CONDITIONS OF SERVICE
We have seen something of the lives of the officers and men in the
Company’s ships at sea: we desire now to learn more of their conditions
of employment—what was their uniform, what were their rates of pay,
privileges, pensions according to their different ranks, the kind of
accommodation for the passengers, the nature of their cargoes, and so
on. In other words, we are to endeavour to fill in those details of the
picture already roughly sketched.
Dating back from the time of the first East India Company, the
commanders were always sworn into the service. So likewise were the
first four officers. Before being allowed to proceed to his duty on
board, an officer had to sign a contract for performing the voyage,
and a petition for his “private trade” outwards. As the latter was so
very lucrative to him, it may be well to give details. Particulars had
to be sent in this petition to the Committee of Shipping of the East
India Company, giving the dead-weight of the articles they proposed to
take out to the East. These consisted of almost anything, from wines to
carriages. This “private” trade allowed to the commanders and officers
of the East India ships, allowing them to participate in the Company’s
exclusive monopoly, did not permit woollen goods and warlike stores,
but otherwise the ship’s officers could reap a fine income by taking
out English goods and bringing back Eastern products which would be
sure of a market at home.
There was a proper schedule, and the following were the
officers and petty officers enabled to avail themselves of this
privilege:—Commander, chief mate, second mate, third mate, purser,
surgeon, surgeon’s mate, fourth mate, fifth mate, sixth mate,
boatswain, gunner, carpenter, four midshipmen, one midshipman (who
was also the commander’s coxswain), six quartermasters, commander’s
steward, ship’s steward, commander’s cook, carpenter’s first mate,
caulker, cooper, armourer and sailmaker. Reckoned for a ship let for
755 tons and upwards, the commander was allowed as much as 56 tons, or
20 feet of space, for all articles (excepting liquors) which weighed
more than they measured were reckoned according to their weight. The
chief mate was allowed eight tons, the second mate six tons, and so on
down the list, even a midshipman being allowed a ton, the purser three
tons, the surgeon six, and each quartermaster as much as a midshipman.
In the case of the China ships only, if it was not practicable to
invest in goods to the following amounts respectively, the Company
allowed them to carry out bullion to make up the amount:—Commander,
£3000, chief mate, £300, and so on down to carpenter, £50.
Homeward-bound East Indiamen were similarly allowed privileges to their
officers. Ships lading from India might not bring back tea, china-ware,
raw silk, or nankeen cloth: and ships lading from China might not bring
back China raw silk, musk, camphor, arrack, arsenic or other poisonous
drugs. But otherwise the commanders of China ships were allowed
homeward 38 tons, the chief mate 8 tons, the second mate 6 tons,
and so on down to the carpenter 1 ton. But the other homeward ships
allowed the commander 30 tons or thirty-two feet, the chief mate 6
tons or sixteen feet, and so on down to the carpenter, who was allowed
thirty-two feet. These importers, of course, had to pay the customs and
also three per cent. to the Company for warehouse room on the gross
amount at the sale of the goods in the case of Indian products, and a
bigger percentage in the case of goods from China. But the wily old
commanders were not always content with these privileges. The reader
is doubtless familiar with the word dunnage. This consists of faggots,
boughs, canes or other similar articles, which are laid on the bottom
of a ship’s hold and used for stowing the cargo effectively. Now
when it was found that there was a good demand in London for Eastern
bamboos, ratans, and canes a commander would see that his dunnage
consisted of a very ample amount of these realisable articles, and far
beyond what was necessary for the protection of the cargo. The result
was that the Company had to step in and make very strict regulations
to stop this abuse, so that if the dunnage did not seem absolutely
necessary and _bona fide_ it was charged against the amount of tonnage
allowed to the commander and officers.
Tea was allowed to be brought home from China and Bencoolen according
to a schedule, the captain being allowed as much as 9336 lb., down
to the carpenter, 246 lb., but a big percentage was charged on its
sale value. Piece-goods were allowed to be brought home on paying
the customs and £3 per cent. for warehouse room. These articles were
disposed of at the Company’s sales, which took place in March and
September. Although the importation of china-ware was reserved to the
Company, yet “as the Company do not at present import any China-ware on
their own account” they allowed their officers to do so, “during the
Court’s pleasure,” provided it was brought as a flooring to the teas
and did not exceed thirteen inches in height. This made, therefore,
another source of revenue to the officers, for as much as 40 tons of
this ware could be permitted in the 1400-ton ships and 30 tons in a
1200-tonner. The commander could also bring home two pipes of Madeira
wine in addition to the above allowances.
When outward bound the chief, second, third, fourth and fifth mates,
the surgeon and his mate, the pursers, boatswains, gunners and
carpenters were allowed as indulgence a liberal amount of stores,
consisting of wine, butter, cheese, groceries, pickles, beer and
also spirits for the respective messes. In the case of “extra” ships
the commanders and officers were usually allowed 5 per cent. of the
chartered tonnage, but the chief mate was always allowed three tons,
the second mate two, the third mate one ton, and the surgeon two. The
fourth officers and pursers in these ships were not acknowledged in
this respect. As regards indulgence in stores, the chief mate, second
mate and surgeon were allowed the same amounts as in the regular ships
just mentioned, but the third mate was allowed not quite so much.
On the whole, it will be seen that every officer and petty officer
of an East Indiaman, whether trading to India or China, had the
opportunity of putting by very handsome perquisites, and so you can
now easily believe Eastwick’s statement that a purser friend of his
had retired and bought a ship for himself. But, of course, in addition
to all these “privileges,” everyone received his salary or wages. The
following is a list of the monthly pay to the commander, officers,
petty officers, “tradesmen” (_i.e._ coopers and the like), and the
able-bodied seamen, called foremast men. It will be found that this
makes up a complement of 102 men, such as were employed in one of the
big regular East Indiamen. The pay in the case of “extra” ships will be
given after this list:—
MONTHLY PAY ON BOARD A REGULAR EAST INDIAMAN
Commander £10 0
Chief Mate 5 0
Second Mate 4 0
Third Mate 3 10
Fourth Mate 2 10
Fifth Mate 2 5
Sixth Mate 2 5
Surgeon 5 0
Purser 2 0
Boatswain 3 10
Gunner 3 10
Master-at-Arms 3 0
Carpenter 4 10
Midshipman and Coxswain 2 5
4 Midshipmen, each 2 5
Surgeon’s Mate 3 10
Caulker 3 15
Cooper 3 0
Captain’s Cook 3 5
Ship’s Cook 2 10
Carpenter’s 1st Mate 3 5
Carpenter’s 2nd Mate 2 10
Caulker’s Mate 2 15
Cooper’s Mate 2 10
6 Quartermasters, each 2 10
Sailmaker 2 10
Armourer 2 10
Butcher 2 5
Baker 2 5
Poulterer 2 5
2 Commander’s Servants, each 1 5
1 Chief Mate’s Servant 1 0
1 Second Mate’s Servant 0 18
1 Surgeon’s Servant 0 15
1 Boatswain’s Servant 0 15
1 Gunner’s Servant 0 15
Captain’s Steward 2 0
Ship’s Steward 2 10
2 Boatswain’s Mates, each 2 10
2 Gunner’s Mates, each 2 10
1 Carpenter’s Servant 0 15
50 Foremast Men, each 2 5
In the case of an “extra” ship the commander received £10 a month,
the chief mate £5, the second mate £4, the third mate £3, 10s., the
surgeon £5, the boatswain £3, 10s., the gunner £3, 10s., the carpenter
£4, 10s., the two midshipmen were paid £2, 5s. each, the cooper and
steward got £3, the captain’s cook £3, 5s., the ship’s cook £2, 10s.,
the boatswain’s mate and the gunner’s mate were each paid £2, 10s.,
the carpenter’s mate and caulker £3, 15s., the two quartermasters
received each £2, 10s., the two commander’s servants £1, 5s. each,
and the thirty foremast men £2, 5s. each. As to the last-mentioned,
a vessel of from 400 to 500 tons carried twenty foremast hands. A
ship of 500 to 550 had thirty hands, and the next size, from 550 to
600 tons, carried thirty-five. A 600 to 650 tonner had forty men, and
a 650 to 700 tonner forty-five men. But a 700 to 800 ton ship had
fifty-five men, and an 800 to 900 tonner sixty-five of these hands.
The Company’s rule was that regular vessels of 750 to 800 tons were to
carry a total complement of 101 officers and men. A 900-ton ship was to
carry 110 men, a 1000-ton ship 120 men, a 1100-ton ship 125 men, and a
1200-tonner 130 men.
Five supernumeraries were allowed to be carried, of whom two were to be
allowed to walk the quarterdeck. No commander was allowed to increase
the number of midshipmen under pain of being suspended for three
years. This was to prevent him from taking a raw young officer out of
consideration for a monetary reward. In order to act as a safeguard,
if any person borne on the ship’s books as part of her complement were
discharged in India, China or St Helena without permission of the
Company, or if the commander were to act in collusion and allow him
to quit his vessel, the commander was liable to a fine of £300. Nor
could he bring home or carry out any passenger or person without the
directors’ leave.
Owing to the fact that the men out of these East Indiamen were so
frequently pressed into the British men-of-war whilst in the East, it
was often enough necessary to ship a lot of lascars in order to get
the vessel home at all. But these feeble-bodied men were accustomed
only to voyages of short duration, and that in the fine weather season.
They could not bear the cold, neither were they dependable when the
East Indiaman had to defend herself against a privateer, pirate or
enemy’s warship. Ignorant of the English language, they were not easy
to handle. It was always reckoned that eighty or ninety of them were
not quite the equal of fifty British seamen, and for every hundred of
them employed four British seamen must be also. It was the India-built
ships which were manned almost exclusively by these lascars, and a new
problem arose, for these fellows used to remain behind in England,
where their condition became piteous. There was an obligation that
these lascars were always to be sent back to India, but in practice
many of them “are turned off in London, where they beg and perish.”
So wrote Macpherson in 1812. “The appearance of these miserable
creatures,” he remarked, “in the streets of London frequently excites
the indignation of passengers against the Company, who, they suppose,
bring them to this country and leave them destitute,” whereas, in
reality, these Easterns actually preferred to sink into degradation
in our land rather than return to their own. Many of them never
reached England, or, if they did, died on the return voyage: for the
bad weather off the Cape of Good Hope and the rigours of the English
climate caused considerable sickness and death.
English gentlemen who had been for some years under the Company in
India, either in a civil or military capacity, were often wont to
bring black servants home with them, and after these servants had been
some time in England they were discharged. The result was that, under
the terms of their obligation, the Company were put to great expense
in sending them back to their native country. It was with a view to
protecting themselves from this possibility that the Company used to
cause the master of such a servant to take a bond in India as security
for the cost of returning these coloured people, these bonds being
sent to the commander of the ship in which the master and his servant
was travelling to England. Otherwise, the commander was ordered by the
Company to refuse to have the black man on board.
Before an officer could become commander of one of the Company’s ships
it was necessary that he should be twenty-five years old and have
performed a voyage to and from India or China in the Company’s regular
service as chief or second mate, or else have commanded a ship in the
extra service. A chief mate had to be twenty-three years old, have
voyaged to India or China in the Company’s service as second or third
mate. A second mate had to be twenty-two years old and have made a
similar voyage as third mate. To become a third mate he had to be aged
twenty-one and been two voyages in the Company’s service to and from
India or China. A fourth mate had to be twenty years old and been one
voyage of not less than twenty months to India or China and back in the
Company’s service, and one year in actual service in any other employ,
and of the latter he had to produce satisfactory certificates.
In the case of the extra ships the commander had to be twenty-three
years old at least, have made three voyages to India or China and
back in the Company’s service, one of which must have been as chief
or second mate in a regular ship, or as chief mate in an extra ship.
The chief mate must be at least twenty-two, and have made two of these
voyages as officer in the Company’s regular service. The second mate
had to be at least twenty-one and have performed two voyages as officer
in the Company’s service to India or China and back. The third mate
must be twenty years and been one voyage in the Company’s service, or
two voyages as midshipman in the extra service.
It would not be untrue to say that officers of the early part
of the nineteenth century in this service were excellent seamen
and fair navigators, but many of them would not be sufficiently
expert in navigation nowadays to have entrusted to them the work
and responsibilities commensurate with those with which they were
charged. It was in the year 1804 that the Company issued the following
regulation:—
“That such of the officers as have not been already instructed in
the method of finding the longitude of a ship at sea, by lunar
observations, do immediately perfect themselves under Mr Lawrence
Gwynne, at Christ’s Hospital, previous to their attending the Committee
to be examined for their respective stations; and that they do produce
to the Committee a certificate from that gentleman of their being
qualified in the method.”
And within six weeks after each ship had arrived home, the commander
and officers had to attend a Committee of the Company which dealt with
the reasons for any deviation which the ship might have made during the
voyage.
As touching the accommodation in these ships, the officers had
canvas berths only, laced down to battens on the deck, with upright
stanchions, a cross-piece, and a small door, with canvas panels, the
canvas being capable of being rolled up. On the gun-deck the chief
mate’s berth was on the starboard side from the fore part of the
aftermost port, to the fore part of the second port from aft, the space
being eight feet broad. The second mate was located on the opposite
side to correspond, but his space was six inches narrower. Between the
second and third ports two similar berths, each six feet long and seven
feet broad, were fitted up for the third and fourth mates: and two more
for the purser and surgeon between the third and fourth ports. Two
others, slightly smaller still, were located between the ports on this
deck for the boatswain and carpenter. And no alteration from this was
allowed to be made during the voyage. The captain’s “great cabin” was
in the steerage, and he was forbidden to partition it off in any way
without special orders from the Company. When a ship went into action,
those canvas berths or cabins of the officers just alluded to were
taken down. The reader will recollect the capture some pages back of
the _Brunswick_ by the _Marengo_. Addison in his journal mentions that
when he and his fellow-officers were taken on board the latter they
were marched below to the ward-room. He then adds that, “being cleared
for action, the cabins were all down, and the whole deck clear fore and
aft, open to the seamen.”
The full uniform for the commander of one of the Company’s ships was
as follows:—Fine blue coat, black Genoa velvet round the cuffs, four
holes by two’s, three outside, one inside. Black velvet lapels, with
ten holes by two’s. Black velvet panteen cape, with one hole on each
side, straight flaps, with four holes by two’s. The fore parts were
lined with buff silk serge, black slit and turns faced with the same.
One button on each hip, and one at the bottom. The buttonholes were
gold embroidered throughout and gilt buttons with the Company’s crest.
The chief mate wore a blue coat with black velvet lapels, cuffs and
collar, with one small button to each cuff. The buttons gilt, with the
Company’s crest. The second, third and fourth mates’ uniforms were
similar to that of the chief mate, except that the second had two small
buttons on each cuff, the third had three, and the fourth had four.
[Illustration: THE “JESSIE” AND “ELIZA JANE” IN TABLE BAY, CAPE OF GOOD
HOPE, 1829.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)]
In the extra ships the commander wore a blue coat with black velvet
lapels, cuffs and collar, with only one embroidered buttonhole on each
cuff, and on each side of the collar. His buttons were gilt with
the Company’s crest. The chief mate’s uniform in these extra ships
consisted of a blue coat, single-breasted, with a black velvet collar
and cuffs, and one small buttonhole on each cuff, with gilt buttons as
before. The second and third mates’ were like this with the difference
of two or three small buttons on each cuff as mentioned. And it was
strictly ordered that officers were always to appear in this uniform
whenever they attended on the Court of Directors, their Committees, any
of the Presidents and Councils in India, or at St Helena, or the Select
Committee of Supra-Cargoes in China.
Some of the officers when they came up to be sworn in before the Court
of Directors did not always appear in the prescribed uniform, and the
Company sent out a warning against coming into their presence in boots,
black breeches and stockings, except in the case of deep mourning. When
appearing before the Court of Directors the officers were compelled to
wear full uniform, but when attending the Committee they were to wear
undress.
Whenever the ship dropped down from Deptford or Blackwall to Gravesend
the captain was to be on board. There were two sets of pilots. One took
the ship from Deptford or Blackwall to Gravesend, and another took her
from Gravesend to the Isle of Wight. Whilst the ship lay at Gravesend
the commander was ordered to go aboard her once a week in order to
report her condition to the Committee. Before sailing, the ship took on
board a sufficient amount of lime-juice to last the crew through the
whole voyage. And the commander had strict instructions to see that his
new hands—“recruits” the Company called them—wore the clothes which
the Company provided, and that the men did not sell them for liquor;
also that these men did not desert. For this reason no boats were
allowed to remain alongside the ship without having been made fast by
a chain and lock—thus preventing any possibility of the men escaping
to the shore. No boat was allowed to put off from the ship until every
person in her had been examined, lest one of the crew might be in her.
And a quarter watch was to be kept night and day to prevent the loss
of recruits. If any did desert, then the commander would most probably
have to pay the cost which this involved.
During the course of every watch the ship was to be pumped out, and
entries made in the log. And as regards divine worship, the slackness
of the previous period mentioned in an earlier chapter was no longer
tolerated. “You are strictly required to keep up the worship of
Almighty God on board your ship every Sunday, when circumstances will
admit, and that the log-book contain the reasons for the omission when
it so happens; that you promote good order and sobriety, by being
yourself the example, and enforcing it in others; and that you be
humane and attentive to the welfare of those under your command, the
Court have resolved to mulct you in the sum of two guineas for every
omission of mentioning the performance of divine service, or assigning
satisfactory reasons for the non-performance thereof every Sunday, in
the Company’s log-book.”
From the Company’s India House in Leadenhall Street the commander
was supplied with charts. These had to be returned at the end of the
voyage, together with the commander’s journals and track charts. What
were known as free mariners must have performed two voyages to India
or China and back in the Company’s ships, or else have used the sea
and been in actual service for at least three years. The reader is
aware that many a time the Company’s ships were endangered by the naval
authorities impressing so many men from them. At last, after many
protests, the Admiralty instituted a new regulation, so that, although
it was still not possible to abolish this impressment, yet the evil so
far as the East Indiamen were concerned was mitigated and controlled.
A letter was sent to the Rear-Admiral of the Red on the East Indies
station instructing him to order his captains and commanders to conform
to this new regulation. A proper scheme was drawn up, showing what
officers and men in East Indiamen ships of varying tonnages were to be
exempt from impress, though this protection applied only until the ship
should reach Europe. However, even if the whole exemption could not be
obtained, a portion thereof was better than nothing at all, especially
as the Company attributed so many of the losses of their ships to
having been deprived of their best men.
In addition to their wages, the men became entitled to a pension from
what was known as the Poplar Fund. Any commander, officer or seaman, or
anyone else who had served aboard any of these East Indiamen for eight
years and regularly contributed to this fund was entitled to a pension.
But if a man had been wounded or maimed so as to be rendered incapable
of further service at sea, he could still be admitted to a pension even
under eight years. The size of the pension was based on the amount of
capital which the officer possessed. Thus, if a commander stated that
he was not worth £2500, or £125 a year, he received a pension of £100.
Similarly, if a chief mate had not been able to amass £1300, or had £65
coming in every year, he was granted a pension of £60. And so the scale
descended down to the rank of midshipman, who was granted a £12 pension
if he was not worth £400, or £20 a year. Allowances were also made for
the widows and orphans of those who had served the Company for seven
years.
Before a candidate could be appointed as ship’s surgeon, those who
had already made one voyage in the Company’s service, or acted twelve
months in that capacity in his Majesty’s service in a hot climate were
given priority. After a qualified surgeon had served in one of the
extra ships for one voyage to India and back he was eligible for the
regular service. Both surgeon and a surgeon’s mate had to produce a
certificate from the examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons and
also from the Company’s own physician. The surgeons were allowed,
in addition to their salary and their privilege of private trade,
fifteen shillings per man on the voyage for medicine and attendance
on the military and invalids. But they were no longer required, as
part of their duties, to cut the hair of the Company’s servants! The
assistant-surgeon had to be at least twenty years old, and possess a
diploma from the College of Surgeons of London, Edinburgh or Dublin,
and a certificate from the Company’s own physician.
The gunner and his mate were examined as to their efficiency by the
Company’s master-attendant, who after approval gave them a certificate.
Volunteers for the Company’s Indian Navy, otherwise known as the
Bombay Marine, had to be between the ages of fourteen and eighteen; for
their cavalry and infantry, between sixteen and twenty-two.
To many passengers this voyage to the East was one of terror. Eastwick
tells a yarn about an assistant-surgeon in one of these ships. For five
days on the way out a great storm had been raging. This had evidently
so impressed this surgeon that the night after the storm abated he
dreamt that there was a great hole in the ship’s side. Jumping out of
his cot with alacrity, he knocked over the water-jug, and feeling the
cold water about his toes he ran headlong up on deck, clamouring that
the ship was sinking. For some time he was believed. The carpenter and
some of the officers hurried to his cabin, and meanwhile the passengers
had become alarmed and left their cabins, congregating by the boats.
The story, however, does not give the remarks of the carpenter and
officers when they found the assistant-surgeon had been romancing.
The passengers in these ships were made as comfortable as possible,
though they had to pay fairly heavily for the same. We have seen that
they were entertained with dances whenever possible. They brought with
them on board their servants, their furniture and their wines. But
the conduct of some of these passengers became so highly improper at
times that the Company found it necessary to frame regulations for
the preservation of good order on board, and these had to be enforced
strictly by the commander. In the words of the Court of Directors,
they bewailed the fact that “the good order and wholesome practices,
formerly observed in the Company’s ships, have been laid aside, and
late hours and the consequent mischiefs introduced, by which the ship
has been endangered and the decorum and propriety, which should be
maintained, destroyed.”
One of the great terrors on board these vessels was the possibility of
fire at sea. We shall have the account presently of the loss of the
_Kent_ East Indiaman in the Bay of Biscay, through that species of
disaster, in the year 1825, and there were other instances. It was in
order to guard against this possibility that no fire was allowed to
be kept in after eight at night except for the use of the sick, and
then only in a stove. Candles had to be extinguished between decks by
nine o’clock, and in the cabins by ten at the latest. This was before
the days when ships were compelled by Act of Parliament to carry
sidelights. In fact, just as in mediæval days not even the boatswain
was allowed to use his whistle, nor a bell to be sounded, nor any
unnecessary noise made after dark, lest the ship’s presence should be
betrayed to any pirate in the vicinity, so in the case of these East
Indiamen, not only were there no sidelights, but the commander was
enjoined that the utmost precautions be used to prevent any lights
‘tween decks or from the cabins being visible “to any vessel passing in
the night.”
[Illustration: THE “ALFRED,” EAST INDIAMAN, 1,400 TONS.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)]
The passengers used to dine not later than 2 P.M. And such was
the authority of the captain that when he retired from the table after
either dinner or supper, the passengers and officers must also retire.
The captain was to pay due attention to the comfortable accommodation
and liberal treatment of the passengers, “at the same time setting
them an example of sobriety and decorum, as he values the pleasure
of the Court.” Any improper conduct of the ship’s officers towards the
passengers or to each other was to be reported quietly to the captain,
and the decision left with the latter. But if anyone thought himself
aggrieved thereby, he could appeal to the Governor and Council of the
first of the Company’s settlements at which the ship should arrive, or,
if homeward bound, to the Court of Directors.
And the following brief, common-sense paragraph summed up the whole
situation:—
“The diversity of characters and dispositions which must meet on
ship-board makes some restraint upon all necessary; and any one
offending against good manners, or known usages and customs, will, on
representation to the Court, be severely noticed.”
We can well believe that those military officers or civil servants of
the Company who came on board homeward bound, after spending years
in India without benefit to their livers and tempers, if to their
pecuniary advantage, and were as ill-accustomed to the conditions of
ship life as they were bereft of an adaptable spirit, needed all the
tact and patience of the commander and ship’s officers to prevent
matters being even more uncomfortable than they were. Those who had
spent their lives wielding authority in India, and both honestly and
otherwise making fortunes, were not the kind of mortals most easy to
live with in the confined area of a ship not much over 1200 tons.
However, every passenger who came on board was given a printed copy of
the regulations, which had been formed for the good of all, and they
were told very pertinently to observe them strictly, and the captains
had to see that they did as they were told.
Certainly up to the second decade of the nineteenth century, the
ships themselves also were in great need of supervision, as to their
construction, though there were not many capable critics then in
existence. All the Company’s ships were of course built of wood, but
iron was already being extensively used for the knees. The idea was
excellent, but in practice inferior material was actually employed and
not the best British iron. And the same defect was noticeable with
regard to anchors and mooring chains. Of those various losses which
occurred to the East Indiaman ships about the year 1809, it was thought
by some that the cause was traceable to these weak iron knees which had
been put into the vessels. A certain Mr J. Braithwaite wrote a letter
to the East India Company in December of 1809, in which he stated that
he had been employed to recover the property of the _Abergavenny_,
which had been lost off Weymouth; and he found, on breaking up the
wreck, that many of the iron knees were broken, owing to having been
made of such poor, inferior material. This, he noticed, snapped quite
easily, and he was convinced that ships fitted with such knees would,
on encountering gales of wind, be lost owing to the knees giving way.
The East Indiaman _Asia_ was thought to have perished owing to that
reason.
But there was also another reason why the ships of this period were
unsatisfactory. They were built not under cover but outside, exposed
to all the weather. But, in addition, there was a bad practice at
that time which unquestionably caused a great deal of serious injury
to the ship. When the ship was approaching completion, and before the
sheathing had been put on, the sides and floor were deluged with
water, the intention being to see if there were any shake in the
plank, or butt or trenail holes, or if any of the seams had been left
uncaulked. If the water poured through anywhere this would indicate
that there was need for caulking before the ship was set afloat.
This was all very well in theory, but in practice it was very bad
indeed, for the water thus admitted settled down into the innermost
recesses, and the result was that the cargoes were always more or
less affected injuriously by the damp. Similarly, it injured the ship
herself, and dry-rot eventually shortened the vessel’s life. Damp,
badly ventilated, these old East Indiamen were frequently the source
of much anxiety to their managing owners or “ships’ husbands,” as they
were usually called. Then there was another defect. The influence of
the Middle Ages was not yet departed from shipbuilding: consequently
trenails were still used. This meant that the ship was riddled with
holes for the insertion of these wooden pegs. Speaking of an East
Indiaman of this time, a contemporary says that thus “she appears like
a cullender,” and “there is hardly a space of six inches in small ships
that is not bored through” by a trenail of one and a half inches in
diameter, being only six inches apart from the next trenail. Thus, of
course, the timbers were weakened, and at a later date when the ship
needed to be re-bored with holes for more trenails on the renewal of
decayed planking, there were so many holes in the timbers that the ship
was very considerably weakened thereby.
The method of the French in building ships had formerly been to
use iron fastenings, but the plank grew nail sick, and the iron
having corroded became very weak. Indian-built ships, however, were
constructed in such a way that there were no numerous series of holes
bored, and thus the hulls remained strong and stout. The planking was
secured to the timbers by spikes and bolts of iron, yet—owing to the
oleaginous sap of the teak from which they were built—the iron did
not corrode as it did in the case of oak-built ships. So about the
year 1810 the introduction of metal nails and bolts was advocated in
connection with the building of ships.
After the Company had lost their China monopoly the class of ship that
was built by the Greens, for instance, was composed of oak, greenheart
and teak, and excellently constructed. Mr F. T. Bullen has written of
such a ship, the _Lion_, which was launched in 1842 from the famous
Blackwall yard. He tells us that this was the finest of all the great
fleet that had been brought into being at that yard up to this date:
how, decked with flags from stem to stern, with the sun glinting
brightly on the rampant crimson lion that towered proudly on high from
her stem, she glided down the way amid the thunder of cannon and the
cheers of the spectators. She was afterwards given ten 18-pounders,
with many muskets and boarding-pikes stowed away in a small armoury in
the waist. This famous vessel, so characteristic of the best type of
East Indiaman which succeeded the Company’s ships, was, in spite of
her great size—as she was then regarded—far handier than any of those
“billy-boys” which used to be such a feature of the Thames. “There was
as much intriguing,” says Mr Bullen, “to secure a berth in the _Lion_
for the outward or homeward passage as there was in those days for
positions in the golden land she traded to. Men whose work in India
was done spoke of her in their peaceful retirement on leafy English
country-sides, and recalled with cronies ‘our first passage out in the
grand old _Lion_.’ A new type of ship, a new method of propulsion, was
springing up all round her. But whenever any of the most modern fliers
forgathered with her upon the ocean highway, their crews felt their
spirits rise in passionate admiration for the stately and beautiful old
craft whose graceful curves and perfect ease seemed to be of the sea
_sui generis_, moulded and caressed by the noble element into something
of its own mobility and tenacious power.”
Like many other of the later-day East Indiamen, she was eventually
taken off the route to India and ran to Australia with emigrants. With
her quarter-galleries, her far-reaching head, her great, many-windowed
stern, she would seem a curious kind of ship among twentieth-century
craft. But she held her own even with the new steel clippers, and made
the round voyage from Melbourne to London and back in five months and
twenty days, including the time taken up in handling the two cargoes,
finally being sold into the hands of the Norwegians, like many another
fine British ship both before and since her time. The last act of her
eventful life came when she crashed into a mountainous iceberg and
smashed herself to pieces. It was a sad end to a ship that had begun so
gloriously.