Transcript

of

The Adventures of the “Anne” of the Port of Exeter, 1803-1806

by

W.F.C. Jordan

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. XXXIII, (1901), pp. 332-335.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The paper was submitted at the Association’s July 1901 Exeter meeting. Its author has provided his audience with a ripping yarn from the coasts around Devon during the Napoleonic War, and in the process provided the names of several owners of the cargo ship, as well as several seafarers from the port of Teignmouth. He in particular reports the story of Captain Elias Brewer, son of the Head of the ship’s owners, Messrs Brewer and Company. The report is from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal that can be downloaded from the Internet. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

The Ann was a "snow," which is defined in Webster's Dictionary as a "vessel equipped with two masts resembling the main and fore masts of a ship, and a third small mast just abaft the main-mast, carrying a trysail." She was a registered ship of the port of Exeter; her home port, however, was Teignmouth, but at that time and up to 1853 there was no Custom-house at Teignmouth, and all the ships hailing from that port were registered at Exeter. The owners of the Ann were Messrs. Brewer and Company, of Teignmouth. She was of the burthen by admeasurement of 155 tons, mounted with one gun, British built, and navigated with eight men. In 1803, one Mr. Elias Brewer, of Teignmouth, son of the head of the firm of owners, was her master, but he does not appear to have commanded her except when she was bound for foreign ports, and not always then. On 14th June, 1803, it appears she was in London and was to proceed to Newcastle or Sunderland for coals. Captain Brewer being in command; but in the following October we find the master of the Ann, Captain Edward Knowles, communicating with her owner from the Downs. The vessel had just completed a voyage from Oporto, where she had gone for wine, which on 23rd October she was discharging in London. From Oporto the Ann had forwarded despatches home by the Duke of Cumberland packet, which despatches, however, never reached their destination, as the packet was captured by a "Frenchman " in her passage from Lisbon and carried into Vigo. A rather amusing incident appears to have occurred during that voyage of the Ann, as it seems that, in the absence of Captain Brewer, some member of the crew had been freely indulging in the "port' which no doubt he had found excellent. In December, 1803, she was again on her way from London to Sunderland for coals, and she only reached the latter port with great difficulty, by reason of heavy gales which prevailed throughout the entire voyage. Her master was particularly requested to bring home "good coal " and not the sort of "coals which had been lately arriving from the North, which were literally speaking worth nothing." On Saturday, 28th January, 1804, the Ann being then in the Downs, she encountered further heavy weather, and Captain Knowles writes that, in order to save the ship and cargo, he had been obliged to cut her two cables, procure a pilot, and run for Ramsgate. She received some damage to her hull, and the captain wrote, "makes much water." The second cable and anchor cut away were subsequently recovered. On Wednesday, the 29th of February, 1804, the vessel arrived home, and was put in repair by Mr. Rendell, a master shipwright, at a cost to the underwriters of £178 11s. 6d. She was ready for sea again on the 2nd of May, and actually sailed on a voyage which turned out most adventurous, on the 29th of that month, being bound for Sunderland. On the following morning, at eleven o'clock, she was taken by a lugger privateer, of 14 guns and 70 men, belonging to Boulogne, but the Dart cutter, of 6 guns and 22 men (Lieutenant Norton, K.N., in command), being in sight at the time, " Monsieur”, so states the writer of the report, not understanding his superiority, after taking out the master and crew, the papers, and everything portable belonging to the Anne worth taking, made off. She was in this condition taken possession of by the Dart, and on Sunday, the 2nd June, was brought into Dartmouth. On the following day Captain Brewer proceeded to Dartmouth and interviewed the gallant commander of the Dart, who at once, and without going through the usual formalities at Doctor's Commons (being convinced that he had discovered the rightful owner), gave up the Ann, which was brought back to Teignmouth. In connection with this somewhat untimely event in the history of this unlucky craft, it would be interesting to discover what became of the crew. In a letter written by the writer's great-grandfather to Mr. Thomas Maslin, of the firm of Bingley and Maslin, merchants, of London, under date of 1st May, 1806, he states: "Having made a collection among my friends for William Kenner and John Willis, who were captured in the snow Ann by a French privateer and now are imprisoned at Sarrelibre, in the Department of the Moselle, in France, I shall thank you to get the same remitted to them as speedily as possible, as I understand they are in great distress." In connection, however, with this incident in the history of the Ann, it may not be altogether out of place to quote from three other letters, written at the time of her capture and recapture, which indicate the state of feeling in this country in those stirring times. The first is from a letter of 12th November, 1803, written from Teignmouth to a gentleman in London: " Though we do not expect Bonaparte to pay a visit to this part of the Kingdom, we daily expect to hear of his flotillas at Dunkirk, Boulogne, Calais, etc., attempting to put to sea, and to land near the Thames; he little thinks how eagerly we expect him. . . . May he come, be defeated, and a lasting peace ensue." Again, under date of 1st December: '' All the male inhabitants of this place are armed. We have two companies of Infantry and a large number of Sea-Fencibles, but we are very ill prepared to receive the ‘Corsican' should he attempt to land here, having no Cannon to defend the Port." And under date of 11th December: ''Whether Bonaparte really intends to invade the Kingdom it is impossible to say, . . . but he knows our strength too well to attempt it ... To keep the Nation in continual alarm in order to ruin our finances is his plan."

As to the subsequent history of the Ann, her register was taken away by the “Frenchman" with the other papers, and application had to be made to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs to grant a fresh one. Soon after that date, in July, 1804, she was laden with 180 tons of pipeclay, valued, at the rate of 9s. per ton, at £81, and on the 22nd of that month set sail for Sunderland, one Robert Galpin being her master, to load with coal, and appears to have performed that voyage without adventure, for on Monday, 22nd October, she was again in her home port laden with clay and ready to set sail for Liverpool. Again her wonted bad luck was destined to accompany her, for on the outward voyage she encountered another severe gale, and had to put into Holyhead. On this occasion she had been obliged to cut away several sails, but on the homeward voyage, on the night of the 8th December, in a heavy gale, when going into Exmouth Harbour, she was driven on shore, on the Pole Sands outside the bar, where she remained in the greatest danger for upwards of four hours, and would have been beaten to pieces had not several boats, on signals of distress being made by the pilots, gone off to her assistance. Fortunately she was got off and conducted into the harbour, but was considerably damaged. As a result of her misfortunes in the home trade, her owners appear to have held a consultation, at which they resolved that she was no longer to be employed exclusively therein, but was to proceed to Liverpool with clay, there to purchase salt, thence to Newfoundland, thence to the continent of America for coals or lumber, to return to Newfoundland, take in a cargo of fish for Portugal, and there obtain a cargo of wines for England.

She accordingly sailed for Liverpool on Thursday, 16th May, Captain Brewer being on board, and arrived there on the 30th; thence she sailed by the north of Ireland without convoy, and under licence from the Admiralty, and on the 28th of November the owners received the welcome news that she had reached the port of St. John's, Newfoundland, safely. About the middle of October she was laden with a cargo of 3,600 quintals of fish, and on 25th October set sail bound for Oporto under convoy of the Jamaica frigate (Captain Dick). On the 13th of December, 1805, her owners wrote to Captain Brewer at Oporto, and as the Ann so far as, viewing her through the mists of a century, we have been able to follow her, arrived home safely, and indeed thereafter accomplished another successful voyage, any scrap of interest attaching to her history probably ceases, and I venture to close this with a quotation from the letter: "I congratulate you on the late decisive and brilliant victory obtained over the combined fleets of France and Spain by the late gallant Nelson, whose loss I most truly deplore."