Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1 | Page 3

father injudiciously sent him back in a
carriage with some money in his pocket. The wise youth slipped out,
and finding his way home by some quiet approach, carried off his
younger brothers to the theatre. He finally ran away from a private tutor,
and Mr Marryat recognised the wisdom of compliance. Being then

fourteen, that is of age to hold a commission, Frederick was allowed to
enter the navy, and on the 23rd of September 1806, he started on his
first voyage on board H.M.S. Impérieuse, Captain Lord Cochrane, for
the Mediterranean.
He could scarcely have entered upon his career under better auspices.
In a line-of-battle ship he would have had no chance of service at this
stage of the war, when the most daring of the French could not be
decoyed out of port; but the frigates had always more exciting work on
hand than mere patrolling. There were cruisers to be captured,
privateers to be cut off, convoys to be taken, and work to be done on
the coast among the forts. And Lord Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, was
not the man to neglect his opportunities. His daring gallantry and cool
judgment are accredited to most of Marryat's captains, particularly in
Frank Mildmay, where the cruise of the Impérieuse along the Spanish
coast is most graphically and literally described. Cochrane's
Autobiography betrays the strong, stern individuality of the man,
invaluable in action, somewhat disturbing in civil life. As a reformer in
season and out of season, at the Admiralty or in the House of Commons,
his zeal became a bye-word, but Marryat knew him only on board his
frigate, as an inspiring leader of men. He never passed an opportunity
of serving his country and winning renown, but his daring was not
reckless.
"I must here remark," says Marryat in his private log, "that I never
knew any one so careful of the lives of his ship's company as Lord
Cochrane, or any one who calculated so closely the risks attending any
expedition. Many of the most brilliant achievements were performed
without loss of a single life, so well did he calculate the chances; and
one half the merit which he deserves for what he did accomplish has
never been awarded him, merely because, in the official despatches,
there has not been a long list of killed and wounded to please the
appetite of the English public."
Marryat has left us a graphic account of his first day at sea:--
"The Impérieuse sailed; the Admiral of the port was one who would be
obeyed, but would not listen always to reason or common sense. The

signal for sailing was enforced by gun after gun; the anchor was hove
up, and, with all her stores on deck, her guns not even mounted, in a
state of confusion unparalleled from her being obliged to hoist in faster
than it was possible she could stow away, she was driven out of
harbour to encounter a heavy gale. A few hours more would have
enabled her to proceed to sea with security, but they were denied; the
consequences were appalling, they might have been fatal. In the general
confusion some iron too near the binnacles had attracted the needle of
the compasses; the ship was steered out of her course. At midnight, in a
heavy gale at the close of November, so dark that you could not
distinguish any object, however close, the Impérieuse dashed upon the
rocks between Ushant and the Main. The cry of terror which ran
through the lower decks; the grating of the keel as she was forced in;
the violence of the shocks which convulsed the frame of the vessel; the
hurrying up of the ship's company without their clothes; and then the
enormous wave which again bore her up, and carried her clean over the
reef, will never be effaced from my memory."
This, after all, was not an inappropriate introduction to the stormy three
years which followed it. The story is written in the novels, particularly
Frank Mildmay[1] where every item of his varied and exciting
experience is reproduced with dramatic effect. It would be impossible
to rival Marryat's narrative of episodes, and we shall gain no sense of
reality by adjusting the materials of fiction to an exact accordance with
fact. He says that these books, except Frank Mildmay, are "wholly
fictitious in characters, in plot, and in events," but they are none the less
truthful pictures of his life at sea. Cochrane's Autobiography contains a
history of the Impérieuse; it is from Peter Simple and his companions
that we must learn what Marryat thought and suffered while on board.
Under Cochrane he cruised along the coast of France from Ushant to
the mouth of the Gironde, saw some active service in the
Mediterranean, and,