Most Secret and Confidential by Steven Maffeo

Author:Steven Maffeo [Maffeo, Steven E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612513256
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

8

A Naval Intelligence Occasion

Pulo-Aur, 14–16 February 1804

We are bred up to feel it a disgrace even to succeed by falsehood[,] . . . that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always wins in the long run. These pretty little sentiments do well for a child’s copy-book, but a man who acts on them had better sheathe his sword forever.

Sir Garnet Wolseley

TACTICAL DECEPTION WAS REASONABLY EASY DURING THE GREAT age of fighting sail, when extraordinary similarities existed in the design of both warships and merchant ships. Examples are legion; however, not much compares to the successes the huge, commercial British East India Company enjoyed against the French navy in the Indian Ocean.

The standard Company ship, commonly referred to as an “Indiaman,” was typically around twelve to fourteen hundred tons and appeared virtually identical in lines and rigging to any of the smaller naval ships of the line. In fact, it is interesting to note that, at the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen, the ship of the line directly astern of Admiral Nelson’s had been a Company merchant ship for many years before being bought into the navy (and even more interesting is that HMS Glatton’s captain, on that occasion, was the famous William Bligh).1 In addition, until around 1810, the navies of the world had no standard patterns for exterior paint; it often was left to the taste and private funds of the captain. Moreover, except for officers, there was no standard uniform for personnel, so merchant and naval seamen, with few exceptions, dressed alike.

As a result, despite the East India Company’s general procedure of embarking indifferent armament and small crews, their eight-hundred-ton ships could likewise pass for naval frigates even at fairly close quarters. The Company’s ships tried to capitalize on these similarities whenever practical, knowing very well that running from every strange sail would, in fact, only advertise their true weak state as relatively defenseless merchantmen. Aggressive tactics, such as steering straight toward French warships or privateers (to say nothing of the pirates of various nationalities that infested eastern waters) often intimidated the pursuer while concealing the Indiaman’s true nature.

The finest example of East India Company triumphs over the French navy occurred in February 1804. The Company’s great, and unescorted, China Fleet—a collection of sixteen twelve-hundred-ton Indiamen bound for London and eleven “country-trade” ships bound for India—had sailed from Canton in late January. Aside from the value of the ships themselves, the fleet was worth eight million pounds sterling in tea, porcelain, silk, and other goods—a staggering amount for the time. As the fleet approached the Strait of Malacca, it encountered a powerful French squadron including a ship of the line, two frigates, a corvette, and a brig, all under the command of the experienced Rear Adm. Charles Alexandre Léon Durand de Linois. Admiral Linois had received intelligence of the fleet’s movements from a spy in Canton; the specific source and details of this espionage-derived information are not clear, but it is important to realize that at this

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