A Hundred Years Ago.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue VII, 13 August 1904, Page 57

A Hundred Years Ago.

A HERO OF THE CATAMARAN EXPEDITION. Boulogne in 1804 was perhaps the busiest and liveliest town in the whole of France, for it was here that Napoleon fixed his headquarters for the expedition he was raising for the invasion of England—that little island, begirt by stormy seas, on which he had for years

east envious eyes. The old town seemed a sort of antheap, with soldiers for ants—so many thousands were there of them, running gaily hither and thither; some at work on the great batteries which protected the coasts; others building huts, laying out streets, bringing in provisions; and, in short, doing the hundred and one things necessary to lodge, feed, and protect a huge army. There was cheerfulness and activity on all sides. The soldiers—well fed and well eared for—worked with a will, for they one and ah worshipped the great General who had led them to so many victories, and the proposed invasion of England was extremely popular with all ranks. "It will be successful, of course; our First Consul knows not defeat; and think of sacking London!” Such were the remarks to be heard on all sides.

Certainly the preparations that Napoleon had been three years or more in making were on so vast a scale that it did seem as if defeat of such a host must indeed be impossible.

There were assembled there some hundred thousand men, ten thousand horses, and four thousand pieces of cannon—all ready for service at a moment’s notice, whilst ready to convey them across the thirty miles or more of the “silver streak” was a vast flotilla of flat-bot-tomed boats, manned by sturdy rowers, whose strong arms would easily propel the heavy boats through the waves. So much for the land forces, and the shipping was on an equal scale.

The quays at Boulogne were very large, but large as they were they were quite insufficient to accommodate all the vessels that were ranged there, and these had to be stacked nine deep, the first one only touching the quays; the others being placed as close as they would go, in order to facilitate the embarkation of .neii and horses.

By Napoleon’s express orders there were daily practices of this embarkation. and by means of this constant repetition. both men and horses were got on board the ships with surprising rapidity. "A horse with a band passed round him.” says a writer of the lime, "was raised by means of a pulley, transmitted nine times from one ship's yard

to the next, as he was borne aloft in the air, and in about two minutes it was deposited in the ninth vessel.”

At length all was ready; every possible contingency had been provided for. and Napoleon, standing outside the little hut he had had built for him on the bleak heights of Boulogne, exclaimed as he gazed across the Channel, "It is but. a ditch! It can be leaped by one daring enough to try! Eight hours of a calm night and we are the masters of the world.”

But surely, one might say, in making such a boast, Napoleon must utterly have forgotten to take into his reckoning the British fleet, so constantly cruising up and down the Channel, and still fresh from the glories of the victory of the Nile.

Napoleon was too great a leader to forget, such a formidable hindrance to his cause. But those were not the days of steam and electricity. The largest ship of the line, as well as the smallest cruiser, was then perforce dependent on the winds, and in a calm they were unable to manoeuvre at all. Calms in summer-time are not uncommon in the Channel, and it was for such a culm that this vast army was now waiting. Then the rowers could propel their flat boats on to the foreign shore; and, once landed, victory was certain. When had Napoleon known defeat?

Nor was it the French alone who felt so confident of their success. Strange as it now seems to us, who know that this proposed invasion never took place, there was hardly a household, high or low, in the southern coast of England,

where preparations were not made in case of the French landing. Even King George at Windsor did not feel ’af a . and had settled to send his wife and family to Worcester in the event of the French invasion. “I should feel happier,” he wrote, “to know my family were beyond the Severn,” though the brave old man had no thought of personal flight, but intended himself to lead an army against “the Tyrant."

Our Navy, however, was, as now, our first line of defence, and the year 1801 is memorable for an expedition called the “Catamaran Expedition,” which, by means of fire-rafts and explosive vessels, was to set fire to and utterly destroy the large fleet of gun-boats which were anchored outside Boulogne, to protect the shipping so tightly wedged together in the harbour. Lord Keith was in command, and it was a very responsible post, for there was no little danger connected with the management of these new-fangled fireships.

Our sailors, however, were all eager for the job, and none more eager than a sturdy young fellow. Giles Upcher by name, the son of a boatswain who had lost his life some years before on another vessel under Lord Keith’s command.

Giles was one of the first to volunteer for the Catamaran Expedition, rather to Lord Keith’s dismay, as he knew the young man to be the sole support of a widowed mother, so he sent for the lad and began: “Now then. Giles, about these firerafts. Can you not leave that business to those who have not got a widowed mother at home?” Giles pulled his forelock in token of respect, as he answered: "Your Honour. Mother would be ashamed of me if I did not offer for the best job going.”

“The best job being the most danger oils, of course,” said Keith, with a gratified smile at the good feeling amongst his crew. “Well, then, you shall go, Giles, and 1 trust you may return in safety and unharmed.”

“Thank ye, sir,’ said Giles, again saluting. British sailor takes a deal of killing, and its not a catamaran that will finish Giles L’pcher,” and with these words he left the cabin.

So Giles took part in the Catamaran Expedition, and was in one of the first boats, with a crew as eager and determined as himself to work destruction to the French.

All their hopes were doomed to disap pointinent, however, and the Catamaran Expedition, of which such hopes were formed, may be said to have literally end ed in smoke. Most of the fire-vessels that reached the enemy's lines obstinately refused to explode, and those that did were easily extinguished. In fact, these “catamarans did more harm to the British than to their foes, or, at any rate, Giles had good reason to think so, for the vessel he was on somehow blew up, and when he came to himself he found he was on a French man-of-war, with strange-speak-ing folk all about him, and that very evening saw him lodged in the damp cell of a Boulogne prison.

Prisoners of war were everywhere harshly treated in that day, and Giles suffered slow starvation for some weeks, till a happy chance threw the means of escape within his reach. The gaoler who brought his daily pittance of bread and water was seized with a fit as he entered the cell, and as he lay on the ground Giles stripped him of his outer garments and laid him on his straw bed, “to finish his fit comfortably,” as

the young fellow quaintly put it. Then, dressing himself in the gaoler’s clothes.

and jingling the keys at his girdle, lie passed unnoticed through the gaol precincts, and was a free man once more.

Giles keen eyes at once swept the landscape, and in another minute he was making for the lorest on the outskirts oi the city. In the loiest he could snare birds and rabbits for lood, and then*, too, he would find the means of building some sort oi boat or raft to take him back to old England. In a few days he had somehow constructed a little skiff of the branches and bark of trees, and upon this frail float, which would scarcely bear up his body, he ventured out into the channel, on the chance of being picked up by some cruiser.

So he was, but, alas! it was by one of the enemy's cruisers, and by Napoleon s orders the British sailor was brought before him to be questioned as to his intentions. “Did you really’ intend to brave the terrors of the ocean in so frail a skiff?” said Buonaparte, looking sternly at the sailor, whom he half thought to be a spy. you will but let me,” said Giles. “1 will immediately imbark again on the skill’, and take my luck.” “Why’ are you so desirous of return ing? Is it to see your sweetheart again?” was the next question. “1 wish to see my mother,” answered the lad. “She is old, and 1m only my self to depend upon.’’ “You shall see her, my brave fellow,’' said Buonaparte, sei/.ed with one of his rare attacks of sympathy. “You shall see her this very’ day, and take her. from me, this purse of gold. It can be no common mother who can have trained up so brave and dutiful a son.” When next Giles put to sea. it was on a French cruiser bearing a Hag of truce, which conveyed him safely to a British man-of-wa r.

S. CLARENDON.