Fig. 1: Monument to George Nicholas Hardinge (1781–1808).
By Charles Manning, and John Bacon Jr.
Signed ‘C. MANNING SCVLPT’
1812–1815.
White marble in Portland stone frame.
Church Floor, South Transept, Centre Aisle.
Inscription:
NATIONAL.
TO GEO. N. HARDINGE,
CAPT. OF THE S. FIORENZO, 36 GUNS, 186 MEN,
WHO ATTACKED, ON THREE SUCCESSIVE DAYS,
LA PIEDMONTAISE, 50 GUNS, 566 MEN,
AND FELL, NEAR CEYLON, IN THE PATH TO
VICTORY,
8. MARCH, 1808, AGED 28 YEARS.
Introduction
Manning and Bacon’s monument to G.N. Hardinge commemorates a Naval Captain who, in 1808, died in an unplanned engagement with a larger French vessel off the coast of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Hardinge, who at the time was freighting treasure from Bombay (Mumbai) to Bengal, unexpectedly came across a French vessel, La Piedmontaise, which had carried out a number of attacks and seizures on East India Company vessels in the region. In a vicious, three–day engagement both ships were battered until eventually La Piedmontaise capitulated. There was some opposition in Parliament when the monument was proposed, as some members felt the engagement to have been insufficiently significant to warrant a national monument. Nevertheless, on the basis of the bravery of the captain and the precedent established by the monument to Captain Faulknor (who also died heroically in a skirmish), a national monument was agreed.
The design by Charles Manning shows a round–bottomed sarcophagus representing the absent body of the captain (who was actually buried in Colombo) and decorated with a lion’s head to symbolise the valour of the British navy (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: Manning and Bacon, Hardinge.
Below is the inscription tablet narrating the engagement that occasioned the monument. To the left, there is, according to Manning’s design drawing, ‘an Indian contemplating the loss of his gallant defender’ (Fig. 3), whilst holding the victorious British standard..
Fig. 3: Manning and Bacon, Hardinge.
To the right, a distraught figure of Fame lies prostrate in grief, holding the laurel crown of victory over the name of Hardinge (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Manning and Bacon, Hardinge.
The contemplative Indian figure is bare–chested, his muscled right leg crossed over his left. He is hunched over, with his left elbow on his knee, holding his chin as if in careful thought. His Indian–ness is conveyed through the bald head and single thread of hair at the crown denoting a member of the Hindu Brahmin class but often used more economically in British visual culture to denote any Indian male. Below him are visible the heads of a tabar (axe) and a spear, suggesting that he is also intended to be seen as a warrior. The figure is leaning over a standard on a broken flagpole, which refers to the victory but also the damage done to the masts of Hardinge’s ship in battle (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5: Manning and Bacon, Hardinge.
The prostrate female figure is bare–shouldered and in classical drapes. She lies with her head on her left hand, which is resting on her trumpet; her hair is held by a headband and is tied in a bow at the back of her head, but has fallen down the side of her head and curls down over and beneath her hand, falling over the inscription tablet in wavy curls (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6: Manning and Bacon, Hardinge.
The implication of the monument is that Hardinge died for the interests of India, which mourns his loss. His exploits will bring Fame, but also much grief (Fig. 87.
Fig. 7: Manning and Bacon, Hardinge.
The Commission
On 13 March 1808, the captain of HMS Belliqueux, George Byng, witnessed a remarkable sight in a harbour in Ceylon:
HMS St Fiorenzo this morning anchored off Columbo, having brought in the Piedmontaise French frigate, totally dismasted, which she captured after an action renewed three successive days, and on the last day that excellent and gallant officer, Captain Hardinge, was unfortunately killed. By all information a more severe and determined action has not been fought during the war, nor British valour shewn more conspicuously; and I hear the St Fiorenzo had 13 killed and 24 wounded, and the Piedmontaise 50 killed and 100 wounded.
(Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 22 August 1808)
For several days the two damaged ships were a talking point in Colombo. One merchant wrote on 23 March that he had visited the harbour and counted eleven great shot–holes in the San Fiorenzo, whilst every one of the Piedmontaise masts had been shot away:
It was dreadful to see the effect of the grape shot on both ships – the whole of their sides, from stem to stern, struck thick over with them; and in contemplating them, one is amazed how any one exposed to so destructive a fire could have remained alive.
(unknown correspondent, quoted in Naval Chronicle, 1809, p.12)
The official report of the fight was given to the Admiralty by the second–in–command of the San Fiorenzo, William Dawson. After leaving on their trip to transport treasure to Bombay on 4 March, they encountered at 7am on 6 March off Cape Cormorin three Indiamen vessels travelling from Bombay to Colombo, apparently being pursued by a fourth ship. Receiving no signal from the ship, Piedmontaise, they pulled alongside only to receive a broadside late that evening. After a ten–minute exchange of fire, the French ship pulled away. The next morning at 6.25am the fire recommenced (‘constant and well–directed on both sides’), and continued until 8pm, at which point the French ship again retreated. At this point repairs were made on San Fiorenzo, which had seen most of its masts, stays, rigging and sail shot to pieces. Working through the night to exact repairs, the following morning at 9am Hardinge’s ship bore down again on the enemy, who realised an action was inevitable:
At three we passed each other on opposite tacks, and recommenced action within a quarter of a cable’s length. With grief I have to observe that our brave captain was killed by a grape–shot the second broadside. When the enemy was abaft our beam he wore, and, after an hour and twenty minutes close action, struck their colours, and waved their hats for a boat to be sent them.
(Dawson to Pellew, quoted in Southwick 2019, p.56)
Following the surrender, the crew of San Fiorenzo were informed that the ship they had captured was the Piedmontaise, with 86 guns and 566 men, a ship which had been a scourge of British merchant shipping in the Indian sea. The French had lost 48 men and a further 120 injured. San Fiorenzo lost 13 men and 25 wounded, although the ship seems to have come off much the worse. Notwithstanding its battered state, the San Fiorenzo continued its journey to Bombay, where it arrived on 22 April. The Bombay Courier reported the scene:
We yesterday witnessed, but with mixed feelings of regret and pride, the animating and gratifying spectacle of la Piedmontaise entering the harbour, under the charge of the St Fiorenzo. She came in under jury masts, and was towed in by the boats of the men–of–war from the mouth of the harbour to her mooring ground. The flags of all the vessels in the harbour were hoisted half–mast high, and minute guns corresponding to the age of the excellent, brave and lamented Captain Hardinge, were fired from the flag–ship, The Powerful.
(Naval Chronicle 1809, p.12)
The earliest agitation for a monument to Hardinge came from a judge in Bombay, James Mackintosh. He was a judge in the mould of William Jones, a lawyer and political radical (he had written a defence of the French Revolution, and was a co–founder of the RSPCA). He was also a serious literary figure, penning a massive History of England, and founding the Bombay Literary Society, with its wide interests in geology, zoology and literature. Mackintosh took it as read that there would be a monument to Hardinge in St Paul’s Cathedral, and suggested that there should also be one in Bombay:
Sir,
Yielding to the first impulse of those feelings which the heroic death of Captain HARDINGE has impressed upon me, I take the liberty of proposing to the British inhabitants of this presidency, a subscription for his monument in the church of Bombay. A generous and grateful nation will doubtless place his monument by the side of that of Nelson. But the memorials of heroic valour cannot be too multiplied. Captain HARDINGE fell for Britain; but more especially he fell for British India. I should feel myself ashamed of presuming to suggest reasons for such a measure. They will abundantly occur, to the honour of the country,
JAMES MACKINTOSH
(Bombay Courier, 31 March 1808, quoted in ibid.)
Mackintosh’s eliding of the economic interests of Bombay merchants with the fate of a continent was, of course, a sleight of hand. So too was the assumption that a national monument in St Paul’s was a foregone conclusion: these monuments in London’s principal cathedral were not, on the whole, agitated for by groups with particular economic interests, and Hardinge’s sea–fight was not part of the war effort; the Captain was unlikely to receive a vote of thanks, and so there was no straightforward rationale for a national monument. Nevertheless, Mackintosh’s formulation – that Hardinge died for the future of British India – proved extremely influential, and ultimately provided the iconography of his monument in St Paul’s. Unsurprisingly, Mackintosh’s plea for a monument in Bombay soon found enthusiastic support amongst those whose shipping interests were preserved by Hardinge’s death, and, almost immediately, over £2000 was collected for a monument in Bombay.
The British press soon picked up on the ‘brave Captain Hardinge, who fell at the close of the gallant action with the Piedmontaise’ and who was felt to be ‘a great loss to the service’ (Morning Chronicle 17 August 1808). The Naval Chronicle and European Magazine solicited notices to the memory of Hardinge and many were received. Publishing Mackintosh’s letter, they praised the eloquence and public–spirit of the appeal, and marvelled:
that a gentleman, holding the supreme judicial office in a district of such opulence and weight in our settlements, has taken so high–spirited a part in a public appeal to the inhabitants of the community, for the purpose of suggesting honours to a naval hero’s memory and fame.
(Naval Chronicle 1809, p.11)
In Britain, Hardinge’s relatives (notably Judge George Hardinge) and senior Admiralty figures hoped that a national monument would also be erected in Britain. Hardinge had benefitted from good connections throughout his short life, and now they began to rally behind the cause. Admiral Charles Tyler wrote to the Hardinge family soon after the death to say:
His latter conduct has placed him amongst the greatest heroes of this country: and I hope to see his monument in St Paul’s, where the great and glorious Lord Nelson lies; a fit and proper companion for our lamented hero’s name and memory.
(European Magazine 1810, vol. 57, p.8)
The idea was picked up by Admiral St Vincent and Admiral James Saumarez, who acted as ‘champions for the monument’. St Vincent considered the young man to be a friend and the battle in which he died to be ‘the most eminently distinguished that our naval annals can boast… it can truly be said that he died as he lived – an ornament to his country’ (ibid., p.8). The two Admirals acted zealously for the project and eventually produced action:
Their just influence had the most powerful effect upon the Board of Admiralty and upon the executive government – who originated the measure in parliament.
(ibid., p.8)
On 18 May 1809 a motion was finally introduced into the House of Commons that a national monument should be erected to Captain Hardinge. It was proposed by Robert Ward, a barrister who had a seat on the Board of the Admiralty. Ward was aware of the objections that there were likely to be to the proposal, namely that national monuments were supposed to follow votes of thanks given for extraordinary victories, whilst this was an isolated skirmish. He therefore began by requesting that, before the debate, the House of Commons journals from 1795 respecting the motion to erect a monument to Captain Faulknor should be read out. Captain Faulknor had died in similar circumstances in the West Indies, carrying out an isolated but heroic action to neutralise a French ship. On that occasion it had been the Whig opposition that had agitated for the monument, sensing that there was popular support for it. They also used the motion to draw attention to the Tories’ failings in the prosecution of the war. This time, however, the situation was reversed as it was the Tory government of Spencer Perceval who were looking to expand the parameters of public monuments.
Ward gave a detailed account of Hardinge’s services in his short naval career, concluding with details of the Ceylonese action (‘such a victory and such a death’), which had ended in ‘the capture of the greatest scourge our commerce had known in the Indian seas for some time’. Ward enumerated the number of men and guns, the number of dead and wounded, and the length of the battle. The honourable gentleman:
Then went into some abstract observations on the general policy of keeping alive that desire of fame (“the last infirmity of noble minds”) by the manifestation of the country’s gratitude for such services. He stated that the merchants of Bombay had, to their honour, subscribed £10,000 for the purpose of erecting a monument to the memory of this intrepid officer; and concluded with moving that a Humble Address be presented to his Majesty, praying that he would be graciously pleased to give directions for a monument to be erected in the Cathedral Church of St Paul’s, London, to the memory of Captain George Nicholas Hardinge, for his eminent achievements during the course of his short but serviceable life; and particularly in the Indian seas &c assuring his Majesty that the House would take care to make good the same.
(Caledonian Mercury, 22 May 1809)
He ended by pre–empting the inevitable Whig opposition to the motion:
if any dissent did take place, it would be only created by an adherence to the cold forms of office. It would be seen that Capt. Faulkner was rewarded for a single action. It was not his wish by extending the grant of honours by any means to cheapen them.
(Hansard 18 May 1809, vol. 14, 610)
The proposal was thus supported by precedent and also presented partially as one for lifetime service (such as was given to Admiral Howe or Admiral Rodney). The Whig William Windham led the opposition, oddly in much the same words as those used by the Tories in 1795. Whilst accepting that Hardinge was a captain of great merit, ‘mere merit was not the rule by which the grant of national honours was regulated’, rather:.
it was their scarcity that made them distinctions that they were honours – the national benefit accruing from the service, was that only which called for national distinctions, and making them too common would only go to counteract the object it was their avowed purpose to effect; the smallest services might have as much merit in them as the greatest; coxswain of a boat might in any one action, evince as much contempt of life, and as much heroism as the most successful commander; but mere individual merit could not be permitted to be the rule to guide the bestowing great national distinctions.
(Caledonian Mercury, 22 May 1809)
Lord Castlereagh countered that there were very few cases in which someone of the level of merit of Hardinge had not received a monument. MPs who were not following a party line were sceptical: Sir Watkin William Wynne retorted with the examples of Captain James Cook and Captain George Farmer of the Quebec (who was blown up refusing to leave his post), but neither had received a monument. Joseph Marryat, a slave–owning West India merchant with independent views said that ‘if they were to erect a monument to every heroic officer that fell in the service, they would have to raise buildings, in the first instance to contain their monuments’. William Wilberforce, who had spoken in favour of the Faulknor monument in 1795, had a typically creative response, expressing the view that Parliament was too mean in dispensing public honours and that he preferred the notion of establishing an Order of Naval Merit:
It was a pleasing reflection that the instances of naval heroism were so numberless, that the house seemed to be labouring to draw shades of difference, but by the uninterrupted grant of distinctions upon extraordinary merit, the distinctions themselves should become common, and the merit cease to be extraordinary – he would vote for the motion.
(Ibid.)
After several more interventions in favour, including one from Admiral John Markham, the motion was put to a vote and passed, without any dissenting votes (notwithstanding the opposition expressed in the debates).
Captain George Nicholas Hardinge
Hardinge was only twenty–seven years old when he died in 1808 but had already received several marks of distinction. He was born 11 April 1781 in Kingston–upon–Thames, the second son of the vicar of Kingston, Rev. Henry Hardinge. His family were distinguished administrators: his grandfather was the civil servant and classical scholar Nicholas Hardinge MP (1699–1758), and his uncle the judge, Attorney–General, and writer Sir George Hardinge (1743–1816). The latter, who largely raised the boy, arranged for his nephew to go to Eton College.
Hardinge showed little aptitude for scholarship and received advice from distinguished family friends that he was better suited for the navy. In 1793 he became midshipman of the Meleager at the blockade of Toulon and in the San Fiorenzo at the invasion of Corsica in 1794 (an action which also involved the young marine Samuel Gibbs). He served on the Diomede in the action off Genoa and Hyères, and in other manoeuvres off the coast of Italy, during which he met the envoy, volcanologist and art collector Sir William Hamilton. He was in the shipwrecked Aigle when it foundered on the Isle of Planes, near Tunis on 18 July 1798. He was taken under the wing of Admiral St Vincent soon after, who placed him in the Theseus, under Captain Ralph Willett Miller. He received an honorary mention for his role at the Defence of Acre (Israel) in 1799. He survived the massive accidental explosion that killed his captain and many of the crew of the Theseus on 14 May 1799, and which is alluded to in the iconography of John Flaxman’s monument to Miller (Fig.8) – he was, apparently, just returning to his cabin at the time of the blast.
Fig. 8: John Flaxman, Captain Ralph Willett Miller.
Hardinge was in the Foudroyant when it captured the Guillame Tell on 30 March 1800. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the Tiger on 15 October 1800, commanding a gun–boat off the coast of Alexandria during the Egyptian campaign of 1801. He received the Turkish gold medal for his role in the actions in Egypt.
In 1802 Hardinge was promoted to Captain and received his first command: the bomb vessel Terror, stationed at Boulogne. In early 1804, thanks to St Vincent, he was then appointed to the sloop Scorpion with the North Sea fleet. Although he was not thrilled at the appointment, he quickly won a distinction, for an action at Vlie Roads, Texel in Holland on 31 March 1804. Noting a Dutch brig, the Atalante, on the passage into the Texel, he resolved, with the help of the sloop Beaver, to board and seize her in a late–night assault. Harding led his 60 men onto the deck, from where many of the Dutch crew immediately fled below, leaving Hardinge and his men to fight a hand–to–hand combat with the officers. On decks that were slippery with rain, he personally fought and killed a ship’s mate and then the captain of the Atalante, who refused to accept quarter. Hardinge and his men killed the captain, although he deeply regretted in his subsequent accounts of the fight that it was necessary to do so. Having forced the crew to surrender, he prepared to attack another brig, although foul weather prevented it. Hardinge sent a famously modest and eloquent account of the action to his commander, George Elphinstone, Lord Keith, who subsequently noted the ‘gallant and spirited attack’ to the Admiralty, along with Hardinge’s credit–worthy modesty. The appearance of the letters in the London Gazette publicised Hardinge’s distinction, and on 17 April he was awarded the £100 Patriotic Fund Sword of Honour, which had been established the previous year by the shipping insurers, Lloyds of London, to award an outstanding naval achievement. The sword, with motifs of Britannia and of Hercules and the Nemean Lion, survives in the Royal Hospital School (see Southwick, 2019) (Fig. 9). Hardinge was also promoted to post–captain on 10 April 1804.
Fig. 9: Patriotic Fund £100 Sword and Scabbard, like the one awarded to Hardinge – this one presented to Lt James Bowen, 1803, Royal Armouries Collection IX.2565 A-D (Royal Armouries, Non-Commercial Licence and Crown Copyright).
The next stage of his career was, however, rather slow. He was appointed to the Proselyte, a 22–gun former Newcastle coal ship, and ordered to convoy trade ships in the West Indies. This he managed to avoid on the grounds of an aversion to the climate, and his relatives pulled strings to gain him a transfer to the Valorous, which was soon found unfit for sea. He next took the offer of a newly–built 36–gun frigate in Bombay, the Salsette, and sailed to India as a passenger on HMS Belliqueux. On the way, he offered his services to Sir David Baird at the capture of the Cape of Good Hope, another action which involved Samuel Gibbs. When he arrived in Bombay, Hardinge found the Salsette was just being built; ]he then left for Madras (Chennai) to see Rear–Admiral Edward Pellew, to ascertain the situation. Pellew said that the mistake was due to the fact that Hardinge was supposed to captain the Pitt (formerly called the Salsette). The Pitt was currently away for several months, but Hardinge was promised her captaincy on its return. In the meantime, he was appointed to the frigate San Fiorenzo, an old and dilapidated vessel. Hardinge described it as ‘barely effective, but not eligible, rather safe than sound’ (letter quoted in Briggs 1852, p.145).
Hardinge carried out a number of uneventful cruises, until 6 March 1808, when he was to receive 1000 guineas for the freight of the treasure to Bengal, a fairly mundane task which turned into a heroic gunfight, in which he died minutes before victory. He was buried in Colombo with full military honours. Accounts of his character were very warm: one biographer said that as a young man he was ‘full of high spirit, but unassuming, discreet in his behaviour, pleasing in his manners, affectionately benevolent, and well–informed’ (Briggs 1852, p.144). The Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund also awarded a posthumous £100 Silver Vase – again with Britannia, the lion, and Hercules – to Judge George Hardinge to commemorate his nephew’s ‘zeal, gallantry and judgment’ (MS quoted in Southwick 2019, p.59); it was sold at auction in 2005 (Figs 10 and 11)..
Figs 10 and 11: Made by Benjamin Smith, Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund vase – this one hallmarked 1807–1808 and awarded to Major John Hamill, Royal Regiment of Malta, for service at the Battle of Maida, 1806 – viewed from both sides, NAM. 2009-01-1-2-1 (© National Army Museum, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Hardinge’s family were granted royal permission for the use of a new coat–of–arms, decorated with the captured flags of La Piedmontese and Atalante in Captain Hardinge’s memory.
Shortly after his death a commemorative portrait, engraved from a miniature portrait by Walter Stephens Lethbridge (location unknown), was published as a frontispiece in the European Magazine (Fig. 12). The journal published numerous testimonies to Hardinge by his senior commanders, and took the occasion to meditate on the ancient and modern heroes who have died ‘in the arms of victory’, from Epaminondas to General Wolfe. The magazine praised all those who had agitated for a monument to the dead Captain Hardinge, and rejoiced that a monument was to be erected, to have his ‘immortality… secured beyond the reach of fate’ (European Magazine, 1810, vol. 57, p.3).
Fig. 12: H.B. Cook after W.S. Lethbridge, Portrait of Captain George Nicholas Hardinge, published 1 February 1810 (© The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).