Memoir of the Family of Grace

Grace, Sheffield 1823. Memoir of the Family of Grace.

Percy Grace and the Slave Trade

Captain Percy Grace entered the royal navy at the unusually early age of ten years, and was placed under the care of Sir Thomas Freemantle, hart., G. C.B., who then commanded the Ganges, of seventy-four guns. He had not been many days on hoard, when that ship joined lord Nelson’s fleet, in the tremendous action off Copenhagen, on the 2d of April, 1801. He was also on hoard the Greyhound, at the capture of the Dutch frigate, Pallas, in the East-Indies; and was severely wounded when engaged, with the boats of the Piedmontese frigate, against the Malay pirate rows that then infested the Indian seas. While lieutenant of the Semiramis, on the 26th of August, 1811, he commanded one of the two boats of that frigate which achieved the very gallant and remarkable enterprise of cutting out the Pluvier French sloop of war, mounting sixteen guns and one hundred and thirty-six men, fully prepared for action, and in the middle of the day, from under the batteries in Royan-roads, at the entrance of the river Gironde, leading to Bordeaux. His spirited and judicious conduct on these three latter occasions induced the captains, under whose respective commands he served, to recommend him in their official despatches to the lords of the Admiralty as entitled, by his merit, to further promotion. It may he also added, that, besides the casualties of being once shipwrecked and taken prisoner, he was always employed in the most active service from his first entering the navy to the termination of hostilities on the general peace in 1816; and that for ten years of that long and eventful period he served in the East and West Indies.

On the 15th of June, 1814, he was raised to the rank of commander, being at the same time appointed to the command of the Minorca sloop of war; and, on the 17th of January, 1822, H. M. S. Cyrenè, of twenty-four guns, which had recently been put into commission, and destined for a very responsible, as well as a very dangerous and unpleasant service, was entrusted to his command. The service alluded to is the suppression of the slave-trade, which three out of the five nations formerly concerned in that most iniquitous and most cruel traffic, still zealously, though clandestinely, protect; our French, Portuguese, and Spanish allies supporting it, by every indirect possible method; while the English and American governments honestly endeavour to carry into full effect the measures of absolute abolition, formally and publicly acquiesced in by all the powers.

These remarks are strikingly illustrated in the following paragraphs, which appeared in the Guardian London newspaper, of the 19th of January, 1823; and also in the Courier paper, of the 13th of the same month. “It rejoices us much to notice the successful efforts which are making to extinguish this detestable and inhuman branch of mercantile traffic. In carrying the views and determination of the British government into execution, every thing depends upon the qualification of the naval officers selected for such a service; and we feel convinced that success must attend our endeavours, if this discharge of our national duty is but entrusted to such men as we have the gratification to find employed in confiscating promptly the property embarked, and the accumulations realized in these nefarious engagements. Our readers will, with pleasure, peruse the following account of captain Percy Grace’s method of treating slave-dealers, and marking the reprobation his country feels at the heinousness of these abominable speculations. It is to such promptness and decision the friends of the abolition must trust for the fulfilment of their wishes, and the completion of their prayers. From the Sierra Leone Gazette, of November 9, 1822, we learn that—Yesterday evening arrived in this harbour the Dutch schooner, Aurora, with 180 slaves, prize of his Majesty’s ship, Cyrene, captain Percy Grace, commander. This schooner was captured off the Gallinas, on the 23d ult.; she is one hundred and forty-two tons, four guns, twenty-six men, and is well armed with muskets, pistols, and cutlasses: was about a month upon the coast, and one death only has occurred among the unfortunate victims since the capture; the others being pretty healthy. The cargo consists of forty-three men, twenty-one women, seventy-three boys, and forty-two girls. As the boats of his Majesty’s ship, Cyrenè, under the command of lieutenant Courtenay, crossed the bar of the Gallinas, and proceeded up the river, they were assailed by showers of musquetry ; and also from a battery, which had been suddenly erected, of three twelve-ponders, landed previously from a French slave-schooner, L’Hypolite. The guns were served by the master and several men of the schooner; hat, from the intrepidity and bravery of our tars, they soon drove them off, and turned their guns against them. In this unprovoked attack the Cyrenè had one man killed, and two severely wounded.

“It clearly appears that the slave-trade is in a flourishing state in that quarter, three French vessels having sailed with full cargoes in September last; and, three days before the arrival of the Cyrenè, a Spanish schooner had sailed with 300 slaves. L’Hypolite, an old slaver, from Martinique, of one hundred and ninety-five tons, twenty-two guns, and one hundred and nineteen men, was in readiness to take her slaves from the shore, where they were all nearly collected.

“In consequence of the cruel and wanton attack made upon our gallant tars, the Cyrenè burnt down several towns and slave-factories belonging to Siacca, the notorious and detestable slave-dealer, and chief of the Gallinas. Siacca afterwards thought it prudent to reconcile matters with captain Percy Grace, and expressed his sorrow at the unfortunate occurrence, alleging that, as he was absent at the time, he hoped the misconduct of his people would he forgiven.”