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John Francis Miller was born in Portsmouth on the 24th March 1786. [He was christened Francis John, but in most subsequent records is referred to as John Francis. Ed.]
The next record we have of him comes almost nine years later when his Record of Service shows that on the 1st March 1795 he was taken on to the books of his father's ship Astrea, as a Volunteer or Boy 1st Class. This rate, which was reserved for future officers, had replaced that of Captain's servant the previous year.
It is difficult to know what to make of this information. Even by the practices of the late 18th Century the age of nine was on the early side for joining the Royal Navy, and although ages of ten have been recorded they seem to have been achieved by children with influential patrons, e.g. a son of the Captain. On the other hand this date is confirmed by Muster List of Astrea and his date of birth fits in nicely with date of his parent's marriage, there being a respectable interval of nine months and 18 days between the two events.
Another possibility was that his inclusion on the Muster List was purely a paper transaction designed to build up sea-time. This practice was quite common, but again was generally only available to those with influence. Study of the Astrea's movements fit neatly with the dates of John Francis' time on board. The ship was at Spithead from 27th February to the 17th March and in the following October sailed from Sheerness for duties in the North Sea and North German coast on the 20th October, the same date that John Francis was discharged. The ship's Log records that on the 19th 'the pilot came on board and the women sent ashore'. Perhaps Mrs Miller took her son with her. Her maternal instincts may have been alarmed by an event that took place ten days earlier. The Log records that only ten days before sailing three Captains had conducted an enquiry 'into the merits of the complaints from the ships company against Capt Lane for supposed cruelty and oppression'.
On balance the evidence would seem to support the fact that John Francis was on board Astrea between March and October 1795. If this is the case then it was a remarkable start to his naval career. It would appear that he went to sea for the first time a week before his 9th birthday and that three weeks later took part in an action with the French frigate Gloire in which 9 of his shipmates were wounded and the enemy lost 40 killed and wounded, before surrendering. Later in the summer he would have been present at Lord Bridport's action off the Isle de Groix.
The next entry in his Record of Service is easier to understand. On the 1st April 1797, now aged 11, he was taken on the books of Minotaur, the ship which his father, Thomas, had been made the Gunner the previous May, while in the West Indies. It was not a particularly suitable moment for a young boy to join an RN ship as the mutiny at Spithead broke out a week after he joined the ship. However fortunately this dispute was amicably settled and he sailed with his father on 17th May, not to return to England until December 1801.
Except for recording that he became a Midshipman on the 18th July 1801, there is no need describe the experiences and adventures that he shared with his father for the next 4½ years. They have been described earlier and we will take up his story after his father's death, three days after they had arrived at Spithead.
Minotaur remained at Spithead until the end of January 1802, when she sailed for Chatham to pay off. However before she sailed another Miller family event occurred. Thomas Miller junior, a younger brother of John Francis, joined the ship as a 1st Class Volunteer on 17th January 1802. After their short time together in Minotaur the two brothers went their separate ways; Thomas to Zealand, and John Francis to Beschermer, both guard ships at Chatham.
Their professional paths were not to cross again for nearly three years. The next time they met was while their two ships was securing a French prize during the great storm that followed the Battle of Trafalgar.
John Francis spent a month on board Beschermer before being paid off again. His Record of Service shows him as an Able Seaman during this period. Apart from taking some well deserved leave, his next task was to obtain further employment.
On April 29th John Miller wrote to Sir Evan Nepean, First Secretary to the Admiralty setting out details of his career and mentioning the recent death of his father saying that he would be 'humbly obliged to their Lordship for any steps they might think proper to do for him'. A week later he sent a further letter, having forwarded his certificates, asking when he might expect a reply. His persistence appears to have paid off. He joined the frigate Phoebe as a Midshipman on the 1st June. The ship's Muster List shows that the authority for the appointment was a letter from the Secretary of the Admiralty.
[32-gun frigate]
On 26th September 1802 Phoebe sailed for the Mediterranean arriving in Naples Bay in mid November. She was to spend the next three years in the western part of the Mediterranean.
For the following six months Britain and France remained at peace but on the 18th May the fragile Peace of Amiens came to an end and war broke out again. The next day Nelson, who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean left London to join his flagship Victory in Portsmouth. He sailed two days later, arriving off Toulon in July. Once again John Francis was under the command of Admiral Nelson.
For the next eighteen months Phoebe was part of the British Fleet that kept watch over the French Fleet in Toulon. It was the task of the frigates to keep a close watch while the ships of the line were often based over 150 miles away at the Maddalena Islands at the north end of Sardinia or the Balearic Islands. This boring, and often uncomfortable routine was interrupted in early 1805.
On 14th January, in response to one of Naploeon's many plans for the invasion of England, the French fleet, under the command of Villeneuve had sailed from Toulon. However several of his ships were damaged by bad weather and he was back in Toulon a short time later. It was perhaps fortunate for Napoleon that the French ships had suffered this damage as he had cancelled his plan two days after they had sailed, and the existing technology of naval communications might have made it difficult for him to inform them of the change in his strategic thinking, before they reached the West Indies.
Unaware of the return of the French fleet to harbour, Nelson, having established that it had not gone west, carried out a search of the Eastern Mediterranean and Phoebe spent the first half of February between Sicily and Crete before returning to Malta on the 19th, where Nelson had learnt that Villeneuve was back in Toulon.
Phoebe spent next three weeks at Malta. She then took a convoy bound to Majorca, where she arrived on the 16th March. Three days later she was back on station some 30 miles south of Toulon.
At the end of February Napoleon issued a further plan, his fifth, for the invasion of England. Like the previous ones it involved Villeneuve sailing from Toulon and proceeding to the West Indies. To meet this new plan Villeneuve sailed from Toulon with 11 ships of the line on the 30th March.
The next morning the French fleet was sighted by the two frigates Phoebe and Active. The entry in Phoebe's Log reads 'At 10 saw Fleet standing SW with all sail set. Made all sail and the signal per Captain'. This short entry records the first event in a series of strategic movements that nearly six months later culminated at the Battle of Trafalgar.
The two frigates shadowed the French fleet until sunset. They then parted company. Phoebe set course for Palma at the south end of Sardinia where she expected to find Nelson. Active hoped to continue tracking the French, but unfortunately lost contact with them during the night.
On the morning of 4th April Phoebe met up with British fleet off the S end of Sardinia and informed Nelson that Villeneuve had sailed from Toulon. For the next few days Phoebe remained with the fleet until Nelson decided on his next move. On the 9th he decided that Villeneuve had either left the Mediterranean or returned to Toulon. Nelson set sail for Gibraltar.
During this stage Phoebe seems to have parted company with the main fleet and headed N towards Toulon before returning to Pula Bay at the S end of Sardinia. By this time Nelson with the British Fleet, having been delayed by adverse winds, was passing through the Straits into the Atlantic.
During May and June Phoebe operated in the waters between Sardinia and the Balearics. In July and August she visited Palermo and Malta, and then, after passing through the Straits of Messina, returned to Maddalena Bay on the 14th August.
Phoebe spent less than a week in Maddalena Bay and on the 19th sailed for Gibraltar, where she arrived on the 13th September. For the next month she carried out convoy escort duties in the Straits.
BEFORE THE BATTLE We will now return to the activities of the two main fleets and the events leading to the Battle of Trafalgar after they left the Mediterranean. While John Francis aboard Phoebe was having a comparatively uneventful life cruising around the western Mediterranean, both fleets had crossed the Atlantic to the West Indies and then returned to Europe. On the 20th August, six days after Phoebe had arrived in northern Sardinia, Villeneuve had taken the French fleet into Cadiz, from where it did not leave again until it came out to fight the Battle of Trafalgar.
Phoebe sailed from Gibraltar on 8th October and the same day joined the frigate squadron, commanded by Captain Blackwood, that was patrolling, often as close as four miles offshore, the approaches to Cadiz harbour. For the next ten days Captain Blackwood's squadron waited in vain for any sign of movement within the harbour that would show that Admiral Villeneuve had at last decided to bring his fleet out. Then on the morning of Saturday the 19th the situation changed.
On Friday Villeneuve had decided that the combined fleet should sail the next day. At first light on the Saturday morning Sirius, the frigate which was closest inshore, reported to Captain Blackwood in Euryalus 'enemy have their topsail yards hoisted'. After making sure that the combined fleet were really on the move, Blackwood then ordered Phoebe to pass the vital coded signal 370 'Enemy ships are coming out of port' to Defence, the nearest of the four ships of the line that formed the signal chain between the frigates and the main fleet 50 miles to the west. From Defence the signal 370 was passed by Agamemnon and Colossus to Mars from whose yardarms it was read in Victory.
Nelson heard the news at about 9:30 while he was writing a letter to Collingwood inviting him to lunch. Assuming that the whole of the combined fleet had cleared Cadiz Bay and was heading for the Straits of Gibraltar some 50 miles to the SE, he ordered the General Chase. In fact only 10 ships, commanded by Admiral Magon, had reached the open sea before the wind dropped, and the remainder became becalmed in Cadiz Bay, from which they were unable to leave until the next day.
This misunderstanding produced an interesting situation. The ships of the line set off at varying speeds in pursuit of an enemy who was not ahead of them. On reaching the entrance to the Straits they found nothing and on the Sunday returned disconsolately assuming that the enemy had reentered harbour. It appears that Phoebe became part of this force. Her Log gives her noon position on the Sunday as 17 leagues (51 miles SSW of Cadiz). Blackwood in the Euryalus, on the other hand, knew exactly what was going on and all through the Saturday had shadowed Magon's force and on Sunday watched the remaining ships come out of Cadiz Bay. The one vital aspect of the situation was that the communication link between the frigates and the Victory should remain intact and although some of the fleet might not know what was happening, Nelson on board Victory, when he returned on Sunday, was fully aware of the movements of the enemy. By Sunday evening most of the ships also knew that the enemy was still out and that it was certain that a battle would be fought the next day.
Nelson had ordered Blackwood and his frigates to shadow the enemy during the night and to report their movement by special signals. If the enemy continued to stand south towards the Straits he was to burn two blue lights every hour. If they stood to the west he was to fire three guns quickly every hour.
During the night the fleet first sailed SW and at 4 am reversed course to NE. Contact was maintained with the frigates and the blue lights showed that the enemy was continuing its progress towards the Straits of Gibraltar. At 5.30 am, first light, the combined fleet was sighted by Bellerophon on the starboard bow. In its Log the Phoebe records sighting the enemy to leeward at 5.40 am.
DURING THE BATTLE
In the days of sail a naval battle belonged to the ships of the line. It was their guns that destroyed the enemy and decided the outcome. As we have seen the frigates played a vital part in the stages leading up to the Battle of Trafalgar, and their absence before the Battle of the Nile had been a major problem for Nelson.
However though they may not have taken part in the fighting, and according to the records Blackwood's four frigates suffered no casualties during the battle, they were very much present. At 9.30 the Captain of Phoebe went on board the Victory, where he was joined by the other frigate Captains. They spent the next two hours with the Admiral, and Captain Blackwood, who was the last to leave, rejoined his ship less than 30 minutes before the battle began.
It is impossible to describe in detail the movements and actions of Phoebe during the battle and the best that can be offered is the description contained in her battle log for the next five hours. . From this it will be seen that she was able to witness events involving the ships of both divisions and that one of her roles was the relaying of signals, which presumably had been obscured by the smoke of battle.
To turn to John Francis himself, we must hope that his fraternal feelings for his younger brother Thomas, led him to watch out for Dreadnought, whose part in the battle will described later.
AFTER THE BATTLE
The Battle of Trafalgar ended at about 5 pm, having lasted for five hours. Eighteen enemy ships had struck and were potential prizes. The victorious British fleet had two immediate tasks. The first was to secure its own ships and make them seaworthy. The second task was to secure the prizes, many of which were severely damaged and still had their crews on board. This involved carrying out emergency repairs, and putting prize crews on board to take over control from their French and Spanish crews.
Both these tasks fell to the ships that had not been seriously damaged during the battle. These included the ships of the line that were at the rear of the two divisions and therefore entered the battle late, and the frigates.
We will now look at the adventures of Phoebe over the next few days.
By 6 pm, only an hour after the battle had ended, Phoebe had a prize, the Fougueux, in tow. The Fougueux was a special prize. She had fired the opening broadside of the battle at the Royal Sovereign as Collingwood broke through the line between her and Santa Anna. She had then fought a devastating duel with Bellisle, the second ship in Collingwood's line and finally struck her flag to Temeraire who had somehow drifted across from the head of Nelson's division.
Throughout the evening Phoebe struggled with her tow. At 8 pm the last mast of the Fougueux fell and at 10 pm she reported that she was sinking, as her pumps could no longer hold back the rising water. At 11 pm Phoebe's boats started taking her crew off, and may have rescued as many as fifty people including some of the Temeraire's prize crew. However during the night the weather began to deteriorate and by dawn weather conditions made it impossible to operate boats and rescue attempts were abandoned. To add to the appalling conditions on board there was now the fear of death by drowning as the ship drifted close to the shoals that lay off Sancti Petri, a headland 10 miles S of Cadiz.
The next morning Phoebe went close inshore and made an unsuccessful attempt to take the sinking Fougueux in tow again. Having failed she made a similar attempt with the Aigle which was drifting close by. Again her attempts were unsuccessful but she does seem to have managed to put some men on board to form part of the prize crew. During the day the weather got worse and by the evening was blowing a full gale.
After failing to take them in tow the Phoebe had no further connection with the fate of the two French ships except that members of her ship's company were still on board both ships. One of these died, with 24 other British sailors, when the Fougueux went aground and was broken up on the rocks off Sancti Petri and the others formed part of the prize crew that were left on board the Aigle when she was handed back to her French crew. They subsequently became prisoners when the Aigle, which had sheltered for several days between the reefs and the shore near Sancti Petri, had grounded herself on a sandy beach and landed her ship's company.
These two ships were not the only ones to which Phoebe sent prize crews. On Tuesday a midshipman and ten marines were put on board the Monarca where they were joined by a midshipman and eleven sailors from Dreadnought. There is no evidence that this turned into a Miller family reunion of the two brothers, which is perhaps fortunate as this party, joined by another group from Achille, had a tasting session in the Spanish ship's wine store and 'were in a constant state of intoxication'. Phoebe also appears to have put men on board Redoubtable because two of them were drowned when this ship sank.
On Wednesday morning Collingwood heard that a number of the surviving ships of the Franco-Spanish fleet were coming out of harbour. Phoebe was sent north to investigate. It turned out that they were not coming out to fight another battle, but were hoping to rescue some of the prizes that had broken free from their escorts and were drifting north towards Cadiz. In the afternoon the weather deteriorated again and the ships returned to harbour, having rescued two prizes.
Later that day the two brothers had another opportunity to meet, or at least wave to each other, when their two ships worked together to regain control of the French Swiftsure. On completion of the operation Phoebe took the French ship in tow.
The following week Phoebe took part in the final stages of dealing with the prizes. On Monday the 28th she set fire to two wrecks on the shore north of Cadiz. She then took the Bahama in tow and headed south for Gibraltar.
So ended an extraordinary week for John Francis Miller and all those who were serving with him on board Phoebe. It had started the previous Monday with the Battle of Trafalgar which subsequently became one of the most famous naval battles in world history. Although the ships company of Phoebe had been largely spectators, they had witnessed at close quarters a struggle of unusual ferocity between more than 50 ships of the line, in an area of about four miles by half a mile, that had lasted for nearly five hours. The battle had then been followed with a five days storm of special intensity. During this storm their ship had been almost continuously engaged in complicated and dangerous feats of seamanship which must have stretched the skill and endurance of her officers and crew to the limit. As a reward for his efforts John Francis subsequently received £10 14 2d in and a Parliamentary grant of £26 0 6d.
On the 1st November Phoebe handed over her tow to Mars and spent the next two weeks in the western approaches to the Straits of Gibraltar. On the 12th November she moored in Gibraltar Bay. She then, acting as a convoy escort, sailed for England on the 21st November. On the 14th December she anchored at Spithead having been away from home for 3 years and 2 months. John Francis left the ship a fortnight later.
GIBRALTAR
John Francis was promoted to Lieutenant in January 1806 and appointed to Gibraltar an 80 gun ship of the line, which as Fenix had been captured from the Spanish in 1780. In 1806 she was being refitted in Portsmouth and in 1807 joined the Channel Fleet.
In January 1807 John Francis had married Dorothy Lawler. She had been born in Portsmouth in February 1787. John Francis left the Gibraltar in March 1808.
In October 1808 John Francis was appointed as Commanding Officer of Pegase. This ship, which had started life as a French ship of the line had recently been fitted out as a prison hospital ship. As has been explained in the introduction to this section her task was to give medical support to the crews of the Russian Squadron at anchor in the Solent.
After the experiences he had had in Phoebe John Francis must have found life in the Pegase very uneventful. Securely moored in Portchester Creek at the north end of Portsmouth Harbour, the most exciting event must have been the arrival of a new batch of patients from the Russian squadron. However as a newly married man with the possibility of a child on the way he probably was very happy. No doubt he was also pleased about the marriage of his sister, Mary Ann, to the talented young surgeon, James Hall. However, sadly, this happiness was not to last for long. In the first week of June the weather was very squally. Only a short while after the marriage of his sister, the boat in which John Francis was travelling capsized and he was struck by the boom. He died from his injuries on Friday 9th June.
His death is described in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle:
Died suddenly, Lt Miller of the Pegase, prison ship, in consequence of a blow in the breast, which he had received a few days before from the boom of his boat when upset in this harbour.
He was an affectionate husband, a sincere friend, good officer and much regretted by his family and the officers and ships company.
On the 17th January 1810 Dorothy Hall gave birth to a girl, who was christened Frances Ann. We know nothing more about the life of Dorothy, but her daughter reappears in our story nearly 20 years later in what most people would consider to be surprising circumstances [PAGE2100].