Augustus Hervey's Journal (Sailors' tales)

by Augustus Hervey (Author), David Erskine (Editor), David Erskine (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $6.92

  Augustus Hervey was born into the wildly eccentric family of the Earls of Bristol, a lineage so different from ordinary folk that it was said there were three sexes: men, women and Herveys. Indeed, Augustus's father was the infamous cross-dressing courtier lampooned by Alexander Pope as Sporus and Lord Fanny. A secret marriage and a notorious bigamy trial surrounded the young Augustus with scandal, and he was happy to escape to sea. But if the family thought the Navy a dull and conventional career, Augustus was soon to prove he had true Hervey blood in his veins. With powerful patronage, he rapidly achieved independent command, and in the closing years of the War of Austrian Succession he showed himself to be a surprisingly effective naval officer. It is at this point that his journal begins, but while it offers a valuable insight into the Navy of the time, it becomes more generally entertaining when Hervey turns to describing his peacetime campaigns among the ladies of various Mediterranean cities. Clearly proud of his successes, he is happy to describe in candid detail the sometimes elaborate tactics necessary to secure his prizes; but he is equally frank about his embarrassments and failures. When war broke out once again in 1756, Hervey was to participate in some important events, including the disastrous Battle of Port Mahon, which led to the court-martial and execution of Admiral Byng, as Voltaire famously put it, 'to encourage the others'. Hervey was so outraged by the government's treatment of a man who had been both his friend and patron that he even hatched a hair-brained scheme to rescue Byng from imprisonment. Thereafter, Hervey never entirely trusted the naval administration of Lord Anson, whom he held responsible, but he continued to serve at sea, and saw his fair share of action, during the remainder of the Seven Years War. This journal, which was never intended for publication, is unique in its forthright descriptions of the sailor's life, ashore and afloat, before the advent of Victorian values imposed a veil of discretion on naval officers' memoirs.