The Sybille and Fox at Manila – 14 January 1798
In January 1798, two British frigates posing as French vessels entered the Bay of Manila to explore the Spanish defences. Three gunboats were captured, and more than 200 men were taken prisoner, although they were released the same day. Thereafter the frigates continued their cruise in disguise and with far less successful outcomes.
On the evening of 13 January 1798, the British frigates Sybille 38, Captain Edward Cooke, and Fox 32, Captain Pulteney Malcolm sailed into Manila Bay. The two vessels had departed Macao eight days earlier, having been advised that an East Indiaman convoy they were due to escort would not be ready to sail before March. Temporarily released to cruise against the enemy, the two captains were determined stir up trouble among the Spanish Pacific possessions. They were particularly keen to find two large treasure ships, the Spanish company ship Rey Carlos and the Amoy trader Marquesetta, reportedly together carrying cargo worth five hundred thousand dollars, and which were believed to be anchored at Manila.
The Sybille had been launched at Toulon in 1791 but had fallen into British hands when captured by the Romney 50, Captain Hon. William Paget, in the Mediterranean on 17 June 1794. Her 25-year-old commander, Captain Cooke, had been posted captain into her after providing outstanding service ashore during the occupation of Toulon. He was a talented and well-connected officer with the potential for a bright future. The Fox was a much older frigate, having been launched in 1779. She had seen action throughout the American Revolutionary War, and her current captain, the Scots-born Pulteney Malcolm, was an experienced and imposing officer approaching his 30th birthday who had been posted captain in 1794 six months after Cooke; the Fox was his first command in that rank.
The cruise began favourably when the frigates took almost four thousand dollars out of a coastal vessel captured as a prize on 12 January, while at the same time gleaning information about the Spanish squadron at Manila. This force consisted of the Europa 74, Montañés 74 and San Pedro Apóstol 74, together with the frigates Santa Maria de la Cabeza 34 and Santa Lucia 36 . To their glee, the British captains learned that none of these ships were ready for service as they were being repaired after sustaining damage in a typhoon and would not be sea-worthy for another two months. Additionally, their crews were reported to be in poor health. Over the next few hours, the captains passed up the opportunity to detain other coasting vessels, in order to avoid alerting the Spanish to their presence. Their sights were set on a bigger prize, now made possible because of the immobility of the Manila squadron – taking the two treasure ships. However, if it proved impractical to capture the treasure ships, then at least the frigates could test the strength of the Manila defences, information which would prove useful in the event of any future assault by the British East Indies fleet.
Disguising their ships as the French frigates Seine 40 and Prudente 36, the British vessels glided unchallenged into an outlying anchorage in Manila Bay. On the morning of 14 January, they set sail and worked their way up the bay before becoming becalmed five miles offshore. Soon a Spanish guard boat was seen approaching the Fox, and when it came alongside Captain Malcolm had his French and Spanish-speaking pilot, Mr Bernard, step forward from a throng of other crew members sporting French cockades. The master explained that they were part of Rear-Admiral Pierre-César-Charles-Guillaume Sercey’s squadron which had been forced to call at Manila to replenish stores on account off the sickly state of their crews. He went on to say that they were hoping to co-operate with the Spanish in attacking British shipping travelling south from China.
Stepping aboard the Fox, the Spanish officer, (who proved to be the captain of the Santa Maria de la Cabeza), was led below to Captain Malcolm’s cabin where the two officers were soon joined by Captain Cooke, who was introduced as Malcolm’s superior, the French Commodore Latour. It so happened that Malcolm spoke good French, having spent most of a year living in France as a youth, whilst Cooke was also well versed in the language after spending six months in Amiens during the latter part of 1789. For over an hour the two captains drank Madeira with the Spaniard until, having discovered all they could about the state of the Spanish force in Manila, they revealed themselves as British officers. The Spanish captain was stunned by the revelation, but he recovered after a couple more bumpers, and the assurance that he and his boat crew would not be detained for any longer than was necessary. Shortly afterwards two huge rowboats approached which proved to be Admiral Don Martin Alava’s barge and a felucca, carrying the governor’s nephew and the aide-de-camp to the admiral. The two officials explained that they had come to offer the ‘French’ frigates a tow to their anchorage; they were served in the same manner as their compatriot whilst their crews were obliged to exchange clothes with the British seamen after being herded below.
Continuing to entertain the Spanish officers, Cooke and Malcolm despatched their to the mouth of a nearby river . Here three large gunboats were moored, each manned by a crew of fifty men and sporting a heavy gun of either 32 or 24 pounds in the bows and four swivels apiece. These craft were induced to surrender without bloodshed, and they were carried alongside the Fox.
Sensing that something was amiss, the captain of the port now appeared alongside the Fox in his boat, and he too was made prisoner and taken below by Malcolm to join the rest of the captured officers. Nevertheless, although great fun was being had, it transpired that the riches of the treasure ships were beyond reach, for the Rey Carlos had already departed the port for Mexico, whilst the Marquesetta had re-landed her cargo several days earlier on the appearance of a strange vessel (this was probably the Resistance 44, Captain Edward Pakenham). The two captains concluded it was unrealistic to make an attempt to destroy the Spanish ships of war in the harbour, since the identity of the two frigates had finally become known ashore. Therefore, at 4 p.m. Malcolm laid on the best meal that his stores could provide for the Spanish officers, while the two hundred odd prisoners of other ranks were treated to grog and fresh China beef by the Fox’s crew. The Spanish officers and men (apparently in high good humour) were then allowed ashore without the necessity of giving their parole; the gunboats were taken in tow as the two frigates made their way out to sea that evening.
The British had certainly experienced good luck in their visit to Manila, but it was not to last. The first disaster came five says later on the 19th when one of the gunboats under the command of Lieutenant George Rutherford of the Fox broke free from her tow in a squall and was never seen again, resulting in the loss of that officer, a midshipman, and twelve men. Privately, Malcolm would later write home that he suspected the loss of the gunboat had been due to Rutherford’s chronic alcoholism.
Four days later an attack on the settlement at Zamboanga on the island of Mindanao unravelled when under Spanish colours, the Sybille grounded on a sandbank, arising the suspicion of the locals who realised that a Spanish vessel would have possessed the charts necessary to avoid such a calamity. When the Fox was approached by a boat from shore, Mr Bernard’s responses did not satisfy the enemy officer, and so Captain Malcolm was forced to withdraw after exchanging ineffective fire with a fort. Rejoining the Sybille, (which by now had regained deep water with the aid of a land breeze), the two frigates then attempted to attack the fort, but its fire did considerable damage to the ships. To make matters worse, Captain Malcolm’s landing party didn’t even reach the shore: his own boat received a direct hit that saw three men killed, and several other craft grounded on a sandbank (including one commanded by Lieutenant Peter Heywood, the pardoned Bounty mutineer). The British were forced to retreat once more, and the assault had caused the loss of four men killed, including the Sybille’s Master, Richard Stanning, and fifteen wounded. The Fox had lost her main topmast, her mizzen had been badly damaged, and she had received more than thirty shots in her hull.
This was not the end of the force’s misfortunes, for three more men died on 31 January when hostile natives in Pollock Bay (the modern Lalabugan Bay) on Mindanao Island attacked a watering party. During this encounter nine other men were spirited away into the jungle, and although the two frigates devastated the local village buildings with their gunfire in response, it was to be some six months before the captured sailors were recovered by the Sultan of Maguindanao and returned to the British.
The two frigates eventually regained Macao on 3 March, where they waited for almost a month for the East India convoy to collect before finally setting sail for India in late March to join the commander-in-chief, Rear-Admiral Peter Rainier, at Madras five weeks later. Sadly, the brilliant Captain Cooke was only to live another year, for on 28 February 1799 he was cut down by grapeshot during his frigate’s stunning capture of the powerful French frigate Forte 44 in the Bay of Bengal, and the wounds he suffered in the fight eventually led to his death at Calcutta three months later. By contrast, Captain Malcolm lived to achieve high rank in the Navy before his death in 1838 at the age of 70. During his long peacetime career, he was twice knighted for his service, which included stints as the commander-in-chief at the Cape and St. Helena (where he enjoyed the praise of the exiled Napoleon for his professionalism and open demeanour) and two stints commanding in the Mediterranean.