The Honour of the Flag
"Ye mariners of England!
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe.
. . . . . . .
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return."
"Ye Mariners of England." THOMAS CAMPBELL.
MOST people, as they listen to the inspiring strains of "Rule,
Britannia! Britannia rule the waves", feel a wholesome consciousness of
pride and satisfaction in having the privilege of belonging to a nation
whose sons have almost always been pre-eminent on the ocean; but few
stop to consider what is implied by the expression "rule the waves".
We are not in any doubt at the present moment of at least one meaning of
the words. Had not our fleet instantly asserted its supremacy at the
very outbreak of the great war with Germany we should have found it very
difficult to get along at all, either with the war or with "business as
usual". Does everybody realize, even now, that the war forced us to try
to do two stupendous things at once--to carry on the biggest struggle in
our history and to keep going the biggest trade and commerce in the
world? It is quite certain that if we had not been able to maintain our
"ruling of the waves", we should soon have been in a state of commercial
collapse.
But in the old days our claim to the empire of the sea was based on
other considerations, and though nothing more important was at stake
than what may be termed a question of precedence, our naval commanders,
even in those periods when our navy was by no means at its best or
strongest, were always prepared to enforce their claims by instant
resort to arms. Strange to say, it is only since our great victory off
Cape Trafalgar that we have abrogated a claim to an extensive watery
kingdom, extending from Cape Van Staten in Norway to Finisterre in
Spain, which for many hundred years we had fought for, generally
maintained, and asserted in the most imperious manner. According to old
writers on the subject, even the Saxon kings had claimed the kingship of
the "Narrow Seas", which then probably meant what is now the English
Channel. This, in the time of our Norman kings, was actually a channel
through their dominions, and when, by his marriage to the daughter of
the Duke of Aquitaine, Henry II eventually succeeded to that duchy, and
extended his dominions to the south-east corner of the Bay of Biscay, he
naturally felt he had a claim to rule the seas still farther to the
south.
"The striking of the sail" (that is, lowering it) "is one of the
ancientest prerogatives of the Crown of England," says an old writer,
"and in the second year of King John, it was declared at Hastings by
that Monarch, for a law and custom of the sea, that if a Lieutenant on
any voyage, being ordained by the King, encounter upon the sea any ship
or vessel, laden or unladen, that will not strike or vail their
bonnets[31] at the commandment of the Lieutenant of the King, or of the
Admiral of the King, or his Lieutenant, but will fight against them of
the fleet, that if they can be taken they shall be reputed as enemies;
their ships, vessels, and goods taken and forfeited as the goods of
enemies; and that the common people being in the same, be chastised by
imprisonment of their bodies." The same writer states that this claim
was formally recognized and accepted in the twenty-sixth year of the
reign of Edward I (1297) "by the Agents and Ambassadors of Genoa,
Catalonia, Spain, Almaigne, Zealand, Holland, Friesland, Denmark,
Norway, and divers other places in the Empire, and by all the States and
Princes of Europe".
There do not seem to have been any definite limitations to our watery
kingdom laid down: it is sometimes convenient not to be too precise. But
the earliest claim was _usque ad finem terrae_, which might mean to the
"Land's End", to "Finisterre" in Brittany, to "Finisterre" in Spain, or
"to the ends of the earth"--all very different things. Certainly the
Spanish Finisterre was regarded as the southern boundary in the
seventeenth century, for in the Rev. H. Teonge's _Diary_, when chaplain
in the _Royal Oak_, we find the following entry written after leaving
Gibraltar for England: "13 May, 1679--An indifferent good gale, and
fayre weather, and at twelve wee are in the King of England's dominions
(_Deo gratia_), that is wee are past Cape Finister and entering on the
Bay of Biscay".
Monarch after monarch asserted his right to be saluted by foreigners
"taking in their flag and striking their topsail" when within "His
Majesty's Seas", and the Protector Cromwell made the same claim on
behalf of the nation. Our men-of-war had also to be saluted in the same
way by our merchant-ships. Any neglect used to be summarily punished.
Captain Pennington of H.M.S. _Vauntguard_ notes in his _Journal_ that on
6th September, 1633, he had "in the Bilbowes" (that is, fastened by the
legs to an iron bar running along the deck) "Richard Eastwood, Master of
a Sandwich hoye, for not striking his topsayle"! He does not say how
long he kept him there, or whether he handed him over to the civil power
to be prosecuted by the Admiralty.
Not only the sea but "all that therein is" was considered the property
of the English monarchs. Foreigners were not allowed to fish without
permission, for which they generally had to pay. This was relaxed under
Henry VI, but reasserted later, and the enforcement of payment from
Dutch fishermen for fishing in the North Sea was one of the prime causes
of the wars between Holland and England in the time of the Commonwealth
and of Charles II. For the Dutch thought they were strong enough to
wrest the trident of Neptune from our grasp. They nearly succeeded, but
not quite, and we find William III asserting our claim to sovereignty
afloat just as particularly and definitely as any of his predecessors.
[Illustration: TEACHING THE SPANIARD "THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG"
Philip of Spain, arriving in the Straits of Dover on his journey to
England to espouse Mary, flaunts the flag of Spain without paying the
customary salute. Lord Howard of Effingham, the English admiral, soon
brings him to his senses by firing a round shot across his bows.]
The officers in command of royal ships or fleets were not expected to
refer the matter to higher authority, but were to take action at once,
and made no bones about doing so. Innumerable instances may be
quoted--the only difficulty is to pick out the most interesting cases.
Nor were they respectors of persons. When the gloomy and saturnine
Philip of Spain arrived in British waters, on his way to espouse our
Queen Mary, he came with great pomp and circumstance with a fleet of 100
sail, flaunting the gaudy flag of Spain even in the Straits of Dover.
Lord Howard of Effingham, sent with a guard of honour of 28 men-of-war
to meet the Prince Consort elect, had no idea of allowing that even in
this very special case, and, seeing no disposition on the part of the
Spanish fleet to pay the customary salute, lost no time in sending over
a gentle reminder in the shape of a round shot.
The hint was taken, and not till then did Howard go on board to pay his
respects to King Philip. Not many years later a Spanish fleet which was
on its way to Flanders, to bring Anne of Austria back to Spain, tried it
on again on entering Plymouth. Here they found Admiral Hawkins flying
his flag on board the _Jesus of Lubeck_--a ship, by the way, that had
taken part in the Armada fight. Hawkins was not slow in sending the
usual reminder humming through the Spanish admiral's rigging, and, as he
still hesitated to "take in his flag", a second messenger came crashing
into his ship's side. Still trying to avoid paying the usual
compliment, he went personally on board the _Jesus_ to argue the point.
He might have spared his pains. All the satisfaction he got was a
peremptory order to clear out of our seas within twelve hours as a
penalty for his rudeness to the Queen.
Again, off Calais, the French ambassador was made to render the proper
salute to our admiral of the Narrow Seas, who gave orders to Sir Jerome
Turner, his second in command, to "shoot and strike him", should he
refuse to do so. In 1605 Sir William Monson had a slight difficulty with
a Dutch admiral at the same place. The Dutchmen dipped his flag three
times, but Monson insisted that he should pay the ordained salute and
take it in altogether, or fight the matter out on the spot. The salute
was paid.
Even in the days of James I, when our fleet was in somewhat a poor way,
its captains insisted as firmly as ever on the customary honour being
paid to our flag. Captain Best of the _Guardland_ sends in a report
about two Dutch men-of-war off Aberdeen, and says: "The Admiral of the
Holland men-of-war hath his flag in her main-top, but giveth it out that
he will not take it in for all the Commanders of His Majesty's ships.
Forty years is within the compass of my knowledge, and I never knew but
that all nations forbear to spread their flags in the presence of the
King's ships. That custom shall not be lost by me. When I come into the
road and anchor by him, if the Admiral will not take in his flag when I
shall require it, I will shoot it down, though it grow into a quarrel."
The last expression is delightful. There certainly would have been the
makings of a "quarrel". This was in 1623.
Captain Richard Plumleigh took an even wider view of the obligations of
foreigners to pay honour to the English flag. His idea was that they had
to do so even in foreign harbours. He writes to the Admiralty on 23rd
September, 1631: "It was my fortune to speak with one of these two
merchants from whom the French demanded their flag". That is to say
that the French had what he regarded as the impertinence to expect that
they should have "struck" their topsails to them. He goes on: "They shot
at the English some dozen shots and received from the English the like
entertainment, with the loss of one man, by which they sat down and gave
over their pretences.... It hath always been my principal aim to
preserve His Majesty's Naval honnour both in his own seas and abroad,
and for my part I think that it were better that both I and the ship
under my charge were at the bottom of the sea, than that I should live
to see a Frenchman or any other nation wear a flag aloft in His
Majesty's seas and suffer them to pass unfought withal.... I dare engage
my head that with five of H.M. ships I will always clear the way to all
French flagmasters, yea, and make them strike to him upon those which
they call their own seas.... This summer I was at the Texel in Holland,
where come in divers French, and though the Hollanders bade me domineer
at home in England, yet I forebore not to fetch down their flag with my
ordnance." Evidently the gallant captain had strong views on the
subject, and did not hide them under a bushel. But he was not alone in
his determination to uphold the "honnour of the flag" at all costs.
Pennington, a notable naval officer of that period, has several
incidents of a similar kind to relate in his _Journals_ on board H.M.S.
_Convertive_,[32] _Vauntguard_, and _Swiftsure_, between 1631 and 1636.
He tells us that sailing in the first-mentioned ship, together with the
_Assurance_ and a couple of small vessels known as "whelps"--in search
of "Rovers and Pyrates"--he met a fleet of eleven Dutch men-of-war in
Dover Roads, "whereof two were soe stoute that they would not so much as
settle their topp-sayles untill wee made a shott at each of them,
soe--they doinge their dutyes--wee stood on our course". A few days
later "There came up 4 Dunkerke men-of-warr unto us, who in all
submissive wise, with their topp-sayles and top-gallant sayles lowrd
upon the capp, saluted us accordinge to the custome of the sea"!
All this seems summary and drastic enough for anybody, so that it is
curious to find the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh not long before
lamenting British decadence in this respect. "But there's no state grown
in haste but that of the United Provinces, and especially in their sea
forces.... For I myself may remember when one ship of Her Majesty's
would have made forty Hollanders strike sail and come to an anchor. They
did not then dispute _De Mare Libero_, but readily acknowledged the
English to be _Domini Maris Britannici_. That we are less powerful than
we were I do hardly believe it; for, although we have not at this time
135 ships belonging to the subject of 500 tons each ship, as it is said
we had in the twenty-fourth year of Queen Elizabeth; at which time also,
upon a general view and muster, there were found in England of able men
fit to bear arms, 1,172,000, yet are our merchant ships now far more
warlike and better appointed than they were, and the Royal Navy double
as strong as it then was."
Possibly Raleigh's words had borne fruit in increased vigilance on the
part of the captains of English men-of-war. But the Hollanders were
determined to put the matter to the test. Possibly they thought that as
there was no King of England after the martyrdom of Charles I there
could be no king of the English seas. They began by forbidding their
captains to pay the usual salute under pain of death. It was not long
before Van Tromp sailed defiantly through Dover Straits with all his
flags aloft. He got what he was asking for, a volley of round shot from
Robert Blake, who was on the look-out for him, and at once both fleets
went for each other "tooth and nail". The Dutch were beaten, but in a
second encounter--for by now English and Dutch were openly at war--Blake
got the worst of it, and was driven into the Thames to refit. "Tromp
meanwhile sailed up and down the Channel as a conqueror, with a broom at
his mast-head, thus braving the English navy in those very seas in
which she claimed unrivalled sovereignty".[33]
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE NORE, JUNE 1653, BETWEEN THE ENGLISH
AND DUTCH]
But his triumph was short-lived. The British eventually got the upper
hand, and their claims to the sovereignty of their seas were formally
admitted by the Dutch in 1654. Once again the question was fought out in
the days of Charles II, and once again the Dutch were compelled to agree
to strike their sails to even a single ship flying the King's flag. This
was in 1674. Not long before the first Dutch War the Swedes also wished
to question British rights. In 1647 Captain Owen of the _Henrietta
Maria_, having with him only the _Roebuck_, a small craft, with a crew
of forty-five men all told, was refused the salute by a fleet of three
Swedish men-of-war and nine or ten merchant-vessels off the Isle of
Wight. The usual "weighty arguments" were ignored, and the Swedes got
away and anchored in Boulogne Roads. Captain Owen was unable to keep in
touch with them, as they had shot away his tiller, but he got into
Portsmouth and reported the matter, and the Parliament at once ordered
the _St. Andrew_, _Guardland_, _Convertine_, and _Mary Rose_, which were
lying in the Downs, to attend to the matter. Captain Batten, of the
first-named ship, who was in command, at once put to sea, and found the
Swedes still at anchor off Boulogne, but flying no colours at all.
Batten sent for the Swedish commanders to come on board--and they came,
but declared that if their flags _had_ been up they would not have taken
them in, as they had been expressly ordered not to do so. It was rather
a difficult situation. Captain Batten, however, dealt with it by
ordering the Swedish vice-admiral to "come with him", and took him back
to the Downs. He told the remainder to "run away home". However, they
followed the English and their prisoners to the Downs, as their
commanders said that they dare not go home without the vice-admiral. The
affair was then considered by "the Committee of Lords and Commons for
the Admiralty and Cinque Ports", who eventually gave an order for the
release of the culprit.
Other nations from time to time attempted to exact salutes from foreign
ships in certain places, but apparently without much success. Thus the
Spanish demanded that a French fleet under the Duke of Guise when
passing Gibraltar in 1622 should strike their flags. The Duke refused,
though he said that they had told him that British ships were in the
habit of doing so, and he asked Sir E. Herbert to write and ask the Duke
of Buckingham whether this was true or not. But Herbert smelt a rat; and
though he complied with Guise's request, he wrote: "Be well advised what
answer you return, for I believe that he intends that the French king
should exact the same acknowledgements on the coasts of this country,
which you will never permit, as to the prejudice of the sovereignty that
the Kings of England have always kept in the narrow seas." As regards
the Mediterranean, it was laid down by James II, to prevent disputes
with "the most Christian King",[34] "That whensoever His Majesty's ships
of war shall meet any French men-of-war in the Mediterranean, there
shall no salutes at all pass on either side". William III's orders
were--after the usual directions to make foreigners pay the customary
salute in the English seas--"And you are further to take notice, that in
Their Majesties' Seas, Their Majesties' Ships are in no wise to strike
to any; and that in other parts, no ship of Their Majesties' is to
strike her flag or top-sail to any foreigner unless such foreigner shall
have first struck."
A final incident must bring this chapter to a close. It indicates a
slightly farther step towards the evacuation of the original position
which we had taken up. This was in the year 1730. Lieutenant Thomas
Smith, R.N., happened to be in temporary command of H.M.S. _Gosport_,
which was lying in Plymouth Sound. In came a French frigate, which,
either on account of ignorance or of design, omitted to strike her
top-sails. Smith, having so many precedents to guide him, though
possibly not very recent ones, sent the usual intimation by hulling her
with a cannon-ball. It was at a time of profound peace, and on the
demand of the French ambassador he was tried and dismissed the Service.
Plumleigh and Pennington must have turned in their graves! But he was
re-appointed to the Navy on the very next day, with the rank of captain,
and for the rest of his life was known as "Tom of Ten Thousand".
The old regulations remained in force up to the end of the eighteenth
century, but were omitted from those that were published about the
Trafalgar period. The orders given by William III for guidance of
officers when _outside_ English seas were made universal, so that for
some unknown reason we finally abandoned our claims at the very time we
were in a better position to enforce them than we had ever been before.
The old system rather partook of the way the proverbial Irishman in
search of "divarsion" asks "if any gintleman will be good enough to
thread on the tail of his coat", but it had its advantages. Had it been
now in force it is practically certain that some German commander would
have challenged it long before the German fleet had reached its present
proportions, after which there would have been no German fleet. Again,
there could have been no difficulties with neutral nations about
contraband or conditional contraband. As the whole sea from Norway to
Finisterre would have been recognized as British, no one could have
disputed our right to close it to anybody or anything that suited our
book. When it comes to fighting, other nations do not thank us for
having played "Uriah Heep" beforehand. It has possibly induced them to
fight instead of settling the dispute in some other way.
"Striking the sail" is now a thing of the past, but it is customary for
merchant-vessels to "dip" their flags to kings' ships. As for
men-of-war, they no longer exchange salutes of this kind when they meet
at sea.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] "Bonnet", an extra piece of canvas laced to a sail to enlarge it.
"Vail", to lower.
[32] Or _Convertine_, originally the _Destiny_.
[33] Guizot, _Cromwell, and the English Commonwealth_.
[34] Louis XIV of France.