When the British Empire almost went bankrupt
Four strange sail in the southwest. That is what Nathaniel Dance saw on the morning of 14th February 1804 off the island of Pulo Aura on the east coast of Malaysia. Dance was the commodore of a fleet of 30 ships owned by the East India Company in convoy from China to Britain – known as the China Fleet. The China Fleet carried over £8 million in goods from Asia in its ships’ holds. I should be clear, that is £8 million in 1804 money, which would today be around £750 million.
When Dance had left China just a few weeks prior, he did so with the news that Britain was at war with France. While the Napoleonic Wars had started in May 1803, the news only reached the ports of Asia months later. It put the commodore in a difficult position. Britain’s economy relied upon the China Fleet’s commodities and their timely arrival; even a few weeks’ delays could cause widespread chaos and speculation in London. But it would also mean running the gauntlet of sailing without any escorts as reinforcements from the Royal Navy were yet to arrive from India.
Dance had reason to be afraid. Napoleon, foreseeing the war, had sent a squadron of crack ships to the Indian Ocean in 1803 under the command of the famous Admiral Linois. Its purpose was simple, to disrupt and destroy British trade, ideally with as much as possible captured and brought back to France. Over the next few months, Linois scooped up ships and set fire to British factories and warehouses across Asia. Unhelpfully, the China Fleet sailed to a very specific schedule, and so the moment it left the estuary of the Pearl River, the world knew. By the 14th of February, it had almost entered the Indian Ocean and was close to Singapore.
It will not be surprising to any reader that the East India Company was arrogant. A company that, as William Dalrymple describes, had become “an empire within an empire.” It controlled much of India, had its own army, and its revenues kept Britain afloat. Its navy was also not to be sniffed at, made up of large, well-built ships (known as Indiamen) capable of being as armed as any British warship, but its commercial arrogance prevented this. Rather than fill these Indiamen with cannons and the hundreds of sailors needed to man them, it instead filled its gun ports with dummy cannons and its decks with luxurious cabins and storage for trade goods, maintaining crews only large enough to sail these ships and be stewards to its paying passengers.
Commodore Dance would have been pondering those dummy cannons as the ships he had sent to look at the four strange sail in the southwest reported back that it was four French warships, Linois’s squadron. He was practically defenceless. To protect his 30 ships and their precious cargo, he had one small armed brig named the Ganges with around a dozen guns. Up against him were the 186 guns of the French squadron, 74 in Marengo, 40 in Belle Poule, 36 in Semillante, 20 in Berceau and 16 in Aventurier. As Dance watched through his telescope, the French ships hoisted their colours, and the admiral’s flag of Linois broke out above Marengo. He needed a plan. Fast.
After a night of cat and mouse between the French and British, Dance ordered his convoy into a long single line and at the front put four of the largest Indiamen – the Royal George, Earl Camden, Warley, and Alfred. He then commanded that these four hoist blue ensigns, the sign of Royal Navy ships. This wasn’t the most absurd plan; the East India Company, in their arrogance, had a policy of painting their Indiamen to look like Royal Navy ships – as Dance records in his despatch: “We hoisted our colours and offered him battle.” But Linois and his ships continued to approach the convoy slowly, with Dance realising that the French intended to separate the convoy and take it apart piece by piece. It was now or never, and Dance took the initiative. At 1 pm, he ordered the Ganges, Royal George, Earl Camden, Warley and Alfred to turn and intercept the French. All the ships turned perfectly and crossed Linois, and at 1:15 pm, the French opened fire on the Royal George. In the preceding night, the convoy had put all the guns they had on these five ships and filled them with as many brave volunteers as they could. All five returned fire on the French warships, and one sailor on the Royal George was killed. I will let Dance take over here:
“But before any other ship could get into action, the enemy hauled their wind and stood away to the east under all the sail they could set. At 2 pm, I made the signal for a general chase and we pursued them until 4 pm.”
In around 40 minutes, Dance and his handful of real guns and dummy cannons had forced the French warships to withdraw under the belief it had engaged an elite squadron of Royal Navy ships. Not content with this victory, he then ordered his ships to chase the French down and stop them from returning. By the later afternoon, it was clear Linois had run, and Dance ordered his convoy to regroup and make for the safety of Malacca.
In the Straits of Malacca, Dance met the ships the Royal Navy had sent to escort him on the outbreak of war but would have been too late had the commodore not thought fast. The China Fleet passed the rest of its voyage without incident, returning to Britain in the summer of 1804.
To say the country was ecstatic would be an understatement. If the China Fleet and its £8 million had been taken, as Linois would have been perfectly able to do, it is evident that both the East India Company and Lloyds of London would have faced bankruptcy and collapse. Nathaniel Dance was knighted by George III and given a fantastic sword by Lloyds worth 100 guineas. With the sword came £5,000 (£403,000 today) from the Bombay Insurance Company and £500 a year (£40,000 today) from the East India Company, along with a share in the £50,000 given to all who sailed in convoy. Sir Nathaniel retired immediately and never took to the sea again, dying peacefully in 1827.
Linois would claim for the rest of his life that Dance’s fleet was, in fact, filled with real British warships, writing letters claiming this for many decades after the action, to the belief of no one.
Napoleon himself was distraught. If Linois had courage, the Napoleonic Wars could have ended differently. India would have been in chaos, the banks of London would have been run, and Britain would have been left in a very precarious position. He wrote to his Minister of Defence in a fury:
“All the enterprises at sea which have been undertaken since I became the head of the Government have missed fire because my admirals see double and have discovered, I know not how or where, that war can be made without running risks ... Tell Linois that he has shown want of courage of mind, that kind of courage which I consider the highest quality in a leader".”
It is worth remarking that following the defeat at Pulo Aura, Linois had a similarly pathetic rest of the war that ended in a wonderfully ironic way. In 1806, the admiral was captured when he mistook a British squadron of warships for a merchant convoy.
References:
Dance, N. (1804). A Letter from Captain Nathaniel Dance. European Magazine and London Review. Volume 46.
Dalrymple, W. (2019). The Anarchy - The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. Bloomsbury.
James, W. (1827). The Naval History of Great Britain during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Clowes, W. (1900). The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, Volume 5.
O’Brien, P. (1973). HMS Surprise. Collins.
Not that a second Master & Commander film needs justifying, but this story would be perfect.
Great stuff! I have ancestors who were in the Royal Navy at the time of the Seven Years War, and the Navy encouraged their officers to act in the same audacious and aggressive manner as Dance acted against Linois.