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Updated: June 14, 2025
Indeed my dear friend, it is strange that you are reading a letter from me now, and not an account of our shipwreck. We left Falmouth on Tuesday mid-day; the wind was fair till the next night, so fair that we were within twelve hours' sail of Corunna; it then turned round, blew a tempest, and continued so till the middle of Saturday.
"Captain Nelson," he said, as one of his staff entered, "I want you to take Mr. O'Connor under your charge. He has just arrived from the north, and was present at the battle of Corunna. He was on Brigadier Fane's staff. As at present he is unattached, I shall put him down in orders to-morrow as an extra aide-de-camp on my staff. He will be leaving to-morrow for the northern frontier.
'In the autumn of 1808, when only sixteen years of age, I accompanied Lord and Lady Holland to Corunna, and afterwards to Lisbon, Seville, and Cadiz, returning by Lisbon to England in the summer of 1809.
For the Latin people were miserable sailors, and gazed with awe into the waves of the Atlantic. For them Brigandtia was the last spot in the world, a dangerous spot, to be shunned. So they left her seated on her beautiful bay beside the Torre de Hercules, and made Lugo their capital. In the shuffling of bishops and sees in the fifth and sixth centuries, Corunna was forgotten.
It was plain that the corporation of Cork was committing more havoc among us than Corunna or Waterloo, and that if we did not change our quarters, there would be quick promotion in the corps for such as were "seasoned gentlemen."
It was only at Quito, that a letter from M. Delambre, perpetual secretary of the first class of the Institute, informed us, that captain Baudin went by the Cape of Good Hope, without touching on the eastern or western coasts of America. We spent two days at Corunna, after our instruments were embarked.
"It is tedious work going along like this," O'Driscol said; "but it does not so much matter, because as yet we do not know where we are going to land. Sir Arthur has gone on in a fast ship to Corunna to see the Spanish Junta there, and find out what assistance we are likely to get from Northern Spain. That will be little enough.
Jones, in order to induce them to embark from Corunna, Spain, where the Alliance had put in for repairs and provisions, promised that he would sail immediately for L'Orient, where they should receive their prize money. As soon as he was again at sea, however, Jones informed his officers that he intended to make a further cruise of twenty days. Fanning, one of the officers, quotes Jones:
At the same time Don Alonso de Baçan sailed from Corunna for the Azores with 40 great ships of war, to wait for the fleets from the Spanish and Portuguese Indies, which, along with our Malacca goods when laden, he was to convoy to the Tagus. But, when he had been some days at sea, always with a contrary wind, only two of his ships could get to the islands, all the rest being scattered.
For two days longer the retreat continued. Moore, after many successful skirmishes, reached Corunna, where he hoped to embark. Soult crossed the Esla at last, and on New Year's day, 1809, the Emperor found himself at Astorga.
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