Henry VIII. resolves to establish a permanent Royal Navy—Derives
his first supply of men from English fishermen—Royal
fleet equipped and despatched from Portsmouth—Its first
engagement—Increase of the French fleets—Extraordinary exertions
of the English to meet the emergency—The rapidity with which
they supplied men and vessels—Outfit of the ships—The _Great
Harry_—Number and strength of the fleet at the death of Henry
VIII., 28 Jan., 1547—The _Great Michael_—Trade monopolies—Mode of
conducting business—Mistaken laws—The Bridport petition—Chartered
companies—Prices regulated by law, and employment provided—The
petition of the weavers—State of the currency, A.D. 1549—Its
depreciation—Corruption of the government—Recommendation of W.
Lane to Sir W. Cecil, who acts upon it, A.D. 1551, August—The
corruption of the council extends to the merchants—Accession of
Elizabeth, A.D. 1558—War with Spain—Temporary peace with France,
soon followed by another war—Demand for letters of marque—Number
of the royal fleet, A.D. 1559—The desperate character of
the privateers—Conduct of the Spaniards—Daring exploits and
cruelty of Lord Thomas Cobham, and of other privateers or
marauders—Piratical cruises of the mayor of Dover—Prompt
retaliation of the king of Spain—Reply of Elizabeth—Elizabeth
attempts to suppress piracy, 29th Sept., 1564—Her efforts fail,
but are renewed with increased vigour, though in vain—Opening of
the African slave trade—Character of its promoters—John Hawkins’
daring expedition—Fresh expeditions sanctioned by Elizabeth and
her councillors—Cartel and Hawkins—They differ and separate,
1565—Hawkins reaches the West Indies with four hundred slaves,
whom he sells to much advantage, and sails for England—Fresh
expeditions, 1556—They extend their operations, 1568—The third
expedition of Sir John Hawkins departs, October 1567, and secures
extraordinary gains—Attacked by a Spanish fleet and severely
injured—Reaches England in distress—Prevails on the Queen to make
reprisals—Questionable conduct of Elizabeth—Vigorous action of the
Spanish ambassador—Prompt retaliation—Injury to English trade less
than might be supposed—Hatred of the Catholics—Increase of the
privateers, 1570—Their desperate acts, 1572.
[Sidenote: Henry VIII. resolves to establish a permanent Royal Navy.]
Beyond the encouragement afforded by Henry VIII. to the development
of the maritime commerce of his own people, England is mainly
indebted to that monarch for her first organised Royal Navy. Though
her merchants’ ships had hitherto been her chief means of defence from
foreign invasion, and had played a conspicuous part in all her naval
engagements, they were frequently dangerous instruments during periods
of peace. Commissioned in war “to burn, plunder, and destroy,” they
were with difficulty restrained from following similar avocations on
their own account when peace had been restored. The patriot of to-day
too often became the pirate of to-morrow.
[Sidenote: Derives his first supply of men from English fishermen.]
In his attempts, however vain, to suppress the lawless acts of his own
people, as well as to clear the English Channel of foreign buccaneers,
Henry, soon after his accession, saw the necessity of forming a
standing royal navy. Among his many and varied abilities, he was his
own engineer, and with workmanlike understanding, he likewise planned
improvements in the mode of shipbuilding, conducting experiments in
the construction of the hulls, and in plans for rigging and sailing.
The few ships the government then possessed had fallen into decay, and
a royal cruiser carrying the flag of England was rarely seen in the
Channel. Ample materials, however, to man a fleet were to be found in
the vast numbers of her own fishermen, and especially from among those
employed in Iceland, which, before the discovery of Newfoundland, had
become the chief rendezvous for these hardy men. Taught by necessity
the arts of war as well as of peace, they, in following their usual
peaceful employments, were always armed. Yet, though a fleet worthy of
the name was built and equipped, the process, from the want of the
requisite funds, was necessarily tedious, and the first result far from
satisfactory.
In the meantime the war between Charles and Francis had broken out.
French and Flemish cruisers captured prizes, or fought battles, in the
mouths of English rivers or under the windows of English towns, and
both belligerents too frequently made what they deemed lawful prey
of the ships of England. Even when the courts of Brussels and Paris
were making professions of good-will, the cruisers of both governments
openly seized English traders, and Henry had for a time to submit,
and to leave those of his subjects who resided on the coasts to such
inadequate defences as they could themselves provide. So daring were
the acts of these piratical cruisers that two French ships attempted
even to cut out two merchantmen from the harbour of Dartmouth, and only
failed in this exploit through the bravery of the mayor and inhabitants
of that town, who attacked them with their boats; nay, more, the rival
fleets of France and Spain did not scruple to test their strength in
deadly combat in the harbour of Falmouth,[97] and not unfrequently
placed, at other times, embargoes on vessels entering the Thames.
[Sidenote: Royal fleet equipped and despatched from Portsmouth.]
[Sidenote: Its first engagement.]
[Sidenote: Increase of the French fleets.]
The London merchants declared that, although the country was nominally
at peace, their ships could not venture out of port; but every
remonstrance, though made in no measured terms at the courts of Paris
and Brussels, and received with courtesy and verbal apologies, was
practically ineffectual in suppressing these wanton depredations.
Unfortunately, at this juncture, Henry could not afford to declare
war, as his exchequer was very poorly furnished; but the country itself
had not sunk so low as to be unable to defend its own coasts and its
own traders. Sufficient money having, through the aid of the London
merchants, been at last found for their immediate purposes, a small but
admirably equipped fleet was silently fitted out at Portsmouth, secrecy
being observed as far as possible, in the hope of taking the offenders
by surprise. Sweeping out into the Channel, this fleet soon fell across
four French ships of war which had been plundering English merchant
vessels in the vicinity of Mount’s Bay, and closing against heavy odds,
sunk one of them and drove the other three from the coast.[98] The
time had, indeed, arrived when it became essential to the independence
of England that a fleet sufficient to command the Channel should be
permanently maintained. France, having resolved on open war, was
straining every nerve to humiliate her old and inveterate rival. One
hundred and fifty of her ships of war and twenty-five swift galleys
had assembled at the mouth of the Seine ready to convoy transports
with sixty thousand troops on board; the intention being to occupy the
Isle of Wight as a prelude to a further attack on Portsmouth, and the
destruction of the small English fleet collecting at Spithead.
[Sidenote: Extraordinary exertions of the English to meet the
emergency.]
[Sidenote: The rapidity with which they supplied men and vessels.]
To meet this imposing force Henry VIII., warmly backed by his people,
made extraordinary exertions. One hundred and forty thousand English
soldiers, with a few German contingents, supported his efforts; but
there were only sixty available ships of all sorts, though of these
several were larger than any of the French. The requisite number was,
however, soon supplied. Indeed, throughout the whole history of England
there is no instance on record in which her people were not prepared
to make any sacrifices to provide a fleet for the protection of their
shores, or to redress their wrongs; and now the fact that France was
attempting to rival England on her own element, at once supplied all
that was wanting. But on this, as on many previous occasions, the royal
squadron, that is the ships actually the property of the Crown, formed
only a small part of the naval strength of the country. So thoroughly,
however, did the English people throw themselves into the scale, that
they relinquished in numerous cases their ordinary occupations, and
though the Iceland and Irish fishing fleets were about to sail, nearly
all the fishermen who had previously been employed in these vessels
entered for the navy, their wives and daughters taking their places,
and keeping up the necessary supply of fish for the markets, though
frequently driven into harbour by the French cruisers.[99] Numerous
vessels of various sizes, belonging to Plymouth, Dartmouth, Falmouth,
Fowey, Truro, Dittisham, Totnes, Poole, Rye, Bristol, and other places,
which, during the winter, had been cruising as privateers, joined the
royal fleet, under the Admiral at Spithead, the two services absorbing
the whole of the effective male inhabitants of the seaports, amounting
to sixteen thousand hands, distributed over one hundred sail of
fighting vessels of one sort and another. Some of the best families
in England sought employment in this fleet, and in the long muster
roll there will be found, either in command of the King’s ships or of
privateers equipped by themselves, names which will ever be remembered
as famous in the history of their country. On the first occasion when
England possessed an organised navy, we find a Russell, a Berkeley, a
Clinton, a Seymour, a Dudley, a Willoughby, a Chichester, and a St.
Clair proudly rejoicing to occupy their places as leaders.
It is not our province to narrate the desperate actions which ensued
on the waters of the Solent, the chief scene of the struggle, or how,
after terrible slaughter and numerous engagements, the French were
repulsed. It is rather our object to ascertain, so far as is possible,
of what nature were the vessels of which the fleets were composed.
[Sidenote: Outfit of the ships.]
Previously to the reign of Henry VIII. no reliance can be placed on
any details with respect to English ships; indeed it was only when in
his reign the royal navy became a regular and permanent branch of the
government service, that any careful record was kept of the fittings of
vessels so employed. Happily one of these accounts has been preserved
in the Cottonian collection at the British Museum, and this document
derives further elucidation from another manuscript in the Harleian
collection, explaining, as this does, many antiquated or obsolete
words in the former. In Appendix (3) will be found the substance of
the ‘Inventory of the Great Barke,’ which is the oldest account extant
of the details of an English ship; but whatever antiquaries may have
written about this ‘Great Barque,’ she appears to have been simply a
large merchant ship of the period, which on the sixth day of October,
in the twenty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII. (A.D. 1531), was
_viewed_ or inspected by Christopher Morris, a government officer, for
the purpose of being employed in the public service.
[Sidenote: The _Great Harry_.]
The largest and most important vessel built at this period in England
appears to have been King Henry’s _Harry Grace à Dieu_.[100] Two
representations of this ship are extant, one in the Pepysian Library
in Magdalen College, Cambridge, another in an original picture of Hans
Holbein, published by Allen in 1756.[101] The drawings however differ
so widely that it is probable they refer to different vessels.
With the exception of the very high forecastle, an extra range of
cabins on her poop, and her extraordinary rig, she does not materially
differ from the wooden line-of-battle ships of much later times. All
accounts agree in describing the _Harry Grace à Dieu_ as the largest
English man-of-war up to the period of her construction; but Henry
VIII. had also previously built a vessel called the _Regent_, of one
thousand tons, to carry a crew of eight hundred men, a ship, however,
surpassed by a French one, the _Cordilier_, which carried one thousand
one hundred men. The _Harry Grace à Dieu_ was destroyed by fire when
lying at Woolwich on the 27th of August, 1563.
[Illustration: HARRY GRACE A DIEU.—FROM PEPYSIAN LIBRARY, CAMBRIDGE.]
[Sidenote: Number and strength of the fleet at the death of Henry
VIII., 28 Jan., 1547.]
On the death of Henry VIII. an account was taken of everything
appertaining to the navy of England, and in the ‘Archæologia’ will
be found the names of all the royal “shippes, galleys, pynnasses,
and row-barges, with their tonnage, number of soldiers, mariners,
and gunners.”[102] In this official inventory, taken by a commission
specially appointed for the purpose, the _Great Harry_ appears at the
head of the list, and is there recorded as being of one thousand
tons; if, however, the calculation had been made on the mode of
admeasurement usual in England up to the middle of the present century,
and known as the old measurement (O.M.), her capacity must have been
considerably greater. Besides this great ship, twelve others of the
royal navy are mentioned of from one hundred and forty to seven hundred
and fifty tons, fourteen galleys of from sixty to four hundred and
fifty tons, five pynnasses of from fifteen to eighty-five tons, and
eleven row-barges, each of twenty tons, stationed at Portsmouth. In
the arsenal at Deptford Stronde there were six vessels, the largest
being four hundred and fifty tons, while four other vessels of from
twenty to four hundred tons were stationed in Scotland. The crews of
these vessels when fully manned consisted of one thousand eight hundred
and eighty-five soldiers, seven hundred and fifty-seven gunners, and
five thousand one hundred and thirty-six seamen. According to a return
printed by the navy-office in 1791, the gross measurement of the
fleets belonging to the Crown at the death of Henry VIII. amounted to
twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-five tons, which shows that the
average size of the vessels then belonging to the royal navy, including
the _Great Harry_, was under two hundred and forty tons each. On the
following page will be found an illustration of one of the galliases,
called the _Galley Subtille_, selected from among the fourteen or
fifteen curious contemporary water-colour drawings by Anthony Anthony
of Henry VIII.’s vessels, preserved in the MSS. department of the
British Museum.
[Illustration: THE GALLEY “SUBTILLE.”—FROM THE ROLL OF THE KING’S
GALLIASES, 1546.]
[Sidenote: The _Great Michael_.]
But the Scottish people previous to this time, jealous of the honour
of their independent action in the matter of ship-building, constructed
under James IV. a vessel of even larger dimensions than the _Great
Harry_ of England. Lindsay of Pitscottie gives a circumstantial
description of her, received from Sir Andrew Wood of Largs, the
quartermaster, and from Robert Bartyne her master-skipper.[103] “In
1512,” he says, “the King of Scotland, King James IV., rigged a great
ship called the _Great Michael_, which was the greatest ship and of the
most strength that ever sailed in England or France; for this ship was
of so great stature, and took so much timber, that, except Falkland,
she wasted all the woods of Fife, which was oak wood, besides all
timber that was gotten out of Norway; for she was so strong, and of so
great length and breadth, to wit, she was twelve score (240) feet of
length and thirty-six feet by two within her sides. All the wrights of
Scotland, and many other strangers, were at her device, by the king’s
commandment, who wrought very busily upon her; but it was a year and
a day ere she was complete. This great ship cumbered Scotland to get
her to the sea. From the time that she was afloat, and her masts and
sails complete, with ropes and ancores effiering thereto, she was
counted to the king to be thirty thousand pounds of expences, besides
her artillery, which was very costly to the king, and besides all the
rest of her furniture.[104] She had three hundred mariners to sail her;
she had six score gunners to use her artillery, and had a thousand
men of war, besides her captains, skippers, and quartermasters.” The
historian says further, “if any man believe that this description of
the ship is not of verity as we have written, let him pass to the gate
of Tillibarden, and there before the same ye will see the length and
breadth of the _Great Michael_ planted with hawthorn by the wright that
helped to make her.” This circumstantial account shows that she was
deemed a marvellous effort of naval architecture. “This schip lay still
in the road, and the king tuik great plesour everie day to cum down and
sie huir, and would dyne and sup in her sundrie tymes, and be showing
his Lordes his ordour and munitioun.”[105]
[Sidenote: Trade monopolies.]
The commerce of England during the reign of Henry VIII. and his
immediate successor had been almost wholly monopolised by the two
very powerful corporations to which we have already referred. But
the association of German merchants having become unpopular, a
large portion of their trade soon afterwards fell into the hands of
the “Merchant Adventurers.” To this influential fraternity English
merchants were admitted on payment of a small fine; the government
of the day, in their ignorance of the requirements of trade and
navigation, having hitherto divided the commerce so far as practicable
between these two companies, attempting at the same time to fix the
boundaries of their respective rights by charters. But towards the
close of the reign of Edward VI., when the interests of the English
merchants greatly predominated, and when a committee which had been
specially appointed to inquire discovered that the Steel-Yard
traders, though exempted from the alien duties, had largely defrauded
the revenue by giving rights of denizenship to foreigners, the
Crown deprived them of many of their most valuable privileges, and
practically revoked their charter.
[Sidenote: Mode of conducting business.]
[Sidenote: Mistaken laws.]
Nor is it surprising that foreigners should have so long held in their
hands the largest share of the maritime commerce of England, though
when Henry VIII. ascended the throne there were no reliable accounts
of its extent. A sort of haphazard mode of conducting business was
then the rule of her merchants, who had then no means of early and
accurate information of what their foreign competitors were doing, or
of the quantity or quality of merchandise they themselves required;
moreover, their commercial laws were so ill defined and so liable to
uncertain and extraordinary changes that no dependence could be placed
upon them. Hence it was that Henry endeavoured to give consistency
to his legislative measures, though even these (as might have been
expected) were in most instances far from perfect; as, for instance,
when he attempted to regulate the price of labour, and to determine
by law what sum each employer should pay to the labourers and others
they employed.[106] No doubt there was more pretence for such a system
where, as in most parts of England, there were still large ranges of
common and unenclosed forest land on which the labourer might feed a
cow, where his pigs, ducks, and geese might range, and where he could
obtain his fuel without charge. Moreover, in those days labour was not,
as now, a marketable commodity, it being then a recognised principle
of law to apportion out, so far as seemed possible, the rights of the
various classes of society, and to determine the price of such labour,
not according to the demand, but according to the presumed cost of the
necessaries of life.
[Sidenote: The Bridport petition.]
Naturally in such attempts to regulate prices, Henry VIII. and his
ministers committed many ludicrous as well as palpable mistakes, and
admitted the justice of demands equally indefensible. For instance,
when the bailiffs and burgesses of Bridport presented, in 1529, a
petition to Parliament, stating that the inhabitants of their town
had been accustomed from time immemorial to manufacture the greater
portion of the large cables, etc., required for the royal navy and for
merchant shipping, by which their town was “right well maintained,”
asserting further that “evil disposed persons” resident in the vicinity
had begun to do similar work to the injury of their town, an Act of
Parliament ordered that all hemp grown within five miles of the town of
Bridport should be sold only in that town, and that no person within
the same distance from that highly favoured seaport should manufacture
any hempen goods under pain of forfeiting what they had manufactured!
The first principles of sound political economy being then unknown,
class interests, as a natural consequence, were protected either by
the help of favoured corporations, under royal charters, or by special
enactments.[107]
[Sidenote: Chartered companies.]
Of these some still survive to remind us of a period in the history
of England when the favoured few had means placed at their disposal
of accumulating wealth denied to the great mass of the community.
Although most of these charters are now objects of no value except
to satisfy the curiosity of antiquaries, others remain vesting their
possessors with a power which, if ever it did, can no longer render any
public service. For centuries the vast organisation of these companies
penetrated the entire trading life of England. Laws were framed to
protect them in all their operations, and to provide that no person
should supply articles he had not been educated to manufacture, nor
any manufacturer be permitted to sell what he had produced on the best
terms he could obtain: the Legislature also decided for him the price
at which each article was to be sold.
[Sidenote: Prices regulated by law, and employment provided.]
In London, a control council in communication with the Council and
the Crown[108] attempted to regulate every branch of trade. Its duty
was to determine prices and fix wages, so that each might be kept in
harmony with the acts of the Legislature; to arrange the conditions
of apprenticeship, and discuss all minor details. In company with the
Lord Mayor and other civic dignitaries, its members inspected the
shops and stores of the respective traders, and received and examined
into their complaints. In connection with the municipal authorities
of London there were local councils in nearly every provincial town
who fulfilled similar duties, reporting to the control body or the
Privy Council such matters as were to be submitted to Parliament. When
these representations had been duly considered, the necessary statutes
were passed and forwarded through the chancellor to the mayors of the
various towns and cities. By these arrangements no person was allowed
to commence any description of trade or manufacture till he had served
a regular apprenticeship, and had proved himself competent to exercise
his craft to the satisfaction of the authorities. But the care of the
Legislature was not extended solely to able-bodied adults; attempts
were made to compel every child to be brought up to some special
business or calling.[109] Such a principle may have been plausible
in theory, but it broke down in practice; the Legislature, however,
insisted that the mayors in towns and the magistrates in counties
should find means to apprentice every child to agriculture, so that
they might not be drawn to “dishonest courses,” whenever the parents
were unable to pay the fees for apprenticeship in other trades.
[Sidenote: The petition of the weavers.]
Although it may now be a matter of surprise that such laws remained so
long in force, we find even in our own time considerable sections of
the community who would if they could[110] have all legislation adapted
to suit their own wants, like the ropemakers of Bridport, or the
weavers of the whole realm, who in the reign of Philip and Mary,[111]
induced the Legislature to pass an Act containing the following
extraordinary provisions: “Foreasmuch as the weavers of this realm,
have, as well at this present parliament as at divers other times,
complained that the rich and wealthy clothiers do in many ways oppress
them, some by setting up and keeping in their houses divers looms, and
keeping and maintaining them by journeymen and persons unskilful, to
the decay of a great number of artificers which were brought up in the
said science of weaving with their families and their households; some
by engrossing of looms into their hands and possession and letting them
out at such unreasonable rents as the poor artificers are not able to
maintain themselves, much less to maintain their wives, families, and
children; some also by giving much less wages and hire for weaving and
workmanship than in times past they did, whereby they are enforced
utterly to forsake their art and occupation wherein they have been
brought up. It is, therefore, for remedy of the premises, and for the
avoiding of a great number of inconveniences which may grow if in time
it be not foreseen, ordained and enacted by authority of this present
parliament, that no person using the feat or mystery of cloth-making
and dwelling out of a city, borough, market town or corporate town,
shall keep or retain or have in his or their houses or possession, any
more than one woolen loom at a time, nor shall by any means, directly
or indirectly, receive or take any manner of profit, gain or commodity,
by letting or selling any loom or any house wherein any loom is or
shall be used or occupied, which shall be together by him set or let,
upon pain of forfeiture for every week that any person shall do the
contrary to the tenor and true meaning hereof, twenty shillings.”[112]
In this unwise Act, the spirit of which still prevails among many of
the working classes of England, and still forms in many other countries
the basis of commercial legislation, another clause provided that
weavers who lived in towns might have two looms but no more, so that as
many persons as possible might be employed in their own houses, and,
without the aid of capitalists, earn and obtain their own independent
living—thus treating capital and labour as not merely distinct
interests, but as opposed to each other.
[Sidenote: State of the currency, A.D. 1549.]
[Sidenote: Its depreciation.]
The currency was then as it is now, a question on which a multiplicity
of opinions were entertained; but the coins of the realm were in those
days tampered with by the State to an extent sufficient to afford even
a chancellor of the exchequer of our own time an excuse for attempting
to mulct the sovereign of one per cent. of its gold to cover the cost
of coinage and provide a seigniorage for the Crown. In 1549 a pound
weight of silver was coined into 7_l._ 4_s._, out of which the Crown
retained 4_l._ for seigniorage and cost of minting, paying the merchant
only 3_l._ 4_s._ for his silver.[113] Of course the prices of all
articles rose to the level of the metallic value of the current coin,
and that, too, in the teeth of the numerous statutes passed to regulate
prices, and in defiance of proclamations forbidding sales except on
conditions specified by law. Indeed, coins of the realm became mere
tokens, and though convenient enough for the people at home, were of
no value abroad beyond that of the amount of pure metal they might
happen to contain; hence exchanges with foreign countries ceased to
be any longer intelligible. The measure of corn worth formerly, on an
average, ten shillings and sixpence, sold in 1551 for six shillings and
eightpence, and rose to thirty shillings in the following year.
[Sidenote: Corruption of the government.]
[Sidenote: Recommendation of W. Lane to Sir W. Cecil,]
To make matters worse, there were in those days men high in authority
who reaped pecuniary advantages from the debasement of the currency.
Indeed those of the Lords of the Council who had provided funds for the
suppression of the rebellion adopted the following extraordinary if not
nefarious means of repaying themselves. They addressed a warrant to
the Master of the Mint, setting forth that “Whereas our well-beloved
councillor, Sir William Herbert, in suppressing the rebels had not only
spent the great part of his plate and substance, but also had borrowed
for the same purpose great sums of money for which he remained
indebted,” and requesting that the officers of the Mint might receive
at his hands two thousand pounds weight in bullion in fine silver, the
said bullion to be coined and printed into money current according to
the established standard, the money so made to be delivered to the said
Sir William Herbert, with all such profits as would otherwise have gone
to the Crown after deducting the expenses of the coining.[114] By this
transaction Sir William realised a profit of 6710_l._, and as similar
privileges were extended to the remaining Lords of the Council, and
other favoured persons about court, more than 150,000_l._ worth of
base silver coins were thus thrown at once upon the market, producing,
as might have been anticipated, numerous commercial complications and
disasters. By such means as these monarchs, as well as councillors, at
that period of English history paid their debts. Edward VI. records
in his journal[115] that Yorke, the Master of the Mint, by a process
easily enough understood by men of business, but unintelligible
as described by his Majesty, had undertaken to pay all his debts,
amounting to something more than 120,000_l._, and to remain accountable
for the overplus. The description of this process will be found at
length in a letter from William Lane, merchant of London, to Sir
William Cecil, wherein, too, its evils are exposed, with much excellent
advice for his guidance in the future.[116]
[Sidenote: who acts upon it, A.D. 1551, August.]
Although Sir William appears to have consigned to the official
pigeon-hole this thoroughly sensible document, the common sense of
the London merchant in time produced its effect upon the government;
and, towards the close of the following year, the Council had no course
left but to accept the advice of Mr. Lane and of other merchants of the
City. However oppressive upon the people at large, there was no way of
overcoming the difficulty, or of meeting the sufferings which the issue
of base money had created, but by the desperate remedy of proclaiming
that all the holders of coin must rest satisfied with receiving in
exchange for it the value of the pure silver it contained. This loss,
however, would have been so serious to many persons, the silver coin
consisting of at least fifty per cent. of alloy, that the Council
did not venture at first to do more than order that the shilling in
future was to pass for ninepence, and the groat for threepence, a
proclamation which did not remedy the evil. Every holder of coin felt
that the second fall must follow sooner or later, yet, in the face of
this certainty, the Council ordered a fresh issue of 80,000_l._ worth
of silver coins, of which no less than two-thirds was alloy, and, in a
fortnight afterwards, a further issue of 40,000_l._ in coins of which
three-quarters was alloy.[117] The falling process once begun had to
be completed, and the second proclamation, which appeared within two
months of the first, ordered that the shilling should pass for no more
than sixpence, nor the groat for more than twopence!! Proceedings
such as these could not fail to seriously affect every branch of the
national commerce.
[Sidenote: The corruption of the Council extends to the merchants.]
English cloth had hitherto borne the palm in the markets of Europe.
Genoese and Venetian shipowners had bought the woollens of England
as cargoes for their vessels in preference to all other similar
manufactures. Portuguese ships sailed with them from the Thames for
the Brazils, Peru, and the Indies, East and West. The Germans on
the Rhine, and the Magyars on the Danube, were clothed in English
broadcloth. But the spirit of deception which had pervaded the Council
in the debasement of its coin extended to the merchants, and the
guilds became powerless because their members were corrupt. Huge bales
of English goods lay unsold on the wharves at Antwerp, because they
were “fraudulent in weight, make, and size.” Such was the state of
commercial affairs in England when Edward VI. closed his reign, and
it was only by the sale of the crown lands, and other property, that
the government was enabled to remedy the many evils which a debased
currency had created.
[Sidenote: Accession of Elizabeth, A.D. 1558.]
[Sidenote: War with Spain.]
Nor did commercial affairs improve when Mary ascended the throne.
Though her marriage with Philip of Spain may have given English
merchants an increased knowledge of the West Indies, Mexico, and South
America, that unfortunate union became the source of so much trouble,
that the maritime commerce of England decreased during the five years
of her reign, and, when Elizabeth succeeded her sister, was even more
depressed than it had been at the death of Edward. The events that
followed did not tend to improve it. The war with Spain, the immediate
result of her accession, if it developed the energy and daring of
English seamen, and opened wider and richer fields for buccaneering,
almost annihilated for a time the now limited legitimate commerce of
England.
[Sidenote: Temporary peace with France, soon followed by another war.]
[Sidenote: Demand for letters of marque.]
Having broken off all political connection with Spain, and having
reserved only such commercial and maritime intercourse as it was
necessary to maintain between the two countries, Elizabeth found it
desirable to make a hasty, though honourable, peace with France,
more especially as that country had meditated the annexation of
Scotland. But the death of Francis II., king of France, husband of
the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, changed the face of affairs, and
the return of this princess to Scotland created new and harassing
complications. France after his death was torn by civil and religious
wars, and Elizabeth finding it necessary for her own security to
support the Protestants in that country, a war again ensued, which
in this instance perhaps more than in any other created immense
excitement, especially among the maritime population of England.
Religious sentiments, in the case of a misunderstanding with Spain,
blended with the love of pecuniary gain, had raised, as in the war
of the Crusades, people to a state of speculative fury against their
hereditary enemies far more bitter and far stronger than had ever
happened before. And when it became known that one Clarke, an English
shipowner, with only three vessels, had in a cruise of six weeks
captured and carried into Newhaven as prizes no less than eighteen
vessels, whose cargoes were valued at 50,000_l._, applications to the
Queen for letters of marque poured in from all parts of the kingdom.
[Sidenote: Number of the royal fleet, A.D. 1559.]
[Sidenote: The desperate character of the privateers.]
Such applications were granted with little discrimination, a conduct
easily accounted for by the fact that when England found herself
actually at war with the then second power in the world, the whole
of her naval force in commission consisted of only seven coast-guard
vessels, the largest not exceeding one hundred and twenty tons, and
eight brigs and schooners, which had been purchased from the merchant
service, and fitted with guns. Besides these she had in harbour and fit
for service only twenty-three vessels of war, one of them measuring
eight hundred tons, and nearly new; the others, which had seen service,
consisting of one vessel of seven hundred tons, together with some of
from six hundred to two hundred tons, the remaining portion of the
fleet being sloops, or similar small craft. These were all that were
left of the royal fleet which Henry VIII. had created. Poverty-stricken
through the impolitic measures adopted by Edward VI. and his
improvident council, and by the contentions during the reign of Philip
and Mary, England, for the time finding herself unable to create or
maintain a fleet of her own which could cope with the navy of France,
much less with that of Spain, had, therefore, in a great measure to
depend on the privateers whom she licensed. Knowing the weakness of the
government whom they professed to serve, and the importance attached
to their services, the owners of these vessels felt no hesitation in
far exceeding the limits of their licence, whenever they could with
impunity increase their own wealth. The rich merchantmen of Spain and
Flanders, although there had been no formal declaration of war, became
the objects of their prey, and were much more eagerly sought after than
the poor coasters of Brittany. Under the pretence of retaliation for
sufferings inflicted on English subjects by the Spanish Inquisition,
and often without any professions at all, English merchants and English
gentlemen, whose estates lay contiguous to the sea coast, or on the
creeks and navigable rivers, fitted out vessels as traders, under vague
and questionable commissions, and sent them forth, heavily armed, to
plunder on the high seas whatever ships, including not unfrequently
those of their own countrymen, they might consider worthy of their prey.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1561.]
Indeed, men belonging to the best families in England then became
lawless rovers, especially as one of them, Sir Thomas Seymour, had
formed the idea of establishing a private sovereignty among the Scilly
Islands, where, as on the coast of Ireland, there were numerous narrow
channels affording safe and convenient rendezvous for any desperate
cruiser, who levied war on his own account whenever he thought the
government neglected its duty, or whenever, by a fortunate chance,
richly laden vessels happened to cross his path. The annals of the
period[118] frequently mention traders which had sailed from Antwerp
to Cadiz, never having reached their destination; no danger of the sea
had impeded their progress, but, when hugging the land, they had met
a mysterious stranger, who had ordered them to heave-to, and deliver
their cargo: boats from the nearest shore in league with the cruiser,
were frequently in attendance, and, during the course of the night,
carts and waggons were ready at some sheltered nook on the beach to
relieve the boats of their loads, and to convey bales of goods or tubs
of spirits to the convenient cellars of the country squires.[119]
Sometimes the unsuspecting trader was pounced upon during the course
of the night by a lugger full of armed men, which had lain in wait for
her, hidden, during the day, among the rocks or in one of the inlets on
the coast.
[Sidenote: Conduct of the Spaniards.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1563.]
No doubt the Spaniards had, in many instances, provoked acts of piracy
by rousing a spirit of revenge for the cruel sufferings Englishmen
had sustained at the hands of the Inquisition. Thus Dorothy Seely,
when petitioning the Lords of Elizabeth’s Council for recovery of the
losses and sufferings of her husband, who, with others of the Queen’s
subjects, had been thrown into a Spanish prison, prays that she and
“the friends of such of Her Majesty’s subjects as be there imprisoned,
afflicted and tormented against all reason, may be allowed to fit out
certain ships for the sea at their own proper charges, and to capture
such Inquisitors, or other such Papistical subjects of the King of
Spain, as they can take by sea or land, and to retain them in prison
in England with such torment and diet as Her Majesty’s subjects had
suffered in Spain.... Or that it may please Her Majesty to grant unto
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops the like commission
in all points for foreign Papists, as the Inquisition has in Spain
for the Protestants, that thereby they may be forced not to trouble
her subjects repairing to Spain, or that there may be hereupon an
interchange or delivery of prisoners.”[120]
[Sidenote: Daring exploits and cruelty of Lord Thomas Cobham,]
Not the least daring of the English aristocratic freebooters were the
sons of Lord Cobham of Cowling Castle. Having distinguished themselves
during their youth in Wyatt’s rebellion, they had grown up after the
type of their boyhood, lawless Protestants, half knight-errants of the
Reformation, and half pirates roving the seas, with a combined spirit
of revenge and love of plunder. Thomas Cobham, the most intrepid and
daring of the sons, was one of many whom Elizabeth was, for some time,
powerless to suppress, even had she been so disposed. Indeed, he was
continually at war on his own account with the enemies of the truth
wherever he could combine the service of the cause of Protestantism
with pecuniary gain. Although in his case there may have been more
of the crusader than of the marauder, he had become so desperate a
rover, that Elizabeth was at last forced to proclaim him an outlaw,
but she was evidently not anxious about his capture. Alike cruel
and daring, Cobham had resolved not to be outdone in this respect
by the Inquisitors of Spain. Froude says of him[121] that, whilst
cruising in the Channel, he caught sight of a Spanish ship, which had
been freighted in Flanders for Bilbao, with a cargo valued at eighty
thousand ducats, and forty prisoners who were going to Spain to serve
in the galleys, and that he chased her into the Bay of Biscay, where he
fired into her, killed the captain’s brother and a number of his men,
and, boarding her when all resistance had ceased, sewed up the captain
himself and the survivors of the crew in their own sails, and flung
them overboard. Having scuttled the ship, Cobham made off with the
booty to his pirate’s den in the south of Ireland.
Though English hearts had often been broken with the news of brothers,
sons, or husbands wasting to skeletons in the dungeons of Cadiz, or
burning to ashes in the Plaza at Valladolid, the eighteen drowned
bodies, with the mainsail for their winding sheet, which were washed
upon the Spanish shores, tended only to increase the horrors and to
magnify the punishments to which English prisoners in Spain had long
been subjected.[122]
[Sidenote: and of other privateers or marauders.]
English privateers, however, licensed by the Crown, still swarmed
in the Channel, and though limited by their commissions to make war
only on acknowledged enemies, were unwilling to be restricted to
less lucrative game. Flemings and Spaniards, if laden with valuable
cargoes, were still too frequently the objects of their plunder, under
the pretext that as neutrals they had articles on board which the
government of England held to be contraband of war.
[Sidenote: Piratical cruises of the mayor of Dover.]
Among these lawless rovers were to be found the mayor of Dover,[123]
and other leading inhabitants, who, not satisfied with the capture, in
a few months of the summer of 1563, of from six to seven hundred French
prizes, appear to have plundered many neutral vessels, sixty-one of
which were Spanish, for the most part laden with very valuable cargoes.
Nor were the depredations of these pirates confined to the capture of
neutrals. Their own countrymen were not safe from their rapacious
talons, and it is recorded that rich harvests were often reaped by the
plunder of the small English vessels employed in the valuable trade
between Antwerp and London. Indeed, the vessels of no nation were safe;
even the fishermen on the coast became occasionally the objects of
their prey, and were stripped not merely of their cargoes of herrings,
but of their ropes and anchors, and left to perish of hunger.
[Sidenote: Prompt retaliation of the king of Spain, 1564.]
Philip of Spain could now no longer endure the lawless outrages his
people had suffered, so in January 1564 he issued a sudden order for
the arrest of every English vessel in his harbours, with their crews
and owners. Estimating that his people had suffered by them to the
extent of one million and a half of ducats, he seized thirty of their
vessels then in the ports of Spain, and imprisoned their crews as
security for the repayment of this loss, at the same time excluding,
by a general order, all English traders from the ports of the Low
Countries.[124]
[Sidenote: Reply of Elizabeth.]
With the French war still upon her hands Elizabeth was obliged to
endure the affront, limiting her remonstrance to a request that the
innocent might not be made to suffer for the guilty, and, while
admitting that, in the confusion of the times and the imperfectly
understood views of international maritime law, wrong might have been
done to his subjects, she, as an earnest of her good intentions,
proposed a joint commission to inquire into his claims. At the same
time she prohibited Flemish vessels from entering her ports, and
instructed her ambassador to say to Philip that whatever injury might
have been done to subjects of Spain, she had even greater grounds for
complaint, and that until her ships and subjects were released, and
redress afforded for the wrongs they had sustained, she prohibited all
importations of Spanish merchandise.
[Sidenote: Elizabeth attempts to suppress piracy, 29 Sept., 1564.]
As it did not suit Philip any more than Elizabeth to go to war, he
listened to the remonstrances of her ambassador; the English ships,
and those of their crews who had survived the terrible sufferings of a
Spanish prison, were released, and the commissioners commenced their
inquiry at Bruges. But although all letters of marque expired on the
declaration of peace with France, and the marauders had had to seek
in many cases other fields for their depredations, Elizabeth, in this
instance evidently meaning what she wrote, instructed Sir Peter Carew,
then at Dartmouth, to fit out an expedition with speed and secresy,
and clear the seas of any “pirates and rovers” which might still haunt
the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, or who, with that taste for a
lawless life which the nature of these commissions had engendered,
lurked in the western rivers, or had their rendezvous among the
numerous creeks on the shores of Ireland.
[Sidenote: Her efforts fail,]
Elizabeth’s efforts were, however, not crowned with success. The
land-owners, who had too long been in league with the pirates,
rendered every assistance to defeat Sir Peter Carew’s attempts for
their suppression. At Berehaven, O’Sullivan Bere afforded them the
protection of his castle, covering their vessels with its ordnance,
and mustering a fleet of small craft and a sufficient number of men to
bid defiance to the Queen’s authority,[125] thus giving fresh courage
to the pirates. Fresh outrages were consequently committed on Spanish
commerce, and fresh demands made by Philip that pirates who had been
taken and convicted should in no case be pardoned, that the Queen’s
officers in the western harbours should no longer allow these marauders
to take in stores or to frequent her ports, that rewards should be
offered for their capture and conviction, and that all persons on shore
who aided these lawless expeditions should be severely punished.
[Sidenote: but are renewed with increased vigour, though in vain.]
In reply to these peremptory demands Elizabeth “resolved to show to the
world that she intended to deal honestly in that matter.”[126] More
ships of war were sent to sea to prosecute the search with greater
vigour, yet, in the October following, a vessel from Flanders to Spain
laden with tapestry, clocks, and various household articles, belonging
to Philip himself, was intercepted and plundered. So audacious an act
seems to have excited real alarm to Elizabeth and her Council. Orders
were issued to make strict inquiry along the coast so as to discover
the haunts of the pirates, with a view to their immediate trial and
conviction; harbour commissioners were appointed to inquire and report
upon all vessels entering or leaving places within their jurisdiction;
rules were framed for the detection and detention of suspicious
vessels, and any landed proprietors or other persons on the coasts who
harboured or encouraged them were threatened with severe punishment.
But the pirates whom the law had sent forth as privateers had become
too strong for the law itself. Somehow or other, those of them who had
been captured were soon free, and again at their lawless work; not one
was hanged as he ought to have been, and the worst that befel them was
a short-lived alarm.
[Sidenote: Opening of the African slave trade.]
Philip fortunately was not in a warlike humour, and Elizabeth’s excuses
that she could do no more than she had done to suppress the piratical
acts of her subjects were accepted by the court of Spain. Moreover,
a new trade had arisen, affording employment thoroughly congenial to
these marauders. The New World, not long discovered in the West, had
been suffering so severely from a scarcity of labour, that a supply
from other countries was urgently demanded by the colonists. The native
Indian, unaccustomed to domestic life or to regular habits of industry,
would not, or could not, be taught to familiarise himself with the ways
of civilised man; as the forest supplied everything sufficient for his
wants, the proud lord of the soil would not subject himself to the
dominion of the invaders, while he refused to accept their servitude.
Hence it was that as the Europeans advanced, the Indians retired, red
men decaying as the white men increased; but the English pirates soon
found them substitutes. On the shores of Western Africa, which they had
frequented in quest of the Spanish merchant vessels from India, men of
a quiet and peaceable nature were to be found basking in the sunshine
in harmless idleness, and, too frequently, in a state little better
than that of “the beasts that perish.”
Vast in number, and with little or no occupations, they offered a
profitable source of commerce to such persons as were disposed to
enter upon the traffic of human beings, and who would not hesitate to
forcibly transport the superabundant population of Africa to meet the
rapidly increasing demands for labour in the Western world.
In those days, when the transition from privateering to piracy was easy
of accomplishment, the pirate soon became a practised and desperate
slaver. There were then no laws to prevent this inhuman traffic. Indeed
the nobler Spaniards, who first peopled the tropical portion of the
vast American continent and the West India Islands, were of opinion
that, in the innocent and docile children of Africa might be found, if
kindly treated, servants who would labour without repugnance, and who,
while replacing the native Indians, would materially improve their own
then wretched condition. The Spanish settlers therefore encouraged the
exchange, and, as emigrants from other nations flocked in great numbers
to the newly discovered West, the demand for African labour soon became
enormous.
[Sidenote: Character of its promoters.]
When the freebooters of England found it either necessary or expedient
to seek elsewhere other opportunities for their lawless and plundering
propensities, no employment could have been more agreeable to their
habits than that of a slave trade on the coast of Africa, and thus a
commerce, which, if it had been conducted from the first by honest
men, on a well-defined system of immigration, might have proved of
immense benefit to every one connected with it, became, in the hands
of worthless adventurers, one of the most depraved and demoralising
recorded in history. Good, possibly, in its original intentions, this
trade, from its earliest dawn, was made infamous by the desperate class
of men engaged in it from its commencement, and it maintained its
character for infamy, unredeemed by any civilising influences, even to
our own time.
A privateer accustomed to plunder would naturally acknowledge no right
of opinion on the part of those he captured: a slave was an article to
be dealt with like any other article of commerce, and to be disposed of
in any market where the highest price could be obtained. The consent
of the negro himself to exchange a state of even starvation and misery
for one of comparative comfort was an idea which did not enter the
brains of those who first developed the trade; nor was it, indeed,
ever entertained by their successors. Throughout the whole of three
centuries during which it was carried on, no man on either side of the
Atlantic seems to have attempted to introduce a legitimate system of
immigration between the two great continents. What a blessing it would
have been to mankind had some such system been adopted! What myriads
of human lives would have been saved, while the rich lands of the
Southern States of America and the equally luxuriant islands of the
West, over many portions of which rank grass now grows, would have been
beehives of industry and homes of peace, prosperity, and plenty. But,
established in sin, the African slave trade thus continued, through its
long term of existence, a sink of iniquity.
[Sidenote: John Hawkins’ daring expedition.]
Though the Portuguese were, in after years, more largely engaged in
this nefarious traffic than the people of any other nation, the fact
must not be overlooked that John Hawkins, of Plymouth, so famous
afterwards in the naval annals of England, was among its earliest
promoters. In connection with one Thomas Hampton, he fitted out in
October 1562, three vessels, the largest being only a hundred and
twenty tons register, with which he sailed for Sierra Leone.[127]
Having collected, “partly by the sword” and by other equally
questionable means, three hundred negroes, he crossed the Atlantic
to St. Domingo, where he disposed of them to considerable advantage,
investing the proceeds in hides, half of which he took to England,
despatching the remainder in Spanish vessels to Cadiz, under the care
of his partner in the transaction. Philip the Second of Spain, however,
confiscated the cargo on its arrival at Cadiz, while Hampton himself
narrowly escaped the Inquisition; and a peremptory order was sent to
the West Indies prohibiting English vessels from trading there. But
Hawkins fitted out another expedition to proceed thither, in spite of
every warning. Indeed the prospect of large profits was so tempting,
that he even induced Lord Pembroke and other members of the English
Council of State to take shares privately in this adventure. Moreover,
if the letter of Philip’s ambassador can be relied upon,[128] Elizabeth
herself had no objection to a share in any profits that might be
realised, and placed one of the best ships of her navy at his disposal!
[Sidenote: Fresh expeditions sanctioned by Elizabeth and her
councillors.]
Under the patronage of the queen of England and of many of her
councillors, Hawkins set sail from Plymouth on a second slave-hunting
expedition, on the 18th of October, 1564. His fleet consisted of the
_Jesus of Lubeck_,[129] of seven hundred tons, very fully armed, of his
old vessel, the _Solomon_, which had been somewhat enlarged, and of two
small sloops, of a light draught of water, suited to enter rivers and
shallow waters.
[Sidenote: Cartel and Hawkins.]
“A rival expedition sailed at the same time and for the same purpose
from the Thames, under David Cartel, to whom the Queen had also given
a ship. Cartel had three vessels, the _Minion_, Elizabeth’s present;
the _John the Baptist_, and the _Merlin_. The _Merlin_ had bad luck;
she had the powder on board for the nigger hunt, fire got into the
magazine, and she was blown to pieces. Cartel, therefore, for a time
attached himself with his two remaining ships to Hawkins, and the six
vessels ran south together. Passing Teneriffe on the 29th of November,
they touched first at the Cape Verde Islands, where the natives
being very gentle and loving, and more civil than any other, it was
proposed to take in a store of them. But the two commanders could not
agree; Hawkins claimed the lion’s share of the spoil, and when they
quarrelled, the _Minion’s_ men, being jealous, gave the islanders to
understand what was intended to be done with them, so that they avoided
the snares laid for them.”[130]
[Sidenote: They differ, and separate.]
[Sidenote: 1565, Hawkins reaches the West Indies with four hundred
slaves, whom he sells to much advantage,]
Hawkins and Cartel then parted company, the former shaping his course
for the coast beyond the Rio Grande, and filling up, as he proceeded,
the hold of his ship with negroes, whom he had entrapped among the
rivers and islands. Between purchases from the Portuguese, who were
the first to establish factories and barracoons on these coasts, and
the spoils made by his own desperate crews, Hawkins in a few weeks
had collected on board of his ships no less than four hundred slaves,
with whom he shaped his course for the West Indies, and came to an
anchor close to the tower of Barbaratto. Finding that the interdict had
arrived from the king of Spain forbidding the colonists, under pain of
death, to admit any foreign vessels at any of the Spanish possessions,
or have any dealings with them, Hawkins was entreated to leave. But
he was not the man to be thwarted in his object whenever he felt that
he had power to enforce it. Under the pretence that his ship was in
distress and required refitting, he intimated that if he was refused
the necessary supplies he should be obliged to send his men on shore
to take them. The menace produced its effect by affording the governor
a pretext for yielding and allowing the inhabitants to purchase the
negroes, for whose services there was a rapidly increasing demand. In
a few days half the cargo was disposed of, when Hawkins proceeded with
the rest to the Rio de la Hacha, where he disposed of them to great
advantage, in defiance of the king’s interdict, and the remonstrances
of the governor.
[Sidenote: and sails for England.]
With the proceeds of human beings, stolen from their homes, and sold
under cover of his guns to the Spanish planters, Hawkins, having washed
the pens in which he had cooped his unfortunate victims, sailed in
high spirits for England. On his way home he made a cruise through the
Carribean Sea, surveying, in the ostensible fulfilment of his mission,
the islands, and mapping down the currents and the shoals. He then
shaped his course round Cuba, steered through the Bahama Channel, and
along the coast of Florida, to examine the capabilities of the country,
as he explained, but more likely, from his marauding propensities,
to see if he could pick up any of the treasure ships of Spain. He at
length reached Padstow Harbour, and thence proceeded to London, where
he rendered to his co-partners an account of his spoils, and for a time
was the lion of the metropolis. Lord Pembroke and his colleagues in the
Council realised a clear profit of sixty per cent. on their adventure,
and it was generally supposed that Elizabeth was not uninterested in
the spoils which the ship she had supplied had assisted in realising,
unconscious, it may be hoped, that her favourite captain had done
anything to offend her friend and ally the king of Spain.
[Sidenote: Fresh expeditions.]
Thus encouraged, the slave trade flourished. Nor was it surprising
that the vast profits which Hawkins had secured should have induced
others to fit out slaving expeditions. The merchants of London felt
no hesitation in supplying the requisite funds.[131] They did not
inquire very minutely into the mode in which their employés conducted
their business. Ostensibly their capital was required to fit out
vessels to carry on the trade of immigration from the coast of Africa,
where labour was too abundant, to the shores of the newly discovered
country, which had no bounds to its vast and rich territory, and where
labour was in still greater demand. If these roving Englishmen ruined
the colonies Spain had established and menaced the safety of her
merchant fleets, that was a matter of no concern to England; and if
they pillaged a few of them when a favourable opportunity occurred, the
capitalists who supplied the means received a bonus on their investment
beyond the ordinary dividend, and did not of course trouble themselves
to inquire how it had been obtained.
[Sidenote: 1566.]
As might have been anticipated, slave fleets were fitted out at most
of the leading ports; they had orders, it is true, not to approach the
West Indies, or break the laws or injure in any way the subjects of the
king of Spain; but when they returned richly laden, no formal inquiries
were made whether these riches had been obtained from the freightage of
some Spanish vessel which the silent ocean had engulfed, or from the
proceeds of the slaves the freebooters had landed at some rendezvous on
the shores of the West India Islands or on the American colonies, in
concert with the planters, whose profits were measured by the number
of Africans whom they could obtain to cultivate the soil on which they
had settled. “Your mariners,” remonstrated the Spanish ambassador with
Elizabeth, “rob my master’s ships on the sea, and trade where they are
forbidden to go; they plunder our people in the streets of your towns;
they attack our vessels in your very harbours, and take our prisoners
from them; your preachers insult my master from their pulpits, and when
we apply for justice we are answered with threats.”[132]
[Sidenote: They extend their operations.]
[Sidenote: 1568.]
[Sidenote: The third expedition of Sir John Hawkins.]
These freebooting expeditions continuing for some years practically
unchecked, Elizabeth at last felt uneasy for her relations with Spain.
Her attempts to suppress them, which were always languid, had been
laughed at and evaded. Though the Channel was less infested with
privateers than it had been at the commencement of her reign, or during
that of her immediate predecessors, they had extended and increased
their ravages on the ocean and in distant lands. With the Huguenots of
Rochelle, under Condé’s flag and with Condé’s commission, they had made
a prey of the property of Papists; and, like the crusaders of former
ages, had, on the plea of propagating and extending the Protestant
faith, plundered Papists wherever they could be found. But when Hawkins
(now Sir John Hawkins) prepared to fit out a third expedition, this
time on a much more extensive scale, the Spanish ambassador gave
notice to Elizabeth that unless it was prohibited serious consequences
would follow. Of course Sir John was reprimanded by the Council, and
enjoined to respect the laws which closed the ports of the Spanish
colonies against unlicensed traders. The reprimand, however, was but
an empty display of friendship to the king of Spain, made merely to
satisfy for the moment the demands of his ambassador. The slave trade
had proved much too profitable to be thus relinquished. It had become
a large source of profit to Elizabeth and many of her most influential
counsellors, and consequently Hawkins had no difficulty in persuading
her Majesty that he himself would not only be ruined if prevented from
sailing with the expedition he had equipped, but that the crews whom he
had engaged would be driven to misery and ready, therefore, to commit
acts of folly which might seriously injure her merchants and endanger
the well-being of her kingdom. “The voyage,” he promised, “would give
no offence to the least of her Highness’s allies and friends.... It
was only to lade negroes in Guinea, and sell them to the West Indies,
in truck for gold, pearls, and emeralds, whereof he doubted not but to
bring home great abundance, to the contention of her Highness, and the
benefit of the whole realm.”[133]
[Sidenote: departs, October 1567,]
His arguments, or it might be the greatness of the temptation, overcame
his sovereign’s scruples, and in October 1567, Hawkins sailed from
Plymouth with five well-appointed vessels, including the Queen’s ship,
the _Jesus_, which carried his flag, and among his crew was Francis
Drake, his kinsman, who afterwards became famous or infamous, as our
readers may interpret his career, in the maritime history of England.
[Sidenote: and secures extraordinary gains.]
The voyage was prosperous beyond Sir John’s most sanguine expectations.
At Sierra Leone he formed an alliance with an African tribe, then at
war with their neighbours; sacked a densely peopled town, was rewarded
with as many prisoners as his ships could carry; and, in the spring
of the following year, found himself among the Spanish settlements
conducting a business fully answering his most glittering hopes. Where
the ports were open he found an easy market for his slaves, and when
the governors resisted his attempts to open negotiations, he carried
his purpose by force of arms, for in either case the planters were
eager to deal with him. Ere the summer was over he had amassed a
very large sum of money[134] in bars of gold and silver, and other
commodities, materially enhanced by even more desperate and depraved
measures than that of slave dealing, as stray vessels, with valuable
property on board, too frequently became objects of his plunder.
[Sidenote: Attacked by a Spanish fleet and severely injured.]
Having suffered severely during a gale of wind, which he encountered
in the Gulf of Mexico, and finding also that the bottoms of his ships,
foul with sea-weed and barnacles, required cleaning, he put into St.
Jean d’Ulloa to refit; but the day after he entered a Spanish fleet
made its appearance at the mouth of the harbour, consisting of thirteen
men of war, the smallest of them larger than the _Jesus_; and though
Hawkins, if he had been on the open sea, might have managed to make his
escape from this very formidable force, it was sheer madness to seek
an engagement. “If he could,” remarks Froude,[135] “have made up his
mind to dispute the entrance of a Spanish admiral into one of his own
harbours, he believed that he could have saved himself, for the channel
was narrow and the enemy’s numbers would give him no advantage. But
neither his own nor Elizabeth’s ingenuity could have invented a pretext
for an act of such desperate insolence; at best he would be blockaded,
and, sooner or later, would have to run. The Spaniards passed in and
anchored close on board the Englishmen. For three days there was an
interchange of ambiguous courtesies. On the fourth, Philip’s admiral
had satisfied himself of Hawkins’ identity.” He had been commissioned
specially to look for him, “and by the laws of nations he was
unquestionably justified in treating the English commander as a pirate.”
The formality of summoning him to surrender was dispensed with. The
name of Hawkins had become so terrible, that the Spanish admiral dare
not give him any warning of his intentions. But, taking possession
of the mole during the night, and mounting batteries upon it, and
guns on every point of land where they could be brought to bear, the
Spaniards opened fire upon the _Jesus_ and her comrades. Though taken
by surprise, and while many of their boats’ crews were in the town,
“the English fought so desperately, that two of the largest of the
Spanish ships were sunk, and another set on fire.” The men on shore
forced their way on board to their companions, and, notwithstanding
the tremendous odds, the result of the action still seemed uncertain,
when the Spaniards sent down two fire ships, and then Hawkins saw that
all was over, and that vessels and treasures were lost. “The only hope
now,” continues Froude in his graphic description of the encounter,
“was to save the men. The survivers of them now crowded on board two
small tenders, one of fifty tons, the other rather larger, and leaving
the _Jesus_ and the other ships, the gold and silver bars, the negroes,
and their other spoils to burn or sink, they crawled out under the fire
of the mole, and gained the open sea. There their position scarcely
seemed less desperate. They were short of food and water. Their vessels
had suffered heavily under the fire; they were choked up with men,
and there was not a harbour on the western side of the Atlantic into
which they could venture to run; in this emergency a hundred seamen
volunteered to take their chance on shore, some leagues distant down
the coast, and after wandering miserably in the woods for a few days,
they were taken and carried as prisoners to Mexico. Hawkins and Drake
and the rest made sail for the English Channel, which, in due time, in
torn and wretched plight, they contrived to reach.”
[Sidenote: Reaches England in distress.]
Immediately on their arrival at Plymouth, Drake rode in all haste to
London with a schedule of the property of which he represented they had
been plundered by the Spaniards, and prayed that he and Sir John, and
his brother William Hawkins, might be allowed to make reprisals under
the commission which they held from the Prince of Condé. Relating what
had taken place in a way least prejudicial to themselves, Elizabeth,
smarting under the great loss she had sustained through the failure
of the expedition, listened eagerly to what they had to say, and
was prepared to meet their wishes after hearing from the Bishop of
Salisbury, whom she had consulted, that “God would be pleased to see
the Spaniards plundered”—a theory which too generally then prevailed
among all ranks of Protestants.
[Sidenote: Prevails on the Queen to make reprisals.]
[Sidenote: Questionable conduct of Elizabeth.]
It was, however, no easy matter to accomplish. It would have been too
monstrous an outrage to have openly seized any of the rich Spanish
vessels which then lay in her ports, or to have fitted out a fleet
for Hawkins, granting him liberty to plunder as many of them as he
could catch in the Channel. Some other means must be devised as there
was not sufficient pretext for wanton violence. It required grave
consideration, for it would expose the Queen’s government to reproach
if any of the subjects of her “good ally” king Philip suffered wrong in
English waters. While hesitating what to do, some English privateers,
sailing under the flag of the Prince of Orange, and holding his letter
of marque, brought into Plymouth Spanish and Portuguese prizes,
with treasure on board said to be worth 200,000 ducats. The Spanish
ambassador lodged a complaint with Elizabeth, and expressed his alarm
for the safety of the large amount of treasure which was on board these
vessels. Here an excellent opportunity presented itself for obtaining
the recompense to which she considered herself entitled. With many
expressions of regret for the insecurity of the seas, she offered
either to convey the treasure by land to London and to transport
it thence, or to permit the Duke of Alva, then in the Netherlands
endeavouring to suppress the rebellion, to take it in his own ships to
its destination. The ambassador, not without misgivings, accepted the
latter alternative; nor, indeed, were his fears groundless. Elizabeth
landed the treasure under the plea that “the audacity of the pirates”
had rendered it necessary that she should keep it on shore under her
own charge, as it would have been unsafe at sea even under convoy of
her own fleets.
[Sidenote: Vigorous action of the Spanish ambassador.]
The Spanish ambassador was amazed. He could not suppress his
astonishment; but, when he urged that the money was required
immediately for the payment of his master’s troops, Elizabeth simply
pleaded the insecurity of transport, remarking that she would keep it
in perfect safety, though afterwards admitting that, as she was in
want of money, her vigorous government had retained it “as a loan.”
No sooner had the ambassador ascertained that this “loan” was to be
appropriated, one half in doubling the English fleet, and the other
in enabling the Prince of Orange to raise a second army against Alva,
than he drew up a statement of the circumstances in Spanish and English
for circulation in the city of London, and despatched his secretary
in a swift boat to urge Alva to immediate reprisals. As the English
trade with Flanders, though less than what it had been, was still a
considerable source of the wealth of the London merchants, the Spanish
ambassador hoped that they would join him in his protest and force the
Queen to reimburse the treasure she had so unceremoniously retained for
her own purposes. The Duke of Alva acted on the instant by arresting
every English resident in the Low Countries, seizing such English ships
as were in its ports, sequestering their cargoes, and imprisoning their
crews; while couriers rode post haste across France to Spain, so that
Philip might extend the embargo to every port within his dominions
before the English had time to depart.
[Sidenote: Prompt retaliation.]
Elizabeth had hoped that her frivolous excuse for seizing the treasure
would be accepted: at least she had no idea that such prompt reprisals
would have been made; but, though the shock was great, she had taken
a step from which, after the reprisals by Spain, she felt she could
not at the time retreat. Forthwith a retaliating edict of the most
stringent character appeared, ordering the immediate imprisonment of
every Spaniard and Netherlander found in England, and the arrest of
every vessel in her ports or in the Channel owned by any of Philip’s
subjects. That very night the mayor and aldermen of the city of London
went round to the houses of all the Spanish merchants, sealed up their
warehouses, and carried them off from their beds to the Fleet prison.
Even without Philip’s treasure the value of the Spanish and Flemish
goods thus detained far exceeded the confiscation of Alva.[136] But the
suppression of trade which these acts created caused great discontent
in London, and there were many persons in England, especially among the
old aristocracy, who felt that Elizabeth’s conduct had been far from
creditable, and was a gross affront to her professed friend and ally,
the king of Spain.
[Sidenote: Injury to English trade less than might have been supposed.]
The injury to English trade proved, however, less complete than the
Spanish minister had anticipated. An eventual open rupture with Spain
had long been foreseen and prepared for. But changes in the course
of commerce were made with greater ease than he had calculated upon.
Fresh openings of ports in the Baltic afforded new facilities for
intercourse; and Hamburg readily took the place of Antwerp as the
mart through which English goods could be carried into Germany. The
merchants of London had also found new and more distant fields for
their enterprise. They had pushed their way to Moscow, penetrated
to Persia, and had opened out, by way of the Straits of Gibraltar,
direct commercial intercourse with Constantinople and Alexandria,
the ancient centres of the commerce of the world, and even with the
Catholic state of Venice. Rochelle supplied the best wines and fruits
of France; while its privateers intercepted the vessels sailing from
the Catholic harbours, and their cargoes lay ready for export in the
Huguenot storehouses. English spirit and energy having converted the
loss feared by an exclusion from the Spanish and Flemish trades into
gain, Elizabeth and her ministers became even more imperative in
their demands. Alva, who had come to England to arrange, if possible,
terms of conciliation and renewed intercourse, was informed that, if
relations between Spain and England were to be re-established, the
king himself must send a direct commission for that purpose; and, as
a proof of Elizabeth’s determination to maintain the position she had
taken in this affair, the ships which escorted Alva back to Dunkirk
actually cut out from Calais roads a dozen rich Spanish merchantmen,
and sent them to the Thames.
[Sidenote: Hatred of the Catholics.]
Whenever a ship could be found with a Catholic owner she was plundered
by the English rovers. In harbour, in the Channel, or on the open sea,
they became alike objects of their eager prey. While some of these
freebooters were content to lie in wait for such vessels as contained
Flemish prisoners whom they would set at liberty, others resolutely
entered Spanish ports to rescue the English vessels, crews, and cargoes
which had been detained in them. But their patriotism, like their
religious enthusiasm, was ever blended with a love of plunder, for
they invariably helped themselves to any valuables they came across
in their cruises by land or by sea. To the yet deeper distress of
Philip, the houses of the largest Spanish merchants in London were not
merely searched and ransacked by Elizabeth’s police, but the plundered
furniture of his chapel, the crucifixes and the images of the saints
were borne in mock procession through the streets, and burnt in
Cheapside amid the jeers of the populace, who cried as they saw them
blazing, “These are the gods of Spain—to the flames with them and their
worshippers.”[137]
[Sidenote: Increase of the privateers, 1570.]
[Sidenote: Their desperate acts.]
While such insults were of too frequent occurrence on shore, the
agressions of the privateers had rather increased than diminished
in the Channel. Elizabeth felt that, for the safety of the kingdom
against invasion, she must chiefly depend on the force which could
be maintained in the immediate neighbourhood of her own shores, and
that it was quite as safe, and much more economical, to encourage
the voluntary action of her subjects than to rely entirely upon a
royal standing navy. Throughout the whole of the English coast, and
especially in the Channel ports, the sea-going population regarded
Papists generally as their natural enemies and their legitimate prey.
Between forty and fifty vessels, corsairs or privateers, for the
difference was not easily discernible, held the coast from Dover to
Penzance. The English, French, or Flemish seamen, of whom their crews
were promiscuously composed, were united by a common creed and a common
pursuit. At one time they sailed under a commission from the Prince
of Orange; at another under one from the Queen of Navarre. In every
English harbour they had abundant stores ready for their use. Prizes
were brought in almost every day to Dover, Southampton, or Plymouth and
other western ports, where the cargoes were openly sold and the vessels
refitted and armed. At times their acts were of the most desperate
character: thus, three ships with valuable cargoes from Flanders, bound
to a port in Spain, were captured outside the Goodwins, and, because
they had stoutly resisted these privateers or pirates, the crews were
ruthlessly flung into the sea, and left to perish before the eyes of
their murderers.
[Sidenote: 1572.]
When, somewhat later, the Spanish people heard that Hawkins was fitting
out a squadron to cruise for the gold fleet, they were furious, and
were roused to the highest pitch of anger. Philip, however, still
lagged behind his subjects. A war with England would have been then
a serious matter; he knew that in any such emergency France would
send an army over the Rhine and revolutionise the Netherlands. He was
therefore obliged to endure these continued insults and the piratical
depredations upon the ships and merchandise of his subjects. It was
the lesser of two evils. Encouraged by the richness of the spoils and
the impunity with which the capture of Spanish property could be made,
the English merchants and sailors were tempted to such an extent from
their legitimate trade by the more exciting and far more lucrative
occupation of bucaneering, that in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth’s
reign the burden of all the vessels in the kingdom which were engaged
in ordinary commerce scarcely exceeded fifty thousand tons.[138] The
largest merchantman which then sailed from the port of London was only
two hundred and forty tons register. Indeed, one hundred and fifty
vessels of all kinds, most of them small coasters, comprised the whole
fleet engaged in lawful commerce from the harbours of Cornwall and
Devonshire; but so numerous were the pirates that no unarmed ship in
the Channel worthy of their notice could escape from their clutches.
Nor did they confine themselves to depredations at sea. Some of the
crews of the more daring cruisers harassed the Spanish coast, sacking
villages, plundering mansions, pilfering churches and convents, and
had, moreover, the audacity to drink success to piracy out of the
silver sacramental vessels which they had stolen. If not in all cases
furnished with the Queen’s letter to “burn, plunder, and destroy,”
they too frequently exercised that calling; and if ever England was
justified in claiming the “Dominion of the Narrow Seas,” she had at no
period of her history greater claims to it than when these freebooters,
in vessels of every kind, poured forth from her ports, and scoured the
English Channel like a flock of locusts—an eternal disgrace to the
name they bore, and to the flag under which they had been launched for
peaceful purposes upon the ocean.
FOOTNOTES:
[97] Froude’s ‘History of England,’ vol. iii. p. 248.
[98] Froude’s ‘History of England,’ vol. iii. p. 250, _et seq._
[99] State Papers, vol. i. p. 828.
[100] Macpherson states that the name of the _Great Harry_ was first
given to the _Lion_, a Scotch ship belonging to Andrew Barton, which
was taken by Lord Edward Howard in 1511 (vol. ii. p. 39).
[101] Mr. Spedding, in his elaborate edition of Lord Bacon’s works,
has given this plate (reduced) as the title-page of his second volume;
and in editing Lord Bacon’s paper entitled ‘The History of the Winds,’
has suggested that Bacon, when speaking of a ship “of 1200 tons,” must
have had in his mind either this ship or the _Prince Royal_, which was
built in 1610 by Phineas Pett of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (vol. v.
p. 79). The whole of Bacon’s short treatise, and his details about the
masts, sails, and rigging of large ships, is most interesting. See
also Appendix No. 4: ‘Furniture of the _Harry Grace à Dieu_,’ Pepys’
Library, Cambridge.
[102] Appendix, No. 4, 5.
[103] See also Macpherson, vol. ii. p. 42.
[104] 30,000_l._ Scots, estimated by the quantity of silver in the
coins, was equivalent to about 50,000_l._ present value.
[105] The _Great Michael_ was afterwards sold to the king of France.
[106] From the middle of the thirteenth to the close of the sixteenth
century, wheat, which has always, in a greater or less degree,
regulated the price of all other commodities, averaged about seven
shillings the quarter; sometimes, however, reaching twenty shillings,
and at other times sinking as low as eighteenpence the quarter. When
the price was above the average, importation was allowed (3 Edw. IV.
ch. 2); when below, exportation to foreign markets might be made (10
Hen. VI. ch. 1). By an Act of Henry VIII. the price of beef and pork
was fixed at one halfpenny a pound, and mutton at three farthings. Fat
oxen realised twenty-six shillings each, fat wethers three shillings
and fourpence, and fat lambs twelvepence a piece. The best description
of beer sold for one penny a gallon, while table-beer could be had for
half that price. Spanish and Portuguese wines were sold at a shilling
the gallon, but French and German sold for eighteenpence. These were
the highest prices which could be obtained by the law, which in those
days regulated all such matters; and if any fault was discovered in
either the quality or the quantity, the dealers were punished by fine
equivalent to four times the value of the wine which had been sold (28
Hen. VIII. ch. 14). These prices would appear ridiculously low were it
not that, owing to the subsequent increase of the value of money, a
penny then would purchase as much wine or beer as a shilling would now.
[107] Macpherson, ii. p. 70.
[108] Froude’s ‘History of England,’ vol. i. p. 52, etc.
[109] 27 Henry VIII. cap. 25, and Macpherson ii. p. 85.
[110] The _spirit_ of the “Trades Unions” of the present day is almost
as exclusive as anything in the Middle Ages.
[111] 2 & 3 of Philip and Mary, cap. 11.
[112] Macpherson (under A.D. 1544) notices a similar case on the part
of the makers of coverlets at York (ii. p. 92).
[113] Harleian MSS. 660. See also, for debasement of the currency in
the later years of Henry VIII., Hawkins’ ‘Silver Coins of England.’
Lond., 1841.
[114] Froude, Harleian MSS. 660.
[115] Burnet.
[116] MS. Domestic, Ed. VI.
[117] Froude, vol. v. p. 349.
[118] Domestic MSS., reign of Elizabeth.
[119] An organised system of smuggling, only less desperate in the way
in which it was carried out, prevailed along the west coast of Sussex
in 1826-1831.
[120] Froude, vol. viii. chap. xii. To this petition there was attached
the following curious addition:—“Long peace, such as it is by force
of the Spanish Inquisition, becometh to England more hurtful than
open war. It is the secret and determined policy of Spain to destroy
the English fleets and pilots, masters and sailors, by means of the
Inquisition. The Spanish king pretends that he dare not offend the Holy
House, while it is said in England we may not proclaim war against
Spain for the revenge of a few, forgetting that a good war may end all
these mischiefs. Not long since, the Spanish Inquisition executed sixty
persons of St. Malo in France notwithstanding an entreaty to the king
of Spain to stay them. Whereupon the Frenchmen armed and manned forth
their pinnaces, and lay in wait for the Spaniards, and took a hundred
and beheaded them, sending the Spanish ships to the shore with the
heads, leaving in each ship only one man to relate the cause of the
revenge, since which time the Spanish Inquisition has never meddled
with those of St. Malo.”
[121] Froude, vol. viii. p. 447.
[122] In the midst of such terrible outrages it is surprising how peace
with Spain was so long maintained, and this can only be accounted
for by the strong religious feeling which then prevailed to such an
extent among the people of both countries, that their governments,
even if they had the power and inclination, do not seem to have used
sufficient vigour in suppressing their individual revenge and love
of plunder. Numerous vessels cleared from the ports of England and
France to prey upon Spanish, Portuguese, and any other Papists whom
they might encounter; and although their acts were not formally
recognised by Elizabeth, the officers of customs were not restrained
from supplying them with stores, arms, ammunition, and, indeed, with
whatever they required for their lawless exploits. In December 1562 one
of these piratical rovers, commanded by Jacques le Clerc, called by the
Spaniards Pié de Pálo (“Timber leg”), sailed from Havre, and captured
a Portuguese vessel worth forty thousand ducats, as well as a Biscayan
ship laden with iron and wool, and afterwards chased another “Papist”
ship into Falmouth, where he fired into her and drove her on shore.
The captain of the Spaniard appealed for protection to the governor of
Pendennis, but the governor replied that the privateer was properly
commissioned, and that without special orders from the Queen he could
not interfere. Pié de Pálo then took possession of her as a prize, and
afterwards anchored under the shelter of Pendennis, waiting for further
good fortune. As it was the depth of winter, and the weather being
unsettled, five Portuguese ships, a few days later, were driven in for
shelter. Ascertaining the insecurity of their position, they attempted
to escape to sea again, but Pié de Pálo dashed after them and seized
two out of the five, which he brought back as prizes.—Froude, vol.
viii. pp. 450, 451.
[123] Flanders MSS., Rolls House.
[124] Flanders MSS., Rolls House.
[125] Sir Peter Carew to the Council, April 17, 1565, MSS. Domestic,
Eliz., vol. xxxvi.
[126] Council Register, August 1565.
[127] Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 594; first voyage of Mr. John Hawkins.
Macpherson thinks that this expedition was the first English slaving
cruise (ii. p. 135).
[128] Da Silva to Philip, Nov. 5, 1563, MS. Simancas.
[129] So called from the port whence she had been purchased by Queen
Elizabeth.—Macpherson, ii. 140.
[130] Froude, vol. viii. p. 474.
[131] These expeditions usually consisted of from two to four vessels,
ranging from sixty-five to two hundred and fifty tons register each;
and one or two pinnaces for the purpose of navigating shallow waters,
ascending rivers and creeks, landing and shipping cargo, and so forth.
They were, as a rule, fitted out and armed, ostensibly for protection,
by a number of adventurers, who, having associated themselves together
for the purpose, either chartered the requisite number of vessels, or
found the capital to purchase and equip them for sea, the capital being
divided into shares. Of these the person in charge of the expedition
and the masters of the vessels generally held a considerable number. In
a few instances, especially when the expedition consisted of only one
vessel and a pinnace, the captain himself was the sole owner of ship
and cargo. The rendezvous of these vessels after sailing from England
was either Madeira or the Cape Verde Islands, whence they sailed
wherever profit or plunder guided their course. Their profits in some
instances were enormous.
[132] Froude, Da Silva to Elizabeth, October 6, 1567, Spanish MSS.,
Rolls House.
[133] Sir John Hawkins to Elizabeth, Sept. 15, 1567, Domestic MSS.,
Rolls House.
[134] The sum has been estimated at no less than one million of pounds
sterling.
[135] Froude’s ‘History of England,’ vol. ix. p. 360.
[136] Froude, vol. ix. p. 370, _et seq._; and Macpherson, ii. p. 146.
[137] Froude, vol. ix. p. 430.
[138] Domestic MSS., 1572.