In many respects the present volume differs from the most of those which have been issued by the Society; there is in it very little history, as commonly understood. The author, it is true, lived in a stirring time, and was himself an actor in some of the incidents which have shed a glory on our naval records; but his account of these is meagre and of little importance. The interest which attaches to his ‘Recollections’ is entirely personal and social; we have in them sketches roughly drawn, crude, inartistic, and perhaps on that account the more valuable, of the life of the time; of the men who were his companions in the berth, or the gunroom or the wardroom; on deck, in sport or in earnest.
In all this, there is perhaps little that we did not know before in an otiose sort of way. We knew that the men of the time were often coarse in speech, rude in action; but it may be that the reality, as portrayed by Commander Gardner, exceeds anything that we had imagined. It seems to carry us back to the days of Roderick Random, and to suggest that there had been but small improvement since Smollett wrote his celebrated description. A closer examination will correct this impression; will convince us that there had, on the contrary, been a good deal of improvement; that the life was less hard, the manners less rude; and if the language does not show very much difference, it has to be considered that Smollett was writing for the public and Gardner was not; that Smollett’s dialogues are more or less literary, and Gardner’s are, for the most part, in the vernacular.
Occasionally, indeed, the language has been modified, or its undue strength merely indicated by a ——; but where oaths and expletives formed such a large part of the conversational currency between intimates; when ‘son of a bitch’ was the usual equivalent of the modern ‘chappie’ or ‘Johnnie’ or ‘rotter’; when ‘damned’ was everywhere recognised as a most ordinary intensitive, and ‘damn your eyes’ meant simply ‘buck up,’ it has been felt that entirely to bowdlerise the narrative would be to present our readers with a very imperfect picture of the life of the day.
Independent of the language, the most striking feature of the portraits is the universal drunkenness. It is mentioned as a thing too common to be considered a fault, though—if carried to excess—an amiable weakness, which no decent commanding officer would take serious notice of. Looking down the lists of old shipmates and messmates, the eye is necessarily caught by the frequency of such entries as ‘too fond of grog,’ ‘did not dislike grog,’ ‘passionately fond of grog,’ ‘a drunken Hun,’ a term of reprobation as a bully, rather than as a drunkard, ‘fond of gin grog,’ ‘mad from drink,’ ‘insane from drink,’ and so on, passim. For the officer of the watch to be drunk scarcely called for comment; it was only when, in addition to being drunk, he turned the captain out at midnight to save the ship, that he narrowly escaped being brought to a court martial; ‘but we interceded for him, and the business was looked over’ (p. 217).
It is, of course, familiarly known that during the later years of the eighteenth century, such drunkenness was almost more common on shore than afloat; and when more than half the peerage and the most distinguished statesmen were ‘habitual drunkards,’ there was, from the social point of view, some excuse for the many of Gardner’s messmates. For good or ill, the navy has always been very conservative in its customs; and at a much later date, when hard drinking was going out of fashion on shore, except among very young men, it still continued prevalent in the navy. Some of our older officers will remember at least one instance in which a great public scandal was averted only in consideration of the social connections of the principal offender; and courts martial, bringing ruin and disgrace to the individual, long continued to be painfully frequent. Absolute reform in this direction was slow; but there are few things more remarkable than the change which has come over the service during the last quarter of a century.
But in the eighteenth century this hard drinking brought in its train not only the terribly frequent insanity, such as is recorded in so many of Gardner’s pages; not only the gross lapses, some of which Gardner has indicated, but also numerous irregularities, which we may suspect where we do not know’, and of which, quarrels and free fights in the wardroom or in the steerage—such, for instance, as brought on the series of Phaëton courts martial (pp. 73–4)—were only one type. Coarse practical joking among men no longer young was another characteristic of the life which seems subversive of true discipline. Here, of course, we are met by the great change which has everywhere taken place; and the horse-play of Billy Culmer and his friends—stupid vulgarity as it now appears—can scarcely be considered more childish than the pranks and hoaxes of Theodore Hook or Grantley Berkeley twenty or thirty years later. But the very serious objection to such practices on board ship was that—as is now common knowledge—the most inveterate practical joker is the most annoyed when the tables are turned and he himself is made the victim of the joke; that quarrels are certain to arise, which, in a small society and among armed men, are both dangerous in themselves and detrimental to the service. It is, too, difficult to draw the line between practical joking, ragging, or ‘hazing’ and actual bullying. There is no doubt that they merge into each other, and, in the present state of public opinion, could not possibly be tolerated.
Gardner himself, so far as we can judge from his own story, was a good, capable man, who took the life around him as quite a matter of course, without falling into its worst characteristics. He seems, too, to have been a man of singularly equable temper; and it is worthy of special notice that, amid much to annoy and irritate him, he has preferred to say what is good, rather than what is bad, of his messmates and superiors. It used to be so very much the custom to speak evil of dignities, that it is quite refreshing to meet with a young officer to whom his captain did not necessarily seem a bullying, tyrannical blockhead; who could see that the senior might have a proper motive and have formed a correct judgment, even though he did thwart the junior’s wishes or act contrary to the junior’s opinion. Gardner had, for instance, no particular cause to love Calder, but he could still speak of him as ‘a brave and meritorious officer, and of first-rate abilities, a man that had the service at heart’ (pp. 101, 107). Leveson Gower he did not like—no subordinate did; but, though he relates several incidents, which of themselves are sufficiently damning, he does not seem to have set down aught in malice, nor has he made any spiteful commentary. His worst remark is ‘I have said enough of him’ (p. 90).
First lieutenants were, of course, the natural enemies of a youngster; but with few exceptions his comments, even on them, are good-humoured. Of one only does he speak bitterly; it is Edward Hamilton (p. 172), whose celebrated recapture of the Hermione might induce us to suspect that Gardner was merely expressing the spleen roused by the loss of his kit, did we not remember that, at this time, Hamilton was only 23, and that he was but 30 when his active career was brought to a premature end by a court martial dismissing him the service for cruelty and oppression. It is true that he was specially reinstated six months later, but he never afterwards commanded a sea-going ship, nor, as an admiral, did he ever hoist his flag. It is indeed a remarkable fact, and one giving much food for thought, that other young captains, whose brilliant courage before the enemy won for them a reputation little, if at all, inferior to that of Hamilton, were also tried by court martial for tyrannical and excessive punishments. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that this was in great measure due to utter want of training in the art of command. The way in which the ships’ companies were raised, the vicious characters of the men, almost necessarily led to severity which easily might and too often did degenerate into brutality.
On all this, however, Gardner offers no opinion. He took the service as he found it, content to do his duty honestly and faithfully. The story of his career, which is related at length in the following pages, may be summarised from the memoir in O’Byrne’s Naval Biographical Dictionary, the first draft of which was almost certainly written from information supplied by himself.
James Anthony Gardner, son of Francis Geary Gardner, a commander in the navy, who died at St. Lucia in September 1780, was born at Waterford in 1770–1. Francis Geary Gardner, captain of marines, was his brother. Sir Francis Geary Gardner Lee, who began life as a midshipman (p. 202) and died a lieutenant-colonel of marines, was a cousin. Two other cousins—Knight and Lee—captains in the 17th regiment, are mentioned (p. 208), and yet another, ‘son of the late Alderman Bates of Waterford’ (p. 221). His grandfather, James Gardner, who died, a lieutenant in the navy, in 1755, was, in 1747–8, a lieutenant of the Culloden, with Captain, afterwards Admiral Sir Francis, Geary, the godfather of James’s son, who, on 2 February, 1768, married Rachel, daughter of Anthony Lee of Waterford, and niece of Admiral William Parry. It will be noticed that the younger Gardner, having been born in Ireland, son of an Irish mother, considered himself Irish, is especially Irish in his sympathies, and that throughout his ‘Recollections’ the word ‘Irish’ is very commonly used as denoting ‘exceptionally good.’
From 1775, when he was not more than five years old, Gardner was borne, as his father’s servant, on the books of the Boreas, the Conqueror, and the Ætna; and he might, according to the custom of the day, have counted these years as part of his time at sea. As, however, when he went up for his examination (p. 174), he had more sea time than enough, he only counted it from his entry on board the Salisbury in December 1783 (p. 41). Really, he first went to sea in May 1782 (p. 19) in the Panther, and in her, under—in succession—Captains Thomas Piercy and Robert Simonton, he saw the loss of the Royal George, and was present at Howe’s relief of Gibraltar and in the ‘rencounter’ with the combined fleets of France and Spain off Cape Spartel on 20 October, 1782 (pp. 24, 27, 30 seq.).
During the ensuing peace he served on the Newfoundland and Home stations, as midshipman and master’s mate in the Salisbury, 50, flagship of Vice-Admiral John Campbell (pp. 41–55); Orestes, 18, Captain Manley Dixon (pp. 56–63); Edgar, 74, flagship of Rear-Admirals the Hon. John Leveson Gower and Joseph Peyton (pp. 64–96); Barfleur, 98, bearing the flags of Admirals Roddam, the Hon. Samuel Barrington, Sir John Jervis, John Elliot and Jonathan Faulknor (pp. 97–120), and Queen, 98, Captain John Hutt (pp. 121–5). After a further service, chiefly in the Mediterranean in the Berwick, 74, Captains Sir John Collins, William Shield. George Campbell and George Henry Towry (pp. 126–154); in the Gorgon, 44, Captain James Wallis, for a passage to England (pp. 155–171); and in the Victory, 110, Captain John Knight, at Portsmouth (pp. 172–7), he was promoted, 12 January 1795, to be lieutenant of the Hind, 28, Captains Richard Lee and John Bazely (the younger), on the North American and Irish stations, and in January 1797 was sent in to Plymouth in charge of a prize, La Favorite privateer, of 8 guns and 60 men (pp. 178, 202).
