Previous Article: Jope Chenoweth - Part I

THE MUDDLE FAMILIES (continued)

It seems that John instead returned to England; he must have resigned from the Royal Navy and spent just over a year back at home. Because on 24 November 1799 he again joined the Royal Navy as a volunteer, being again paid a bounty of �5. He was appointed an Able Seaman on HMS Woolwich on ticket S.L.(191), and arrived on board the Woolwich on 4 December 1799 while she was docked at Woolwich, London. The Woolwich moved to Spithead and then in early March 1800 sailed for Gibraltar, arriving in late March. On 30 March 1800 John was discharged from the Woolwich at Gibraltar so that he could join HMS Champion to be transported to HMS Queen Charlotte, though it turned out that he never did join the Queen Charlotte.

John joined HMS Champion as a supernumerary at Gibraltar on 31 March 1800. He was on Champion all though April and then joined HMS Speedy as a supernumerary at Leghorn on 1 May 1800 for transport to HMS Minotaur. He joined Minotaur as a supernumerary at Genoa on 28 May 1800. The Minotaur stayed at Genoa for about three weeks and then sailed to Leghorn where she remained for about five weeks and was then back at sea when John was discharged on 15 August 1800 to join HMS Foudroyant. For some reason John was also recorded in the muster books of HMS GuillaumeTell for this period, but was not actually mustered on this ship.

John, at the age of 24, was now given a promotion that was to prove very lucrative, being appointed Purser on the 16-gun sloop HMS Cameleon by the Warrant of Admiral Lord Keith, who was Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean, dated 16 August 1800 and confirmed by the Admiralty on 6 January 1801. Pursers were warranted by the Admiralty, they were not examined for professionally competence but they did have to provide financial sureties. Their duties were to oversee the supply and issue of victuals, slops (clothes) and other consumable ship's stores, partly as officials responsible for government stocks, and partly as officially regulated private contractors selling their own goods to the ship's crew, which could be very profitable for someone who was a good businessman. The Purser might be assisted by the Purser's Steward and a Purser's Yeoman (or storekeeper), who were ratings that in practice were selected by the Purser and usually had their pay supplemented by him.

John actually arrived on the Foudroyant as a supernumerary on the 23 August 1800 and then six days later transferred to HMS Lutine, which was then holding a large number of prisoners of war while stationed at Mahon on the island of Minorca, where he was a supernumerary until 6 September 1800.

John then joined the Cameleon as her Purser on 7 September 1800 when she was under the command of Captain Frederick L Maitland, who had taken command on 25 January 1800. On 31 January 1801 the Cameleon was in Aboukir Bay (Abukir Bay) on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt when Maitland had to leave the Cameleon as a result of being ordered onshore to be with the British Army that had been landed to dislodge the resident French Army. Because of his hasty departure Maitland didn't have time to arrange the sending of the ship's accounts for his time in command to his agent in London and left them in the charge of the Purser, John Chenoweth, with directions to forward them at the earliest opportunity. It seems the accounts never arrived in London and in 1803 Maitland was trying to find out what had happened to them and wrote to John Chenoweth to ask him to investigate. This resulted in John writing from the Cameleon at Malta on 3 March 1803 to Messrs Ommaney and Druce in London, who were Maitland's agents, advising them that he had made every possible enquiry about them. The accounts had been boxed up and sent to HMS Trusty that was also in Aboukir Bay in 1801, to be forwarded to Mr Hore, Purser of HMS Kent, but the Clerk of the Cameleon in the haste had forgotten to get a receipt from the Trusty. Mr Hore, Purser of the Kent, had since died but his Captain and executor, Mr Davison, remembers seeing a memo amongst his papers mentioning Captain Maitland's accounts but this can no longer be found. Maitland, now Captain of HMS Loire, then wrote to Sir Evan Nepean, secretary to the Admiralty Board, on 2 September 1803 advising him of these details and requested that their Lordships grant a dispensing order for the passing of his accounts without the missing documents. Nepean referred the matter to the Navy Board on 16 September 1803 for consideration and a report, where it seems to have languished for several years, with the Navy Board replying to William Marsden, who was now the secretary to the Admiralty Board, on 14 March 1807, saying that they had no objections except that they needed the Muster Books so that the Victualling Board could pass the Purser's accounts. It seems that these things could drag on for many years in those days and presumably John's accounts as Purser had also not been passed.

While John was Purser on the Cameleon it seems that he purchased tobacco at Lernica (Larnaca, Cyprus) at 8� pence per pound and was ordered by Edward O'Brian, the Captain of the Cameleon, on 22 May 1801 while off Alexandria, Egypt to sell the tobacco to the crew at that price, this order being the result of a similar order to O'Brian from Admiral Lord Keith the Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean. It seems likely that John then complained about this to the Commissioners of Victualling as it would remove his profit, and they found that this order was contrary to the order of the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty on 4 August 1798 that tobacco be sold to crew members at 1 shilling 7 pence per pound as this was considered a rate that suitable compensated those supplying it. This resulted in the Navy Office ordering Lord Keith on 11 August 1801 to revoke his order to O'Brian and hence John and stated that on all ships tobacco was to be sold at 1 shilling 7 pence per pound. From this it seems that John could potentially make substantial profits selling his own goods to the crew. John served as Purser on the Cameleon for four years, being discharged on 25 August 1804.

John then became the Purser of HMS Narcissus, which was a 32-gun 5th rate frigate, arriving on board on 26 August 1804 but was immediately lent back to the Cameleon for three days, finally arriving permanently on the Narcissus on 29 August 1804. Warrants for John to be Purser on the Narcissus were not issued by the Admiralty until 9 November 1804 and then by the Navy Board on 4 March 1805. While John was Purser on the Narcissus he had Alexander Robinson as his Steward, and in May 1805 the Narcissus was at Cork, Ireland due to sail to the West Indies. In late 1805 the Narcissus was part of the naval force under Commodore Sir Home Popham that went with the army commanded by Major-General Sir David Baird to re-capture the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch. On 24 December 1805 the Narcissus drove on-shore and wreaked the French privateer Napoleon near the Cape of Good Hope. The naval force arrived at Table Bay in early January 1806 and the capture of The Cape of Good Hope was easily achieved on 10 January 1806. On the 4 March 1806 the Narcissus, while part of the squadron lying off the Cape of Good Hope, captured the French 40-gun frigate Volontaire, which than became a British ship of the same name.

After the Cape of Good Hope had been captured Home Popham convinced David Baird that an attack on Buenos Aires, then the capital of one of the Spanish colonies in South America, was in order, as he had learnt that it was lightly defended and Britain was now actively at war with Spain. David Baird ordered about a thousand troops of the Scottish 71st regiment of infantry under General William Barr Beresford to go with the naval force under Home Popham to capture Buenos Aires, and the convoy departed on 14 April 1806. At a meeting between Popham and Beresford on the Narcissus on 13 June when the ships were stationed off the River Plate the final decision to attack Buenos Aires was taken. The attack happened on 25 June 1806 and by the end of the day the city had surrendered. Popham then ordered that John Chenoweth was to be Agent Victualler at Buenos Aires and that his Steward Alexander Robinson was to accompany him as his assistant. They were both discharged from the Narcissus on 7 July 1806 to take up their posts in Buenos Aires.

Popham's letter of 8 July 1806 appointing John as Agent Victualler stated that he was to use his utmost endeavours to procure all articles need by the squadron at Buenos Aires at the cheapest rates possible, and as soon as the country became more settled he was to enter into contracts for the same. Also he was to procure local money for any Government Bills he would draw to pay for these articles at the best rate of exchange possible. An indication of the costs of the articles John was to procure and the amount of money he would be handling can be gained from his letter of 16 July 1806 to Home Popham that stated that he had been offered a tender to supply local money against Government Bills of �5,500 (approximately equivalent to �360,000 in 2008) at the rate of 4s 11�d per local dollar, which he considered a good rate, and Popham approved it.

The British occupation of Buenos Aires did not last long as Spanish and Argentinean forces attacked in early August and Beresford and his men surrendered on 12 August 1806 when their retreat from the fort to Popham and the British ships in the harbour was cut off. The captured British were imprisoned and they included John's assistant Alexander Robinson, as a letter from the Victualling Office to the Navy Board on 22 April 1808 states that he was a prisoner in South America from 12 August 1806 to 7 September 1807. It's not known for certain if John Chenoweth was also a prisoner but it seems likely that he was as the same letter states that the Victualling Office's agent in Buenos Aires, John Chenoweth, had paid Alexander his wages of �11 5s due to him as Foreman of the Victualling Stores in Buenos Aires from 9 July 1806 to 12 August 1806. Also when John becomes Purser of HMS Saldanha on 18 January 1808 the last ship he had served on was given as the Narcissus, which he had been discharged from back on 7 July 1806, so the intervening gap in his naval record would be neatly filled by him being a prisoner from 12 August 1806 to 7 September 1807.

The Register of Officers Appointed records that after leaving Narcissus John was invalided and the Succession Book of Standing Officers records that a Warrant for his successor, Samuel Harvey, to be Purser on the Narcissus was issued by the Admiralty on 20 September 1806. If, as seems likely, John as well as Alexander Robinson was taken prisoner when the Spanish recaptured Buenos Aires then the record of John being invalided probably refers to his condition after he was released from being a prisoner of war. Some of John's pay due to him from his time on the Narcissus, including some compensation for his servant, was only paid on 3 September 1808; some outstanding pay for Alexander from his time on the Narcissus had been paid on 16 February 1808. This again indicates that John must have been a prisoner and only received some of his outstanding pay almost a year after arriving back in England.

After the loss of Buenos Aires Home Popham exchanged numerous letters with the Spanish Commanders in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, initially these were requests that the prisoners should be treated well as the British had been treating their Spanish prisoners well, and then the requests were that the prisoners be exchanged for those Spanish held by the British. These requests seem to have resulted in a fairly negative response from the Spanish Commander and by the middle of September Popham was giving the conditions for neutral shipping to leave Spanish ports around the River Plate before the British imposed a blockade. The British had been sending additional forces to the River Plate and attacked and captured Montevideo on the northern shore of the River Plate in what is now Uruguay. General Beresford with the help of a local man escaped and joined the British at Montevideo; this being part of a sort of subplot in which the locals hoped that the British would help them to gain independence from Spain.

The British then attempted to retake Buenos Aires. On 28 June 1807 eight thousand British soldiers landed near Buenos Aires and a new battle for the city began. The British fought their way into the city but suffered very heavy losses and were finally surrounded and slain almost to the last man. The war was over and the final agreement to end the war was that the British would leave Buenos Aires and Montevideo and in return all of Beresford's men still held prisoner were freed on 7 September 1807.

On his return to England after his release Alexander Robinson wrote to the Admiralty requesting his pay for the time he was a prisoner, this was referred to the Navy Board who referred it to the Victualling Office; they replied to the Navy Board in the above mentioned letter of 22 April 1808 stating that they considered that Alexander should be paid as Purse's Steward from the time he was taken prisoner until his arrival back in England, but the Navy Board then passed this back to the Admiralty in a letter of 28 August 1808 stating that they considered he should be paid as Foreman of the Victualling Stores until he was liberated, as that was the position he held at the time of his capture; the Admiralty noted on the letter that his wages were to be paid. This difference of opinion between the Navy Board and the Victualling Office being an example of different departments trying to get out of being the ones having to make the payment; a later letter by Alexander shows that he was actually paid by the Victualling Office at the rate of 7s 6d per day as Foreman of the Victualling Stores, so the Victualling Office didn't get out of making that payment.

Warrants for John to be Purser on HMS Saldanha were issued by the Admiralty on 18 January 1808 and by the Navy Board on 20 January 1808. The Saldanha was then under construction at Chatham Dockyard so although attached to the ship John would have been working on shore in the dockyard and probably living with some of his relatives in Chatham or Gillingham, which seems a suitable not too demanding post for him if he had been an invalid during the latter part of the previous year. He arrived at the Saldanha in Chatham Dockyards on 29 March 1808 and his pay was 15 shillings per week, which was just over �39 per year. The Saldanha was launched in 1809 and then commissioned during April 1810, but John never served on her after commissioning, because by January 1810, when he was 33 years old, John had been appointed by the Lords of the Admiralty to be Agent of the Royal Naval Hospital at the Cape of Good Hope.

It seems that after they had returned to England John and Alexander Robinson had intended to continue working together and that the Admiralty had agreed that Alexander should be John's steward on the Saldanha after she was commissioned. In the meantime John had obtained Alexander a position on HMS Winchelsea and was also making payments to him, presumably to make his pay up to that of a Purser's Steward. But the Admiralty's discharge of John from the service and their appointment of him to a Civil Establishment position as Agent of the Royal Naval Hospital at the Cape of Good Hope complicated things by meaning that Alexander would also have to be discharged from the service if he was to be John's steward at the Cape of Good Hope, as they now both intended. It seems that John thought the Admiralty was agreeable to this but the Captain of Alexander's ship would not discharge him. Alexander wrote to John about this and John in his reply from Portsmouth on 12 January 1810 said that there was now little he could do as he was about to leave England, but left �4 for Alexander as his payment to him for the months of November and December, which was the balance he owed him, and recommended that if he couldn't get discharge from the service to go as Steward to Mr Wheeler whose frigate was about to be commissioned. Alexander wrote to the Admiralty on 15 January 1810 pleading his case, but two days later they decided that his discharge would not be granted. This presumably ended the connection between John and Alexander.

Sir Roger Curtis, Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth, issued an order on 6 January 1810 that Mr John Chenoweth be given a passage to the Cape of Good Hope on board HMS Porcupine. John boarded the Porcupine on 15 January 1810 and sailed on her to Rio de Janeiro, arriving on 11 March 1810. John was discharged from the Porcupine on 26 March 1810 while she was still at Rio de Janeiro as the Porcupine was not going to be sailing on to the Cape of Good Hope but staying in Brazilian waters, so John must have continued his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope on another ship. John commenced work as Agent of the Cape of Good Hope Hospital on 10 June 1810, as did the other senior members of staff, so this seems to be the date the hospital opened. The head of the hospital was James Cairns as Surgeon and John as Agent was the next most important member of staff. The accounts of the Cape of Good Hope Hospital from 1810 to 1821 show that during this period John was paid an annual salary of �350 and in addition �10 10s per year for stationary and 3s 6d per day for subsistence; in the years to 1814 he also received �30 per year for house rent. The accounts also record that in 1815 John was employing four Negro labourers at the hospital and paid them each at the rate of 3 shillings per week. Some memos attached to the 1817 pay lists from the commander at Simons Town Naval Yard instruct John to discharge the Assistant Surgeon and replace the Cook by one of the Negros, showing that John was effectively the hospital's administrator.

John married his first cousin Elizabeth Muddle, who was the daughter of his mother's brother Edward, in about 1819. It's assumed that Elizabeth must have sailed out to the Cape of Good Hope and that the marriage took place there. John and Elizabeth had six children born between 1820 and 1830, five daughters and a son. Their first two children would have been born at the Cape of Good Hope, probably in early 1820 and early 1822. The last of the accounts to show John as Agent at the Cape of Good Hope Hospital are for the third quarter of 1821, after which there is a gap in the accounts until 1825. An 1822 letter from the Victualling Board recommending John for pension shows that John ceased to be Agent in 1821 as part of the reduction in size of the Establishment, possibly the hospital was even closed in late 1821 for a few years. It seems that after this John and his family remained in the Cape of Good Hope for a few months with John still employed by the Admiralty and receiving his salary. On the 10 May 1822 the Victualling Board wrote to the Admiralty recommending that �50 was granted to Mr Chenoweth towards his expenses in returning to England on an East Indiaman, which was approved. Then on 21 June 1822 the Victualling Board wrote to the Admiralty recommending for superannuation Mr John Chenoweth late Agent of the Naval Hospital at the Cape, from which situation he was discharged in 1821 on a reduction of the Establishment, after a service of altogether nearly 30 years as Clerk, Purser etc. and 12 years 4 months in his last situation. John's naval pension commenced on 10 May 1822, when he was 46 years old, though the authority for it was not granted until 1 July 1822; he was entitled to half his salary of �350, which was �175 per year, paid quarterly for the rest of his life.

John and Elizabeth's other four children were born at Rainham near Chatham in Kent between 1823 and 1830, and at all four of their baptisms John gave his occupation as Purser in the Royal Navy, presumably he should have added 'retired'. After her mother's death in 1831 Elizabeth inherited from her father the house adjoining the house bequeathed to her sister Laurentia at the top of Gads Hill in Gillingham. John and Elizabeth probably then lived at Gillingham for a few years as their eldest child, daughter Laurentia, died there in 1836, at the age of 16. But soon after this they moved to Canterbury; their fourth child, daughter Frances, dying there in 1838, at the age of 11. An 1838 directory listed John Chenoweth, R.N. as living at 3 Saint John's Lane, Canterbury. In 1838 & 1839 John was being paid his quarterly pension of �43 15s at the Custom House in Faversham. In the census of 6 June 1841 John and Elizabeth were living in Saint John's Lane in Canterbury with their four surviving children and they had 20-year-old Mary Cage as a live-in servant. John's occupation was given as 'Navy H P', meaning he was on Half-Pay, i.e. he was not on active service, he was retired. Sometime during the next six years they moved because Bagshaw's History, Gazetteer & Directory of Kent, Vol. II for 1847 listed John Chenoweth Esq. as living in Castle Street, Canterbury.

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