Faithful and Attached Companions: Sir Edward Pellew and the young gentlemen of HMS Indefatigable
1. “…faithful and attached companions…”
Sir Edward Pellew and the young gentlemen of
HMS Indefatigable
By
Heather Noel-Smith
and
Lorna M. Campbell
National Museum of the Royal Navy Seminar Series, 14th May 2014
2. The Action between H.M. Frigates Indefatigable and Amazon and the French Droits de L'Homme off
Ushant, 13th January 1797 by Derek G. M. Gardner, CC BY lorna.m.campbell@ilcoud.com.
7. “…wherever a
man fell, ten
sprang up to take
his place.”
- Jean Baptiste
Raymond de
Lacrosse
Jean Baptiste Raymond de Lacrosse
by Antoine Maurin. Public
domain image.
22. “Is it fair then to presume Sir EP has no
sensibility, no attachment, no feeling, that his
heart must be adamant, that he can part from
faithful, and attached Companions, grown
from boys to manhood under him, without a
sorrowful Countenance, or a Moistened Eye.
He grants it may be thought so. But he begs
to assert the Contrary”
- Sir Edward Pellew to Lord Spencer
23. The Droits de L’Homme Engagement
Muster table of His Majesty’s Ship the Indefatigable between 1st January and 28th February 1797, CC
BY lorna.m.campbell@icloud.com.
26. First ships
Nymphe
1793 - 1794
Arethusa
1794 - 1795
Indefatigable
1795 - 1799
George Chace Thomas Groube James Bray
Philip Frowd William Kempthorne Richard Broughton
John Gaze John McKerlie George Cadogan
Pownoll Pellew John Thomson Jeremiah Coghlan
Robert Reynolds George Tippett John Harry
William Warden Henry Hart
Alex McVicar
Nicholas Pateshall
Fleetwood Pellew
30. Friends & Patrons
• Richard Broughton
• George Cadogan
• William Kempthorne
• Robert Reynolds
• John Thomson
• William Warden
Family
• Philip Frowd
• Pownoll Pellew
• Fleetwood Pellew
Silhouette of Captain Pellew, later
Viscount Exmouth, by William
Wellings,
31. Background and family circumstances
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
aristocracy mercantile craftsmen professional packet captain country gentry royal or
merchant
marine
34. Annotations to Osler’s Life of Admiral Lord Exmouth, private collection.
“Capt Bell and Capt Thomas Groube were
both taken from a West Indiaman. Capts
Gaze and McVicar the same (merchant
vessels).”
- Fleetwood Pellew
40. “The navy has lost its brightest jewel,
you and your family the best of
husbands and fathers, a wide circle of us
a matchless friend and the country a stay
and defender.”
- William Kempthorne to Fleetwood Pellew
65. “My dear Fleetwood the will of God be done.
You have lost the best of Father’s and I the most
generous and kindest of friends that ever
lived…..I will mourn in solemn silence the man
who has ever been most dear to my heart….. He
will find his reward in heaven whither his great
spirit is flown. I never saw his equal not can I
expect ever to look on his like again.”
- Jeremiah Coghlan to Fleetwood Pellew
66. “While I had life my heart was deeply
impressed by your multiple kindnesses.”
- William Kempthorne
Cadogan’s father forwarded his son’s letter to Earl Spencer, by then the Home Secretary, with the following covering letter: 1st Earl Cadgoan to Earl Spencer“I here enclose you a most melancholy letter form poor George I receive this day, and shall make no other observations on it. Except that I flatter myself, as he has been honourably acquitted of the charges brought against him, and his brought his ships crew to condign punishment, that no obstacle can now be brought forward to his preferment on that score. What I most fear for is his health in that cursed climate.”
Three of the Indefatigable’s actions were commemorated by clasps on the Naval General Service Medal in 1847. One of which was for her most famous action, the ferocious engagement, along with the Amazon frigate, of the French 74 gun ship of the line Les Droits de L’Homme.
Cadogan continued in active naval service until 1813 when he retired with honours following the capture of Zara on the Dalmatian coast, an action for which he was decorated. Cadogan was thirty and had been at sea for sixteen years since joining HMS Indefatigable in 1795. Over the course of his naval career George Cadogan experience the best and the worst of the sea service and his few surviving letters provide a glimpse of the personal cost of these events. Cadogan may never have ascended to the heights of his early mentor Captain Sir Edward Pellew but neither did he sink to the depths of the brutal Captain Hugh Pigot. His letters suggest a man of some sensibility who was moved and affected by the events that he experienced and who is ultimately revealed as a deeply human individual.