime frequently went to those rich enough to purchase them. Although the Royal Navy had no comparable system, the chances of naval officers making their way in the service without mentors in positions of influence were remarkably slim. Fremantle was not immune from this system and he needed to operate within the complex rules and norms that governed advancement in the navy, both in public life and in society generally. Indeed, this was not just an eighteenth-century phenomenon. In the early part of the twentieth century Fremantle’s grandson, Sir Edmund Fremantle, a distinguished and very senior admiral, wrote:⁴

A distinguished naval officer, has I think said that success in the navy is one third interest and two-thirds luck. This is a paradoxical view which I entirely deny. There is interest, of course, and thirty or forty years ago there was much more, and there always must be some. Luck also comes in, and there is some wisdom in speaking of the ‘bark which carried Caesar and his fortunes;’ but I should be inclined to put at least half down to pure merit, which is certain to be recognised in the Navy.

To judge Fremantle’s progress through the naval hierarchy by twenty-first-century mores is therefore irrelevant. The concepts of open competition and equal opportunities were simply non-existent. The parts played by such figures as Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, Admiral Lord Nelson, the Marquess of Buckingham and, indeed, Fremantle’s own younger brother, Sir William Fremantle, are essential to the understanding of this remarkable man’s life. It was not simply a case of preference or privilege smoothing an inevitable path to advancement, for both the mentor and the pupil had something to gain from the relationship. No senior officer would lavish patronage on someone who they felt would be unworthy of their attentions; the relationship was seen as a two-way street, beneficial to both the donor and the recipient.

In short, the more successful an officer, the more patronage he could expect to receive, and the possibility of serious riches through the system of prize money added further fuel to this system. Flag officers could expect to receive a share of the value for every ship and cargo captured in their area of command, which was ‘condemned’ by the High Court of the Admiralty. Therefore, a strong financial incentive existed for admirals to push for young, aggressive frigate captains to be included within their command. It was the roving, fast sailing frigates that were most likely to snap up vessels with valuable cargos and it was the smaller ships that were usually commanded by the most junior captains. It was rumoured that Sir Hyde Parker made some £200,000 from prize money while in command of the lucrative West Indies fleet.⁵ Despite its obvious imperfections, somehow the system generally succeeded in ensuring the best did reach the most important positions of command.

Fremantle and his naval colleagues were lucky. They were joining a navy that had already been significantly reformed during the years immediately preceding their careers. For this they had Admiral Sir George Anson to thank. He had joined the Royal Navy as a boy volunteer in February 1712, aged 15. He was from a distinguished family. George’s father was William Anson of Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire and his mother was Isabella Carrier, who was the sister-in-law of Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, the Lord Chancellor. This relationship was to prove very useful to the future admiral, who was destined to be one of Britain’s greatest admirals, immortalised for his circumnavigation of the globe between 1740 and 1744. On his return to England, the prizes he had taken made certain that the rest of his life was to be one of considerable wealth.

What distinguished Anson’s subsequent career was not that he was a gifted naval officer, which he most certainly was, but that he adjusted to and manipulated the political aspects of his career so successfully, a talent given to few sailors. On his return to the UK he became an MP. At this stage of his career the Royal Navy was at the nadir of its fortunes with aged admirals who in battle displayed indecision, sclerotic thinking and, in some cases, blatant cowardice.

Anson was to prove an honourable exception to this malaise. In May 1747, he commanded the fleet that defeated the French Admiral de la Jonquière at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre, capturing four ships of the line, two frigates and seven merchantmen. This victory, together with his heroic circumnavigation that had brought so much treasure back to the exchequer, made Anson a national hero. His fame, coupled to his excellent political contacts, meant he became the man the navy and the government looked to to turn its fortunes around.

He was promoted to rear and then vice admiral and elevated to the peerage as Lord Anson, Baron of Soberton, in the County of Southampton. However, it was in June 1751 when he was appointed to the Admiralty that his career as a naval administrator took off and he introduced a series of reforms that were to change the navy forever, placing it in a position where it would dominate the world’s oceans. He ensured the navy was equipped with both the ships and structures from which Lord Nelson and the other captains such as Fremantle would benefit. His tenure at the Admiralty was to continue until his death in June 1762, just three years before the birth of Fremantle.

As First Lord of the Admiralty, Anson served throughout the Seven Years War and, along with Pitt the Elder (Lord Chatham) as Secretary of State for War, he was able to provide an efficient naval service, enabling the simultaneous protection of the Channel, attacks on France’s Atlantic coast, blockading of the main French seaports and support for the army’s efforts in recapturing Québec and the Canadian provinces. It was the ultimate proof of Anson’s reforms and the Royal Navy did not let him down.

His reforms were varied and touched most aspects of naval life. They included the transfer of the marines from army to navy authority and proper uniforms for commissioned officers. With the creation of the temporary rank of commodore, he at last gave admirals a chance to promote young, effective, forceful post-captains above their time-serving older and more senior colleagues. He reputedly stated that in his opinion ‘a person entrusted with command may and ought to exceed his orders and dispense with the common rules of proceeding when extraordinary occasions require’.⁶

He ensured that those officers who were too old, or incompetent, retired on half-pay and placed revised Articles of War before Parliament that tightened discipline throughout the navy. Two of his most important reforms were instigating the systems that allowed both close and open blockades of enemy ports and overseeing reforms of the shipbuilding programme to ensure that far more third-rate seventy-four-gun two-deckers were built. These were ships that were eventually to prove invaluable in the wars with France.

Thanks to his supply-side reforms, Britain was able to keep ships on station, blockading French and Spanish ports for months on end without unacceptable losses to scurvy and illness. He appointed businessmen to the Victualling Board and ensured that fresh produce got regularly to ships on patrol, lessening the illnesses that had inevitably occurred on ships stocked only with salted goods.

Thus, Fremantle was joining a military force that had been improved out of all recognition. It was a navy made more professional with a greater war readiness and backed by a vast industry on shore. More importantly, it had captured both the imagination and the love of the British public to a degree the army never had. Despite these reforms, Fremantle would also require one other important ingredient: opportunity. A naval officer’s career in the Georgian age needed this as much as talent and courage, for without opportunity even the most promising of careers could be stillborn. Only wars could provide a plentiful source of opportunities for promotion. In war, new ships would be commissioned and only in times of war would early deaths and injuries among senior officers result in increased opportunities for young, ambitious naval officers. Indeed, the traditional toast of the navy was ‘A Bloody War or a Sickly Season’ (and a quick promotion!). When Fremantle joined the navy in 1777 there was undoubtedly a relatively elderly ‘blockage’ of senior officers holding up promotion for younger men. Sixteen years later, in 1793, the two key commanders-in-chief of the Mediterranean and the Channel were Hood and Howe, 69 and 67 respectively. However, just a few short years later in 1798 the average age of Royal Navy post-captains and above had fallen by an average of ten years.⁷

During peacetime the Royal Navy relied on a system whereby ships were laid up in estuaries and anchorages around Britain known as ‘in ordinary’. Ships in such a condition would receive minimum maintenance, be stripped of rigging, supplies and such like, and be left in a condition whereby, should war threaten, they could easily be brought back into a seaworthy, fighting condition with the least possible expense and delay. The system suited the exchequer but for young officers, especially those with little influence in Admiralty circles, peace was the death knell to career prospects.

There had been a few, albeit short, periods of peace in the years preceding Fremantle’s birth but, as already stated, the Seven Years War (1756–63) had involved most European powers, in particular Britain, France, Prussia and Austria, and had served in building up both the quantity and quality of British warships.

For the main two protagonists, France and Britain, it had been a lengthy and expensive slogging match primarily fought over who should control the colonies of America. The conflict had raised the British national debt by a staggering 80 per cent. Now the Treasury was keen that the colonies, which had been the subject of the conflict, should contribute their share to the national finances. So, in 1765, the Whig administration of George Grenville introduced the infamous Stamp Act. The Grenville family was to have a lasting impact on the fate of Fremantle. Both George Grenville and his second son, who subsequently became the 1st Marquess of Buckingham, became great friends and mentors to the Fremantle family. It was ironic that a Grenville administration lit the first match leading to the American War of Independence and unwittingly providing young Fremantle with his first experience of war.

The Stamp Act required the American colonies to pay taxes on all paper used for legal documents, newspapers, etc. The revenue was collected in British currency, not in colonial paper money, and proved to be extremely unpopular. Of course, any new tax is likely to be unpopular but the Stamp Act proved to be extraordinarily so and united the people of the east coast states of America, making it impossible to collect the monies due. Although the following Whig administration of Lord Rockingham repealed the act rapidly, the damage had already been done. The nascent states of America had experienced the heady feeling of power and inexorably the path to revolution and independence was opening up. It would not be long before the Royal Navy would be needed again. By the time Fremantle was almost 10 years old, and just two years before the youngster went to sea for the first time, Britain was at war again. The war was being waged some 3,000 miles from Britain and the Royal Navy would play a key role.

Ships began to be taken out of ‘ordinary’ and new ships lain down in the shipyards dotted around the south coast of Britain. It would not be long before France and Spain would ally themselves with the rebellious states of America, seeing the ideal opportunity to both embarrass and possibly seize British colonies in the West Indies and, for Spain, the chance to take back Gibra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Early Days, 1765–1787
• 3 London Life and Early Commands, 1787–1793
• 4 Post-Captain, May 1793
• 5 Service in Italy and Marriage
• 6 Service in the Baltic and the Battle of Copenhagen
• 7 Portsmouth to Trafalgar
• 8 Politics and Promotion, 1806–1810
• 9 Life as an Admiral, 1810–1814
• 10 Death of an Admiral, 1814–1819
• 11 The Man, the Legacy and Swanbourne
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Picture Section