9. Tales of Secret Service (27)
A New War Poses a Problem
Here, unfortunately, world politics intervened to check his scheme. The month was now June, and the formal declaration of war on Great Britain by the United States was on the eve of being launched. Although it was not actually proclaimed until July 17th, it was known everywhere to be overdue, as it was being concerted in strict agreement with Napoleon. American shipmasters in French ports, already sufficiently incommoded by the French “Berlin Decrees” and the British “Orders in Council”, saw that their return voyage would be more dangerous than ever, when open warfare between their country and Great Britain had broken out. Hence they deferred sailing, and the master of the vessel on which Grant had engaged a passage frankly told him that he could not say when he would be able to start.
Now Grant, always a “good mixer” in modern parlance, had completely won the confidence of this captain, and, when he found the voyage postponed ad infinitum, revealed to him that he was an escaped British prisoner, seeking to get back to England. The American advised him to sink the identity of Mr. Buck, a wealthy traveller, and to assume that of a discharged American seaman, of whom there were many adrift at that moment in the French ports. He gave him a discharge from his ship and a sailor’s dress, and got the United States Consul at Nantes to furnish him with a certificate as a sailor seeking a ship, which would enable him to pass from port to port without molestation by the police, or to hang about on shore as long as he pleased.
As an American seaman on the tramp Grant dropped down to the coast (St-Nazaire or Paimbceuf), and set out to feel cautiously around for a fisherman who would take him out at night to a small island off the Loire mouth where English vessels of the blockading fleet habitually put in to take water. There are several such islets between Noirmoutier and Le Croisic—which particular one is in question neither McGrigor nor Napier makes clear. The boatman was a shifty person—apparently he was hypnotized by the sight of the large sum of ten gold napoleons which Grant had shown him as his promised fee for the passage.
At any rate, after having got well out to sea and in sight of the island, and of the masts of a British man-of-war on the other side, he turned his helm, and refused to proceed. He and his mate assumed a threatening air, and Grant half believed that he was in danger of his life on account of the gold which he had displayed: the fisherman thought that he had more on him. The boat drifted back to the coast—Grant expecting every moment to be attacked, and preparing to defend himself. However, no assault came, but when they touched land the fisherman demanded the ten napoleons. Grant threw him one piece, and some bitter language; the man then threatened to denounce him to the police. To which his passenger replied that, if he did so, he would make the counter-charge of an attempt to secure the escape of a prisoner-of-war, which would mean months of prison.
And so they parted in wrath. Grant on mature reflection thought it best to remove himself from the spot, lest the angry fisherman should, after all, set the police on his trail. It was inconvenient, for his money was nearly at an end; he had only a few francs over the ten napoleons in gold. His next step was perhaps the most extraordinary one in the whole of the tale. I must give it in the words of his brother-in-law McGrigor, who can hardly have invented it:
“Grant learned that not many leagues from where he was a French Marshal of Scottish descent, a relation of his own mother’s, had his seat, and he determined to make for it. He walked the whole of that night, and during the following day remained concealed in a dry ditch, overhung with weeds. He resumed his journey on the following night, and on the next day reached the mansion of the Marshal. On obtaining an interview with him, and explaining who he was, the Marshal immediately acknowledged the relationship and ordered refreshments for him. But he said that he did not think that it would be safe for Grant to prolong his stay in his house. He gave him, however, 100 louis d’or, with which he returned to the port that he had left.”
This raises problems. There were only two marshals with British blood in them—Macdonald, whose grandfather had been a Jacobite exile, and Mortier, whose grandmother had come from across the Channel. But in June 1812 Macdonald was certainly in Germany, as his Memoirs show, so cannot have been the person intended. Mortier may conceivably have been the man; but, though he was in Paris in May, he had received orders on June 9th to take the command of the Imperial Guard, then on its march towards the Russian frontier, and to be at Kõnigsberg by June 27th, as the correspondence of Napoleon shows. It certainly looks difficult to believe that he was at his château in Anjou at any date in mid-June, which is the time required by the sequence of dates in Grant’s wanderings. It is possible that he may have made a flying visit thither on getting his marching orders, to arrange his affairs, or to see his family.
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