Admiral Keats’s Watch

A week later, while SOUTHAMPTON was completing her stores and preparing for sea, the reason for the previous orders arrived in Portsmouth, in the form of a letter sent express from the Admiralty on 27 January and received by C. in C. Portsmouth early in the following morning:

‘I am to acknowledge the receipt of your Letter by Express at Ѕ past 6 am with their Lordships orders to Captain Keats to receive His Royal Highness Prince Edward, His Majesty’s fourth Son, with His Suite, Attendants and Baggage, on board the Southampton, and carry him and them to Gibraltar; and having landed His Royal Highness, his Suite and Baggage at that place, and received from the Commander in Chief, or the Commanding Officer for the time being, of His Majesty’s Ships there, and the Commanding Officer of the Garrison, such dispatches as they may have for England; to make the best of his way back to the Motherbank, and remain there until further orders.’ (ADM 1/995; 28.1.1790).

The Admiralty’s orders galvanised the naval command in Portsmouth and the imminently expected arrival of the Prince generated flurries of orders for the captains of the ships at Spithead. Keats received his orders direct from the Admiralty: these duplicated those sent to C. in C. Portsmouth but added the vital information that Keats was to ensure that he had acquired an appropriate Royal Standard from naval stores and that it would be hoisted in the correct places on the correct occasions (ADM 80/133). Prince Edward arrived in Portsmouth on Friday 29 January, inspected the Fleet at Spithead and was entertained by the C. in C. On 31 January, his luggage came aboard SOUTHAMPTON and on the following day, after due ceremonial leave-taking, he embarked and the frigate immediately made sail, as Keats recorded in his log for Monday 1 February 1790:

‘...at Ѕ past 3 unmoor’d Ship... at 5 rec’d Fresh Beef; at 6 hove into 􀑿 of a Cable on the Best Bower; at 9 Admiral made our signal for a Lieut.; at 10 His Royal Highness came out of the Harbor with the Standard raised in the Barge attended by Admiral Roddam and the Captains of the Men of War and as His Royal Highness passed down the Harbor the Ships were mann’d and he was saluted with 21 Guns by each of the Guardships; and on his approaching Spithead we together with the other men of war at Spithead saluted him with 21 Guns. At 11 mann’d Ship and cheer’d His Royal Highness coming alongside and on his entering the Ship raised the Standard which the men of war at Spithead and in the Harbor saluted as before. Weigh’d and made sail.’(ADM 51/870).

The Prince’s ‘Suite and Attendants’ comprised a total of fourteen men, all of whom were required to be victualled and accommodated for the voyage. While victualling that additional number would not have been difficult or unusual, accommodating such a suite – particularly since few of them could be housed in the forecastle – would have put a definite strain on the very limited accommodation available aboard a frigate. Keats and his officers would have had to relinquish their quarters and the midshipmen and warrant and petty officers would have had, at best, to have shared theirs with some of the Royal party. Sailing time from Spithead to Gibraltar, under optimum sailing conditions and in a fast and seaworthy ship, should have been little more than sixteen to twenty days but Keats’s voyage with Prince Edward was to take twenty-four – a trip that might, with a different captain, have tested both the ship’s supplies and relationships aboard an overcrowded or unhappy ship.

The cause of the length of the voyage is set out clearly and unmistakeably in the captain’s log and confirmed in a letter from Prince Edward to George, Prince of Wales, written shortly after his arrival in Gibraltar. All went well for the first five days of the voyage, although progress down the English Channel was slow because of steady winds from the west and south-west. On 5 February the ship entered an area of unseasonable calm 136 leagues north-east of Cape Finisterre and progress across the Bay of Biscay became unusually slow, with long periods of calm, variable winds and prevalent breezes from the west. The log’s repeated references to the shortening and making of sail and to the use of studding sails, top gallants and royals make it clear that not only were Keats and his crew having difficulty in finding much wind but also that that which they did find was not always to the ship’s advantage. Furthermore the foul state of the old ship’s bottom may not have helped in making steerage way. It was not until 17 February that the cliffs of Cape St Vincent were sighted and SOUTHAMPTON finally entered Gibraltar Bay on 24 February.

During the voyage Prince Edward was able to experience something of the life of a ship: he would have seen punishment meted out on two occasions, witnessed the ‘Great Guns and Small Arms’ being exercised almost daily and seen the ship’s compasses being checked using both azimuth and amplitude readings. Although the voyage was longer than he might have been expecting there is no evidence to suggest that he found it disagreeable; indeed, as he wrote to The Prince of Wales on 29 February 1790:

‘...I arrived here on Wednesday 24th, after a passage of twenty four days, during the whole of which time we had a constant succession of calms and contrary winds. Our passage would consequently have been excessively tedious had not the continued attentions of Captn. Keates [sic] and all his officers, who assisted us in spending the time as agreeably as possible, prevented us upon the whole from finding it very long. I was also lucky enough not to be sick once during the whole time, which is no small object in so long a passage.’ (Aspinall, II, p 66).

This view of the voyage, although more tersely expressed, was confirmed in a letter written from Gibraltar by Prince Edward’s temporary ADC, Captain Charles Craufurd, to his brother Robert on 22 March 1790:

‘We embarked in the ‘Southampton’ frigate at Portsmouth on 1st February and arrived here on the 24th, in the morning after a very fine passage, tho’ long for an English frigate.’ (Spurrier, p 239).

Keats’s record of the prince’s arrival at Gibraltar and disembarkation from his ship is as laconic as befits an entry in a captain’s log:

‘[25th February 1790] At 1pm His Royal Highness left the Ship in the Barge with the Standard flying attended by all the Captains. Hauled down the Standard and Hoisted the Pendant. Mann’d Ship, Cheer’d and saluted Him with 21 Guns. Ѕ pst. 10 the Garrison saluted Him with 21 Guns on his Landing. Empd. Sending His Royal Higness’s luggage on shore.’ (ADM 51/870)

Although no mention of the presentation of the watch is made in any surviving Keats papers or any letters of Prince Edward, it seems most probable that it was given following a voyage which, for the young prince, was one of banishment but which Captain Keats had done all he could to make as enjoyable and as smooth as possible. There would have been ample time for the Prince to arrange for his new watch to be engraved with the presentation inscription before Keats and H.M.S. SOUTHAMPTON left Gibraltar for home on 30 March 1790. In passing it may be noted that ‘Keates’ is misspelled both in the Prince’s letter and on the watch. The SOUTHAMPTON arrived back at Spithead shortly before 21 April, whereupon Keats lost no time in drawing the parlous state of his ship to the attention of the acting C. in C. Portsmouth who, just as promptly, copied and forwarded Keats’s letter to the Admiralty:

‘Southampton, Motherbank 21st April 1790.

Sir, I herewith enclose you the Defects of His Majesty’s Ship under my Command and conceive it my duty to observe that those supposed to arise from the Keel have already rendered useless one Cable and considerably damaged another. I have frequently had the Ship swept in order to ascertain the nature of the Defect and have regularly found a something ragged a little before the Chesstree and a Diver who went down purposely to examine it at Gibraltar assur’d me that a part of the False Keel is gone there and that it is otherwise ragged about that place. In addition to this Defect, I beg to observe that the Copper on the Bottom is very foul, and the Decks are in much need of being Caulked, and cannot avoid adding, that if the Services we are to be employed upon will admit I should conceive it adviseable to have her bottom examined. I have the honour to remain, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, R.G. Keats.’(ADM 1/995)

Prince Edward had become a founder Knight of the Order of St. Patrick in 1783 and a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1786, the insignia of both Orders being portrayed on the outer case of the watch. He was later created Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and Earl of Dublin; he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar in 1802. He married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in 1818 and died in 1820. The couple’s only child was to become Queen Victoria in 1837.

Stephen Wood MA FSA