23
IN THE FIRST six months that the Hermione had been in Spanish hands, renamed the Santa Cecilia and serving under the red and gold flag of Carlos IV, she had been to sea only once, for the short voyage from La Guaira to Puerto Cabello, where she was to be fitted out. The reason for her inactivity was not hard to find: she was firmly secured to the piers at Puerto Cabello by many fathoms of red tape.
Although double-entry book-keeping had recently been introduced into the Spanish dominions, the new system did not help Intendant Leone because the Royal Treasury at Caracas was empty. But since Leone was stubborn, and as determined to stand on what he considered his rights as he was to balance his books, the frigate stayed in harbour, when she might well have been responsible for some entries in the credit column had she gone to sea.
After the ship had been taken to Puerto Cabello the Master Shipwright there surveyed her on the orders of the Governor of the port, Don Marmion. He found that she needed repairs to her bow and stern below the waterline, which meant the copper sheathing had to be stripped off, and she would have to be careened. Apart from that there were the routine repairs to be made to the sails and the rigging.
The work went on at a leisurely pace until November 18, when the Captain-General called a junta to consider some alarming news. The first item on the agenda for their consideration was ‘the repeated insults of the enemy corsairs [i.e. privateers], which have had the audacity to enter the port of Barcelona for the third time, landing troops and taking possession of the battery built there, which was still without guns as it was not ready for garrisoning. The enemy corsairs threatened to destroy it unless they received 50,000 pesos.’
The junta was also told that on the same day, November 14, two Spanish privateers, the San Francisco and the San Vicente, which were cruising off Cape Codera on the lookout for enemy warships, had sighted a British frigate, a sloop and two schooners. They had promptly ‘retired to port to save themselves’, and reported at once to the Captain-General.
The arrival of the British was serious, as every member of the junta knew only too well, and the minutes of their discussion refer to ‘the serious damage which will be caused by the pirates [sic] if they are allowed to remain, since they will inevitably capture any merchant ships coming from Spain and other parts’, and would also intercept ‘at a critical time for Christmas’ the ships carrying the cocoa harvest, which was just beginning to be collected.
The junta decided to fit out the Santa Cecilia at once ‘to go out and harass and capture the said enemy ships’. The main problem was finding enough seamen, so they decided that only one of the two Spanish privatees would sail to keep a watch for the British ships while the other went to Puerto Cabello in case her crew was needed for the Santa Cecilia. The captain of the frigate was to be Don Andreas Caperuchiqui, the Acting Commander of the Privateering Branch.
The junta’s last decision was soon to cause a great deal of trouble: ‘Finally it was resolved that the expenses that may arise for the said frigate should be paid for by the Privateering Branch, because at the appropriate times she may serve to chase enemy ships and also be employed with zeal to chase smugglers.’
The Captain-General and his secretary then busied themselves drawing up the necessary orders. The first was to the Governor of Puerto Cabello, putting him in charge of fitting out the Santa Cecilia; the second was to Intendant Leone, enclosing a certified copy of the junta’s minutes and telling him the Santa Cecilia’s captain was to be the Acting Commander of the Privateering Branch, ‘whose funds must pay the expenses, and for which you must give the appropriate orders’. Leone replied the same day that ‘I have given the necessary instructions for this to take place’, and no doubt noted to himself that the Captain-General was playing into his hands.
The point was that the junta had intended that the Santa Cecilia should be both a warship and a privateer, as the occasion demanded. The Captain-General later explained to the Prince of Peace, ‘It was decided to charge the expenses to the Privateering Branch because the Royal Treasury did not have the means and because the Privateering Branch had to help provide the crew by taking men from the smaller privateers’.
As a warship defending the province, the Santa Cecilia came under the control of the Captain-General, her expenses being paid out of the Royal Treasury. But as a privateer she was controlled by the Intendant and paid for by the Privateering Fund, which he administered. Since the Royal Treasury was empty the Privateering Fund had to pay anyway; but who controlled the ship when she acted as a warship but was paid for as a privateer?
The Intendant had no doubts: as soon as the Captain-General told him that Caperuchiqui was to command and the Privateering Branch to pay, he took control himself, writing the same day to his Treasury officials at Puerto Cabello. He told them the frigate was to be ready in ‘not more than six to eight days’, (this order resulted in the Hermiones being rounded up in the streets of La Guaira and shipped to Puerto Cabello to work on board the frigate), and the Governor would supply provisions for only one month, ‘with the other things which Don Caperuchiqui might demand’. They were to understand that ‘Caperuchiqui has the authority to appoint officers and seamen to the frigate to his own satisfaction, either from the privateers or merchant ships, and also from among local seafarers’. More men would be sent round from La Guaira.
The reply from the Treasury officials at Puerto Cabello was prompt: although the Master Shipwright reported that he had not finished repairing the Santa Cecilia, he had been told to complete the job ‘with the greatest speed’, but it was doubtful if she would be ready until the end of the month. ‘At the same time we have put up posters offering all seamen who join the frigate the same wages that privateersmen receive, and a share of the prize-money resulting from captures.’
The Intendant also wrote to Caperuchiqui, telling him of the enemy’s arrival off Cape Codera, and that he was to take command of the frigate and have her ready in six to eight days, ‘and this done you are to sail for that position, taking with you the schooner Concha… and any other of the privateers that are ready in time, all with the purpose of capturing or driving off the enemy frigate and other vessels’. Caperuchiqui replied that he had immediately given the necessary instructions ‘so that there shall be no delays through any fault of mine’.
So far the first round had gone to Leone. The Captain-General had assumed Leone’s orders were routine. He did not know the Intendant had presented him with a fait accompli until Caperuchiqui sent the Governor of Puerto Cabello, Don Marmion, a brusque note saying that since the Intendant had given him command of the Santa Cecilia, ‘this is to let you know that from now on you will communicate with me on all matters concerning the frigate’.
Governor Marmion received this on December 7, by which time the ship was still not ready for sea. But as the Captain-General personally had put him in complete charge of commissioning the Santa Cecilia he was so angry that he at once sent a copy of Caperuchiqui’s letter to the Captain-General, who in describing the episode later wrote that ‘from the moment Marmion saw the note [from Caperuchiqui] he threw up his hands and said he would not have anything to do with it’.
At last the inevitable clash between the Intendant, the man who held the purse strings, and the Captain-General, who ruled the province, had occurred. It was inevitable, as we saw earlier, because of the overlapping roles assigned in the Royal ordinances to the intendants and the captains-general, which meant, in the case of the Santa Cecilia, that the Captain-General could order her to be refitted and to sail, but the Intendant could refuse to supply the money for the work and wages.
As soon as the Captain-General received Marmion’s outraged note enclosing Caperuchiqui’s order, he wrote a strongly-worded letter to Leone. ‘I acquaint Your Excellency that the frigate Santa Cecilia has been ordered to arm in the capacity of a privateer, and that she must carry out the orders of this Province [i.e. of the junta], like other privateers, that she might be useful to His Majesty’s government.’ He added that the junta had decided the Privateering Branch was to pay because the ship would fulfil two roles—dealing with enemy warships and preventing smuggling. But ‘the principal object of arming the ship was not, and is not, for stopping smuggling: it is for defending the coasts of the province. It is very obvious that if the frigate was only to be a privateer, Your Excellency would have control, and it would not be necessary to raise the matter in a junta.
‘The fact that the Privateering Branch is paying the expenses is not sufficient reason to put the frigate under the command of that Branch, since they pay only because of the lack of money in the Royal Treasury.
‘On a similar occasion, when expenses were paid by the Privateering Branch, the King decreed that ships armed for war with the object of defending the coasts came under the command of the Captain-General. In that way’, Carbonell wrote, ‘the Intendant only deals with the financial side of the affair.’
But for all that, Carbonell realized that the man who held the purse strings actually held the power, and he concluded, ‘In spite of all this, and the knowledge that the frigate Santa Cecilia must be under my orders—though the expense be paid by the Privateering Branch or anyone else—to avoid troubles so prejudicial to the King’s service, and so distasteful to me, Your Excellency can command the frigate with every facility, and I am also informing Caperuchiqui. All this,’ he concluded ominously, ‘I shall recount to His Majesty for his Royal information’.
The Santa Cecilia did not sail. The Captain-General, writing later a bitter letter of complaint to the Prince of Peace, said that ‘as he [Leone] could not argue with me face to face, he played a trick by giving orders to Don Caperuchiqui… the result has been not to arm the frigate, and to let her rot in harbour, while enemy corsairs attack our merchant ships and insolently protect the cattle and food smugglers along our coast. I do not have enough authority to remedy these disasters.’
However, having gained control of the Santa Cecilia, Leone did nothing further: the delay over fitting out, followed by the quarrel with the Captain-General, took them up to Christmas 1797, and by then the British ships had left the area and the coasts of Caracas were left in comparative peace.
The frigate stayed at Puerto Cabello while the blazing sun shrunk the deck and hull planking, opening up the seams. The alternate heat of the sun and wet of rain and dew began the slow process of rotting the cordage and mildewing the canvas of the sails. Rats bred in contentment, unworried by any rolling or pitching which would send sudden surges of bilge water into their secret nests down in the holds.
On March 16, Intendant Leone received some alarming news from the Dutch island of Curaçao, which he promptly passed on to the Captain-General: five Spaniards known to be revolutionaries were on the island and ‘intend to form an expedition to invade this province’.
Don Carbonell acted at once, telling the Intendant that ‘it has been decided to fit out with the utmost speed possible the frigate Santa Cecilia and the schooner Kitschean [sic], with the other two privateers under the command of Don Andreas Caperuchiqui. They are to sail from Puerto Cabello and cruise off the entrance of the port of Curaçao, not allowing any ship to leave there without checking her and making sure she is not helping these criminals.’ A sloop and a schooner should follow as soon as possible ‘to strengthen our forces’.
The Intendant replied that, ‘I have given on my part the most strict orders so that everything shall be done with speed and efficiency’. But the old quarrel over control of the ship was still close to the surface. The Captain-General wrote to Leone again the same day saying he had given command of the Santa Cecilia to Don Ambrocio Alvarez Pardinaz, who was captain of the Cadiz merchantman La Empresa, then lying in La Guaira, because of ‘his acknowledged ability and bravery’.
But when Leone came to pass on these orders he made no mention of Pardinaz: instead Caperuchiqui was told ‘You are to carry out a mission in the Royal Service which I do not doubt you will execute with honour’. His ships were to provision for two months, and not for one; or for fifteen days if there was not sufficient. Other craft would be sent on later to reinforce him and bring more supplies. Meanwhile ‘the Royal Exchequer is authorized to give you all necessary assistance’.
Writing to his officials at Puerto Cabello, Leone sent a copy of his orders to Caperuchiqui, and told them, ‘I have arranged to forward to the Royal Treasury [at Puerto Cabello] the sum of sixty thousand pesos, which should arrive by next Monday at the latest’. And finally, in a letter to the Governor of La Guaira, Leone told him to send La Empresa’s crew to Puerto Cabello to help man the Santa Cecilia, along with any other seamen who were available.
Thus in four letters—including one to the Captain-General acknowledging the original order—Leone had not once mentioned Pardinaz: the officials at Puerto Cabello and La Guaira had no inkling that the Captain-General had intended he should command the frigate.
When Carbonell found that Leone was again playing tricks over the command of the frigate he did not write to him. Any arguments they had must have been oral and it is clear the Captain-General could get no satisfaction from Leone—nor could he get the ship, to sea. On March 23, nine days after he had ordered them to sails he wrote a long letter to the Prince of Peace—a letter at the top of which, when it arrived at the Spanish Court, was noted ‘The Captain-General of the Province of Caracas requests agreement from the Council on his dispute with the Intendant about the command of the English frigate Ermione [sic]’.
Don Carbonell enclosed copies of various relevant documents and began by describing the fiasco resulting from the decision to sail the Santa Cecilia the previous November to deal with the British warships off Cape Codera. He described how Leone had ‘played a trick’ to get control of the frigate, and that he finally left the ship to the Intendant in order to avoid disputes ‘so prejudicial to the King’s service’. The Captain-General also sent a copy of his recent correspondence with ‘Admiral Hider Parker’, asking for the King’s approval. (Five days after Carbonell wrote these letters, the Prince of Peace had fallen from power: the King dismissed him on March 28.)
At the time the Captain-General’s dispatches left La Guaira for Spain, Caperuchiqui was still busy trying to get the Santa Cecilia and Kitty Sean ready for sea. The last letter referring to them, dated April 4, was to the Intendant from his officials at Puerto Cabello. ‘On April 2,’ they wrote, ‘the frigate Santa Cecilia was inspected with the sloop Begoña because they were ready to sail. However they could not leave since there was no wind.’
It is certain that they never sailed: no report of a voyage to Curaçao was made to Carbonell or Leone, or by them to Madrid; and when defending himself later Leone said the frigate had been ready by April 2, whereas it would have strengthened his case if he had been able to say she had actually gone to sea.
The long delay in correspondence with the Ministers and the Court in Spain, caused by lethargy and the double crossing of the Atlantic in the teeth of the British blockade, meant that the problem and the control of the Santa Cecilia was never satisfactorily settled.
On August 4, 1798, nearly a year after the mutiny, the Captain-General wrote to Admiral Don Juan de Langara, who had recently been made the Secretary of State for the Navy, saying he had received the King’s approval of the junta’s decision to admit the Hermione into the Royal Service, and that she was to operate under the Captain-General’s control. He told Langara that the naval officer the Court had appointed to command her, Don Ramon de Eschales, had just arrived in La Guaira with his officers, but without seamen or soldiers because none was available at Havana.
So nine months after the Hermione first arrived at La Guaira, Carbonell was able to show Leone the King’s decision that the ship was to be under the Captain-General’s control.
At the end of November, 1798, Carbonell received a reply from Spain to his complaint of March 23 about Leone. It said the King had been shown the Captain-General’s report that the frigate was ‘going downhill’. The King ‘has disapproved of the Intendant’s conduct on this point and declared that the ship is under the orders of the Captain-General for the time being, and for as long as she is not given orders from a higher command’.
In the meantime Leone had also been busy writing to the Minister of Finance in Spain. As soon as the King’s approval of Carbonell’s decisions over the Hermione had been read to the junta, Leone wrote a long justification of his conduct. Relating how the junta accepted the Hermione in the first instance, and that the Captain-General decided ‘on his own responsibility’ the ship’s role was to guard the coast against privateers, he declared: ‘The Captain-General afterwards ordered on different occasions that the frigate was to be armed and fitted out to go to sea, which I opposed, having in mind the excessive cost which is supposed to be paid by the Royal Treasury, and which at the present time has no funds.
‘In addition there are not sufficient officers and crew experienced enough to handle the ship of this size. Also, according to those who know about these things, these coasts are not suitable for large ships like frigates, which are difficult to sail against strong currents which frequently expose them to a lee shore and to the danger of going aground on the coasts. Besides this, the enemy smugglers and privateers are smaller and draw less water, so they can shelter and hide in anchorages and shallow coves where a frigate cannot enter, and as a result it is impossible to capture them.’
The Intendant, writing with all the assurance usual in someone so completely ignorant of a subject, forgot the panic caused by the appearance of a British frigate off Cape Codera; and it has been made clear in this narrative that a large percentage of prizes taken by British frigates were made in just the circumstances that Leone quoted ‘those who know about these things’ as saying were ‘impossible’.
The Intendant, commenting on the Royal order giving control to Carbonell, wrote: ‘I consider it necessary to notify Your Excellency that this alters the established system of maritime security for this coast.’ Paying for the ship as a privateer, he explained, meant that the commerce paid [i.e. from the tax levied on the merchants]; but in fact the Privateering Fund was not even sufficient to pay for the small ships of the Privateering Branch.
‘It is not possible to keep the frigate armed [i.e. in commission] either from the Privateering Fund or the Royal Treasury, which is exhausted with the heavy expenses of the present war, without being able to find eighty thousand pesos a year, which the officials of the Royal Treasury at Puerto Cabello have calculated to be necessary for the upkeep of the ship, including her operating expenses and careening, which are so costly.’
In view of all this, concluded Leone, he hoped a full explanation would be given to the King ‘for a speedy resolution’.
The Minister of Finance sent Leone’s letter to the King, whose reply was certainly speedy. The Minister was told ‘His Majesty disapproves the Intendant’s conduct and orders him to put it right with the Captain-General’. The Minister then sent the whole file of correspondence to Admiral Langara, and the Royal snub, conveyed in a letter from Langara, arrived at Caracas in July 1799, a year after Leone had written his original protest. When the Intendant read it he was indignant and replied at once—indeed, an indication of his haste is given in a note on his letter saying ‘written in the frigate Carlota, Captain Don Ramon Blanco, which is ready to sail from the port of La Guaira for Spain, July 27, 1799’.
Acknowledging Langara’s letter, he said: ‘For your information I must inform you that the report of the Captain-General—that I started the dispute, demanding that the ship should be under my orders, with the result that she is deteriorating—is entirely wrong.
‘Having examined the file of the Hermione from the time she came into our possession, I do not see how I could have caused such a dispute.… Your Excellency will see from the documents I enclose that the decisions and orders concerning the arming and command of the frigate have come from either the junta de guerra or the Captain-General… Far from opposing decisions) making difficulties or causing delays I passed on the necessary orders to those officers who in fact come under the jurisdiction of the Intendant without making the slightest criticism of the Captain-General for having himself made the decisions concerning the privateers, although they come under my command. On further consideration it seems to me that it demonstrates my moderation and wish to avoid disputes and misunderstandings.’
Leone asked Admiral Langara to refer the matter to the King for his decision and also ‘make good the embarrassment and injury done me by the complaint of Carbonell, damaging the honour and efficiency with which I have always tried to serve His Majesty’.
But Intendant Leone was never to receive the King’s decision. At the time he wrote that letter on board the frigate Carlota, the Hermione had been in Spanish hands for nearly twenty-one months and despite their desperate shortage of ships, her only voyage under the red and gold flag had been from La Guaira to Puerto Cabello. For a year and a half she had been a subject for correspondence, not a warship; the only hostility involving her had been between the Intendant and the Captain-General.