Capturing a Slaver, 1845

From 1808 to 1860, the Royal Navy’s maintained its Anti-Slavery Squadron off the West African coast to intercept slave-carrying ships of any nation. Liberated slaves – some 150,000  over the perod – were brought to the British Colony of Sierra Leone. In some cases, they were able to return to thier original homes, the most remarkable instance being that of Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1809-1891). Captured at twelve by Fulani slavers in what is now South-West Nigeria, and sold on to Portuguese traders, he was liberated by the Royal Navy and brought to Sierra Leone.  There he adopted the name Samuel Crowther, was selected for education in England and ordained an Anglican Minister. He returned later to Nigeria as a missionary and in 1864 he would be the first Bishop of Werst Africa.   He met his own mother again (and Queen Victoria) and married another lberated slave. He translated the Bible into his native Yoruba and produced grammars and dictionaries for the Yoruba, Nupe and Igbo languages. This man of vast erudition neededs to be better known outside Nigeria, where he is still venerated.

Royal Navy personnel allocated to the Anti-Slavery Squadron faced the most serious peace-time dangers of any in the navy of the time – between 1830 and 1865, almost 1,600 sailors died, mainly of disease. Some of the encounters with armed slave-ships were of an intensity equal to that encountered in the Napoleonic Wars.  Such battles were among the last ever fought between sailing ships and one such desperate action involved the bizarrely-named HMS Pantaloon in 1845. Ludicrous as this name appears to modern ears, it should be pointed out that it referred to a stock-character who appeared in the “Harlequinade” theatrical pantomimes popular in Britain at the time and derived originally from the Italian Commedia dell’arte. Pantaloon was the name of an aged buffoon, father of the beautiful Columbine, and of whose lover Harlequin he disapproves – and by whom he is is bested. A ten-gun sloop, which entered service in 1831, HMS Pantaloon was indeed matched from 1836 by a generally comparable HMS Harlequin.

In May 1845, while patrol on anti-slavery duty off what is now Nigeria, HMS Pantaloon, under a Commander Wilson, detected a suspected slaver, although from contemporary accounts she does not appear to have been be loaded with human cargo. HMS Pantaloon chased her for two days, in what seem to have been light airs and on 26^th May. Both ships were becalmed off Lagos. The slaver proved to be the 400 tons polacca-rigged Borboleta. Contemporary accounts refer to her having “immense sails”. The term “polacca” seems to have referred primarily to the masting, and possibly hull type. Two-masted polaccas carried square sails on both masts and a contemporary illustration of the action that was to follow shows just such a vessel. The type was most common in the Mediterranean but the fact that the Borboleta appears to have been Spanish-manned probably accounts for the use of such a fast type as a slaver. This particular vessel was already “of great celebrity on the coast”, was armed with four 12-pounders and carried a crew of some 60 – an enemy to be reckoned with.

“A Graeco-Ottoman Polacca” painted pre-1836 by Antoine Roux
What a beautiful vessel!

Unable, due to lack of wind, to bring HMS Pantaloon directly into action, Wilson decided to attack with her pulling boats. A cutter and two whalers were sent under command of the first lieutenant, Lewis Prevost, supported by the master, a Mr J.T. Crout, and the boatswain, a Mr Pasco. The force amounted in total to some 30 officers, seamen and marines. As they approached the slaver, it opened fire with round-shot and grape. Intensely vulnerable to such opposition – a hit by a single 12-pound ball would have been sufficient to demolish any of the boats – the only defence was for the marines to maintain a steady hail of musketry on the slaver while the seaman pulled at their utmost. The approach must have been nightmarish – a half hour was afterwards mentioned as the time between fire being opened and HMS Pantaloon’s boats reaching the slaver’s side.

Another lovely polacca painted by Antoine Roux

Prevost and Pasco brought the whalers alongside to starboard while Crout, in the cutter, came in to port. By this stage the Spanish crew seem to have been running out of munitions for their guns were by now loaded with “bullets, nails, lead, etcetera”  Prevost and the men in the whalers stormed on board while Crout’s cutter party came on over the port bow. One of these latter attempted to enter via a gun-port at the moment the weapon within it was fired. He managed to get through unscathed by the man following him was thrown into the water by the discharge, luckily without fatal consequences.

Contemporary illustration – Borboleta under attack by the pulling boats. Note HMS Pantaloon in the distance on the left

A vicious hand to hand struggle followed – the marines were by now on board also. In that era before magazine rifles or automatic weapons, there would have been little opportunity to reload pistols or muskets, so that the issue was settled by bayonet and cutlass. Seven of the slavers were killed and another eight badly wounded before the remainder broke, ran below for cover, and thereafter surrendered.

HMS Pantaloon’s victory was commemorated in recent times in a postage stamp issued in Gambia

HMS Pantaloon’s losses were numerically lower – two men, the master Crout and the boatswain Pasco. Both men would have been in the van of leading their men in the boarding. Five others were seriously wounded, the overall loss rate being that comparable to that suffered by the slavers. Lieutenant Prevost received immediate promotion. He was to take command of HMS Pantaloon soon afterwards but was not to be lucky in her. In September 1848, in the Cape Verde Islands, a grounded sloop, HMS  Ranger called for assistance. She was floated off successfully but Prevost did not take adequate precautions for securing her so that she could be rolled over on her side for repair. The result was that she broke free in bad weather and sank. Representations were made that HMS Ranger could be refloated  but Prevost decided that she was beyond salvage. A few days later, with other support, HMS Ranger was raised and repaired.  The consequence of these successive failings was that Prevost was court-martialled and dismissed from command of HMS Pantaloon. His career was eventually to recover – he was to achieve captain’s rank – but the humiliation must have been intense.

It was a sad postscript to a brilliant feat of arms.

Britannia’s Guile

Read it as a stand-alone novel or as part of the Dawlish Chronicles series

1877: Lieutenant Nicholas Dawlish is hungry for promotion. He’s chosen service on the Royal Navy’s hazardous Indian Ocean Anti-Slavery patrol off East Africa for the opportunities it brings to make his name. But a shipment of slaves has slipped through his fingers and now his reputation, and his chance of promotion, are at risk. He’ll stop at nothing to save them, even if the means are illegal . . .

But greater events are underway in Europe. The Russian and Ottoman Empires are drifting ever closer to a war that could draw in other great powers. And Britain cannot stand aside – a Russian victory would spell disaster for her strategic links to India.

The Royal Navy is preparing for a war that might never take place. Dozens of young officers, all as qualified as Dawlish, are hoping for their own commands. He’s just one of many . . . and he lacks the advantages of patronage or family influence. But only a handful of powerful men know how unexpectedly vulnerable Britain will be if war comes. Could this offer Dawlish his chance to advance?

Far from civilisation, dependent on a new and as yet unproven weapon, he’ll face a clever and ruthless enemy in unforeseeable and appalling circumstances.

Only stubborn resolution – and unlikely allies — can bring him through. But at what price?

Britannia’s Guile is set early in the Dawlish Chronicles series and tells how Dawlish met several people who will play major roles in his future career. And they may not all be as they seem . . .