THE NAVY
The last few years of the century which passed so quietly at Steventon
were times of continual change and stir in the larger world, a world in
which both Francis and Charles Austen were taking an active part. But
except for the personal matters that affected them, Jane does not refer
to these events. It is true that from September 1796 to October 1798 we
have no letters of hers, which may be due to the fact that she and her
sister were not much parted then. This is one of the disadvantages of a
correspondence carried on with such a near relation. But subsequently
to this break the allusions to her brothers’ promotions and prospects
are fairly frequent.
“Admiral Gambier, in reply to my father’s application writes as
follows:—’As it is usual to keep young officers in small vessels, it
being most proper on account of their inexperience, and it being also
a situation where they are more in the way of learning their duty,
your son has been continued in the _Scorpion_, but I have mentioned to
the Board of Admiralty his wish to be in a frigate, and when a proper
opportunity offers and it is judged that he has taken his turn in a
small ship, I hope he will be removed. With regard to your son, now in
London, I am glad I can give you the assurance that his promotion is
likely to take place very soon, as Lord Spencer has been so good as to
say he would include him in an arrangement that he proposes making in
a short time relative to some promotions in that quarter.’
“There, I may now finish my letter and go and hang myself, for I am
sure I can neither write or do anything which will not appear insipid
to you after this.”
Again, “Frank is made. He was yesterday raised to the rank of
Commander, and appointed to the _Petterel_ sloop now at Gibraltar....
As soon as you have cried a little for joy you may go on, and learn
further that the Indian House have taken Captain Austen’s petition
into consideration, and likewise that Lieutenant Charles John Austen is
removed to the _Tamar_ frigate.”
Nearly a month later—
“Charles leaves us to-night, the _Tamar_ is in the Downs and Mr. Daysh
advises him to join her there directly, as there is no chance of her
going to the westward. Charles does not approve of this at all, and
will not be much grieved if he should be too late for her before she
sails, as he may then hope to get into a better station.”
And two days after, “I have just heard from Charles, who is by this
time at Deal. He is to be second lieutenant, which pleases him very
well. He expects to be ordered to Sheerness shortly as the _Tamar_ has
never been refitted.”
Frank apparently remained on the _Petterel_ until he received promotion
in the beginning of 1801, for his sister writes jestingly: “So Frank’s
letter has made you very happy, but you are afraid he would not have
patience to stay for the _Haarlem_, which you wish him to have done as
being safer than the merchantman. Poor fellow, to wait from the middle
of November to the end of December, and perhaps even longer, it must
be sad work; especially in a place where the ink is so abominably pale.
What a surprise to him it must have been on October 20, to be visited,
collared, and thrust out of the _Petterall_ by Captain Inglis. He
kindly passes over the poignancy of his feelings in quitting his ship,
his officers, and his men. What a pity it is that he should not be in
England at the time of his promotion, because he certainly would have
had an appointment, so everybody says, and therefore it must be right
for me to say it too. Had he been really here, the certainty of the
appointment, I dare say, would not have been half so great, but as it
could not be brought to the proof, his absence will always be a lucky
source of regret.”
The real name of the ship was evidently the _Petrel_, but it is very
variously spelt by other writers beside Jane, for orthography was not
considered of great moment in the eighteenth century.
Captain Francis Austen had done good service on board and had well
earned his promotion; in William James’s _Naval History of Great
Britain_, his name is mentioned with praise. On the 20th March, 1800,
in the evening, while the _Mermaid_, a twelve-pounder thirty-two gun
frigate, under Captain R. D. Oliver, and the ship sloop _Petrel_,
under Captain Francis William Austen, were cruising together in the
Bay of Marseilles, the _Petrel_, which was nearer the coast than the
_Mermaid_, came into action with three armed vessels; two escaped by
running on shore, but the third, the _Ligurienne_ of “fourteen long
six pounders two thirty-six pounder carronades all brass” and with one
hundred and four men on board to the _Petrel’s_ eighty-nine,—for the
first lieutenant and some of the crew were absent on prizes,—began to
fight. They kept up a running fight of an hour and an half’s duration,
within two hundred and fifty yards, and sometimes half that distance.
Then the _Ligurienne_ struck her colours, her commander being shot. The
_Petrel_ was at that time only six miles from Marseilles. No one was
hurt on the _Petrel_, though four of her twelve pounder carronades were
upset, and the sails riddled with shot holes. The _Mermaid_ apparently
stood in the offing, giving moral support throughout. The _Ligurienne_
was a fine vessel, only about two years old, and her capture must have
meant good prize-money into the pockets of the captain and crew of the
_Petrel_. After describing this action, Mr. James continues—
“Before quitting Captain Austen we shall relate another instance of
his good conduct; and in which, without coming to actual blows, he
performed an important and not wholly imperilous service.” On the
thirteenth of August, the _Petrel_ being then attached to Sir Sydney
Smith’s squadron on the coast of Egypt, he was the means of burning a
Turkish ship so as to prevent the French from stealing her guns, and
for this service the Captain Pacha presented him with a handsome sabre
and rich pelisse. Though his service seems to have landed the Turkish
vessel “out of the frying-pan into the fire.”
Charles Austen had seen active service when only a lad of fifteen,
and both brothers frequently took part in the small actions which were
continually occurring on the seas.
There was, as we have seen, six years’ difference in age between them,
but they were both at sea during some of the most glorious years in
the whole annals of England. In spite of bad provisions, bad quarters,
bad discipline, all of which will be again referred to, the English
seamen at this time showed pluck and energy that was limitless. Britain
was absolutely supreme on the seas. In 1794, Tobago, Martinique, St.
Lucia, and Guadaloupe were all taken in less than a month. In the
same year, Lord Howe, encountering twenty-six ships which the French
by great exertions had sent to sea, manœuvred for three days, but on
the “glorious first of June” bore down upon them and broke their line,
captured six, and dispersed the rest, while 8000 men were killed or
wounded on the French side against 1158 of the English. On September
16 of the following year, the Cape of Good Hope was taken by the
English under Sir James Craig. The Dutch made an attempt to retake the
Cape in 1796, but the whole of the armament they sent was captured
by Admiral Elphinstone. In 1797 the Spaniards, who had declared war
against Great Britain, put forth their full naval strength to attempt
to raise the blockade which bound the ports of France. They were met by
Sir John Jarvis, who had only fifteen ships of the line against their
twenty-seven, and half the number of frigates.
By the well-known manœuvre the Admiral broke the Spanish line, cutting
off a number of their ships, and when three of the largest wore round
to rejoin their comrades, they were met by Nelson and Collingwood.
Two of these Spanish ships got entangled with each other, and Nelson,
driving his own vessel on board of one of them, carried both sword
in hand, and received the sword of the Spanish Rear-Admiral in
submission; this was afterwards awarded to him for his own possession.
The Spaniards were totally routed and comparatively few ships were
taken; the battle, which earned its commander the title of Lord St.
Vincent, is considered one of the most important in the whole history
of England.
In October of the same year, the battle of Camperdown was gained by
Admiral Duncan, and these two victories together, by making the British
complete masters of the home seas allayed for a while the terror of
a French invasion. The mezzotint by James Ward from Copley’s famous
picture, given in illustration, shows the variety of costume adopted by
the British seamen at that time, the style of the officers’ dress, and
gives a very good idea of the appearance of the picturesque old wooden
sailing-ships in which such heroic services were performed.
The most amazing part of this splendid series of victories, all of
which contained much boarding and hand-to-hand fighting, demanding
personal pluck and endurance, is, that the sailors, as a mass, were
either unwilling men pressed into a service which they disliked, or
the very off-scourings of the country. On board there was bad food, bad
water, wretched accommodation, and often rank brutality. There was the
discipline of terror not of respect, and insubordination was only held
down by fear.
The officers fared a little better than the men in regard to comfort,
but it speaks well for young Charles Austen that he followed in his
brother’s steps when he must have known by word of mouth of all the
discomforts, to speak of nothing worse, which must be his lot on board
ship.
For the sons of gentlemen, the first entrance into the navy was a most
precarious venture, and the system, if system it can be called, so
haphazard, that one marvels men should have been found to let their
sons attempt it. A boy first obtained interest of some sort from an
admiral or captain on board a ship, and was taken by him in any odd
capacity for a voyage. He might go as “boy” or even as servant, and
though nominally a midshipman, was in reality without a position or
standing save what his patron allowed to him. He could not go in for an
examination until he had served on board for six years, then he might
do so to qualify for a lieutenancy. Once a lieutenant his position
was secured, and he had authority and consequently a very different
life. Captain Edward Thompson, writing in the middle of the eighteenth
century to a young relative who thought of following the sea for a
trade, says, “Besides, the disagreeable circumstances and situations
attending a subaltern officer in the navy, are so many and so hard,
that, had not the first men in the service passed the dirty road to
preferment, to encourage the rest, they would renounce it to a man.
It is a most mistaken notion that a youth will not be a good officer
unless he stoops to the most menial offices, to be bedded worse than
hogs, and to eat less delicacies. In short, from having experienced
such scenes of filth and infamy, such fatigues and hardships, that are
sufficient to disgust the stoutest and bravest, for alas there is only
a little hope of promotion sprinkled in the cup to make a man swallow
more than he digests the rest of his life.”
The wonder is that such boys as went to sea picked up enough seamanship
to pass any but the most practical examination. Navigation was in those
days even more difficult than at present, owing to the dependence on
the wind and the necessity for understanding the exact management of
sails. There were no engineers who could make the vessel go in any
direction the captain thought best at a moment’s notice; and the man on
the bridge had a heavy responsibility.
That matters in regard to the service were improving is evident, for
the same writer quoted above continues—
“The last war, a chaw of tobacco, a ratan, and a rope of oaths were
sufficient qualities to constitute a lieutenant, but now education and
good manners are the study of all.”
Yet the surroundings on board ship were enough to prevent any but the
most earnest and determined youth from studying; food and accommodation
were alike revolting. “At once you resign a good table for no table,
and a good bed for your length and breadth. Nay, it will be thought an
indulgence too to let you sleep where day ne’er enters; and where fresh
air only comes when forced. You must get up every four hours, and they
never forget to call you, though you may forget to rise.
“Your light for day and night is a small candle which is often stuck
on the side of your platter at meals for want of a better convenience.
Your victuals are salt and often bad; and if you vary the mode of
dressing them you must cook yourself ... in a man-of-war you have the
collected filth of jails; condemned criminals have the alternative of
hanging or entering on board. There is not a vice committed on shore
but is practised here, the scenes of horror and infamy on board a
man-of-war are so many and so great, that I think they must rather
disgust a good mind than allure it.”
Smollet’s pictures of life on board are too well known to quote.
The between decks, where the men slept, had not been ventilated at
all up to the middle of the eighteenth century, when a hand-pump
was invented to expel the foul air, the fresh air being left to find
its own way in. The noisome smells, the cramped space, the continual
darkness and disorder, must have bred sickness and debility in many,
which all the open-air life on deck could not counteract.
As for the food served for the men, it seems to have been loathsome.
In _Tracts relating to the Victualling of the Navy_, we read of “sour
tainted pickled meat. If such can be called food—human food—when dogs
that I have offered it to have flagged their tails, ran away, and would
not even smell to it;” of “rotten, musty, weevily flour,” and “as
for the butter, cheese, oil, raisins, they might have been expended,
the cheese into ammunition, cast into cannon balls, the raisins as
wadding, the butter and oil to grease their tackle with, for which it
may be thought very fit—stinking slush. It is no longer a wonder at
the pursers being tormented with execrations and bitter wrath from
remediless, aggrieved, and tortured men on board.”
It is said that any man who had been long a sailor, got into the habit
of tapping his biscuit on the table to knock the weevils out before he
ate it, a trick that old salts were seen to do at the tables of their
friends on shore!
As for the state of the hospitals in India and elsewhere, the following
story tells a tale. “Soon after the last action with the French fleet,
I observed a wounded seaman, who had lost part of his hand by a shot,
climbing up the side with one hand, and holding his bread bag in his
teeth. I asked why he had left the hospital. He answered they were
so much in want of provisions that he had come on board to beg some
biscuit (which was full of maggots) for his messmates. At that time I
understood Government was charged a rupee a day for every man in the
hospital (about 1000 or 1500) but I believe seven or eight pence was
all it cost the contractor for their provisions, and it was reported
that he was obliged to share the profits with the admiral and his
secretary, said to amount to about £70 a day.”
We have had some revelations of official corruption recently, but
there is nothing to compare with the openly recognised stealing of
the eighteenth century, when, so late as 1783, a minister could say
in earnest to a purser who had been a commissary and complained of
poverty, “You had your hand in the bag, sir, why did you not help
yourself?” And help themselves everyone apparently did, from the
highest to the lowest. Enquiry first began to be made by Lord St.
Vincent, who set himself to clean this Augean stable.
There being a prospect of a vacancy in the office of the Admiralty, a
satirical correspondent to the _Morning Chronicle_ in 1792 forwarded
the following list of qualities essential for any candidate applying:—
He should know nothing of a ship.
He should never have been to sea.
He should be ignorant of geography.
He should be ignorant of naval tactics.
He should never attend office until four in the afternoon.
He should be unfit for business every day.
He should be very regular in keeping officers waiting for orders.
He should not know a bumboat from a three decker.
His hair should always be well dressed,
And his head should be empty!
Though matters were bad enough for the officers they were fifty times
worse for the men, and it is not at all singular that men should
have been procured with difficulty to enter a service where they were
liable to all sorts of hardships; to great risk of life; where they
were at the mercy of an irresponsible commander, who could order them
to be strung up on the slightest provocation, and given any number
of lashes he thought fit; where they could be hanged for disobeying
or manifesting the smallest revolt to this tyrant; where prize-money,
which was freely distributed to officers, sometimes never reached the
men. There were instances of prize-money fairly due to the men being
held over for a year or more as “not worth distributing.”
The deficiency of men was, as we have seen, supplied by using the
criminals of the gaols. Bounty money was also liberally offered, the
authorities realising that a few pounds ready money were likely to be
a valuable bribe to a man out of luck. The _St. James’s Chronicle_
remarks at the beginning of the war, “Five pounds bounty, and two
pounds extra from the Corporation of London; surely no tars can be
found backward.”
In 1770 the Government had offered thirty shillings a head, which was
augmented by various towns; London offering forty shillings additional,
and Edinburgh forty-two shillings. In 1788 a prohibition forbidding
seamen to serve in foreign navies was issued, and in 1791 the bounty
money of London rose to two pounds for an ordinary seaman, and sixty
shillings for an able seaman. The city added twenty shillings to the
one, and forty shillings to the other at the beginning of the war in
1793. And in 1795 the total bounties in some places even amounted to
thirty pounds a head!
In 1795 an Act was passed demanding levies of men from the whole
country, the proportions varying according to the size of the county or
port; from Yorkshire more than a thousand were demanded. In addition
to this the pressgang was hard at work, and the monstrous injustice
perpetrated by it makes one wonder how, even in times of greatest
stress, it could have been allowed.
The difference between an ordinary press and a “hot press” was that in
the latter all protection was disregarded, and men of every sort, even
apprentices usually protected by law, were seized and carried off to
serve, utterly regardless of mercy. The odd part of it is that, when
it was found to be inevitable, the men who had been taken against their
will plucked up spirit and performed their duties well.
John Ashton in _Old Times_ quotes a number of cuttings from _The Times_
of 1793 and 1794 giving details of these presses. “The press in the
river Thames for the three last days has been very severe. Five or six
hundred seamen have been laid hold of.” (February 18, 1793.)
“A hot press has, for the last two nights, been carried on from London
Bridge to the Nore; protections are disregarded, and almost all the
vessels in the river have been stripped of their hands.” (April 26,
1793.)
“Sailors are so scarce that upwards of sixty sail of merchant’s ships
bound to the West Indies, and other places, are detained in the river,
with their ladings on board; seven outward bound East Indiamen are
likewise detained at Gravesend, for want of sailors to man them.”
(January 7, 1794.)
“That part of Mr. Pitt’s plan for manning the navy, which recommends to
the magistrates to take cognizance of all idle and disorderly people,
who have no visible means of livelihood, may certainly procure a
great number of able-bodied men who are lurking about the Metropolis.”
(February 11, 1795.)
“There was a very hot press on the river on Friday night last,
when several hundred able seamen were procured. One of the gangs in
attempting to board a Liverpool trader, were resisted by the crew, when
a desperate affray took place, in which many of the former were thrown
overboard, and the lieutenant who boarded them killed by a shot from
the vessel.” (June 9, 1795.)
In 1798 all protection from the operations of the pressgang was
suspended, even in the case of the coal trade, for one month!
To counterbalance all the manifold disadvantages of service in the
navy, for the officers at least, there were some attractions; that of
prize-money was very great, for a man might literally make his fortune
at sea in a few years by lucky captures, and the spirit of gambling and
adventure to which this gave rise must have had a very strong effect in
attracting young officers.
The account of the sums received in prize-money is perfectly amazing;
the best haul of all was perhaps the _Hermione_, a Spanish ship taken
long before the Austens’ day, in 1762. The treasure was conveyed to
London in twenty waggons with the British colours flying over those of
Spain, a sight that would confound those of our own time, who seem to
think the true way to celebrate a victory is to give compensation to
those who have provoked war, and brought defeat upon themselves! The
share of one ship alone, the _Active_, amounted to over £250,000; and
the proportion given to the ships of the same squadron not actually
present amounted to nearly £67,000. The value of the _St. Jago_,
taken in 1793, as adjudged to the captors was £935,000, of which about
£100,000 went to Admiral Gell. (_The Times_, February 4, 1795.) Each
captain got nearly £14,000.
In 1801, Jane tells us that “Charles has received £30 for his share of
the privateer and expects ten pounds more, but of what avail is it to
take prizes if he lays out the produce in presents to his sisters? He
has been buying gold chains and topaz crosses for us. He must be well
scolded.”
After this it does not seem so strange to read in _Persuasion_ that in
only seven years Anne’s lover, Wentworth, “had distinguished himself,
and early gained the other step in rank, and must now, by successive
captures, have made a handsome fortune,” which otherwise strikes oddly
on our ears.
[Illustration: VICTORY OF LORD DUNCAN (CAMPERDOWN) 1797]
The abuses in the navy included those of interest, which in those days
honeycombed every branch of professional life. Lord Rodney made his son
John a post captain after he had been a midshipman little over a month,
and when he was just over fifteen years old. But this, at a time when
boys of fourteen held commissions in the Guards, must have seemed a
trifle. Mrs. Lybbe Powys, speaking of her brother-in-law, says—
“Our young officer is what I fear too generally young men in the army
are, gay, thoughtless, and very handsome; but what boy of fourteen,
having a commission in the Guards, can be otherwise?”
_The Times_ of 1797 speaks of the “baby officers,” and says—
“Some of the sucking colonels of the Guards have expressed their
dislike of the short skirts. They say they feel as if they were going
to be flogged.”
A peculiar feature of the end of the eighteenth and beginning of
nineteenth centuries was the tendency to mutiny, induced doubtless by
the terrible hardships and injustices undergone by the men on board.
And the wonder is, not that the men did mutiny, but that they endured
so long and fought so splendidly without doing so.
Some of the mutineers on board the _Téméraire_, in the beginning of the
nineteenth century, are thus described by an eye-witness. “They were
the noblest fellows, with the most undaunted mien, I ever beheld—the
beau ideal of British sailors; tall and athletic, well-dressed, in
blue jackets, red waistcoats, and trousers white as driven snow. Their
hair like the tail of the lion, hung in a queue down their back. At
that time this last article was considered, as indeed it really was,
the distinguishing mark of a thoroughbred seaman. Unfortunately, these
gallant fellows were as ignorant as they were impatient, and the custom
of the time was to hang everyone who should dare to dispute the orders
of his superior officers.”
Of the mutinies the most serious were those at Spithead and the Nore,
which followed closely upon one another. After the first, concessions
in regard to pay and various improvements in commissariat were granted;
and both mutinies were put down firmly and sharply, but they were
followed from time to time by lesser outbreaks.
All these excitements, and the constant changes in the pay of officers,
must have been watched with interest by the Austen family, whom they
touched so nearly. Jane certainly understood the best type of naval
officer, and had no little admiration and affection for him.
The officers in her novels may easily be divided into two sorts, they
are the officers of the old school, of which Admiral Crawford, in
_Mansfield Park_, to whom his nephew and niece were indebted for their
bringing up, is a prominent example. Here is the aforesaid niece’s
account of the type, when Edmund Bertram asks her whether she has not a
large acquaintance in the navy. “‘Among admirals, large enough, but,’
with an air of grandeur, ‘we know very little of the inferior ranks.
Post captains may be very good sort of men, but they do not belong
to us. Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal; of them and
their flags, and the gradation of their pay, and their bickerings and
jealousies. But in general, I can assure you that they are all passed
over and all very ill-used. Certainly my home at my uncle’s brought me
acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough.
Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.’”
Mr. Price, Fanny’s father, who is in the Marines, with his noise, and
his oaths, and his coarseness and ill-temper, is a terrible revelation
to his gentle daughter.
On the other side of the scale we may set Admiral Croft in
_Persuasion_, a polished and delightful man, “rear-admiral of the
white. He was in the Trafalgar action, and has been in the East Indies
since; he has been stationed there, I believe, several years.”
The younger generation of sailors is represented charmingly in the
novels from Fanny’s admirable, straightforward, single-minded brother
William, who, when he came to Mansfield Park shortly after getting
promoted to his lieutenancy, “would have been delighted to show his
uniform there too, had not cruel custom prohibited its appearance
except on duty. So the uniform remained at Portsmouth, and Edmund
conjectured that before Fanny had any chance of seeing it, all its
own freshness, and all the freshness of its wearer’s feelings must be
worn away; for what can be more unbecoming or more worthless than the
uniform of a lieutenant who has been a lieutenant a year or two, and
sees others made commanders before him.”
Captain Wentworth, Anne’s lover, who had been treated so cruelly in
deference to the wishes of her family, is gallant, handsome, charming,
a man of the world, without having lost his freshness, and a man who
has won his way and yet been unspoiled by flattery; he is one of the
best of Jane Austen’s heroes.