Scurvy continued to affect naval crews during the course of long cruises but deaths from the disease dropped dramatically. Alexander White, who had taken over from George Bellamy as the Bellerophon's surgeon, noted that thirty-one men were sick with scurvy during the course of the year from June 1803 to June 1804 but none of them died. Malaria and yellow fever were a different matter and during that same period White's journal records that 212 members of the crew were ill with fever. Seventeen of these men died on board and the rest were sent to the naval hospital. White's entry for 4 February 1804 records their fate: 'This morning sailed from Port Royal where we have been near 9 weeks at our anchor; during which upwards of one hundred men have been sent to Port Royal Hospital with fever, about 40 of which have already died.'
Many ships suffered even higher death rates. In 1801 James Gardner went out to the West Indies on the Brunswick, which had fought with the Bellerophon at the Battle of the Glorious First of June. The Brunswick soon had 287 men sick 'and buried a great many' but worse still was the fate of the frigate Topaze which had a crew of 255. Gardner wrote that 'a short time before we arrived, the Topaze, 36, on a cruise, buried all hands except fifty-five; the captain (Church) and all the officers died, and the ship was brought in by the gunner.'
It would be many years before the medical profession realised that malaria and yellow fever were spread by mosquitoes. At this period there was no known cure so it is little wonder that a posting to the West Indies was regarded by many sailors as a death sentence and that officers with influence did their best to avoid it. The crew of the Bellerophon must have been greatly relieved when they received the news that the ship had been ordered home.
TWELVE
Prelude to Trafalgar
1804-5
In the early hours of Sunday 17 June 1804 the crew of the Bellerophon hoisted in the launch and got up the topsail yards ready for sailing. In the darkness all around them, the shouted commands and curses from other ships, and the creaking of ropes being hauled through wooden blocks, interrupted the insistent background chorus of the tree frogs. When the first rays of sunlight illuminated the upper slopes of the Blue Mountains a breeze sprang up and heavy canvas sails began flapping as the fifty or more merchant ships scattered across the harbour prepared to get under way. By mid-morning all except a few stragglers had weighed anchor and proceeded slowly past the fort at the harbour entrance, past Gun Cay, the rocky islet where the tarred bodies of pirates had hung until pecked clean by the circling vultures, and sailed out into the brilliant blue-green waters of the Caribbean. Once clear of the entrance the convoy headed westward along the southern shores of Jamaica towards Negril Bay. There, off the deserted beach and the mosquito-infested mangrove swamps, they were joined by the merchant ships and escorting vessels from the north side of the island. By the time they left Jamaica there were 172 vessels in the convoy.
They proceeded north through the Windward Passage and by 3 July, when they left behind them the mountains of Cuba and headed out into the Atlantic, the convoy had grown to 178 sail, and extended for nearly 6 miles. In overall command of the convoy was John Loring, captain of the Bellerophon, and to assist him in protecting the convoy were no fewer than seven warships. Apart from the Bellerophon there was only one other ship of the line, the 74-gun Duquesne, the French ship captured off Santo Domingo. The other ships in the escort were the Desirir, 40 guns, and the Renard, 16 guns (both were French prizes captured several years earlier and commissioned into the British Navy); the Echo and the Snake, ship-rigged sloops of 18 guns; the Hunter, a 16-gun brig; and the armed schooner Pickle. This formidable escort was necessary to protect the vulnerable merchant ships from attack by French privateers. Although the ships of the French Navy had been subjected to humiliating defeats on the few occasions they had escaped the British blockade and ventured out to sea, the French privateers had proved a menace to British merchant shipping. Some of the most successful privateer captains, such as Robert Surcouf, had become legendary heroes, and had notched up some spectacular captures in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.
Britain, being far more dependent on her overseas trade than France, could not afford to lose valuable cargoes and the 1798 Convoy Act made it compulsory for all merchant ships, except the powerful, armed ships of the East India Company and Hudson's Bay Company, to travel in convoys protected by British warships. The dates for the sailing of the outward-bound convoys were determined by the Admiralty, and the merchantmen usually assembled at the Nore or in the sheltered waters of the Solent. The homeward-bound sailings were determined by the admirals commanding the overseas stations.
Most naval captains hated convoy duty because the merchant ships were so difficult to control. The merchantmen were usually undermanned, varied enormously in speed, and were often commanded by bloody-minded individuals who objected to being bossed around. Thomas Pasley spent several years escorting convoys before commanding the Bellerophon and his journals are full of scathing comments. 'How can I pretend to answer for the safety of ships commanded by such a set of mules,' he wrote on one occasion. But the convoy system proved remarkably successful and in the period of the war against France, from 1793 to the Peace of Amiens in 1801, the losses of merchant shipping amounted to no more than 3.4 per cent of all sailings.
The Bellerophon's convoy took just under five weeks to cross the Atlantic. They sailed up the Channel with a strong south-westerly wind behind them, passed Beachy Head in drizzling rain and dropped anchor in the Downs on the afternoon of 11 August. Having delivered her convoy safely, the Bellerophon returned to Portsmouth for a thorough overhaul following her two-year assignment in the tropics. Her guns and ballast were removed, her masts taken out, and on 5 September she went into dock where she remained until 8 October. For a total cost of £11,914 she was re-coppered, her masts and spars were repaired or replaced, and she was re-rigged and fitted out, ready to rejoin the fleet. Within a week of leaving Portsmouth Harbour she was heading back down the Channel to resume her old task of blockading the French coast off Ushant. Apart from brief return visits to Cawsand Bay, off Plymouth, to repair storm damage and load up with water and provisions, she spent the rest of the winter months and the spring of 1805 with the squadron which was charged with blockading the French naval base at Brest.
When the Bellerophon returned to Britain in the summer of 1804 the country was facing the most serious threat of invasion since the days of the Spanish Armada. Much had happened on both sides of the English Channel during the two years that the ship had been away. Napoleon was no longer a mere general. In August 1802 he had been proclaimed First Consul for life and had begun the sweeping reforms of French institutions which were to leave a lasting mark on the country. He had reformed the financial and legal systems, revolutionised the educational system, and instituted a major programme of road building and canal construction. In May 1804 he was proclaimed Emperor of the French and before the end of the year crowned himself at Notre-Dame in the presence of the Pope.