Two stories from Hakluyt's _Voyages_ will illustrate what sort of work
the English were attempting in America about 1530, near the middle of
King Henry's reign. The success of 'Master Haukins' and the failure of
'Master Hore' are quite typical of several other adventures in the New
World.
'Olde M. William Haukins of Plimmouth, a man for his wisdome, valure,
experience, and skill in sea causes much esteemed and beloved of King
Henry the eight, and being one of the principall Sea Captaines in the
West partes of England in his time, not contented with the short
voyages commonly then made onely to the knowen coastes of Europe, armed
out a tall and goodlie ship of his owne, of the burthen of 250 tunnes,
called the Pole of Plimmouth, wherewith he made three long and famous
voyages vnto the coast of Brasill, a thing in those days very rare,
especially to our Nation.' Hawkins first went down the Guinea Coast of
Africa, 'where he trafiqued with the Negroes, and tooke of them
Oliphants' teeth, and other commodities which that place yeeldeth; and
so arriving on the coast of Brasil, used there such discretion, and
behaved himselfe so wisely with those savage people, that he grew into
great familiaritie and friendship with them. Insomuch that in his 2
voyage one of the savage kings of the Countrey of Brasil was contented
to take ship with him, and to be transported hither into England. This
kinge was presented unto King Henry 8. The King and all the Nobilitie
did not a little marvel; for in his cheeks were holes, and therein
small bones planted, which in his Countrey was reputed for a great
braverie.' The poor Brazilian monarch died on his voyage back, which
made Hawkins fear for the life of Martin Cockeram, whom he had left in
Brazil as a hostage. However, the Brazilians took Hawkins's word for it
and released Cockeram, who lived another forty years in Plymouth. 'Olde
M. William Haukins' was the father of Sir John Hawkins, Drake's
companion in arms, whom we shall meet later. He was also the
grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, another naval hero, and of the
second William Hawkins, one of the founders of the greatest of all
chartered companies, the Honourable East India Company.
Hawkins knew what he was about. 'Master Hore' did not. Hore was a
well-meaning, plausible fellow, good at taking up new-fangled ideas,
bad at carrying them out, and the very cut of a wildcat
company-promoter, except for his honesty. He persuaded 'divers young
lawyers of the Innes of Court and Chancerie' to go to Newfoundland. A
hundred and twenty men set off in this modern ship of fools, which ran
into Newfoundland at night and was wrecked. There were no provisions;
and none of the 'divers lawyers' seems to have known how to catch a
fish. After trying to live on wild fruit they took to eating each
other, in spite of Master Hore, who stood up boldly and warned them of
the 'Fire to Come.' Just then a French fishing smack came in; whereupon
the lawyers seized her, put her wretched crew ashore, and sailed away
with all the food she had. The outraged Frenchmen found another vessel,
chased the lawyers back to England, and laid their case before the
King, who 'out of his Royall Bountie' reimbursed the Frenchmen and let
the 'divers lawyers' go scot free.
Hawkins and Hore, and others like them, were the heroes of travellers'
tales. But what was the ordinary life of the sailor who went down to
the sea in the ships of the Tudor age? There are very few quite
authentic descriptions of life afloat before the end of the sixteenth
century; and even then we rarely see the ship and crew about their
ordinary work. Everybody was all agog for marvellous discoveries.
Nobody, least of all a seaman, bothered his head about describing the
daily routine on board. We know, however, that it was a lot of almost
incredible hardship. Only the fittest could survive. Elizabethan
landsmen may have been quite as prone to mistake comfort for
civilization as most of the world is said to be now. Elizabethan
sailors, when afloat, most certainly were not; and for the simple
reason that there was no such thing as real comfort in a ship.
Here are a few verses from the oldest genuine English sea-song known.
They were written down in the fifteenth century, before the discovery
of America, and were probably touched up a little by the scribe. The
original manuscript is now in Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a true
nautical composition—a very rare thing indeed; for genuine sea-songs
didn't often get into print and weren't enjoyed by landsmen when they
did. The setting is that of a merchantman carrying passengers whose
discomforts rather amuse the 'schippemenne.'
Anon the master commandeth fast
To his ship-men in all the hast[e],
To dresse them [line up] soon about the mast
Their takeling to make.
With _Howe! Hissa!_ then they cry,
'What howe! mate thou standest too nigh,
Thy fellow may not haul thee by:'
Thus they begin to crake [shout].
A boy or twain anon up-steyn [go aloft]
And overthwart the sayle-yerde leyn [lie]
_Y-how! taylia!_ the remnant cryen [cry]
And pull with all their might.
Bestow the boat, boat-swain, anon,
That our pylgrymms may play thereon;
For some are like to cough and groan
Ere it be full midnight.
Haul the bowline! Now veer the sheet;
Cook, make ready anon our meat!
Our pylgrymms have no lust to eat:
I pray God give them rest.
Go to the helm! What ho! no neare[r]!
Steward, fellow! a pot of beer!
Ye shall have, Sir, with good cheer,
Anon all of the best.
_Y-howe! Trussa!_ Haul in the brailes!
Thou haulest not! By God, thou failes[t]
O see how well our good ship sails!
And thus they say among.
Thys meane'whyle the pylgrymms lie,
And have their bowls all fast them by,
And cry after hot malvesy—
'Their health for to restore.'
Some lay their bookys on their knee,
And read so long they cannot see.
'Alas! mine head will split in three!'
Thus sayeth one poor wight.
A sack of straw were there right good;
For some must lay them in their hood:
I had as lief be in the wood,
Without or meat or drink!
For when that we shall go to bed,
The pump is nigh our beddës head:
A man he were as good be dead
As smell thereof the stynke!
_Howe—hissa!_ is still used aboard deepwater-men as _Ho—hissa!_ instead
of _Ho—hoist away!_ _What ho, mate!_ is also known afloat, though dying
out. _Y-howe! taylia!_ is _Yo—ho! tally!_ or _Tally and belay!_ which
means hauling aft and making fast the sheet of a mainsail or foresail.
_What ho! no nearer!_ is _What ho! no higher_ now. But old salts
remember _no nearer!_ and it may be still extant. Seasickness seems to
have been the same as ever—so was the desperate effort to pretend one
was not really feeling it:
And cry after hot malvesy—
'Their health for to restore.'
Here is another sea-song, one sung by the sea-dogs themselves. The
doubt is whether the _Martial-men_ are Navy men, as distinguished from
merchant-service men aboard a king's ship, or whether they are soldiers
who want to take all sailors down a peg or two. This seems the more
probable explanation. Soldiers 'ranked' sailors afloat in the sixteenth
century; and Drake's was the first fleet in the world in which
seamen-admirals were allowed to fight a purely naval action.
We be three poor Mariners, newly come from the Seas,
We spend our lives in jeopardy while others live at ease.
We care not for those Martial-men that do our states disdain,
But we care for those Merchant-men that do our states maintain.
A third old sea-song gives voice to the universal complaint that
landsmen cheat sailors who come home flush of gold.
For Sailors they be honest men,
And they do take great pains,
But Land-men and ruffling lads
Do rob them of their gains.
Here, too, is some _Cordial Advice_ against the wiles of the sea,
addressed _To all rash young Men, who think to Advance their decaying
Fortunes by Navigation_, as most of the sea-dogs (and
gentlemen-adventurers like Gilbert, Raleigh, and Cavendish) tried to
do.
You merchant men of Billingsgate,
I wonder how you thrive.
You bargain with men for six months
And pay them but for five.
This was an abuse that took a long time to die out. Even well on in the
nineteenth century, and sometimes even on board of steamers,
victualling was only by the lunar month though service went by the
calendar.
A cursed cat with thrice three tails
Doth much increase our woe
is a poetical way of putting another seaman's grievance.
People who regret that there is such a discrepancy between genuine
sea-songs and shore-going imitations will be glad to know that the
_Mermaid_ is genuine, though the usual air to which it was sung afloat
was harsh and decidedly inferior to the one used ashore. This example
of the old 'fore-bitters' (so-called because sung from the fore-bitts,
a convenient mass of stout timbers near the foremast) did not luxuriate
in the repetitions of its shore-going rival: _With a comb and a glass
in her hand, her hand, her hand_, etc.
_Solo_. On Friday morn as we set sail
It was not far from land,
Oh, there I spied a fair pretty maid
With a comb and a glass in her hand.
_Chorus_. The stormy winds did blow,
And the raging seas did roar,
While we poor Sailors went to the tops
And the land lubbers laid below.
The anonymous author of a curious composition entitled _The Complaynt
of Scotland_, written in 1548, seems to be the only man who took more
interest in the means than in the ends of seamanship. He was
undoubtedly a landsman. But he loved the things of the sea; and his
work is well worth reading as a vocabulary of the lingo that was used
on board a Tudor ship. When the seamen sang it sounded like 'an echo in
a cave.' Many of the outlandish words were Mediterranean terms which
the scientific Italian navigators had brought north. Others were of
Oriental origin, which was very natural in view of the long connection
between East and West at sea. Admiral, for instance, comes from the
Arabic for a commander-in-chief. _Amir-al-bahr_ means commander of the
sea. Most of the nautical technicalities would strike a seaman of the
present day as being quite modern. The sixteenth-century skipper would
be readily understood by a twentieth-century helmsman in the case of
such orders as these: _Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep
close!_ Our modern sailor in the navy, however, would be hopelessly
lost in trying to follow directions like the following: _Make ready
your cannons, middle culverins, bastard culverins, falcons, sakers,
slings, headsticks, murderers, passevolants, bazzils, dogges, crook
arquebusses, calivers, and hail shot!_
Another look at life afloat in the sixteenth century brings us once
more into touch with America; for the old sea-dog DIRECTIONS FOR THE
TAKYNG OF A PRIZE were admirably summed up in _The Seaman's Grammar_,
which was compiled by 'Captaine John Smith, sometime Governour of
Virginia and Admiral of New England'—'Pocahontas Smith,' in fact.
'A sail!'
'How bears she? To-windward or lee-ward? Set him by the compass!'
'Hee stands right a-head' (_or_ On the weather-bow, _or_ lee-bow).
'Let fly your colours!' (if you have a consort—else not). 'Out with all
your sails! A steadie man at the helm! Give him chace!'
'Hee holds his owne—No, wee gather on him, Captaine!'
_Out goes his flag and pendants, also his waist-cloths and top-armings,
which is a long red cloth ... that goeth round about the shippe on the
out-sides of all her upper works and fore and main-tops, as well for
the countenance and grace of the shippe as to cover the men from being
seen. He furls and slings his main-yard. In goes his sprit-sail. Thus
they strip themselves into their fighting sails, which is, only the
foresail, the main and fore topsails, because the rest should not be
fired nor spoiled; besides, they would be troublesome to handle, hinder
our sights and the using of our arms._
'He makes ready his close-fights, fore and aft.' [Bulkheads set up to
cover men under fire] ...
'Every man to his charge! Dowse your topsail to salute him for the sea!
Hail him with a noise of trumpets!'
'Whence is your ship?'
'Of Spain—whence is yours?'
'Of England.'
'Are you merchants or men of war?'
'We are of the Sea!'
_He waves us to leeward with his drawn sword,_ _calls out 'Amain' for
the King of Spain, and springs his luff_[brings his vessel close by the
wind].
'Give him a chase-piece with your broadside, and run a good berth
a-head of him!'
'Done, done!'
'We have the wind of him, and now he tacks about!'
'Tack about also and keep your luff! Be yare at the helm! Edge in with
him! Give him a volley of small shot, also your prow and broadside as
before, and keep your luff!'
'He pays us shot for shot!'
'Well, we shall requite him!' ...
'Edge in with him again! Begin with your bow pieces, proceed with your
broadside, and let her fall off with the wind to give him also your
full chase, your weather-broad-side, and bring her round so that the
stern may also discharge, and your tacks close aboard again!' ...
'The wind veers, the sea goes too high to board her, and we are shot
through and through, and between wind and water.'
'Try the pump! Bear up the helm! Sling a man overboard to stop the
leaks, _that is_, truss him up around the middle in a piece of canvas
and a rope, with his arms at liberty, with a mallet and plugs lapped in
oakum and well tarred, and a tar-pauling clout, which he will quickly
beat into the holes the bullets made.'
'What cheer, Mates, is all Well?'
'All's well!'
'Then make ready to bear up with him again!'
'With all your great and small shot charge him, board him thwart the
hawse, on the bow, midships, or, rather than fail, on his quarter; or
make fast your grapplings to his close-fights and sheer off' [which
would tear his cover down].
'Captain, we are foul of each other and the ship is on fire!'
'Cut anything to get clear and smother the fire with wet cloths!'
_In such a case they will bee presentlie such friends as to help one
the other all they can to get clear, lest they should both burn
together and so sink: and, if they be generous, and the fire be
quenched, they will drink kindly one to the other, heave their canns
over-board, and begin again as before...._
'Chirurgeon, look to the wounded, and wind up the slain, and give them
three guns for their funerals! Swabber, make clean the ship! Purser,
record their names! Watch, be vigilant to keep your berth to windward,
that we lose him not, in the night! Gunners, spunge your ordnance!
Souldiers, scour your pieces! Carpenters, about your leaks! Boatswain
and the rest, repair sails and shrouds! Cook, see you observe your
directions against the morning watch!' ...
'Boy, hallo! is the kettle boiled?'
'Ay, ay, Sir!'
'Boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast!' ...
_Always have as much care to their wounded as to your own; and if there
be either young women or aged men, use them nobly ..._
'Sound drums and trumpets: SAINT GEORGE FOR MERRIE ENGLAND!'