THE NAVY UNDER CHARLES II
AUTHORITIES.--The Duke of York's "General Instructions" and "Orders,"
together with the "Oeconomy of the Navy Office," give us the form
and theory of the government of the Navy. The inestimable Pepys gives
the spirit and the manner of the execution. The Calendars of State
Papers supply the orders to officers abroad, and their reports.
Clarendon's memoirs of his own administration tell the history of the
outbreak of the war from the English side, while M. Pontalis sums up
the Dutch story with all the lucidity, thoroughness, and criticism of
the modern French historical school.
Three reigns of English kings stand out as of exceptional interest in
the history of the Royal Navy. King John's, for in it we first find
a fixed sea force, and the intelligent use of the power it supplies.
King Henry VIII. comes next, and to him belongs the credit of framing
a regular administration. In the reign of Charles II. the work of his
predecessors was completed. The government, or, to employ the phrase
of the time, the "Oeconomy," of the navy was finally established as
it was destined to remain. Succeeding rulers might have to fill up and
perfect, but, except in details, the navy became, under this king,
what it was destined to continue to be through a century and a half
of war and glory. The defects of Charles's character have, perhaps
justly, made posterity somewhat unfair to him. He took the base view
of his office, that it was an estate to be enjoyed. There is an almost
touching candour in his complaint to Clarendon that his subjects spoke
evilly of Barbara Palmer and her like, instead of imitating the French,
who had a becoming respect for the ladies whom the king delighted to
honour. To Charles it appeared to be a truth so manifest as to require
no demonstration that his kingdom was given him for his pleasure, and
that his subjects were to be expected to revere his amusements. In so
far Charles set a ruinous example, for his servants regarded their
offices as he did his crown. Yet the king was intelligent, knew what
ought to be done, was willing to give orders that it should be done,
and to approve of those who worked well for him. His fatal defect was
that he could never make that sacrifice of his ease which was necessary
if he was really to govern. Therefore, though many excellent measures
had his approval, they were commonly carried out detestably.
The main instrument of King Charles's government of his navy was his
brother James, Duke of York, who shared his own character, though
with a much duller intelligence and a far less genial disposition.
The duke had been destined for the office of Lord High Admiral from
his boyhood. During the exile of the Royal House he had for a time
made way for Prince Rupert, but he came into his inheritance with the
Restoration. Acting with the approval and support of the king, the
duke did a great work for the navy. The whole code by which it was
administered on shore, or sailed and fought at sea, during succeeding
generations, was outlined by the various orders of the Duke of York.
To a great extent, no doubt, the merits of the king and his brother
may be said to have been forced upon them. The time was past when the
navy could be treated as a mere collection of ships which might for the
most part lie idle, save in war, or when in peace a minute winter and
summer guard divided its time between escorting ambassadors, and giving
a languid chase to pirates on the coasts of Great Britain. The growth
of commerce, and still more the increased expectation on the part of
subjects that they were to be continually protected in their commerce,
made the maintenance of a permanent force on a large scale necessary.
The Long Parliament and Cromwell had accustomed the country to ten
times more than it had ever received from James I. or Charles I. The
restored monarchy could not safely do much less. With the necessity for
a permanent force came the need for a regular corps of sea officers,
and a great development in the dockyards. But it does not detract
from the credit due to the king and his brother that they did what was
necessary. On the contrary, it is their highest praise. They could not
possibly have had the kind of glory which belongs to Louis XIV. and
Colbert. A French ruler and his minister might create a navy for a
definite political purpose, where none existed, and where none would
ever have come into being without their fostering. The English Navy had
grown out of the needs and with the strength of the nation. It needed
only to be shaped, not built up from the foundations.
In another respect the reign of Charles is an epoch in naval history.
The Royalists might endeavour to restore the ancient framework of
government, and in show they had a great measure of success. But
the monarchy which came back with Charles II. was a very different
thing from the monarchy which perished with Charles I. It had not the
same sanctity. The Royalists might read Filmer, and preach passive
obedience, and talk of Divine Right, but their professions were at
the outside the rhetoric of a party. In Parliament they themselves
were far from disposed to approach the king with the humble deference
their fathers had shown to Elizabeth, and even James. They were
resolved to intermeddle, to control, to have a direct influence on the
administration. They spoke out bold and sharp when they were angry.
Parliament, in fact, would not pay the doctrine, that it was a merely
consultative body, the honour of refutation by argument. However the
high Royalist party might talk, the Peers or the Commons brushed all
theories summarily aside in moments of passion, and insisted on making
their real power felt in the direct control of the administration.
When the Duke of York hoisted his flag as Lord High Admiral at
Schevening in 1660, and escorted his brother back, the materials
forming the Navy of England were in existence. There were the ships,
the dockyards on the river and at Portsmouth, and there were the
officers and crews, and a staff of workmen. What remained to be done
was to establish a permanent code of regulations, and to organise a
regular corps of sea officers. This second part of the duke's duty was
encumbered by a difficulty arising out of the Civil War. The whole body
of the men in command of the ships had been the servants of Oliver
Cromwell. The lower ranks of officers were particularly suspected of
dangerous principles. Yet the monarchy could not afford to dispense
with these men altogether. The few seamen who had followed the fortunes
of the king and Prince Rupert were not numerous enough to supply the
staff of a great fleet, while many of them had lost their experience,
and had been injured in character by the debauchery which had been one
of the main resources of the exiles in idleness. The Crown, therefore,
was compelled to overlook the antecedents of the existing body of
admirals and captains, and to pick out from them those who were the
least likely to prove "factious." Not a few of these men had given
serious guarantees to the Crown. Penn had offered his services before
sailing to Jamaica in 1654. Montagu and Lawson had taken an active
share in the restoration of the king. We may credit them with an honest
conversion to the belief that the choice for England lay between
anarchy and the House of Stuart. We know from Pepys that Montagu can
have had little of what the Cavalier understood by loyalty. He told
his humble kinsman, during the period of confusion which preceded the
Conference at Breda, that the king would probably be restored, but
that unless he minded his manners he would not last long. This was not
the spirit of Sir John Berkeley or Lord Byron. But it may be taken to
represent pretty fairly the view of the average sensible man, in whom
whatever religious and political opinions he might have were modified
by a regard for his own interest. With few exceptions, the leaders of
the fleet were quite as ready as Montagu to serve the king. A few were
set aside as too Puritan to be trustworthy, and among them was Goodson,
who had done such honourable service in the conquest of Jamaica. A
selection was made among the others of men who might be relied on, and
they were bound to the king's service by a retaining fee. These men
were, properly speaking, the beginnings of the corps of naval officers.
They formed a service permanently employed by the king, and had
recognised rights to continue in pay, not only when actually at sea,
but when on shore.
The growth of the navy, and the certainty that in future a large
permanent force would be required, must of themselves have convinced
the king and his brother of the necessity for providing some way of
recruiting this body by trustworthy men as vacancies occurred. It was
no longer possible to wait until war arose, and then provide for the
command of ships by appointing gentlemen and merchant skippers. The way
in which the necessary means were provided is eminently characteristic
of that practical use of expedients by which almost every part of our
administration has been built up. When a similar necessity was seen
by Louis XIV. and his minister Colbert, they met it by establishing
the corps known in the French Navy as the Gardes de la Marine--young
gentlemen who were to be educated in a school set aside for the
purpose. The Duke of York took a very different course, described by
himself in a letter to Sir Richard Stayner.
"Sir Richard Stayner,--His Royal Highness being desirous to give
Encouragement to such young Gentlemen as are willing to apply
themselves to the learning of Navigation, and fitting themselves to
the Service of the Sea, hath determined, that one Volunteer shall be
entered on every Ship now going forth; and for his Encouragement,
that he shall have the Pay of a Midshipman, and one Midshipman less
be borne on the Ship: In prosecution of this Resolution, I am to
recommend to you the Bearer Mr. Tho. Darcy; and to desire you that you
would receive him according to the Intentions of His Royal Highness,
as I have acquainted you; and that you would shew him such kindness,
as you shall judge fit for a Gentleman, both in the accommodating
him in your Ship, and in farthering his Improvement.--I am, Your
affectionate Friend,
W. Coventry.
_May 7, 1661._"
Mr. Thomas Darcy was, in the modern sense of the word, the first
midshipman in the English Navy. The title had hitherto been given to
a petty officer serving under the boatswain, and it even continued
to be used in that sense for some time. By the duke's own orders,
nobody was to be rated a midshipman who had not served seven years
at sea. There does not seem to have been any intention that the
young gentlemen who were sent in the squadron with Stayner to apply
themselves to the learning of navigation, and fit themselves to the
service of the sea, were to be known by the name. It was purely by use
and wont that midshipmen came to be the title of the young gentlemen
who were in training to make officers, and ceased to be applied as had
heretofore been the case. This appointment completed the foundation
of the corps of naval officers. Young gentlemen sent on board ship
in this way were known as King's Letter boys, and it was understood
that they were qualifying for the rank of lieutenant, though they
never were allowed to possess the right to demand it. When this modest
little expedient is compared with the imposing establishment of the
French king, it looks humble enough, yet it may, when judged by the
results, well be considered the wiser method of the two. The French
naval officers of the end of the seventeenth and the whole of the
eighteenth century were more book-learned than ours, more cultivated
men, much more addicted to the scientific side of their profession
and to writing books, but they were far less efficient as practical
seamen. Moreover, they formed a close corporation which had a strong
moral if not legal claim to the exclusive right to command the king's
ships. Such a body was very jealous, and even very selfish. It was
capable of sacrificing the interests of the country to the protection
of its own privileges. On the other hand, the English naval officer
was commonly, in the ordinary sense of the word, ignorant, but he was
thoroughly broken to the sea life, and, if he did not write about his
business, he knew it. Moreover, lads who were sent into a ship simply
to learn, and had no claim to promotion as a matter of right, were
not likely to grow up with the exclusive class jealousy of the French
officer. It must be remembered that the King's Letter boy only differed
from other boys in the manner of his entry into the ship, and because
he was to be treated on the footing of a gentleman. His right to be
promoted depended, not on his King's Letter, but on the amount of his
service and on his capacity to prove himself fit for promotion. Any
other member of the crew who had done the service and possessed the
necessary qualifications was equally capable of receiving the king's
commission. In practice, no doubt, the lad who had sufficient interest
to obtain the King's Letter was more likely to have the interest to
secure promotion than another. In practice, too, the service needed to
qualify for the rank of lieutenant was sometimes given more in show
than reality. The corruption and favouritism of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries allowed of many abuses. One of these was the habit
of permitting the names of lads to be borne on ships' books while they
themselves were at school or in the nursery; but this is only one of
the innumerable instances in which fact and theory failed to square,
and, however ill the original scheme was carried out, the intention of
the Duke of York was secured in essentials. It came to be understood
that nobody could be an officer in the English Navy who had not served
an apprenticeship in a king's ship, and that, when once an officer,
he was regularly in the service of the king. No doubt this could not
be done at once. During early years, and before a sufficient number
of apprentices had been trained, it was necessary to continue the old
practice of appointing men from the outside. Here, as is so often the
case, the old overlapped the new, but the foundations had been laid,
and it is perfectly accurate to say that the British naval officer, in
the modern sense of the word, dates from the reign of Charles II.
There was nothing accidental in the decision of the Duke of York.
We know again from Pepys, that in the early days of the duke's
administration there was much talk of breeding men to the sea, and
making the sea service as honourable as the land. The appointment of
Darcy was undoubtedly decided on with this very intention, and the
subsequent history of the Royal Navy may be held to show that the duke
builded better than he knew. It was long before his work was complete.
Half-pay, that is, payment when not on active service, was first given
in 1668 to a limited number of flag-officers. Other ranks only got
it by degrees. But the principle was established. When once a king's
officer was in the king's service for life, it followed that he had
a claim to support when not employed. Before the reign of Charles II.
no such right had been recognised, therefore there was then no regular
service.
Another change, which had become a sheer matter of necessity, was
the establishment of a permanent code of discipline. Hitherto each
admiral, on being appointed to his office, had issued his own set of
regulations. By use and wont there had arisen what was called "the
Custom of the Sea." What remained to be done was to give expression
to this custom, with the needful improvements and developments, in a
statute, if that name can be applied to a set of orders promulgated by
an administrative and not a legislative authority. Mention has been
already made of "The Laws of War and Ordinances of the Sea, Ordered and
Established by the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England" in 1652.
This may, in a way, be said to be the first rough draft of the Queen's
Regulations and Admiralty's Instructions. Oddly enough, the code is
in thirty-nine Articles, a number which one would think a Puritan
Parliament would be likely to avoid. A great part of it deals less with
discipline and the duties of officers and men than with exhortations to
fight well and prohibitions against holding relations with the enemy,
or with "malignants." It is, however, explicit on two points: first, on
the course to be taken with prizes, and then on the duties of captains
engaged in convoying merchant ships. The prizes are not to be pillaged,
and the captains engaged on convoy duty are ordered to protect the
merchant ships, and to abstain from making profits for themselves.
Valour against the enemy and obedience to command are enforced in
repeated clauses, and the majority of them end with this formula, or
some variation of it: "upon pain of death or such other punishment as
the offence may deserve."
When the Duke of York drafted his own orders for the general
maintenance of discipline, he no doubt had the Parliament's laws
and ordinances before him. Some of its phrases were adopted, and
one of them continued in use into this century--that, namely, which
forbids unlawful and rash oaths, cursings, execrations, drunkenness,
uncleanness, and other scandalous acts in derogation of God's honour
and corruption of good manners. But there was much in the document
drawn up by the Parliament which would have been out of place in
the duke's instructions. Moreover, it was so much more a general
exhortation to good discipline and hard fighting than a body of
regulations, that the larger part of it was dropped. The Duke of York
himself issued two sets of orders, which were meant to go together and
complete one another. The first contains the "general instructions"
addressed to each captain, and consists of forty-four Articles. The
second is headed, "Orders Established for the well governing of His
Majesty's Ships, and Preservation of good order among the respective
Commanders, Officers, and Seamen serving His Majesty in the same."
The general instructions are calculated to produce a somewhat
unfavourable impression of the moral qualities both of the ships'
companies and the workmen in the dockyard. From first to last the
captain is instructed to be constantly on watch against those who will
defraud the king if they can, and is threatened with dire consequences
if he is himself guilty of fraud. The forty-third Article addresses
him in language which would be considered now highly insulting to any
gentleman. He is told that when his ship is paid off, he shall not
have any part of his pay till the principal officers of the navy are
persuaded of his honesty; and there is a rider to the effect that
if his misdeeds escaped detection at the time, and were afterwards
discovered, the duke will take care that he is duly punished. To judge
from these instructions, what the Government was chiefly anxious to
secure in the case of a captain was, that he would go early to his
ship, leave her as little as possible, and be vigilant in putting
a stop to that practice of defrauding the king which "has become a
frequent (though insufferable) abuse." There is something almost
pathetic in the indignant "though insufferable" which breaks into the
wording of this clause. Other Articles throw a light on the discipline
and organisation of the time. Thus, Article XV. orders the captain to
rate no man A.B. until he has had five years' sea service, and no man
a midshipman who has not had seven, and is able to navigate, except
by special orders. The exception provides for the case of Mr. Thomas
Darcy and others. By Article XXII. he is ordered to demand the salute
within the four seas, and under no condition to give a salute anywhere
unless he is sure it will be returned. Article XXXIX. is particularly
valuable, because it tells us what was then considered the training
required to form a seaman gunner. The captain is told to take care
"that for the first month the men be exercised twice a week, to the
end that they may become good firemen, allowing six shots for every
exercising. That the second month they be exercised once every week,
and after that only once in two months, allowing six shots to every
exercising." This does not necessarily mean that the men were not
exercised at the guns except when they were firing at the target. By
Article XL. we learn that there were many complaints that captains
carry merchandise. This they were forbidden to do, unless it be "gold,
silver, or jewels." A great deal is heard of this complaint and this
regulation during the reign of Charles and his brother. There will be
occasion to come back to it, for the purpose of showing how ill and how
little it was obeyed.
"The Orders Established for the well governing of His Majesty's Ships"
are but ten in number. They are a series of rapid prohibitions of
such offences as swearing (this was a dead letter), drunkenness (very
partially obeyed), sleeping on watch, breaking leave, and so forth.
It is noteworthy that the penalty attached is in most cases loss of
pay. There are, however, exceptions. First, Article III. declares that
if any man receiving the pay of a seaman, or less, is found guilty
of telling a lie, he shall be hoisted to the forebrace with a shovel
and broom tied to his back, and the crew shall cry, "A liar, a liar!"
Flogging, which was afterwards so common in the navy, is only mentioned
once in Article VIII., as the punishment due, according to the Custom
of the Sea, for certain dirty acts, which are specified with an
explicitness of language impossible to quote.
Alongside of the organisation of a regular service and the establishing
of a code of discipline there was much other work to be done. The first
and the most important was to settle the system of administration
in the civil branches and the dockyards. During the Commonwealth
and Protectorate the navy had been governed by Commissioners of the
Admiralty, a Commission for discharging the office of Lord High Admiral
at sea, and by other Commissioners for executing the duties of the Navy
Office. With the Restoration there was an inevitable desire to restore
the old prevailing system of the monarchy. The duke took his office as
Lord High Admiral and gathered all its power into his own hands. At the
same time, the Navy Office was replaced on the old footing, with one
significant change. Two Commissioners were added to the Navy Board,
John, Lord Berkeley, and Penn, with general powers of supervision
and control. Sir W. Coventry, who was also Secretary to the Duke of
York, was added as a third Commissioner in 1662. There were also
Commissioners of Dockyards at Chatham, Harwich (a post suppressed in
1668), and Portsmouth who did not belong to the Board. During the first
days of his rule the duke was compelled by necessity to go on with the
machinery left him by Cromwell. Until the arrears of the navy were paid
off, no new start could be made. So soon as this was done, the duke
re-established the old order. The regulations which he issued were not
in the main new, but were a repetition of those promulgated by the
Earl of Northumberland when he was made Lord High Admiral in 1638. The
duke prefixed to them a letter which is of considerable interest. From
it we learn that the necessity for removing from the navy officers of
dangerous principles and replacing them by new men had introduced many
into the king's ships who were incompetent. The officers were therefore
ordered to get reports from the captains as to the conduct of their
subordinates, in order that those who were shown to be unfit might be
removed. Then follows the body of the orders. Although they made a very
small book when published under the name of the "Oeconomy of the
Navy Office" in 1717, they are longer than they need have been if mere
repetition had been avoided, and a more businesslike arrangement had
been adopted. The officers are first to do everything jointly and then
to do it separately, and many of the articles are but echoes of one
another. As these orders are but a re-issue of Northumberland's, they
contain no notice of the functions of the two Commissioners, but we
learn from them at great length and very explicitly what the functions
of the Treasurer, Surveyor, Comptroller, and Clerk of the Acts were
and continued to be until the reorganisation carried out by Sir James
Graham. The introduction which is addressed to the Board as a whole is
minute, but the essential clause of it is the XVIIIth. It instructs
them that they are to watch and check one another, "and so all may
inspect each other's actions by their general power as officers, there
being no difference in their trust, though otherwise a distinction in
their places and particular duties and employments." What they were to
check and inspect will be best shown by the functions of each officer,
but it must be understood that whatever any head of a department could
do in his own place, all could do in any department for the general
service.
The first of these officers in dignity was the Treasurer of the Navy.
As his name shows, he was responsible for the financial management. It
was his duty to make a statement of accounts for others to pass--that
is to say, to accept as accurate in so far as their own departments
were concerned. It was he who solicited for "Privy Seals"; in other
words, he drew the money from the Lord High Treasurer. He made a yearly
report to the Lord High Admiral of the state of all the departments
in the navy. He was forbidden to pay bills by which the king or the
party to whom the same was due might be "damnified," and he was ordered
to be present at all payments and to charge himself fairly with all
abatements, etc.
The officer who ought to be named next, though he comes third in the
"Oeconomy of the Navy," is the Surveyor. It was his business to make
an estimate at the end of each year of the stores needed for the next;
to report to the Lord High Admiral on the state of the ships; to take
care by himself or his "instruments" that all stores be right as to
price and quality; to keep an account of all loans of stores issued
out of the usual course on sudden need or private service; to charge
and discharge all boatswains--that is to say, to debit them with all
stores issued to ships, and to credit them with all stores properly
used. At the end of every year he was instructed to ask his brother
officers to inspect his trust--or, in more modern phrase, to certify he
had done his work properly. He was to keep books. At the end of every
year he was to report what repairs would be required in the next. Then
comes an instruction which is very significant, for in it lies part
of the explanation of the failure of these elaborate instructions to
secure their purpose. The surveyor was told that, as the increase of
the navy and its lying in several places far distant made it impossible
for him to see to everything as heretofore, his duty might have to be
discharged by a Clerk of Survey, but in that case the clerk was not to
issue bills, nor was the surveyor to go by his subordinate's opinion
only.
The next officer to be noticed is the Comptroller. Put briefly, the
duty of this official was to check the books of the treasurer and
surveyor. For this purpose he kept a separate set of accounts, and
was expected to superintend all the payments made by the Navy Office
and to survey the stores. He was to inform the Board of the current
prices of the market; to examine the storekeeper's books every quarter;
to be present at all the meetings; to watch his brother officers
continually; to report to the Lord High Admiral on the state and
amount of the stores; to keep an account of all imprests, that is,
all money advanced; to keep a copy of all estimates, privy seals, and
assignations of money to the treasurer; and finally, to balance the
treasurer and victualler's accounts, so that he may report to the Lord
High Admiral whether any of the king's money is in hand at the end of
the year.
The last of the great officers forming the Board was the Clerk of the
Navy or Clerk of the Acts. This official answered to the permanent
Under Secretary of our time. He was, in fact, the head of the
secretariat, or purely office work, and it was his duty to attend
all meetings of the Board and to keep a record of all transactions.
It appears from the "Oeconomy of the Navy" that he was hampered by
the obligation to control what were called "petty emptions," by which
were probably meant the purchase of stationery, furniture, etc., which
were required for the office. But it was added, that as so much more
of this work has to be done now than was formerly the case, he may
leave it to be done by subordinates, whom, however, he was expected
to control. It was also his duty to see that a "plurality of persons
was proposed for the supply of all wants." The modern statement of
this obligation would be that he was bound to take care that the
surveyor and other members of the Board did not get into the habit of
dealing with one merchant only, with whom they might have a corrupt
understanding.
Beneath these great officials there were a number of lesser and
subordinate officers who did not form a part of the Navy Board. The
first of these was the Storekeeper, whose function it was to receive
all stores, stow them away, and issue them out again on a warrant
of two or more principal officers. He was to examine all bills for
stores delivered; to refuse what was unfit; to receive no stores
without a copy of the contract; to keep accounts; to do all work by
himself, and not, unless in case of necessity, by his servants. These
instructions applied to what were called in-stores--that is to say,
perishable things kept in warehouses. They held good, however, for all
out-stores--that is to say, wood, metal, etc., which lay in the open
air. He was minutely directed as to the tests to be applied to timber,
and was to take care that when ships were broken up, all the parts
worth keeping were kept.
The Clerk of the Cheque was in fact a time-clerk. It was his business
to check the number of men employed, and the time they worked. He was
to take surprise-musters whenever he pleased, and to hold an ordinary
muster once a month. He was to watch the porter and the storekeeper.
The abuses which he was especially instructed to prevent are still
familiar to all who have to superintend a great shop or workyard,
"such as men coming late to work, departing from work before the bell
rings, tippling in alehouses or the porter's taphouse, carriaging
away of timber instead of chips, etc." Chips, be it observed, came to
be the slang name for all kinds of pilfering from the dockyards. It
was a well-established joke to say that the handsome houses in their
neighbourhood were all built out of chips. The clerk of the cheque was
bound to draw up and send to the treasurer the muster-books of ships
newly commissioned.
The Master Attendant was in fact a sailing-master employed in a
dockyard, and not in a ship. He did the purely naval work of the yard,
such as shifting ships at their moorings, and maintaining discipline
among the caretakers.
The title of Master Shipwright explains itself. The officers known by
that name were in fact shipbuilders. It is worthy of note that they are
vehemently forbidden to beautify ships--that is to say, to waste the
king's stores in those elaborate carvings and gildings which the sea
officers loved. In some of the models of the time, it is not only the
case that the bow and stern are covered with elaborate carving, but the
very portholes are surrounded with wreaths of gilded laurel.
The Clerk of the Ropeyard was a clerk of the cheque for the ropewalks.
The Porter was an official of some dignity, who exercised very
necessary functions. It depended more on him than any other man to
check common and vulgar pilfering, therefore he was particularly
instructed "to take notice of all back doors, all private passages by
water, in the shipwrights' or caulkers' own boats, or through men's
houses, or over the walls, etc., and to observe from time to time all
those who used conveyances and neglect the common passage of the King's
Gate, and to give the Clerk of the Cheque notice thereof of their check
and amendments." Private passage means of course private errand, and
by that doorway many millions of the king's money leaked away during
a century and a half. The porter was carefully instructed to sell no
drink.
The boatswains of the yard took charge of the stores and tackle under
the orders of a master shipwright. The boatswains of ships were the
caretakers of the vessels at the moorings. The gunner of the yard
had general charge of the stores, and was bound to watch one night
out of three. The purser of the yard took charge of food, served out
provisions, and was also bound to watch one night out of three.
If the most elaborate provisions for standing on guard against fraud
could have kept the civil administration of the navy honest, these
orders of the Earl of Northumberland, renewed and emphasised by the
Duke of York, ought to have effected that wholesome purpose. Nothing
can surpass the care taken to check the malpractices of one individual
by the vigilance of another. The ideal which has been satirically
attributed to certain Continental politicians, namely, the employment
of half of the population as police spies on the other, would seem to
have been reached in these instructions, and it would appear to be
almost impossible for anyone to commit fraud under the vigilant watch
of so many competent observers. But we know as a matter of fact that
the administration of the navy was very corrupt under Charles II., and
that it continued to be corrupt throughout the whole of the eighteenth
century, and that the abuses were so flagrant in the beginning of this
as to provoke the appointment of a Commission when Lord St. Vincent was
head of the Admiralty. The great original cause of this failure was
unquestionably a moral one. The most artful provisions for preventing
pilfering and waste are useless when the officials whose duty it is to
carry them out are themselves wasteful and dishonest. We know that in
the reign of Charles II., everybody, from the king downwards, looked to
make his pleasure, or his profit, out of his share of the government
of the country. The more honest among them were content to get what
gifts they could from those who had occasion to frequent their office
and thought it worth while to buy their friendship. Samuel Pepys, for
instance, who, according to the standard of the time, was rather an
honest official, took every penny he could get. Pepys, however, seems
to have drawn the line at entering into a conspiracy to steal stores
or to supply bad ones. Others who were less scrupulous pushed his
practices a step or two further. They were not content with merely
taking such gifts as might be made them by a contractor who still
supplied good stores. They were ready to help a fraudulent tradesman
to sell rubbish to the State, provided he made it worth their while.
Even short of this excess a great deal was done which was in reality
fraudulent. There came to be a kind of tradition that what was taken
from the State was stolen from nobody in particular. Men who were
honourable enough in private transactions had no scruple about licking
their fingers "like good cooks" when what stuck to them was the money
voted for the navy. Such men were not likely to be vigilant in watching
the similar offences of other people. They were too conscious that
they themselves were vulnerable. Thus a tradition of dishonesty and a
habit of waste established themselves in the dockyards, and it at last
reached such a height that money disappeared by millions in a few years.
Even if the code of honour had been higher, it would have been
difficult to prevent waste and mismanagement altogether. There was
a defect in the organisation of the Navy Office which counteracted
the purpose of all the instructions. They were drawn up by the Earl
of Northumberland at a time when the navy was still a small force
and its establishments were very limited. At that time it was not
difficult for the four officers of the Navy Board to maintain that
personal supervision of every detail of the service contemplated by
the instructions. But with the growth of the English Navy in the
middle of the seventeenth century, with the great developments of
its establishments caused by the construction of the dry dock at
Portsmouth, which belongs to the time of the Commonwealth, this had
entirely ceased to be the case. It was little less than absurd to
expect the treasurer, surveyor, comptroller, and clerk of the acts
to be present at all ratings and payments, and to superintend every
detail of the receipt and issue of stores of so great a force as the
English Navy, yet this is what was contemplated. The truth that the
task was beyond the power of the officers was not recognised by the
duke and his advisers. In the instructions to the surveyor there is
some slight recognition of the fact, but it does not go nearly far
enough. The consequence of expecting four men at the head of the
civil administration of the navy to superintend personally every
detail of its working, down to the mere receipt and issue of stores
in the ordinary course of business, was an utter want of direct
responsibility for the sufficient execution of the work. The men at the
head could not do all that was expected of them in theory. Therefore
they in practice left it to their subordinates. The subordinates,
again, could do nothing of themselves, but only by the orders of their
superiors. Thus nobody was really answerable for carrying out the work.
The men at the head escaped responsibility because it was physically
impossible for them to attend to everything. The men below escaped
because they only acted by order. Between the two a host of makeshift
usages grew up, which in their origin were inspired by nothing more
lofty than the convenience of the officials. When men found that they
could take with impunity, they took. It may be doubtful, if we look
at the moral standard of the time, whether any organisation of the
office would have prevented dishonesty. It is certain, however, that
the organisation, which as a matter of fact did exist, gave corruption
every chance. Yet it is advisable not to exaggerate the extent of the
evil. That there were robbery and waste is an undeniable fact. Many
fine houses were built out of chips, and fortunes were made at the
public expense. During the reign of Charles II. and the generation
following, when the corruption was at its worst, rotten ships and bad
stores were to be found; even then, however, efficient ships were
sent to sea. Later on, corruption took the form of spending a great
deal more than was necessary, rather than supplying bad goods. The
prevailing sentiment of the time looked upon robbing the State very
much as otherwise quite honourable people still look upon a little
smuggling.
The attempt to make the principal officers of the navy jointly
responsible met with the success which, as experience has shown,
generally follows on the effort to give a collective character to what
from the necessity of the case must needs be individual. It may be laid
down as a general rule, that where several men are said to be jointly
responsible, one of two things will happen. Either they will all insist
upon acting effectively, and in that case nothing will be done; or
else one of them will gain a superiority of influence, and then the
others, though nominally his equals, will in reality be reduced to the
position of subordinates. It was the second of these alternatives which
became practically established in the working of the Navy Office. The
comptroller, who in theory was empowered only to check the treasurer
and surveyor, became gradually the most important officer of the Board.
The Lord High Admiral, or the Commissioners who were discharging the
office, learned from him what had been done or what it was desirable to
do. In the same way the members of our own Admiralty Board, though in
theory jointly responsible with the First Lord, have in practice become
subordinate to him.
In the course of time, too, other departments began to group themselves
around the Navy Board, in proportion as the work grew more complex.
The Commonwealth had already found it necessary to establish a special
commission for dealing with the Sick and Hurt. The Sick and Hurt Office
became a permanent part of the machinery of naval administration. To it
was left the management of the Chest at Chatham. This fund, originally
established by Sir John Hawkins in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was
fed by the fines levied for breach of discipline and by percentages of
prizes. It was meant to be devoted to the support of seamen disabled
in service, either by sickness or wounds. In the reign of William III.
it was reinforced by a sum levied on the pay of all seamen, and in
later days the maladministration of this fund grew into an outrageous
abuse. The business of victualling the navy had originally been
discharged by an official in the department of the surveyor, but it
grew beyond his power to discharge. At the very end of the reign of
Charles II., in 1683, a special Victualling Board was created. Later
on, other departments were made separate, such, for instance, as the
Commissioners for Transports, who were established and abolished, and
then established again. Then there was a special Pay Office; and it
must be understood that, while the main lines remained unchanged, there
was much that was fluid, unstable, and tentative in details. When it
was fully grown, the old naval administration consisted of no less than
fifteen departments. It was a further cause of confusion that they
were not even all under one roof. The Navy Office was in Seething Lane,
the Sick and Hurt, with the Victualling Board, had their office on
Tower Hill. The Pay Office was in Broad Street.
It was another proof of the final formation of the navy in this reign,
that a special corps of soldiers was now first established for service
in the fleet. This was the Admiral's, or, as it was called from the
colour of its uniform, the Yellow Regiment. It was the first corps
of marines proper of which we have any notice. Soldiers had been
largely employed in the fleet before, but it does not appear that any
attempt had been made to distinguish between the soldier who served in
the king's ships and the soldier who was available for all military
services. The Admiral's Regiment was specially devoted to the fleet.
This corps was the predecessor, but not the ancestor, of the modern
Marines. It was created partly, as it would seem, by drafts from one of
the London trained bands in 1664, at the outbreak of the second Dutch
war, and was disbanded at the Revolution. The old belief that the naval
officer was rather a fighting man at sea than a seaman, was still so
strong that the functions of officer in the Admiral's Regiment and
naval officer were still considered interchangeable.
The period during which the sea service was growing to its full stature
was also one of strenuous and varied fighting. When King Charles II.
was restored to his throne in what is officially counted as the twelfth
year of his reign, the unstable adventurers who had temporarily held,
or professed to hold, power in England had a considerable armament at
sea. Richard Cromwell sent a force to the north, under the command of
Edward Montagu. The object of this expedition was to intervene in the
war between the Kings of Sweden and Denmark. A Commission, including
Algernon Sidney, was sent to keep a watch on the admiral. But Montagu
was too anxious as to his own fortunes in the prevailing confusion at
home to have the heart to act so far away, and his subordinate officers
were of the same way of thinking. They took a pretext to return home,
leaving the Commissioners behind them. In England, where Richard
Cromwell had been upset, there was no definite authority to call them
to account. Montagu indeed retired from the command for a time, and was
replaced by John Lawson. This seaman was an Anabaptist. From his own
account he had begun life as skipper and part owner of a small trading
vessel in the north of England. Clarendon called his trade by its name
when he described Lawson as a collier. During the Civil War he had
fought both on land and sea for the Parliament. It might be supposed
that with this past, and with what was then called his fanatical
principles, Lawson would have been an opponent of the Restoration of
the king. Yet he was found agreeing with, if not promoting, a petition
from the fleet in favour of the Restoration, and he co-operated with
Monk. When the king's Government was established, some of the Royalists
were disposed to visit Lawson's earlier sins upon him, but he and the
other experienced seamen of the Commonwealth were too useful to the
Crown to be dispensed with. King Charles II., with characteristic wit,
described them as men who having had the pest already and been cured
of it, were therefore the less likely to be infected again. The high
praise given by Clarendon to the character of Lawson shows that, in the
opinion of a thorough Cavalier, the Anabaptist seaman had accepted the
monarchy without reserve.
There was much work for the king's sea officers to do. It was
impossible, to begin with, for the restored monarchy to neglect the
work of protecting commerce in the Mediterranean, and the navy was
hardly established on its new footing under the Duke of York before
a naval force was despatched against the Barbary pirates. The latter
part of 1660 and the whole of 1661 had been spent in the work of
settling the new Government. Parliament had to vote money for the
payment of arrears, and it was indeed impossible for the new rulers
to take all in hand very speedily. So soon, however, as Parliament
had supplied necessary funds, and as the work of new modelling the
list of officers--that is, of removing all who were too Puritan, and
re-establishing as many Royalists as it was safe to employ--had been
completed, a squadron was sent abroad, under the command of Montagu,
now created Earl of Sandwich, with Lawson as second. It had a double
duty to perform. The first part of its work was to chastise the Barbary
pirates, who had recovered from the scare caused by Blake's attack on
Tunis, and were again engaged in searching and plundering English ships
in the Mediterranean. Then the fleet had to bring home the king's wife,
Catharine of Braganza, after taking possession of the post on the coast
of Africa ceded as part of her dower.
The attempt to bring the Barbary pirates to order met with very
indifferent success. Sandwich sailed to Algiers, with eighteen
men-of-war and two fireships. He appeared before Algiers in July,
and began negotiating through the English Consul, Mr. Brown. The
negotiations came to very little, for the Algerines refused to
relinquish their right of search, and the fleet was not strong enough
to bombard the town. In this dilemma, Sandwich decided on dividing the
fleet, and devoting each part of it to one of the missions he had to
fulfil. Lawson was left with twelve ships to prosecute the war against
the pirates, while the earl carried out the more diplomatic half of his
mission. The station on the coast of Africa, ceded to England as part
of the dowry of Catharine of Braganza, was the town of Tangier, which
lies just outside of the Straits of Gibraltar, and then passed for a
good port. The Government of Charles II. is open to severe criticism
on many grounds, but it cannot be said to have habitually neglected
what were then considered the commercial interests of the nation. One
of these was held to be the possession of a useful seaport, either in,
or close to, the mouth of the Mediterranean. As far back as the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, some of her officers had lamented the evacuation
of Cadiz, on the ground that it would have been of the greatest
possible use to us if we had decided to keep it. Cromwell had directed
his officers commanding his fleet on the coast of Spain to consider
the possibility of seizing on Gibraltar. When the Government of the
king asked for the possession of Tangier as part of the dowry of the
Portuguese princess, it took the best possible means of reconciling
Englishmen to a Roman Catholic marriage, and gave them something to
set off against the subsequent surrender of Dunkirk to the French king.
A less conspicuous gain, in the opinion of the time, was the transfer
to England of the island of Bombay, which also formed part of the
queen's dower. The occupation of these two posts marked another step
forward in the development of the English Navy. Bombay was not destined
to become a royal naval station for some time. It was taken possession
of by the Earl of Marlborough, James Ley, for the king, but was soon
after handed over to the East India Company. For that very reason it
had a better chance of remaining a permanent part of the dominion of
England. Tangier, which at the time seemed much the greater possession,
was destined to be handed back to the Moors by the English king, by
whom it had been received from the Portuguese. Yet the mere fact
that these two posts over sea were accepted by the king, was a sign
that he was prepared to employ his navy at all distances, and in all
climates, in the general interests of the State. This, again, implied
the maintenance of a permanent efficient force. It is possible that if
Sandwich had delayed taking possession of Tangier a little longer, it
might not have been in the power of the Portuguese to hand it over.
When the English admiral reached the bay, the white garrison had just
been wholly destroyed in an ambush by the Moors. Sandwich withdrew the
survivors of the Portuguese garrison, and left an English force to hold
the town, under command of the Earl of Peterborough. He then went on
to Lisbon, for the purpose of embarking the queen and escorting her to
England. His functions were as much diplomatic as naval, for he was
charged with receiving the money of the young queen's dower and making
the final arrangements with the Portuguese Government. This part of
his work gave Sandwich more trouble than the Algerine pirates or the
besiegers of Tangier. The Government at Lisbon had promised more than
it could pay, and when it did at last produce a part of the queen's
dower, the payment was made in goods and not in money. When he reached
England with the queen, Sandwich fell into temporary disgrace, not
because he had failed in his duty, but because the poor young queen did
not bring as much money as her impecunious husband had hoped for, and
then because she for a time rebelled against the necessity of receiving
her husband's numerous mistresses; and all who had a hand in the
marriage suffered from the king's irritation.
While Sandwich was taking possession of Tangier, and haggling
with Portuguese ministers over the queen's dower, Lawson had been
prosecuting the war against the Algerine pirates. He met on the whole
with more success than might have been expected. The lesser pirate
States of Tunis and Tripoli were comparatively easy to cow, but Algiers
was a formidable opponent. There were two ways of dealing with it
effectually, and Lawson was not able to use either to the full. One was
to bombard it with a fleet capable of beating down the fortifications
and firing the town. The other was to establish a blockade which could
put an entire stop to piratical voyages. Lawson's fleet was not strong
enough for the first, nor was it either numerous enough or well enough
supplied for the second. Yet, by pertinacity and vigilance he brought
the Government of the Dey so far to submission that he undertook to
give up some hundred and fifty English and Scotch prisoners, who
were then in slavery in the town. Some vessels also were returned--a
concession to which the Algerines were no doubt more readily brought,
because English-built craft were of little use for piratical purposes.
When, however, Lawson went on to make a demand for the captured
goods, he was refused peremptorily. He was not the man to endure the
arrogance of the pirates while it was in his power to chastise them. An
opportunity presented itself for teaching them a lesson. One of their
vessels, a cruiser of thirty-four guns, allowed herself to be caught
out of the protection of the fortifications. Lawson immediately seized
her, and retaliated for the wrong done to English captives by selling
all the Turks or Moors who formed part of her crew, as slaves to work
in the galleys of the Duke of Beaufort, the French admiral, who was
then cruising in the Mediterranean. This vigorous measure brought the
Algerines to reason for the moment; but it was only for the moment,
and several expeditions were required during the reign of Charles II.
before this pirate State was made to understand that English ships must
be left alone.
Lawson remained in the Mediterranean until 1663. During the latter
part of his stay in that sea he co-operated for a time with the
Dutch admiral, Michael de Ruyter, who also had been sent into the
Mediterranean on the never-ending duty of cowing the Algerines. The
causes which put a stop to the combined action of the Christian
admirals go far to explain why what has been justly described as
the disgrace of Christendom was allowed to endure until the present
century. The Powers of Europe were, in fact, too bitterly divided by
rivalries and quarrels of their own, either to combine for the purpose
of suppressing Mohammedan piracy, or even to allow one another to act
with energy. When De Ruyter met Lawson, he saluted the English flag
with guns and lowered his own. Lawson returned the guns, but not the
salute with the flag. The Dutch admiral not unnaturally considered this
an insult. The pretension of the English to the sovereignty of the
seas around Great Britain had been accepted by the Hollanders in 1653,
but they did not suppose that they would be compelled to acknowledge
themselves inferior to the English in all waters. De Ruyter considered
himself aggrieved, and made a complaint to the Grand Pensionary John
de Witt. His own determination was not to salute Lawson again if they
met, but he was instructed from home to lower his flag whenever he came
across the English admiral, taking care, however, to avoid him as much
as he could. When a man has to keep out of the way of another for fear
of being insulted by him, the two can hardly co-operate effectively
against a common enemy.
John de Witt, who was keenly alive to the dignity of his country, would
not have despatched such orders as these to De Ruyter if he had not
been under the influence of a great fear. If he sacrificed the feelings
of his seamen and the pride of Holland on a point of etiquette, it was
because he was then endeavouring to avert the war which the English
Court showed every sign of intending to force upon him. The causes of
the second Dutch war were, to some extent, those which had led to the
first. They were compendiously stated by Monk, now Duke of Albemarle,
when he said that it was idle to dispute as to the rights and wrongs of
the quarrels between the two nations, since they essentially amounted
to this, that the English wanted a larger share of the trade enjoyed by
the Dutch. The result of the first war had not been all that Englishmen
expected. Oliver Cromwell's policy of hostility to Spain had thrown the
whole trade with that country, formerly enjoyed by us, into the hands
of Holland. Dutch commerce had revived very rapidly after the disasters
of the naval war. The successful intervention of Holland in the war
between Sweden and Denmark had restored the prestige of the Republic,
while the administration of the Loevenstein Party, however unwise
it might be in other respects, was very vigorous, intelligent, and
economical in matters of commerce. Thus, when the return of the king
brought peace abroad to England, we found the Dutch traders competing
with us as successfully as ever. In the Far East, the powerful Dutch
East India Company remained as jealous and exclusive as before. However
willing the States General may have been to fulfil the promises they
had made to Cromwell, they were unable to control the agents of the
Dutch East India Company in the Spice Islands. English ships trading
to the East complained that they were stopped and turned back by the
Dutch. Whatever element of truth there was--and in the midst of much
exaggeration there was a certain amount of truth--in these complaints,
the English Government conducted negotiations with the obvious
intention of making the most of their grievances. Our representative
at the Hague was Sir George Downing, a man who had formerly served
Oliver Cromwell and had then made his peace with the king. Downing, who
appears to have been by nature an insolent, overbearing man, knew that
he would please his new masters by taking a high tone with the Dutch,
and he played his game heartily. He did not scruple to do, as indeed
most ambassadors of the time would have done, namely, intrigue with
those members of the States General whom he knew to be rivals of John
de Witt.
The commercial rivalry of the nations was exasperated by political
dislike between the Governments. John de Witt had been forced by
Cromwell to pass the Perpetual Edict, a law of the States General,
designed to exclude the House of Orange Nassau from the position it had
held in the United Provinces. However unwilling the Grand Pensionary
may have been to take this step under foreign dictation, the exclusion
of the Princes of Orange from the place of Stadtholder, with command
of the army and fleet, was so consistent with the interest of the
Loevenstein Party that they could not repeal the Edict. But the young
Prince of Orange was the nephew of the King of England. Family feeling
has rarely induced any prince to abstain from indulging his ambition,
but it is a useful pretext for doing what has already been resolved on
for less avowable reasons. Charles II. had not forgiven the Dutch for
excluding him from their territory at the instance of Oliver Cromwell.
When he was recalled in 1660, they had, with some poorness of spirit,
endeavoured to pacify him by profuse honours and by a loan of money.
Even if Charles II. had been a less cynical man than his education had
rendered him, he would hardly have put a high value on courtesies which
were manifestly dictated by fear. His jesting remark on the ample table
provided for him by the States General shows that he estimated their
attentions at their true value. "Their High Mightinesses," he said, "no
doubt provided a good dinner, but several of them always came to share
it, and he thought that they might be said to entertain themselves at
least as much as him." When the king returned, the interest he took in
the commerce of his country served to make him share the jealousies of
his subjects. The king and his brother became large shareholders in the
Royal Guinea Company. This was a trading corporation established for
the purpose of supplying slaves in the West Indies and America. It had
its agents in our own possessions in the Antilles, and it cherished the
hope of monopolising the whole trade in slaves. In the West Indies the
local agents were busy in endeavouring to compel the Spaniards to buy
their negroes from us. The reluctance of the Spanish authorities to
take the business away from the Genoese Company, which already enjoyed
the monopoly, and indeed to allow English trade in any form, had much
to do with provoking the attacks on their possessions by the buccaneers
who were commissioned and sent out by the king's governor in Jamaica.
In this field of activity also we had to expect the rivalry of the
Dutch, who held several stations on the West Coast of Africa, and were
no less eager than ourselves to smuggle blacks into Spanish America. At
the same time, they were very well disposed to carry on the trade with
our possessions. The English planter, like the Spaniard, preferred to
buy his negroes cheap, and, when a Dutchman would sell them for less
than an Englishman, had not the slightest scruple in dealing with the
foreign interloper. Thus the price of the Guinea Company's negroes was
kept down. To get rid of this competition was a very essential object
with the Company. It was by an effort to effect the purpose that the
second Dutch war began.
The habit of conducting colonial ventures by great chartered
companies lent itself very easily to the promotion of international
quarrels. Rival traders who had the command of an armed force were
particularly likely to come to blows, when they enjoyed a position of
semi-sovereignty, and were divided from all control on the part of
their Government by a distance of thousands of miles. The check which
even the Company itself could keep on its agents, when news took from
six months to a year to reach home, and eighteen months or two years
might pass before the superior's comment on the subordinate's actions
could reach its destination at the other side of the world, was weak.
The control of the State was illusory. It was first informed of the
real or imaginary excesses of its subjects in a complaint from a
foreign ambassador. It could not act without further evidence, which
was not to be obtained till after months of delay, and was then sure
to be vitiated by the partiality of the witness. Thus wars on a
considerable scale could be carried on by trading companies. The motive
was hardly ever wanting, since there were sure to be disputes as to
the respective rights, possessions, and, as we should now say, spheres
of influence of the parties. Even in our own time it has required all
the infinitely greater power of the central Government to prevent
collisions between bodies of adventurers in remote regions. Sometimes
the central Government has acted too late. In the seventeenth century
the utmost good-will on the part of the States General and the Crown of
England could hardly have availed to avert conflict between Englishmen
and Dutchmen, on the West Coast of Africa and in the more remote Spice
Islands. When national sentiment was loud in favour of the adventurers
on one side, a collision was inevitable. There can be no question that
sentiment in England was strongly hostile to the Dutch. If the king was
disposed to promote a war with the United Provinces, he was certainly
well supported by his subjects. The complaints of the merchants who
considered themselves aggrieved by the Dutch were favourably listened
to by the House of Commons. Both Houses joined in an address to the
king, calling on him to take vengeance for the wrongs done by the Dutch
to English traders. The amount of the injury was put at the certainly
enormously exaggerated figure of seven or eight hundred thousand pounds.
When the State was disposed to allow a trading company to conduct wars
on its own account, it was easy to take a further step. The next thing
to do was to help the Company to fight, without going to the length
of declaring war against the nation to which the Company's rivals
belonged. We have seen, in the case of Oliver Cromwell's expedition
to the West Indies, that the practice of the time allowed of what may
be called partial war--that is to say, it was thought legitimate to
conduct aggressive hostilities in one part of the world, without making
a general war. The king and the Duke of York, when they found that war
with the States would be popular, decided to follow Cromwell's example.
A squadron was fitted out to attack the Dutch possessions on the West
Coast of Africa, and was placed under the command of Sir Robert Holmes.
Holmes has been mentioned already as one of the Royalist officers who
had followed Prince Rupert. In the course of that cruise he had visited
the West Coast of Africa, and had then been encouraged by the Dutch to
attack his own countrymen. In the course of his operations, Holmes must
have become well acquainted with the coast, and it was doubtless this
knowledge that marked him out for the command. He sailed from England
with a small squadron in October 1663. His instructions were to avoid
fighting as far as possible.
We do the king and Duke of York no injustice in supposing that these
orders were rather meant to be quoted for diplomatic purposes than
to be strictly acted upon by the admiral. The whole history of Sir
Robert Holmes's cruise shows clearly that he knew beforehand that he
would not be blamed for fighting if he could find a plausible excuse
for hostilities, and that, when once the fighting had begun, he would
not be expected to confine himself to moderate reprisals. A plausible
excuse could hardly be wanting. When Holmes reached the river Gambia,
he found the English traders and the Portuguese, who were now our
allies, full of bitter complaints of the excesses of the Dutch. On his
way he had come across a Dutch ship, and, on searching her, found,
as he alleged, orders to the Dutch governor, Valckenburg, to seize
the English fort at Cape Cormantin. How Sir Robert Holmes reconciled
the act of searching a Dutch ship in time of peace, and on the high
seas, with his instructions to avoid hostilities, we are not told.
From the Dutch point of view he acted on the principles of the wolf,
and assailed the lamb for troubling the water. The rival accounts of
Dutch governors and English naval officers are utterly irreconcilable,
and perhaps not worth reconciling. When Englishmen had made their
minds up, as they had, that they wanted more of the trade enjoyed
by the Dutch, and when the Dutch were, as might have been expected,
thoroughly resolved to keep all the trade they enjoyed, it was a
matter of course either that aggressions would be committed, or that
one of the two parties would believe that they had been committed.
Sir Robert Holmes made a number of prizes in the neighbourhood of
the Cape de Verd Islands, and then swept the coast as far down as
Sierra Leone. An attack on the Dutch post at St. George da Mina was
repulsed, but he took possession of some other minor posts. His next
step supplies overwhelming evidence to show that he had not been sent
out to avoid hostilities, and had not only been driven into fighting
against his will. He stood across the Atlantic and attacked the Dutch
on the mainland of America. He fell with his squadron on the Dutch
colony of New Amsterdam, and had no difficulty in mastering it. Then he
returned to England, where he was thrown into the Tower on the demand
of the Dutch ambassador--a step which proves that the Government was
not ready to declare war on Holland, and would much have preferred
that the declaration should come from the other side, but by no means
establishes a presumption that Holmes had exceeded his confidential
instructions.
The course taken by John de Witt, when he found that the English had
committed an aggression on the West India Company, was to play them
a return match at the same game. He did not use his influence to
persuade the States General to declare war, though he must have known
that war was now inevitable. The commercial oligarchy which formed the
Loevenstein Party was very averse to war. It would infinitely have
preferred to soothe the King of England by concessions, if it could
have succeeded at any tolerable cost. If this could not be done, it
preferred to confine war to the colonies as long as possible. Even this
was difficult for it. The insolent and overbearing Downing maintained
a vigilant watch on the actions of the States General. He would have
been informed immediately if a squadron had been prepared in the Dutch
harbours to follow Sir Robert Holmes, and in that case an instant
declaration of war from England was to be feared. The fleet of Michael
de Ruyter was at the disposal of the States. It was cruising in the
Mediterranean, and ready to start at a moment's notice. But here the
same difficulty presented itself. Downing was sure to be informed if
orders were sent to the admiral. John de Witt escaped that risk by a
piece of ingenious management. He contrived to get the question what
ought to be done in consequence of Sir Robert Holmes's cruise referred
to a select committee of his own partisans. The orders were drafted by
them, and were then slipped through at a general meeting of the States
without attracting attention. By the terms of these orders De Ruyter
was directed to fill up a year's provisions on the coast of Spain, and
to follow in the track of Holmes, retaking the places he had seized,
and retaliating for the damage he had done to Dutch commerce. De Ruyter
carried out his instructions to the letter. He re-established the Dutch
on the West Coast of Africa, then he stood across to the West Indies.
An attack made by his fleet on Barbadoes proved unsuccessful, but the
damage done to English trade was considerable. Then De Ruyter stretched
along the coast of North America as far as Newfoundland. He failed to
retake New Amsterdam, which, under the name of New York, remained in
our hands at the close of the war. From Newfoundland he returned home.
This counter-stroke provoked a furious outcry of anger in England, for
it is perhaps more the custom of the English than any other nation to
be seized with unaffected moral indignation when another does unto
them the disagreeable thing which they have just been doing to someone
else. Letters of marque and reprisal were now issued on both sides, and
a privateering war of plunder preceded regular hostilities. The Dutch
oligarchy would still have made peace if they could, but the English
Court had at last found its pretext, and was resolved to force on the
quarrel. The terms upon which it insisted were such as a people far
less courageous and less powerful than the Dutch could not possibly
have accepted. The formal declaration of war was delayed until March
1665.
No great change had taken place in the relative strength of the two
navies since the conclusion of the first Dutch war. The English still
had the superiority which they derived from unity of command and the
greater strength of their ships. The Loevenstein Party had done nothing
to remove the fatal defects of organisation in the fleets of the
United Provinces. Indeed it could do nothing, since the only way in
which unity of command could be given to the different squadrons of the
Provinces was by again naming a Stadtholder, and allowing the office to
carry with it the post of Admiral-General. But to ask the Loevenstein
Party to do this was to ask them to commit suicide. So we find the same
divisions of authority in the Dutch fleet in this as in the former war.
The commercial government of the Republic had done nothing, and perhaps
from its character could do nothing, to establish a higher standard of
military spirit among its officers.
On the side of England the monarchy was still profiting by the work
of the Council of State and Oliver Cromwell. The corruption which in
the later years of King Charles's reign invaded every detail of the
administration of the navy had not yet got the upper hand. Although
the practice of giving the command of ships to young gentlemen who had
absolutely no qualification beyond their interest at Court was already
followed, still the bulk of the captains and all the flag-officers,
with few exceptions, were the veterans of the first Dutch war. These
men were already accustomed to act together; they had fought side by
side in many battles, and had cruised in company for months. They had
the tradition of the last war fresh in their minds. To this must be
attributed the general good discipline and efficiency displayed in the
coming struggle.
The fleet left by the Protector to the restored monarchy was estimated
at 154 ships of 57,463 tons. The average size of vessels was therefore
about 370 tons, and had not increased during the century. Some twenty
or thirty of these vessels were foreign built--that is to say, were
prizes taken from the Dutch, French, or Spanish. But the great majority
were built by the Petts and their school. It is somewhat curious that
although the reign of Charles II. was a time of great scientific
curiosity and activity, and although the king took an intelligent
interest in the forms and qualities of his vessels, yet the art of
shipbuilding in England appears to have rather lost than gained
ground. If we did not become positively worse, we allowed ourselves to
be outstripped by the French. During this reign we constantly hear of
English shipbuilders as imitating French models, and that not always
with success. In the time of Charles I. Phineas Pett built the finest
vessels in the world, on his own lines, and by his own calculations.
In the reign of Charles II. this superiority had been lost. Even the
Dutch, taught by experience, began to build their vessels much higher
and stronger. Pepys, who is an unanswerable authority, noted that "in
1663 and 1664 the Dutch and French built ships with two decks, which
carried from sixty to seventy guns, and so contrived that they carried
their lower guns four feet from the water, and to stow four months'
provisions, whereas our frigates from the Dunkirk-build, which were
narrower and sharper, carried their guns but little more than three
feet from the water, and for ten weeks' provisions. Observing this,
Sir Anthony Deane built the =Rupert= and =Resolution=, Mr. Shish
the =Cambridge=, Mr. Johnson the =Warspight=, and Mr. Castle the
=Defiance=. The two latter were, by contract of the Commissioners of
the Navy, bound to carry six months' provisions, and their guns to lie
four and a half feet from the water. This was another great step and
improvement to our navy put in practice by Sir Anthony Deane." Yet
this stimulus seems to have exhausted itself very soon, for eight or
nine years afterwards, in the third Dutch war, when a French squadron
of thirty-five ships came to Spithead, several of them were found to
excel ours of the same nominal rate in size and quality. It was once
more seen to be the case that ours were narrower, could stow less
provisions, and carried their guns nearer the water. Again, we took a
French ship for a model; this time it was the _Superbe_, a 74-gun ship.
The =Harwich= was built in imitation of her by Sir Anthony Deane. An
attempt was made to improve the models of our navy in the thirty ships
which were built by the special Parliamentary grant in those years.
The corruption which had by this time overwhelmed the navy made these
efforts of little avail. The vessels built out of the grant were so
ill-constructed, so carelessly looked after, and put together of such
very poor material, that they rotted at their moorings before they
were used. Perhaps the desire to possess a great many vessels had a
bad effect. When a definite sum of money has to be spent, when it is
not sufficient to pay for both number and size, and when number is
strongly desired, it will inevitably follow that vessels will be built
of the smallest size required to carry the desired number of guns. It
is certainly the case that during the latter part of the seventeenth
century and nearly the whole of the eighteenth our ships were, rate for
rate, smaller than the French. At one time in the eighteenth century
we allowed ourselves to be outstripped so far that two English 74's
were hardly more than a match in strength and tonnage for one Spanish
ship of the same nominal strength. A French 80-gun ship was as large
as an English man-of-war of 100 guns. This, however, was a later
development. In the earlier part of the reign of Charles II. we were
still superior on the whole to the Dutch in all but numbers, which in
every generation and in every kind of war is the least valuable of the
elements of strength. At the beginning of the second Dutch war the Duke
of York wrote from Portsmouth to complain that the vessels then being
built were designed on too small a scale. He argued that the Dutch
could always excel us in point of number, and that it was desirable to
possess a counterbalancing advantage in the size, and what followed
from size, the broadside weight of fire of our individual ships. The
duke's view did not prevail, but it is well worth quoting, if only
to show how old is this conflict between the two schools of naval
critics--those who rely on number and those who rely on individual
strength.