[
776]
in the frigate
Le Muiron.
The British Government did not demand him of the
French Government as a prisoner of war. This case was almost precisely similar with my own. Both ships struck their colors; both ships were destroyed before the enemy could take possession of them, and both commanders escaped; the only difference being that
Admiral Ganteaume escaped in one of his own boats, to one of his own brigs of war, and thence to
Alexandria, and I escaped by swimming to a neutral ship, and to the cover of a neutral flag; which, as before remarked, was the same thing as if I had swum to neutral territory.
Mr. Lancaster could no more have thrust me back into the sea, or handed me over to the
Kearsarge, than could the keeper of the Needles light, if I had landed on the
Isle of Wight.
I have presented several contrasts in these pages; I desire to present another.
The reader has seen how Mr. Seward, a civilian, insisted that beaten enemies, who were struggling for their lives in the water, should be permitted to drown, rather than be rescued from the grasp of his naval commander by a neutral.
I desire to show how a Christian admiral forbade his enemies to be fired upon, when they were engaged in rescuing their people from drowning; even though the consequence of such rescue should be the escape of the prisoners.
I allude to Lord Collingwood, a name almost as well known to American as to English readers; the same Lord Collingwood, who was second in command to Nelson at the famous battle of Trafalgar.
This Admiral, from his flag-ship, the Ocean, issued the following general order to the commanders of his ships:—
Ocean, September 19, 1807.
In the event of an action with the enemy, in which it shall happen that any of their ships shall be in distress, by taking fire, or otherwise, and the brigs and tenders, or boats which are attached to their fleet, shall be employed in saving the lives of the crews of such distressed ships, they shall not be fired on, or interrupted in such duty.
But as long as the battle shall continue, his Majesty's ships are not to give up the pursuit of such, as have not surrendered, to attend to any other occasion, except it be to give their aid to his Majesty's ships which may want it.—
Collingwood's Letters, 235
But the American war developed ‘grand moral ideas,’ and Mr. Seward's, about the drowning of prisoners, was one of them.
