PART III—THE ADMINISTRATION_A history of the administration of the Royal Navy and of merchant shipping in relation to the Navy from MDIX to MDCLX, with an introduction treating of the preceding period

[Sidenote: The Commissioners.]

The system, inaugurated in 1618, of governing the Navy by Commissioners,

acting under the Lord Admiral, remained in force until February 1628,

when the four Principal Officers resumed control under Buckingham.

Although the Commissioners’ direction was of course, both in ability and

honesty, immeasurably superior to that of Mansell, they cannot be said

to have risen to any great excellence of administration. In October 1627

Charles, in writing to the Duke, apologised for the slowness with which

supplies were furnished, ‘the cause whereof is ... the slow proceedings

of the Commissioners of the Navy (which all Commissions are liable

to).’[1183] If King and minister were both of this opinion, it would

account for the supersession which so soon followed. After Buckingham’s

murder the post of Lord Admiral was put into commission, and the new

Lords of the Admiralty[1184] were even more reliant on the capacity of

the Principal Officers than had been their predecessors; but they appear

to have been also suspicious and distrustful of them.

[Sidenote: Buckingham.]

Of Buckingham it may be said that, had he possessed less power, he

would have made a better chief. In the ten years he held office[1185]

he practically doubled the effective of the Navy, for the Commissioners

could have done little without his aid. So far as the emptiness of the

treasury would allow he enlarged and repaired docks and storehouses, and,

if he did not discover, he was one of the first to appreciate the true

naval importance of Portsmouth. He provided for the home manufacture of

cordage by inducing Dutchmen to settle here and teach Englishmen their

art; and he increased in number, and made permanent, the ropehouses

attached to English dockyards. He reintroduced lieutenants and corporals

on board ship, and was the first administrator who began systematic naval

and gunnery instruction in the service. It is difficult to apportion the

credit for the reforms which followed 1618 between the Commissioners and

Buckingham. Nicholas[1186] gives it to Buckingham; but Nicholas was his

private secretary, and we know that the Duke had no grasp of detail. On

the other hand he wrote in praise of Buckingham after the Duke’s death,

when he had nothing more to hope from him, and it is certain that the

Commissioners could not have stood for twenty-four hours against the

vested interests they attacked without Buckingham’s consistent support.

Unfortunately for his memory he must be judged, not as head of the

Navy, but as the all-powerful minister, and in that sense history has

pronounced its verdict.

[Sidenote: The Principal Officers.]

Since 1618 the duties of the Treasurer of the Navy had become, and

remained in the future, almost entirely financial. His salary was

increased, from 1630, by the grant of the poundage of threepence on all

payments made by him, including wages, instead of, as before, only on

those to merchants supplying stores; as well as a house at Deptford and

other advantages, and in 1634 his fixed fee was raised from £270, 13s 4d

to £645, 13s 4d.[1187] He even received the poundage on the salaries of

the other three Officers, and they were continually petitioning for an

advance in their rate of pay, which had remained unaltered since their

posts were created by Henry VIII. It is suggestive to find that, among

their reasons for the requested increase, they mention that before the

reforms of 1618 they had an allowance of £60 a year from the Treasurer

and Victualler for passing their accounts;[1188] and the Surveyor and

Comptroller estimated the total annual value of their perquisites before

that date at £384 and £430 respectively. This included the allowance

from the Treasurer and Victualler, commissions given by officers on

appointment, and dividends divided among them from the sale of old

stores.[1189]

In 1637 they appear to have been promised that if they could obtain their

augmentation without going to the royal coffers for it they were welcome

to whatever they could get. Accordingly they point out that in this year

they had prevented fraudulent overcharge on the part of owners of hired

merchantmen to the extent of £1874, and they therefore desired to divide

the whole of this sum.[1190] What advantage this would be to the crown

they omitted to say. They were exceptionally unlucky, seeing that most

officials had only to petition in order to receive. In one case £20 a

year was taken off the salaries of the masters attendant, but, when these

complained, they had each £40 a year added and with less work. Their ill

fortune was, perhaps, due to the disfavour with which the Lords of the

Admiralty seem to have usually viewed them, and it was not until the

era of the Long Parliament, when, from motives of fear, all wages were

raised, that they shared in the general increase.

None of these Officers was of any historic interest. For two and a half

years, between 1627[1191] and 1629, Sir Sackville Crowe was Treasurer,

but he, to put as favourable a construction as possible on what happened,

got his accounts into confusion to the extent of £1500.[1192] Before and

after Crowe, Sir Wm. Russell was sole Treasurer[1193] till 1639,[1194]

then for two years with the younger Vane,[1195] and again in 1642 by

himself till August, after which Vane alone was reappointed. Russell

was a mere man of affairs, who confined himself to his accounts, and

seems never to have ventured an opinion on anything outside them. Sir

Thos. Aylesbury was the first Surveyor of the Navy in 1628, and he,

when he resigned, was succeeded by Kenrick Edisbury,[1196] perhaps the

most observant and energetic of the chief Officers, who held the post

till his death in 1638, when he was succeeded by Wm. Batten,[1197] who

was appointed ‘during pleasure,’ instead of by patent for life, as in

preceding cases.[1198] Sir Guildford Slingsby had been Comptroller of

the Navy under Mansell, and was again given the same office in February

1628 by Charles. The main incidents of his second tenure which have come

down to us relate to his assaults on his inferiors, and his quarrels with

his brother Officers. Immediately after his appointment, John Wells, the

storekeeper of the Navy, petitioned that, although the other officers had

allotted him lodgings in the Navy Office, Slingsby, to accommodate his

family and servants, ‘hath violently taken his lodgings from him.’[1199]

In 1629 his colleagues complained to the Lords Commissioners that he had

felled with a pocket pistol, and otherwise maltreated, the man in charge

of the Navy Office, and kept him out of the house, notwithstanding their

wish to reinstate him.[1200] Slingsby died in 1632, and Sir H. Palmer

succeeded him. The most notable event in Palmer’s official career was his

excuse for selling government cordage and pocketing the proceeds—‘because

his predecessors had done the like.’ He subsequently amended this defence

by saying that he had spent the money on naval necessaries.[1201] Denis

Fleming and Thos. Barlow[1202] were successively Clerks of the Navy; and

Edward Nicholas, who had been Buckingham’s secretary, became secretary to

the Commissioners of the Admiralty.

Till 1628 William Burrell was in charge of all shipbuilding and repairs,

and in 1629 Burrell and Phineas Pett were made assistants to the

Principal Officers. Burrell died in 1630, and from January 1631 Pett

became himself a Principal Officer, being three months junior to Sir

Kenelm Digby, who had been appointed in the previous October. Neither

Digby nor Pett had any defined duties, and in Digby’s case the position

seems to have been almost entirely honorary, although at one time he was

treating with Mervyn for the latter’s command in the Channel. Mervyn

asked £5000, his arrears of pay, to his rights in which Digby would

presumably succeed, and the £3000 he had given for his admiralship of

the narrow seas.[1203] It would be a matter of some interest to know to

whom that £3000 was paid, but there had been obviously no secrecy in the

transaction.

After Buckingham’s death the Lords Commissioners met twice a week,

sometimes at Wallingford House and sometimes in the Council Chamber at

Whitehall. In March 1638 the child Duke of York was made Lord Admiral

for life,[1204] and Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, his

acting substitute during the King’s pleasure;[1205] the Navy therefore,

ceased to be governed by commission from that date. In 1628 the Principal

Officers met at St Martin’s Lane, but in March 1630 some rooms were taken

for them in a house in Mincing Lane at a rental of £30 a year.[1206]

Thenceforward expenses incurred in relation to that house appear in many

of the accounts. It cost £150 for furnishing, twelve months’ beer there

£13, 8s,[1207] yearly water rate £1, 6s 8d, but only 3s 6d for Christmas

gratuities.

Although in 1628 the four Officers had been reinstated in a portion

of their former authority, they by no means escaped the control of,

and occasionally severe censure from, the Lords of the Admiralty.

Sometimes my Lords considered that their sympathies ran rather with

their subordinates than with the King’s interests, and, as most of them

had been suspended for acts similar to those they were called upon to

condemn in minor officials, the charge was not unfounded.[1208] In the

fleet of 1637 embezzlement of stores by the boatswains had been very

general. There was nothing unusual in this, but the resolve of the

Lords Commissioners to punish the guilty persons appeared to strike the

Principal Officers as both unusual and unfair. Their pleas on behalf of

these men provoked the Commissioners to write, ‘We observe that you are

more apt to intercede for those that are most faulty than to certify

what you find against other boatswains ... it is time by due punishment

to break up this custom of the boatswains’ exorbitant wasting of his

majesty’s stores, the continuance whereof so long with impunity hath,

it seems, made the Officers think it almost lawful.’[1209] On another

occasion they were told, ‘If you were as careful of his majesty’s service

as you are to cast all such unfitting troubles on us, you would gain

much more reputation and esteem to yourselves’;[1210] and, once again,

reference was made to their ‘supine negligence.’ While they were exposed

to these snubs from their superiors, one of their inferiors certainly,

and others probably, expressed opinions of them with the same frankness.

They complained to the Lords that Francis Brooke, storekeeper at

Portsmouth, ‘used many base words of ourselves, calling us loggerheads.’

Perhaps the Admiralty agreed with him; at any rate it is not found that

Brooke was reprimanded, so that the only consolation left to them was

their salaries.

Observers who acquitted the Principal Officers of intentional fraud

accused them of incompetence. They were said not to know where their

respective duties began or ended, but the conditions under which they

worked were not favourable to success in management. Each one kept his

books at his own residence, and neither sufficient time nor assistance

was allowed for the various duties of inspection or bookkeeping which

fell to him. Moreover they were compelled to purchase stores from persons

holding patents for the sale of special articles such as iron, canvas,

etc., a necessity sufficient to account for any depth of badness in the

supply.

[Sidenote: Frauds and Thefts.]

Whether the confusion was due to neglect or overwork, the effect on

the lower ranks of naval employés was the same. From the first year of

the reign we have a continuous record of carelessness and fraud, which

neither Commissioners nor Lords Commissioners seem to have been able to

stamp out. In 1625, on board the ships at sea, pursers charged on the

full number of men supposed to be mustered, and shared the profits made

on those absent with their captains, while gunners and boatswains each

kept from two to five servants who were rated as seamen, but who were

boys and landsmen, and whose wages were retained by the officers. When

the vessels were laid up the shipkeepers were usually drunk or absent.

Captain Joshua Downing one night rowed down the Medway, and ‘might have

gone on board all ships but three and done any mischief,’ and ‘in these

twenty years last past all the navy hath not bred five able sailors nor

two able gunners.’[1211] Of 330 shipkeepers, in 1634, only 42 were ‘the

King’s own men’; the rest were hired servants or apprentices, their pay

being received by the ship, or dockyard, officers who hired them.[1212]

In 1638 matters were as bad. John Holland, then paymaster of the Navy,

wrote that the shipkeepers and apprentice servants of the officers

were coachmen, tailors, gardeners, etc., and that the apprentices were

dismissed at the end of their term as ignorant as when they joined.[1213]

Robberies were frequent. ‘Generally the watchman is the thief and the

shipkeeper the cabin-breaker;’ but the ship and dockyard officers dared

not prosecute, because such a course would have called attention to

their own delinquencies.[1214] Downing’s experience did not evoke much

attention, since, in the following year, it was reported from Chatham,

‘There are divers that are upon the king’s majesty’s charges both for

victuals and wages, but give no attendance nor do no service; neither

can we take any muster of any man but just at dinner time, for no longer

than they are tied by the teeth are they to be kept on board,’[1215] this

being in the full stress of war time.

When captains were turning their men-of-war into cargo boats, to enable

merchants to defraud the customs,[1216] we need not be surprised that

their inferior officers allowed themselves license in theft, and the

references to carpenters, gunners, boatswains, and pursers, about the

illicit sale of ships’ stores are innumerable. That fortunes were made

from ‘chips’ taken out of the dock yards is well known. ‘The infinite

abuse and prejudice the king has in all or most of his yards under

colour of chips is intolerable;‘[1217] again, ‘a great quantity of wood

is carried away by workmen when they go to breakfast, at dinner time,

and at night under colour of chips; they cut up good timber and call it

chips;‘[1218] and in some yards the shipwrights built huts in which to

store their plunder. In one case a lighter containing 8000 tree-nails,

said to be made from chips, but more probably stolen from Deptford

yard, was seized, and the destined receiver was found to be one of the

government shipwrights who also owned a private shipbuilding yard.

Some of the dockyard workmen converted the storehouses into lodgings

for themselves and their families, and this abuse continued until the

parliamentary Navy Committee made a clean sweep of them.[1219]

Of all the subordinate officials, the pursers, as in later times, were

the most acquisitive, having the greatest opportunities. Most places in

the Navy were for sale, but theirs were considered so profitable that

they were eagerly sought. In 1626 Nicholas was informed that a person,

lately mayor of Rochester, would give him £100 for the appointment to

the _Anne Royal_, or £60 for either of two others. As the ex-mayor could

only sell again, the eventual holder must have anticipated a handsome

income. One article on which he would make it was the beer; the brewer

delivered this by beer measure, but the purser served it out by wine

measure, pocketing the value of the difference.[1220] Sometimes he was

a pluralist. One man was cook of the _Bear_ and purser of the _George_,

and executed both places by deputy. Of course pursers like the others,

sold their stores ashore. But one of their particular sources of profit

was the men’s clothes. In 1623 wearing apparel was first ordered to be

provided for the men, and to be sold to them at cost price, subject to a

commission of one shilling in the pound for the purser. In 1628 it was

being sold, when obtained, at £1, 7s a suit, to be deducted from the

wages, but, as occurred with other naval requisites, the contractors

frequently refused to furnish supplies without prepayment. By 1636 the

commissions had increased. The merchant had to pay two shillings in

the pound for entering the clothes on board; the paymaster and purser

took each a further shilling on all articles sold, and of course the

unfortunate sailor had to meet all these extra and illegal perquisites,

the result being that ‘the men had rather starve than buy them.’ The

original purpose of the supply was ‘to avoyde nastie beastlyness by

contynuall wearinge of one suite of clothes, and therebie boddilie

diseases and unwholesome ill smells in every ship.’ The whole of the

clothes served out during the earlier years of the reign was not a

quantity likely to have much improved the unpleasantly suggestive

conditions of this passage.

In 1641 Northumberland, as Lord Admiral, took the business in hand, and

issued stringent regulations which forbade the sailor to purchase more

than fifty shillings’ worth of clothing a year, at fixed prices, and

reduced the commission to sixpence in the pound, which was to be paid to

the purser by the vendor.[1221] When, as rarely happened, a purser was

honest, he seems to have been assaulted and persecuted by his captain,

and his position on board rendered unbearable. Perhaps the key to the

situation is to be found in their petition of 1639, when many of the

pursers asked for increased pay, saying, ‘We know not how to subsist in

our places without the continuance of what has ever been tolerated, or

else the grant of a competent salary.’[1222] Corroborating this plea we

have Holland’s opinion that wages were too low, ‘most of them being for

want thereof necessitated ... either to live knaves or die beggars, and

sometimes both.’ It was however a sign of the times that when in 1640,

Thomas Smith, Northumberland’s secretary, took £40 for an appointment,

he found himself exposed to the taunts of his equals and had to defend

himself by asserting that he never bargained, but ‘what men voluntarily

give me my conscience assures me that I may take as mere gratuities.’

It was still no crime but was reaching the stage which precedes legal

condemnation. There is no trace of the sale of places during the

Commonwealth, but the custom was reintroduced with the other fashions of

the Restoration.

[Sidenote: Captains.]

Neither in their sense of honour nor in the extent of their professional

knowledge did the Navy captains of this generation favourably impress

their superiors. In August 1630 Mervyn, who was commanding in the

Channel, wrote to Nicholas that he had captains who knew neither how to

command nor how to obey; and a month later he requested that John Mennes

should be given a ship, so that he might at least have one captain who

had ‘passed his a b c.’ Men of such calibre usually owed their position

to, and obtained other advantages from, court influence and family

connections. Of one man who received £3000 as his 3 per cent. commission

on carrying treasure to Dunkirk we read, ‘You may see what a brother

or friend in the bedchamber doth.’ Another captain, his men said, was

‘fearful in oaths,’ plundered merchantmen, and threatened to kill any

one who complained of him; his crew refused to sail, because ‘for his

blasphemous swearing they feared the ship would sink under them.’ Others

were questioned for beating officers and men, but in no case does any

punishment appear to have followed. Another form of fraud which came into

existence now, and lasted till the present century, was the forging and

uttering of seamen’s tickets. The tickets were practically promises to

pay wages due, and in the state of the royal treasury were only saleable

at a heavy discount. Not only did the captains and pursers forge tickets

in the names of men who had never existed, but civilians carried on a

brisk trade in such articles, and, when Crowe was Navy Treasurer, they

were ‘such good merchandise that a penniless wag made out a ticket for

Ball, a dog ... and sold it with a letter of attorney to a man who lodged

seamen.’[1223]

[Sidenote: Changes during the Civil War.]

When the civil war commenced most of the non-combatant servants of the

Admiralty remained, like the officers and men, in the service of the

Parliament, which took control by means of committees, whose members

were constantly being changed. Subordinate to the Parliamentary Navy

Committee was a board called the Commissioners of Navy and Customs, whose

work was chiefly financial; and the functions of the Principal Officers,

except the Treasurer’s, were performed by another body known as the

Commissioners of the Navy. The Earl of Warwick was the parliamentary

Lord Admiral, appointed in July 1642, in place of Northumberland; he

resigned in April 1645, to be again appointed on 29th May 1648, when the

news of the Rainsborow outbreak was received. The Navy Commissioners,

during the earlier years of the war, were captains R. Cranley, John

Norris, Roger Tweedy, Wm. Batten, and Phineas Pett. Batten is still

styled Surveyor, but the old division of work was broken up, and the

official papers do not show that a Commissioner was continuously confined

to particular duties. In 1645 Batten was sent on active service, and, in

1646, Thomas Smith, probably Northumberland’s ex-secretary, and Peter

Pett, were added to the other Commissioners. The two Petts were the

Phineas Pett who built the _Sovereign of the Seas_ and Peter Pett his

nephew.

In one matter the Parliament found itself better off than the previous

administration, for the question of timber had for years been a

difficulty, the royal forests having deteriorated from various causes.

Now, in spite of increased requirements, it was obtained more easily by

the process of seizing the timber on delinquents’ estates. In 1632 a

report was made on the condition of the forests, when that of Dean was

said to be ‘wasted and ruined,’ the New Forest was ‘so decayed’ that

there were not 2000 serviceable trees in it; there were not more in

Waltham Forest and hardly 400 in East Bere.[1224] Much of this wreck was

due to lavish grants made by James and Charles to private individuals; a

further cause was the open theft which went on, sufficient wood to build

ships being sometimes taken away without any attempt at concealment.

Still, in 1633, there were 166,000 trees left in the Forest of Dean of an

average value of twenty shillings a tree.[1225]

[Sidenote: Ordnance Powder and Shot.]

John Browne, who held the appointment of ‘King’s gunfounder’ under James

I, continued in that office during the whole of this reign. The price

of ordnance in 1625 was from £13 to £14 a ton, and did not afterwards

materially vary. Many complaints were made about the excessive solidity

and weight of naval guns, which caused much of the straining and rolling

at sea, and they were so unnecessarily strong that when sold abroad the

new owners rebored them for larger shot. In 1626 Browne was granted a

reward of £200 for casting lighter guns which had withstood a double

proof; but, notwithstanding this encouragement, he, like every one else

dealing with the crown, suffered in his purse. By June 1628 upwards of

£11,000 was due to him; and Evelyn, the powder contractor, had £2400

owing to him, and had refused to furnish anything more for three months

past. Coke thereupon suggested to Buckingham that Evelyn should be

compelled to resume his supplies, ‘but till the ceasing of Parliament

holds it best not to urge him too much,’ which throws an interesting side

light on general history.[1226] Notwithstanding these straits, and the

requirements of his fleets, Charles did not neglect his glorious heritage

in the crown jewels which were pawned to the Dutch, and Burlamacchi was

directed to sell 4000 tons of ordnance abroad and redeem the treasures.

As an appropriate part of the transaction Browne found himself obliged to

export in Dutch vessels, as they were provided with convoy.

In 1632 there were in store 81 brass and 147 iron pieces, presumably the

reserve behind those in the ships and forts, and 207,000 round and 3000

cross-bar shot.[1227] Stone shot are no longer mentioned. The allowance

for a second-rate was three lasts of powder, six cwt. of match, 970

round, 100 cross-bar, 70 double cross-bar shot, and 2000 rounds for small

arms.[1228] The musket trade had been gained from us by Holland since

the preceding reign, and now Sweden was underselling English founders

of big guns; in 1634 Browne, in petitioning the King for payment, said

that he had paid £1200 for a license to export ordnance, but that the

Swedes were now selling at half-price. This Swedish manufacture was

really worked by Dutch capitalists, and within twenty years the price of

English ordnance in the Low Countries had fallen from £36 to £14 a ton.

For the proper equipment of the fleet, exclusive of castles and forts, 96

lasts of powder were required in 1635, but in that year only 94 were in

store for all purposes; between 1628 and 1635 there had been no powder in

Southsea Castle, and doubtless many less important positions were equally

ill-furnished. Perhaps the crown could not supply the forts, because too

busy in private trade, the sale of gunpowder to merchants and others

being a royal monopoly. A handsome profit was made on it, the cost being

7½d per lb. and the selling price 1s 6d. In 1637 the year’s gains on this

article came to £14,786.[1229]

The Ordnance Office still retained that evil pre-eminence in sloth and

incapacity it had already earned and has never since lost, and its

situation in 1638 was that of

the surveyor sick, the clerk restrained of his liberty, one of

his clerks absent, the clerk of the deliveries out of town and

his clerk absent, the master gunner dead, the yeoman of the

ordnance never present, nor any of the gunners attendant, and

the stores for ordnance empty.[1230]

Outcries, such as we have been also used to hear in this generation,

against their delays in serving the ships with guns and ammunition,

were loud and continuous, and, in 1639, it was proposed to return to the

original arrangement made by Henry VIII, and allow the naval authorities

to supply themselves with these necessaries. It is an illustration of

the meditative and weighty caution with which official wisdom can be

trusted to move onward from change to change that it was not until a few

years ago that the alteration suggested in 1639 was made. Finally we read

that ‘the accountant nor other officers keep no books, and the ancient

officers and clerks are adverse to all new propositions which meet their

inveterate frauds and defects.’[1231] The parliamentary leaders seem

at first to have doubted how far Browne was to be trusted, since on

30th Dec. 1645 it was ordered that his works, which had been managed by

deputies, should be given back to him.

[Sidenote: Salutes.]

Besides producing dangerous international friction, the matter of

saluting was a cover for theft and an excuse for waste at home. The Lord

Admiral seems to have been the only person whose reception was according

to distinct forms, and for him the royal standard was to fly at the main,

yards to be manned, and on his approach within musket shot of the ship

the trumpets were to cease, and ‘all who carry whistles are to whistle

his welcome three times, and in the intervals the crew to cheer.’[1232]

Butler notices the fondness of the English for making a noise as a mark

of deference, and the expenditure of powder in this way was described

as the ‘main excuse of gunners’ frauds,’ and as causing the waste of at

least a thousand barrels of powder a year. Every one stood closely on

his honour in the matter of salutes, and in 1631 Pennington was fired on

from Pendennis Castle for not striking his flag. No occurrence was of

too little consequence to be thus signalised. In one gunner’s accounts

we find: One faucon when the master’s wife went ashore.... One minion

the master commanded to be shot off to a ship his father was in.... We

shot two faucons in healths and three when Master Newton went ashore.’

Of another gunner it was remarked: ‘He cannot write, yet presents the

account here enclosed, in which you see the King’s powder spent in

salutations of ketches and oyster boats.... I shall shortly send far

greater and fouler examples of powder purloined by the last.’[1233]

The hired merchantmen in the royal pay had as much self-respect on

this question as men-of-war, and saluted towns on entering and leaving

harbour, the captain’s brother, and ‘the captain’s friends for their

farewell’ in orthodox service fashion. The large ones had, in some

respects, the advantage of the smaller men-of-war, since the captain of

one of the latter, in accounting for his consumption of ammunition, said

that ordinary traders ‘scorned to strike to a whelp,’ and he had to force

them to their duty. The result of all this firing was that in the two

and a half years, ending on 30th June 1627, out of 653 lasts of powder

issued to the various forts, there had been 300 used in saluting.[1234]

Nor were these proceedings devoid of danger, since the repeated orders

that guns should be fired with blank charges were still disregarded, and

there are several instances mentioned of persons on shore being struck

from vessels saluting at sea. The admirals were equally sensitive about

their dignity, and when Lindsey commanded the fleet of 1635, the question

of his flags appeared to weigh most on his mind. On 1st May he complained

that he had not enough flags and was not furnished with a standard; the

next day he repeats his wants, adding that he would like a kitchen ship,

and a week afterwards he thinks himself ‘a little maimed,’ still lacking

the standard. In April 1647 the Navy Committee called attention to the

great expense caused by the constant saluting, and ordered that it should

entirely cease among men-of-war except at their first meeting with each

other, or with an admiral. A merchantman’s salute might be answered in

the proportion of one for every three, or three for every five, shots

fired by the trader. If these regulations were obeyed it was only

temporarily.

Among foreign powers the Dutch were the chief victims to the requirements

of maritime decorum, here complicated by the dispute about the dominion

of the narrow seas. In July 1626 the captain of Deal Castle fired at a

Dutchman which came into the roads with colours flying, and made the

master pay ten shillings, the cost of the shot. In his report of the

affair he says, ‘The rather did I it because I have heard it imputed

that we have lost the jurisdiction of the narrow seas.’ Six years later

a man-of-war having been sent to Calais to fetch the body of Sir Isaac

Wake, her captain had the audacity to force the French to strike their

colours to him.[1235]

When Lindsey went to sea in 1635, his instructions ran that his

‘principal care’ was to make foreign fleets perform their ‘duty and

homage,’ and if they refused, to make them answer for their ‘high

contempt.’[1236] Remembering the state of Lindsey’s fleet, not only in

the absence of the standard that he deplored so sadly, but in more urgent

essentials, such as men, provisions and stores, it was perhaps fortunate

that Richelieu evaded the trial, and that the Dutch were content—for the

time—to salute all day long if Charles so pleased. Northumberland, the

next year, was told to insist on foreign ships yielding homage in Calais

and other harbours, if out of range of the forts.[1237] Wiser than his

master, if he did more than look into the French ports, he did nothing

to provoke a collision. Moreover Northumberland may have felt that he

was hardly in a situation to enforce compliance. Lindsey mentioned in

his journal that, in two days, eleven ships lost masts and topmasts,

with only ‘strong winds’ blowing, but had not thought the circumstance

deserved comment, although his vice-admiral, the old Elizabethan seaman,

Sir William Monson, was not so reticent. Northumberland’s fleet was

equally ill found, and on his return he charged the Principal Officers

with giving him ships leaky and out of repair, fitted with defective

masts and yards and bad cordage. Some, he said, were too old to be worth

repairing, and the new ones required girdling to make them fit for

sea.[1238] What the Earl thought of his men and stores has been already

related.

However, English captains continued to carry matters with a high hand,

and in 1637, Stradling meeting a Dutch squadron which did not salute

with sufficient promptness, reported: ‘The captain of the rear-admiral

I have taken out of his ship and sent to Plymouth.’ As time wore on the

Dutch, seeing that Charles had enough to occupy his attention at home,

became more independent, and in 1639 they were searching English ships

and taking Spaniards out of them, a change from their former submissive

attitude. Parliament, however, carried on the claim to the salute. In

1647 a fleet of Swedes, 15 in number, passing down Channel refused to

lower their topsails to Captain Owen in the _Henrietta Maria_. Owen kept

up a running fight until Batten came up, and the Swedish fleet was taken

into Portsmouth.

[Sidenote: Prize Money.]

A precarious source of crown revenue was that obtained from the prize

tenths. In the two years ending with May 1626, seventy-three vessels had

been taken and proceeded against in the Admiralty Court, and Bristol paid

£7604 between 1628 and 1631. It was not until the civil war that the

crew of a ship belonging to the state had any fixed proportion of the

proceeds, but by a Council order of October 1626 ‘a competent reward’ was

to be given to the captors. On the other side seventy-seven vessels, of

100 tons and upwards, were taken by the enemy between 1625 and 1628, so

that the balance of profit was hardly with us. In another paper we are

told, the, presumably net, proceeds from Spanish prizes between July 1626

and August 1639 came to £38,158, 8s.[1239]

In October 1642 the Parliament announced that henceforth one-third of the

value of a prize was to be divided among officers and crew, in addition

to wages. Its effect was undoubted since from February 1643 to April 1649

prize goods were sold for £123,200, and this must represent an enormously

higher original value.[1240] But out of this sum officers and men only

got £14,465, while the two collectors, Thomas Smith and John Hall took

£4989, Warwick £5985, and the expenses of storage, lading and unlading,

etc., were £17,000. The delay and deductions in the payment of the thirds

were among the chief causes of the trouble the Commonwealth experienced

with the seamen in its earlier years, and in this account we see quite

extraneous charges borne upon it. The Treasurer of the Navy took £30,000

from it, Augier, the parliamentary agent in Paris, £610, the secretary

and usher of the committee of foreign affairs their salaries, and it had

to meet various other items which would now go under the head of secret

service money. The Dutch system of rewards for captures was in working

order long before ours, and was liberal enough in amount. Privateers were

allowed, beyond the value of the ship and goods taken, a state reward of

from 8000 to 30,000 guilders, the latter sum being given for any vessel

of more than 100 lasts burden.[1241] If the enemy was sunk at sea instead

of being brought into port, only half these sums were paid.

[Sidenote: Naval Expenditure.]

The following table, compiled from the _Audit Office Declared Accounts_

for the several years, gives the ordinary and extraordinary expenditure

in round figures, as well as that of ship money, of which £1,028,702 was

demanded by writ, and £716,528 was paid over to the Navy Treasurer.[1242]

The estimates for the ordinary and extraordinary are for routine, naval,

and dockyard work and the Channel squadron, and do not include the cost

of the expeditions of the first three years or of any of the later

fleets. The amounts in the last column but one are those actually paid

by Sir William Russell out of tunnage and poundage, anticipated revenue,

and other sources. For instance, in 1625 he spent £170,000, of which he

received £119,000 from the exchequer, £40,000 from tenths, fifteenths,

and subsidies, and ‘from the French king’s agent’ towards fitting out of

_Vanguard_ £4800.[1243] The last column gives the sums paid out of the

ship-money receipts for the corresponding fleets; no doubt much of the

balance went to clear off old debts, to pay for ship building, as in the

case of the _Sovereign_, and other purposes:—

+----------------+-------------+------------------------------------+

| |Estimates for| |

| |ordinary and | Dockyard expenditure, ordinary |

| |extraordinary| and extraordinary |

| |navy and +-------+--------+--------+----------+

+----------------+-------------+-------+--------+--------+----------+

| | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ |

| 1625 | 28,000 | | | | |

| 1626 | 28,700 | | | | |

| 1627[1244] | 40,500 | 8445 | 1522 | 1714 | 370 |

| 1628 | 40,800 | 5860 | 704 | 3171 | 359 |

| 1629 | 47,000 | | | | |

| 1630 | 34,700 | 4977 | 185 | 2141 | 1460 |

| 1631 | 34,200 | | | | |

| 1632 | 27,900 | 6700 | 97 | 1025 | 1591 |

| 1633 | 28,600 | 7453 | 100 | 1233 | 1834 |

| 1634 | 31,300 | | | | |

| 1635 | 31,200 | | | | |

| 1636 | 15,500 | 5050 | 625 | 3029 | 3000 |

| 1637 | 14,200 | | | | |

| 1638 | 20,300 | | | | |

| 1639 | 38,100 | | | | |

| 1640 | 38,800 | | | | |

| 1641 | 38,500 | | | | |

| 1642 | 28,700 | | | | |

|13th May 1645 to|} | | | | |

| 31st Dec. 1646 |} | | | | |

| 1647 | | | | | |

|1st Jan 1648 to |} |22,000 | 3414 | 2247 | 5189 |

| 12th May 1649 |} | | | | |

+----------------+-------------+------------------------------------+

+----------------+-------+---------+----------+

| | | | |

| | | by |ship-money|

+----------------+-------+---------+----------+

| | £ | £ | £ |

| 1625 | | 170,000 | |

| 1626 | | 117,000 | |

| 1627[1244] | | 63,000 | |

| 1628 | | 110,000 | |

| 1629 | | 57,000 | |

| 1630 | 4805 | 102,000 | |

| 1631 | | 46,000 | |

| 1632 | 4455 | 21,000 | |

| 1633 | 4145 | 69,000 | |

| 1634 | | 48,000 | |

| 1635 | | 85,000 | 88,000 |

| 1636 | 3265 | 58,000 | 136,000 |

| 1637 | | 12,500 | 122,000 |

| 1638 | | 22,000 | 109,000 |

| 1639 | | 58,000 | 47,500 |

| 1640 | | 78,000 | 44,500 |

| 1641 | | 88,000 | |

| 1642 | | 66,000 | |

|13th May 1645 to|} | 392,000 | |

| 31st Dec. 1646 |} | | |

| 647 | | 178,000 | |

|1st Jan 1648 to |} | 336,000 | |

| 12th May 1649 |} | | |

+----------------+-------+---------+----------+

The disbursements during the civil war years by no means represented the

whole of the naval expenses, there being always hundreds of thousands

of pounds owing. The authorities, however, took care that the executive

branches should be comparatively punctually paid, owners of hired ships

and purveyors of stores being the principal sufferers by delay. There

is another paper[1245] which gives the amounts for the years wanting in

the official returns, and is perhaps more reliable than them in that it

includes the total expenses, both in money paid and liabilities incurred.

In view of the general belief that this country was vastly weaker in

ships than Holland at the outbreak of the first Dutch war of 1652, the

strength of the parliamentary fleets deserves especial notice:—

+--------------+-------+--------+-------------+------------+------------+

| | |-men | | | |

+--------------+-------+--------+-------------+------------+------------+

| | | | £ s d| £ s d | £ s d|

|1642 | 19 | 23 |122,988 16 3|74,342 8 0 |204,810 16 3|

| | [1247]| | | | |

| | | | | | |

|1643, S.[1248]| 36 | 32 |133,760 3 0|74,881 11 6}| |

|1643, W.[1249]| 20 | | | }|332,869 15 3|

| | | | | | |

|1644, S. | 36 | 23 |106,349 10 4|49,088 15 0}|246,970 16 4|

|1644, W. | 18 | | | }| |

| | | | | | |

|1645, S. | 34 | 25 | 93,161 3 9|43,947 4 6}| |

|1645, W. | 29 | | | }|256,495 5 0|

| | | | | |[1250] |

|1646, S. | 45 | 20 |138,194 6 4|42,931 8 0}| |

|1646, W. | 26 | | | }|300,356 18 0|

| | | | | |[1250] |

|1647, S. | 43 | 16 |124,395 12 0|44,743 8 0}| |

|1647, W. | 29 | | | }|244,655 0 0|

| | | | | |[1251] |

+--------------+-------+--------+-------------+------------+------------+

Vane acted under an ‘ordinance of both houses of 8th August 1642,

concerning subsidy of tunnage and poundage,’ and simply continued the

forms and system used by his predecessors.[1252]

[Sidenote: Dockyards:—Portsmouth.]

Among the dockyards the most noticeable change is the steady increase in

the use made of Portsmouth, while Woolwich was almost discarded, part of

it being leased in 1633 to the East India Company at £100 a year.[1253]

The rent was to be expended in building a wall round the yard, and in

the repair of buildings.[1254] It had long been pointed out that it

frequently cost a fleet as much time and trouble to get round from the

Thames to Portsmouth as from that place to the Mediterranean, and under

Buckingham’s administration it came into favour as a rendezvous for the

ships prepared for service. Very soon after the destruction of the old

dock the advisability of replacing it, came under discussion, and in 1627

the Duke caused estimates to be prepared for the construction of a double

dock, but his death deferred the question.[1255] In 1630 Pett, Sir Thos.

Aylesbury and others were sent down to report on its capabilities, and

they recommended that the men-of-war should ride in Fareham creek, at

the head of the harbour, about a mile and a half from Porchester, and

two miles from the then dockyard, a proposal which was adopted. They did

not advise the making of a dry dock, thinking the rise and fall of the

tide too little, and ‘there is no use of any there;‘[1256] but personal

interests were also in the way, the comfort and pecuniary advantages of

the shipwrights being bound up with the Thames and Medway yards.

From this date, however, a few ships were always stationed at Portsmouth,

but it was not until January 1638 that a master shipwright was ordered

to reside there permanently; before that time the shipwrights had taken

the duty in turns, and the absence of a dry dock, although several times

intended to have been commenced, was still causing inconvenience and

expense. Russell complained that ‘his Majesty cannot have a pennyworth of

work there done under twopence, in respect the King’s yard and the ships

be so far asunder for transporting materials.’ The dockyard consisted

chiefly of storehouses, and orders had been given that all private

houses near them were to be tiled instead of thatched, the former having

been once already burnt down during the reign of Elizabeth.[1257] It is

difficult to say what extent of ground belonged to the crown at this

time. No additions are known to have been made to the land since the

purchases of Henry VIII but between 1630 and 1640 various new buildings

were erected.

Another cause of hesitation in the adoption of Portsmouth as a permanent

naval station was the diverse opinions expressed as to the existence of

the _Teredo navalis_ in the harbour. This maritime pest, which begins

to be especially noticed during Elizabeth’s reign, played havoc with

ships mostly unsheathed, and whose sheathing, when it did exist, was ill

adapted to resist its ravages. In 1630 the chief shipwrights reported

that ‘no worm destructive to ships is bred in Portsmouth harbour;’ five

years later some of the same men turned round with, ‘We positively

conclude that there is a worm in that harbour.’ The decision was still

postponed till, in September 1645, a number of shipwrights were sent

down, and it thenceforward rapidly grew in naval importance, although the

dry dock, so often ordered, was not commenced till 1656.

[Sidenote: Dockyards:—Chatham.]

Chatham was now the first of English dockyards, and in 1634 contained

the seventy or eighty acres, held on the lease of 1618, which was now

lost. In March 1627 Coke, at the request of the King of Denmark, sent

a Dane named Andersen there with a letter of recommendation to the

officials, desiring them to explain to him their methods of work. The

request was complimentary, but Andersen could hardly have been very

favourably impressed by all he saw and heard. The dockyard service

was as much disorganised as the rest of the administration; the

_Assurance_ had recently been repaired only by the expedient of selling

fifty-four guns to pay the expenses,[1258] and £7740 was owing to the

shipwrights and shipkeepers there, nearly eighteen months’ wages being

over-due.[1259] They had of course freely petitioned, but ‘a letter

to persuade the workmen to go on cheerfully’ had quieted them for the

time. One explanation of their patience may be found in the existence

of a rule under which persons in the naval departments could not be

proceeded against legally until permission was given by the authorities.

Just before Andersen’s visit work had been at a standstill for want of

materials to the value of £400, which the government could not obtain on

credit, and in April the workmen still had fifteen months’ pay due. Both

the Commissioners and Principal Officers confessed their inability in

face of these difficulties, since, if the men were discharged, they came

clamouring and threatening daily for their wages, and if kept on there

were not sufficient stores for them to work with.[1260] Matters did not

improve, and in 1629 Edisbury pointed out that, in addition to all this,

great waste and theft existed, many families living in the dockyards,

and cabins and other parts of the ships being daily ransacked, and the

materials stolen or used for fire wood, ‘every one almost being director

of his own work for want of some able, understanding man to regulate the

inferiors, as it was while the Commissioners had the government.’[1261]

This handsome testimonial to the merits of the Commissioners, lately

relieved, may be considered impartial, for the interests of Edisbury,

then paymaster, but shortly to be himself a Principal Officer, were bound

up with those of the Officers.

Another writer tells us that the master shipwrights rated their

subordinates according to favour, and that they themselves were

sometimes absent for one or two months at the time at their own private

yards.[1262] In thirteen years’ experience he had never known any

inferior suffer for delinquency, ‘although he had been convicted of

divers stealths.’ At the most they were suspended, and then restored, and

the entries in the State Papers bear out Holland’s assertions. He also

tells us that Fridays, being the Rochester market days, were kept as a

general holiday in the dockyard; the expenditure on ornamental carving

and painting had become four times as great as formerly, because the

amount was left to the master shipwrights who refused to be outdone by

each other; if work was done by contract, a bill was usually sent in

for ‘overworkes’ which exceeded the original contract amount, and, as

result, the shipwrights’ houses were ‘fitter for knights than men of

their quality,’ These houses had back doors opening into the dockyard—for

obvious purposes, the writer hints.

The almost incredible financial straits of the treasury may be measured

by the fact that some storehouses in Chatham yard having been damaged

by a storm in January 1630 the money necessary for the repairs—only

£20—had to be obtained by selling old cordage.[1263] Large sums, however,

were at various times expended on maintaining, improving, and enlarging

the yards. In 1629 there was spent £2197 on Portsmouth, Deptford, and

Chatham;[1264] and in 1634 there was a further estimate of £2445, for

the same places for additions subsequently carried out, one of them

being a brick wall round part of the yard at Chatham. The barricade

across the Medway at Upnor, although it had been allowed to become almost

useless, was still nominally maintained. It must have been an expensive

defence, since the estimate in 1635 for another, made like the earlier

ones of masts, came to £2305, besides involving a yearly outlay of £624

to keep it in good order. An iron chain weighing twenty-eight tons,

and held by eleven anchors, was recommended in its place, as costing

only £1500.[1265] It is not known whether either plan was carried out.

The Long Parliament further enlarged the dockyards, and cared for the

shipwrights spiritually as well as physically. In 1644 they ordered that

a lecture should be delivered at Deptford every Wednesday morning on

‘saving truths,’ and the time thus occupied was not to be deducted from

the men’s pay.

[Sidenote: Stores.]

In 1637 the stores at Woolwich, Deptford, Chatham, Portsmouth, and on

board the ships in harbour comprised 1446 tons of cables and cordage,

221 tons of anchors, 79 lasts of tar, sails made up to the value of

£4500, canvas not made up to £5000, 167 compasses, 2236 hammocks, 520

masts, 1200 spars, 3694 loads of timber, and 332,000 tree-nails.[1266]

This was in the full flush of the ship-money receipts, yet both cordage

and timber are far below the minimum considered necessary by either

Principal Officers or Commissioners. As in later years ships lying up

were dismantled, and in 1631 the Lords of the Admiralty ordered that,

instead of sails and rigging being kept in a confused heap at Chatham, a

room, with the ship’s name painted on the door, should be provided for

the belongings of each vessel. In 1637 Hildebrand Pruson died, he and

his father having been sailmakers to the Navy for sixty years. Edisbury

then tried, but in vain, to persuade the Lords Commissioners to have

the sails made at Chatham and save a fifth of their cost. So far from

undertaking fresh responsibilities they desired to transfer some of

those they already bore. They were at the time negotiating with Russell

about an offer he had made to provide the squadron for the narrow seas by

contract at £3 a man per month, that rate to cover all expenses except

those of repairs to the vessels.[1267] They were to be nine months out of

the twelve at sea, and doubtless Russell saw his way to a profit, but the

proposal was not carried into effect. There were few naval improvements

introduced under Charles. Deck ring-bolts for the lashing of ordnance

were first supplied in 1628;[1268] staysails came into use early in the

reign, one of the whelps having two in 1633, and in 1639 there were forty

in store at Portsmouth, but they seem to have been only fitted to the

smaller classes of ships. In 1633 studding sails are included among the

stores at Chatham.

[Sidenote: Flags.]

However badly off fleets might be in material necessaries, they should

have been well furnished with the æsthetic refreshment of flags,

judging from the number in store. In 1626 £1280 was spent in providing

them, and in January 1627 there were 415 of various kinds to be had at

Chatham alone, and however low in the future might fall the reserves of

powder every care was taken that the men should not lack this solace.

A proclamation was issued on 5th May 1634 commanding that English and

Scotch merchantmen were no longer to fly the Union flag of St George’s

and St Andrew’s crosses, but to each keep to its own national cross,

men-of-war alone flying the Union.[1269] The parliamentary committees

were just as fond of flags, for in the sixteen months ending with

November 1646 they spent £1178 on these articles, while sailors’ hammocks

for the same period cost of £777. For 1647 their bill for flags was £567,

and for hammocks £307. In February 1649 the parliament ordered that

men-of-war should carry a St George’s cross on a white ground, similar

to the present admiral’s flag, which, although the St George’s cross

had been in general use for many centuries, may be considered to be the

beginning of the present naval ensign in its special form.[1270]

[Sidenote: Prices.]

The following prices were paid for naval necessaries at various dates:—

Cordage (1625), £26, 13s 4d a ton.

” (1629), £32 a ton.

” (1631), £30 ”

” (1640), ” ”

Tar (1631), £8, 10s a last.

” (1635), £10, a last.

Rosin (1631), £13, a ton.

Train oil (1631), £20 a ton.

Crooked and straight timber (1631), £1, 10s a load.

Knee timber (1631), £2, 10s a load.

Elm ” ” £1 6s ”

” ” (1640), £1, 12s ”

” plank (1626), £1, 18s ”

Oak ” ” £2, 2s ”

” ” (1640), £3, 11s ”

French canvas (1635), £22 a bale.

Ipswich ” (1626), £1, 6s a bolt.

” ” (1635), £1, 10s a bolt.

Powder (1627), £5 a barrel.

” (1646), £4, 10s a barrel.

Round shot (1627), £11 a ton.

Musket shot (1627), £14 a ton.

Hammocks (1625), 2s each.

” (1642), 2s 7d each.

Anchors (1626), £1, 10s to £2 per cwt.

” (1631), £2 per cwt.

” (1640), £1, 13s per cwt.

Beer (1635), 28s to 34s the tun.

” (1646), 38s the tun.

Beef in 4-lb. pieces (1635), 9d and 10d the piece.

Pork in 2-lb. pieces (1635), 5d and 6d the piece.

Codfish (1635), £4, 3s the cwt.

Biscuit ” 13s and 14s the cwt.

Seamen’s clothes (1628):—[1271]

Shirts, 3s 4d each;

caps, 2s each;

cotton breeches, 2s 8d each;

stockings, 1s 4d a pair;

canvas suits, 6s each;

cotton waistcoats, 3s each.

THE COMMONWEALTH

1649-1660

[Sidenote: The Events of the Interregnum.]

Among the many social and political developments which characterised

the era of the Commonwealth the most interesting, to the naval student,

is the sudden expansion of our maritime power and the extension of its

field of action. There was no previous experience to justify our rulers

in supposing that the drain in men and money necessary to the support

of a great navy—equal to that of the combined powers of Europe—could

be borne by a state already exhausted by civil war; and it may well be

that, although the sequence of events showed the maintenance of such a

force not to be beyond the national capacity, the strain on the national

resources between 1649 and 1660 was a large factor in creating the

popular discontent which welcomed the return of the Stewarts.

Under Charles I the pecuniary resources of the crown were unequal to the

construction of ships during war time, while the launch of one, or at

the most two, a year in the time of peace was thought to be sufficient

cause for legitimate pride and congratulation: under the Commonwealth

they were ordered by tens at the time, and in one year—1654—twenty-two

new men-of-war left the slips, besides the hired merchantmen in pay and

the numerous prizes fitted out for naval service. Under Charles the

preparation of a single fleet for a peaceful summer cruise in the narrow

seas necessitated a previous year of preparation, while the coasts were

supposed to be sufficiently protected by the occasional presence of a few

small vessels: under the Commonwealth, besides a powerful reserve kept

in the Downs ready for immediate action, besides the numerous cruisers

patrolling the coasts, we find for the first time that Mediterranean

station which has played so great a part in English history occupied in

force, a moderately strong West Indian squadron, and the small beginning

of the North American station. The rulers of the Commonwealth only did,

so far as home waters were concerned, what Charles vaguely desired to

do with the Navy; but the wildest dreams of Charles never pictured the

permanent Mediterranean and West Indian fleets.

It usually happens in statesmanship that administrative or executive

development on any particular line is due rather to circumstances than

intention, and the history of the republican Navy is an illustration

of this rule. At the close of the civil war it was proposed to reduce

the naval establishments, and measures were being already taken to that

effect when the Rainsborow mutiny occurred. The escape of Rupert from

Kinsale with the fleet, of which three of the revolted ships formed the

nucleus, together with the encouragement his presence at sea gave to

individual privateering, necessitated an immediate and large increase in

the Navy, which then had to protect the trade routes as well as chase

or blockade him. Rupert’s career made it obvious that the area of the

civil war had widened, and that henceforth it would be the duty of the

Navy to deal with the enemies of the republic at the circumference of

the circle, its internal foes being helpless without aid from abroad.

How little those in power anticipated the changes a few years were to

effect in our maritime strength, and how doubtfully they regarded the

means available to contend even with Rupert, they themselves frankly tell

us. In June 1649 they congratulated themselves that they had a fleet at

sea such as they scarcely hoped for or their enemies expected, but ‘how

the Commonwealth will be able to continue the same in successive years

is not easy to evidence.’[1272] But the episode of Rupert was followed

by the more expensive Dutch and Spanish wars, both of which required

the existence of large fleets at sea and an ample reserve, and their

sequel in the prolonged visits of Blake and his successor, Stokes, to the

Mediterranean, from which we may date the reappearance of England as a

European power.

The crucial difficulty of finance, which had wrecked the designs of

Charles I, presented fewer obstacles to Parliament and the Protector.

By means of the monthly assessments, delinquents’ compositions, sale of

lands, excise, and other methods, the sum of £95,000,000 is declared to

have been raised between 1642 and 1660.[1273] This gives an average of

upwards of five and a quarter millions a year, against far less than a

million a year raised by Charles, and, even allowing for the cost of

the army and the debts incurred during the civil war, enables us to

understand the comparative ease with which the heavy naval expenses were

met at first by the government, and why outbreaks of discontent on the

part of the men were few, and at once easily appeased by the payment of

wages which had been allowed to become too long over-due. The financial

system of the Commonwealth was reckless and improvident, inasmuch as it

largely consisted in living on capital by the alienation of private or

corporate property which, if confiscated, should have been held to the

profit of the state; but probably no system of taxation alone could have

met the demands of the army and Navy during those years. Not only the

naval but every other branch of the administration was overwhelmed with

debt in 1660.

[Sidenote: The Dutch War.]

By far the most important event of the interregnum was the Dutch War,

since our success in that struggle shaped the future course of English

commercial development and, in its results, caused English fleets to

be henceforward influential factors in continental politics. Although

the conditions were, in reality, not at all unequal, an attack made

on the richest and greatest maritime power in the world by a nearly

bankrupt state which, with the exception of the passable success of

1596, had failed in every important naval enterprise undertaken since

1588, and which in that year had only succeeded—so far as the fruits of

victory were concerned—by the chance of wind and wave and the aid of

the very nation now assailed, must have seemed to many contemporaries

a more than hazardous venture. When success seemed to be definitely

inclining towards this country, the _Weekly Intelligencer_ of 7th June

1653 soberly remarked that ‘our generals ... were the first who have

made it known that the Dutch are to be overcome by sea.’ The relative

position of England and the United Provinces was very similar to that

of England and France at present or recently—on the one hand a country

with a great commerce and a great navy, but a navy which, in the nature

of things, could only bear a percentage relation to the vast pecuniary

interests it was required to protect and the extent of sea it was called

upon to traverse; on the other a power which, with far less at stake

commercially, had for years been expending on its naval establishments a

sum which must have equalled or exceeded the total value of its merchant

marine,[1274] whose fleets had been yearly increased, and whose seamen

had been freshly trained by ten years of warfare. How ruinous the war

was to Dutch commerce may be measured from the fact that between 27th

July 1652 and 8th March 1653 Dutch prize goods were sold, probably much

below the normal market values, for £208,655, 3s 11d.[1275] For Holland

then, as would be the case for England now, it was not sufficient to

merely hold her own, for anything short of absolute maritime supremacy is

ruin to a nation whose existence depends on an unlimited carrying trade

and the unchecked export and import of material. The Dutch did not hold

their own, but their flag was by no means driven off the seas, and the

Dutch navy certainly not incapable of further action, when the miseries

undergone by a teeming population brought the republic to its knees in

1654.

Many circumstances and conditions coincided in weakening the position

of the United Provinces. Their share in the thirty years’ war, being

almost entirely confined to land operations, had resulted in attention

being devoted to the army at the expense of the navy, which had seen

little real service since the conclusion of the truce with Spain in 1609.

The country was distressed by the economies rendered necessary by the

heavy public debts, and was yet suffering from the results of a great

commercial crisis experienced in 1646-7.[1276] While in England faction

was, for the time, crushed, in Holland the attempts of the stadtholder

William II in 1650 and 1651 to seize supreme power had given rise to

personal and political animosities which had outlived their author,

and which are said to have had a disastrous influence on the way some

of the higher Dutch officers did their duty. But it was on the side of

the _personnel_ and administrative systems of the two countries that a

comparison is so favourable to England. The naval organisation of the

Dutch republic was directed by five distinct admiralty boards, each

exercising separate control, preparing its own ships, appointing its

own officers, and depending for co-ordinate action on the limited, and

frequently disputed, authority of the states-general. As might have been

expected, this system failed even to curb the Dunkirkers, from whom the

Dutch suffered nearly as much as did the English[1277].

Never, on the other hand, so far as administration was concerned, had

England been better prepared for war. Instead of officials who, as in

the preceding half-century, owed their posts to court influence, to

purchase, or to seniority, the work was in the hands of men chosen for

business aptitude and who, in most instances, had given proof of higher

qualifications on the field of battle or in parliamentary committees. Of

the latter class was the Admiralty Committee; but the Navy Commissioners,

and especially those Commissioners in charge of the dockyards, on whom

fell most of the duty of organisation, were officers who had been taught

by actual warfare. Prompt, capable, honest, and energetic, sparing

themselves neither in purse nor person, and frequently bringing religious

fervour as a spur to their daily service, they conveyed to war on another

element the same thoroughness and zeal which had made them victorious on

land.

Victory in the civil war had only been gained when a weak and hesitating

commercialism, scared at its own audacity, and longing for a settlement

that would secure its own liberties at whatever sacrifices of the hopes

and consciences of others, had been steel-edged by Puritan vigour. The

men of that stern mental and moral creed were now in authority throughout

the kingdom and wielding its resources. Pitted against a nation of lower

ideals, sleekly prosperous, whose national genius had for years tended

more and more to take the one groove of trade, unwrought and unpurified

by the searchings of soul that all thinking Englishmen must have gone

through in those years, all the spiritual elements of success were on the

side of England.

Never, before or since, were the combatant branches of the Navy so well

supported. As a rule our seamen have had to beat the enemy afloat in

spite of the Admiralty ashore, but here they had every assistance that

foresight and earnestness could give. As a result of the political

troubles of 1650 and 1651 many of the oldest and most experienced of

the Dutch captains had been dismissed as adherents of the house of

Orange, and their places filled by men of whose cowardice and incapacity

bitter complaints were made by their admirals. The English captains were

officers practised by years of sea experience, or soldiers who brought

their traditions of hard fighting to bear in a fresh field. The United

Provinces had perhaps four times as many seamen as a reserve to draw

upon; but, ill paid and ill fed,[1278] devoted to peaceful pursuits, and

frequently discontented with the mercantile oligarchy governing them, the

men, although once in action they fought well, did not give that almost

enthusiastic service which characterised the Englishmen.

The news sheets of 1652-3 usually take the goodwill of the men for

granted, and this silence is itself significant; but occasionally actual

references are made, and these references, even if inventions, may be

taken as indicative of the spirit with which the men were reputed to

be imbued. They had for the Dutch that hatred their fathers felt for

Spaniards, and, for the first time for many years, they found themselves

well treated[1279]—comparatively punctually paid, properly clothed, well

fed, cared for when sick or wounded, and promised advantages in the

shape of prize money never previously allowed. What wonder they served

the Commonwealth, during its earlier years, as the crown had never been

served since the days of Elizabeth?

In number of ships England, even at the outbreak of the war, was not so

ill-matched as has been supposed. ‘You never had such a fleet as in the

Long Parliament,’ said Haselrig on one occasion,[1280] and political

necessities had as yet prevented any decrease in the strength maintained

up to 1648. During 1649-51 the magazines were kept well supplied and

forty-one new ships were added to the Navy list, practically doubling its

effective; besides these were the hired merchantmen in pay, or recently

discharged, and manned by trained crews accustomed to work together.

According to some accounts the Dutch navy had been allowed to fall to so

low a number as fifty men-of-war, and, although merchantmen were taken

into the service, their crews, hurriedly got together and new to their

surroundings, were no match, so far as skill went, for their opponents.

Throughout the war the Dutch, although they possessed many more ships,

never succeeded in sending to sea any materially larger fleets than ours.

Fifteen hundred prizes are said to have been taken from them during the

war, a number at least double the whole ocean-going merchant marine of

England.[1281] If they possessed more vessels a far larger proportion

of them were unfit for battle, and if ours were slower under sail they

were more solidly built and more heavily armed, advantages which told

in days when tactics were elementary, and when, for the first time for

a century, English seamen tried to fight yardarm to yardarm.[1282] Yet

another circumstance was most fortunate for England; for a greater part

of the year the prevailing winds gave us the weather-gage and the choice

of attack. Dutch merchant fleets returning from the westward had to run

the gauntlet of the south coast, and some of the most desperate actions

of the war were fought on account of—and hampered by—considerations for

the safety of these convoys. If they took the long and dangerous route

round Scotland, they were still liable to capture when almost within

sight of home. It will be seen, if these views are correct, that almost

the sole advantage held by the United Provinces was one of finance, and

that, although it might have caused political difficulties or revolt

under a monarchy, had no immediate influence in a country held down by a

victorious army.

[Sidenote: Prize Money.]

Charles I fell, throughout his reign, into the error of supposing that,

if ships and guns were provided, devotion to his person would ensure

loyalty and spontaneous service on the part of the men. He found, in

1642, that seamen are not sentimental, and that their sense of duty

drew them towards the best paymasters. That perception of their own

best interests, which had impelled the Long Parliament throughout the

civil war to treat the seamen liberally, had still stronger reasons for

existence in the years following 1648 when the maintenance, possibly

of the republic, certainly of peace at home, depended on the action of

the fleet. Throughout the history of the Navy any improvement in the

position of the man-of-war’s man is found to bear a direct relation to

the momentary needs of the governing classes, and in 1649 the necessity

of dealing with Rupert at once woke the tender conscience of the Council

to some further improvements that might be made in his condition. Gibson,

who was all through the war, says that ‘from the year 1641 the bread

and beer was of the best for fineness and goodness;’ but fresh orders

were issued by the Council of State to find out and prosecute any agents

supplying victuals of bad quality. Hitherto Lent had been strictly kept,

being pecuniarily advantageous to the crown as well as spiritually

profitable to the men, although physically ‘of much discontent to them;’

in future its observance was to cease, as was also the abatement of food

on Fridays, ‘being begotten by the covetous desires of the contractors

for victuals, though coloured with specious pretence of abstinence and

religion.’[1283]

Besides raising their pay the Council also desired that ‘all just

satisfaction be given to seamen, and that they reap all the benefit of

the act passed for their encouragement in distribution of prize goods,’

and expressed themselves as anxious to appoint persons acceptable to

the men as commissioners of prize goods.[1284] The act referred to,

passed in February 1649, amplified and fixed authoritatively the merely

parliamentary resolution of October 1642, which gave the men, beyond

their wages, one-third of the value of a prize. Directed especially

at Rupert’s squadron and Stewart privateers, the new act gave the

officers and men of a state’s or hired ship one-half the value of a

man-of-war captured; the other half went to a fund for the relief of

sick and wounded and the wives and children of those killed, while if

the enemy was destroyed they were to be paid at the rate of from £12 to

£20 a gun, according to the size of the pieces it had on board. The net

proceeds, after condemnation in the Admiralty Court and sale of goods,

of a merchantman taken by a man-of-war were to be divided into three

parts, of which one went to the officers and men, one to the fund for

sick and wounded, and one to the state. If the merchantman were prize

to a hired ship in the state’s service, two-thirds went, as before, to

the crew and the sick fund, but the remaining third was divided into two

parts, of which one was taken by the owners of the ship, and the other

by the state. The tenths which had formerly been a perquisite of the

Lord Admiral were now to be devoted to rewards and medals; and owners of

English ships recaptured from an enemy had to pay one-eighth of the value

of vessel and cargo as salvage.

Doubtless both Parliament and the executive intended to work this

enactment loyally, but the needs of the treasury overcame their good

intentions, and the delay in the distribution of prize money was a

chronic source of discontent. Therefore from 1st January 1653 a new

scheme came into operation, which gave ten shillings a ton for every ton

the prize, whether merchantman or man-of-war, measured, and £6, 13s 4d

for every gun she carried; for every man-of-war destroyed, £10 a gun; and

the Lord Admiral’s tenths were to be devoted to the sick and wounded and

the relief of widows and orphans.[1285] These distributions were to be

made by the collectors of prize goods three days after payment of wages,

a regulation which must have savoured of irony to those who were waiting,

sometimes years, for wages. For the moment, however, the sailor was

considered in every possible way, and, in May, Blake and his colleagues

were ordered always to exchange prisoners if possible, ‘as it will tend

much to the satisfaction of the seamen when they see that care is had

of them.’[1286] Matters progressed smoothly enough till the Dutch war

strained our finance desperately, and from 1648 till May 1653 there are

but two instances of insubordination to be found.[1287]

When the Dutch war broke out the want of men was greater than the want of

ships, and it was decided to press all seamen between fifteen and fifty

years of age, a ticket being given to each man with his three halfpence

a mile conduct money, specifying his physical appearance, and which he

was called upon to present at the port where he joined his ship.[1288]

Attempts were made to keep crews in the service by carrying forward

thirty shillings of each man’s wages when he was paid off; but this,

wrote the Navy Commissioners, caused ‘so much clamour and discontent that

we are scarce able to stay in the office.’[1289] Under James and Charles

the men had been glad to get any pay at all, and they probably strongly

objected to any proceeding which was by way of a return to old customs.

Eventually, however, the government did this and more, for a couple of

years later it was customary to keep three months’ pay in hand if the men

were turned over to another ship.

[Sidenote: The Articles of War.]

A long step in advance towards the future discipline of the Navy was

made in 1652, when, on 25th December, the House of Commons enacted the

first articles of war to which the service had ever been subjected, and

which were grounded on some regulations for the government of Warwick’s

fleet passed by the House in March 1648-9.[1290] These articles have

escaped the notice of writers upon naval law, who begin their history

of the subject with those passed in 1661; these latter, however, were

only based upon those previously existing, which are the groundwork of

all subsequent modifications and additions experience has shown to be

necessary down to the present day. They were thirty-nine in number,

and, so far as paper penalties were concerned, were rigorous enough. No

punishment was adjudged for the infraction of the first article relating

to the due performance of divine service; and the thirty-ninth is only a

vague reference to offences not mentioned in the preceding articles, and

which were punishable according to the ‘laws and customs of the sea.’

Of the remaining thirty-seven thirteen carried the infliction of death

unconditionally, and twelve that of death or lesser punishment, according

to sentence of court-martial, or court of war, as it was then called.

The parliamentary bark seems to have been much more ferocious than

its bite since, in all the numerous courts-martial mentioned in the

State Papers and elsewhere, there is no instance to be found in which

the death sentence was carried out, and very few in which it was

pronounced. Moreover precautions were taken against the exercise of

tyranny by inferior officers, inasmuch as the promulgation of the code

was accompanied by an order that the accused was only to be tried for

serious offences in the presence of a flag officer, and that no finding

involving life or limb was to be carried out without the approval of the

Generals or the senior officer in command; and as trifling charges were

to be heard before the captain and seven officers of the ship in which

the offence was committed the offender had a fair chance of an impartial

trial. Very soon after the Restoration this regulation fell into abeyance

and prisoners obtained justice—too often Jeddart—at the hands of the

captain alone. Only one case of a really severe sentence on foremast men

is to be found. In December 1653, in the middle of the war, six seamen of

the _Portland_ were found guilty of inciting to mutiny and were sentenced

to death. This was commuted, so far as three were concerned, to thirty

lashes apiece, and for the other three to stand one hour with their

right hands nailed to the mainmast of the flagship with halters round

their necks.[1291] There is no record of the infliction of such severe

punishment by any other court-martial.

As might be expected in a mercantile community the thirty-fifth article,

relating to convoy duty, was the longest and most explicit. Under Henry

VIII, and later, convoy money had been a legal charge; recently it had

become difficult to obtain convoy protection at all, and when given

owners and captains had been exposed to vexatious and illegal demands.

Now, any man-of-war captains not performing such duty thoroughly and

efficiently, and defending ‘the ships and goods in their convoy without

either diverting to other parts and occasions, or refusing or neglecting

to fight in their defence if they be set upon or assailed, or running

away cowardly, and submitting those in their convoy to peril and hazard,’

were to make good to the owners any pecuniary loss so caused. As, in the

case of a valuable cargo and a penniless naval captain, such a sentence

might be equivalent to escaping scot-free, death was also added as a

possible punishment. Any captain or officer demanding or receiving a

gratuity was to be cashiered. From 19th October 1649 the House had

resolved that convoy should henceforth be provided without charge,

and in 1650 the east coast fishermen were gratefully acknowledging

the benefits resulting. Matters, however, did not progress altogether

smoothly. Sometimes merchantmen were independent, and when the government

provided men-of-war for the Mediterranean, would not ‘stay half a day’ to

obtain their protection.[1292] But when the owners belonging to Poole,

Weymouth, Dartmouth, and Plymouth united, nine months later, in begging

for a stronger guard than usual to Newfoundland the Council recommended

them to defer sending a fleet till next year, as a convoy could not

be spared.[1293] From other papers the truth seems to have been that,

although a vessel or two could have been found for the work, the Council

desired to obtain for national purposes the men who would have manned the

merchantmen.

The option of sailing with or without convoy was not always left to the

discretion of owners. In February 1653 the Council sent orders to some

of the eastern ports that no vessel was to sail without protection, for

which preparations were being made; but in July the owners of three ships

destined for the Mediterranean petitioned for leave to send them without

the escort, which had been twice promised during sixteen months of delay,

and of which there was still no sign. Criticism must take into account

the fact that these things were happening during the strain of a great

war and that under ordinary circumstances, or when merely at war with

Spain, there was no want of promptness in the action of the authorities.

On 25th February 1656 Hull petitions for a convoy, and on the 29th it is

ordered; Newcastle on 10th February 1657 obtains an order the same day.

In January 1660 twenty-five ships were on convoy duty, one being sent

down to St Helena to meet the returning East Indiamen (this had been for

some years customary), two to the Canaries, and four to the Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: Wages.]

The articles of war seem in this generation to have troubled the

sailors but little, since, in nearly every instance, we find officers

the prisoners before the court. A court-martial would not enable the

Treasurer to pay wages and prize money too long over-due, or silence

men of whom one, who knew them well, said that they were ‘an unruly and

untamed generation,’ and that he found ‘no hope to satisfy them without

their full pay.’[1294] But there are signs that, notwithstanding delays

in payment, the men gave heartier obedience to the Commonwealth than they

had given to the crown under similar circumstances. On one occasion 180

men were sent down to join the _Fairfax_, but, not finding their raw

shipmates already on board to their liking, announced that they would

not go to sea ‘to do those men and boys’ work for them.’ But instead

of attempting to desert they betook themselves to other ships.[1295]

Three months afterwards the Navy Commissioners received the welcome

news that the men were coming in ‘cheerfully and in great numbers since

the publication of the late encouragement to them,’[1296] and from some

places they were coming up as volunteers. From Dover and Deal came the

information that the new arrangements were ‘much liked,’ and that the

greater number of the men were willing to serve.[1297] Commissioner

Peter Pett reported from Chatham that he found ‘the seamen in general

to be very tractable and complying, and begin to attend to their duties

handsomely.’

So far as wages were concerned, the encouragement spoken of related to

the increased pay which took effect from 1st Jan. 1653. During the civil

war the rate had been 19s a month; in the fleets sent against Rupert

it had been raised to 25s for that particular service, and it was now

to be 24s for able seamen (‘fit for helm and lead, top and yard’), 19s

for ordinary, and 14s 3d for gromets,[1298] and 9s 6d for boys. Each

man’s capacity was to be marked on his wages ticket when paid off, the

first sign of the present discharge note. As a further inducement, by an

order of 29th Jan. 1653, 20 men in first-, 16 in second-, 12 in third-,

8 in fourth-, 6 in fifth-, and 4 in sixth-rates were to be rated as

midshipmen, with pay from £1, 10s to £2, 5s a month, according to the

class of ship, and from 14th Dec. 1655 no one was to be so rated unless

able to undertake an officer’s duties, if necessary.[1299] Of course

the increase by the government caused a corresponding rise in merchant

seamen’s wages; and at Ipswich, soon afterwards, the latter were so hard

to come by as to be obtaining master’s pay.

[Sidenote: Soldiers on board Ship.]

It was estimated, although the number proved to be insufficient, that

16,000 men would be required in 1653, and many of these were untrained

landsmen and boys, almost useless at sea. The remaining thousands

needed were drawn from the ranks of the army. It has been suggested

that soldiers were sent on board to keep the sailors in subjection,

but, beyond the quite adequate explanation of a war demanding a larger

number of men than the maritime population had ever before been called

upon to supply, there is not the slightest trace of ill-feeling between

soldiers and sailors such as would have inevitably occurred had the

latter understood it as an attempt at intimidation. The expressed purpose

was ‘to perform as far as they are able, all service as seamen, and to

be ordered in like capacity as the rest;’ evidently they were expected

to help in deck work and where no especial training was requisite.

Altogether some 3000 or 4000 soldiers were sent on board the fleet; and

it is significant of the different discipline, or the different spirit,

animating the army and the Navy, that, although the new comers suffered

the same vexations as the seamen in relation to postponed pay and prize

money, in addition to the hardships peculiar to the sudden change in

situation and duties, they do not appear to have troubled the executive

with a single complaint beyond one meek remonstrance about the absence of

hammocks.[1300]

[Sidenote: Causes of Discontent.]

The seamen appear to have decided that their duties began and ended

on salt water. Captain Taylor, at Chatham, informed the Admiralty

Commissioners that ships might be sent to sea in half the time and at

one-third of the cost if the men could only be persuaded to help in

their preparation; but ‘not one will help to get out ballast, or take it

in, or do almost anything tending towards dispatch.’ Instead of working

they haunted the beershops, which have always been the curse of their

class. Bourne, the Commissioner at Harwich, had ‘the beginning of an

ugly mutiny,’ attributable to drink; but Bourne eventually succeeded in

putting down the alehouses at Harwich. At Plymouth vested interests were

too strong for Hatsell, the agent there:—

The men come tippling ashore, and then march away in their mad

fits.... The abominable strong drink brewed in this town is of

more prejudice to the state and to the poor men than the heads

of all the brewers and alehouse keepers here are worth.... The

government here protest they cannot remedy it, as the brewers

have grown so rich they contend with them at law.... This

strong drink is from 26s to 28s a hogshead, and stronger than

sack, and when a sailor has drunk one bowl of it it makes him

half out of his wits.[1301]

Such a letter explains many of the so-called mutinies.

The system of payment, again, exposed the men to every temptation, since

a ship might be a year or two at sea and no wages were given or expected

until she was ordered in for repairs or laid up, the result being that

when money was extraordinarily scarce cruisers were kept unnecessarily

in commission to postpone the settling day. Money was sometimes borrowed

when a squadron returned to port, and of £32,000 obtained in this manner

in 1657, £10,200 was still owing in 1659.[1302] There are numerous

expostulations from officers about their long over-due pay, but, read

by themselves, these lamentations are sometimes apt to leave a wrong

impression. Edward Larkin, for instance, gunner of the _Mayflower_,

petitions in 1655 for two and a half years of his ‘dearly earned wages,’

of which he has only received six months; his wife and family are turned

out of doors, his goods seized, and he himself arrested for debt. This,

taken alone, appears to be a pathetic indictment of the ways of the

administration, but here the corrective is supplied by another paper

which is an account of stores embezzled by the said Edward Larkin.

There was more difficulty, so far as willingness was concerned, in

manning the fleets during the war with Spain than during the Dutch war.

The men feared tropical climates, and ‘are so afraid of being sent to

the West Indies that they say they would as soon be hanged.’ Moreover as

the years went by the Commonwealth did not pay more promptly. There is

no sign, so far as their debates go, that Parliament, in improving the

position of the men, had ever been moved by other than purely selfish

motives, and it may have been felt that less now depended on the attitude

of the Navy, or that there was less likelihood, under any provocation, of

a serious outbreak. Slight ones frequently occurred and were invariably

attributed, by the officers on the spot, to the non-payment of wages

or prize-money, and were as invariably appeased when these claims were

settled. Sometimes discontent was rather an excuse than a cause; when the

crew of the _Ruby_ refused to sail, alleging that they had no clothes

and that the ship was defective, they were easily persuaded back to duty

when withdrawn from the influence of their landladies, who ‘have been

the greatest instruments to hinder their going on board.’ In the matter

of prize money officers of high rank fared little better in dealing with

the commissioners of prize goods. There are two letters on this subject

addressed in August 1654 to the commissioners. The first is mild in

tone; the second, signed by sixteen captains in the Downs, curtly points

out that their prize money for the three last actions with the Dutch is

still due and that unless it is immediately paid they will appeal to the

Protector.[1303] If captains were compelled to combine and threaten

we may imagine how the sailors raged vainly against official penury or

inertia.[1304]

Poverty occasionally caused the prize money gained by one section of the

naval force to be applied to the payment of wages due to another; in

October 1655 Blake’s men were partly paid this way, and, vaguely, the

deficiency thus made ‘to be supplied some other way.’ There are hints

that the Admiralty Court itself was not above suspicion. Captain Kendal,

of the _Success_, wrote, in April 1654, that sixteen months previously he

had taken a Dutch ship, still uncondemned; ‘but I suppose the bribes do

appear very large in the Admiralty Court,’ and, ‘I fear there hath been

much corruption in the Admiralty Court.’

It is but fair, however, to the prize commissioners to notice that the

difficulties of the position were not altogether due to themselves. In

1654 they wrote to the Admiralty Court stating that they had sold ships

and goods to the value of £70,000, but could not keep the proceeds,

because compelled to meet the sums charged upon them by the Council of

State, notwithstanding the decrees of the Court ordering them to hold

the money. Being uneasy about their position they desired security or

indemnity.[1305] Another source of abuse was the custom by which crews

were allowed to plunder a prize, on or above the gun deck, of all

articles except arms, ammunition, and ship’s stores. English merchantmen

recaptured from an enemy sometimes experienced more loss from the rescuer

than from the original captor. The owners of the _Sarah_, recaptured by

the _Falmouth_, found that while the enemy had done five pounds of damage

the Englishmen had helped themselves to the value of £500, and five or

six other ships were similarly treated.[1306]

[Sidenote: The Protests.]

While the majority of the men made protest against their wrongs in the

useless and prejudicial form of riots, there seem to have been a thinking

minority who were able to apply to their own situation the principles

for which they had fought, and which had sent Charles to the block and

Cromwell to Whitehall. These men drew up a petition to the Protector,

which, before being forwarded, was considered, on 17th October 1654, by

a council of two admirals and twenty-three commanding officers, held on

board the _Swiftsure_ in the Downs, at which it was decided that it was

lawful for them to petition and that the grievances stated were real,

except the one relating to foreign service.[1307] It was a sign of the

times that admirals and captains should have acknowledged such a right

in the ‘common sailor,’ and that they did not think themselves warranted

in striking out the portion of which they disapproved; they decided that

it should be ‘so far owned by us’ as to be presented to the Generals.

The petition was as much a remonstrance as a prayer, and, after claiming

that they had done the country good service and borne with hardship,

sickness, and bad food for its sake, went on to remind the Protector

that Parliament had declared its intention of enlarging the liberties of

the people, ‘which we were in great hopes of.’ Their hopes have scarcely

yet, so far as regards seamen, been realised, but it is expressive of

the vast progress the events of a few years had caused in the political

education and self-respect of a class hitherto proverbially debased and

unreflecting, that constitutional declarations and logical applications

of the principles their rulers suited to themselves should have begun to

replace the hopeless, unhelpful turbulence of the last generation.

They seem to have objected to foreign service mainly because their

families were left without support for a longer period than usual, and

bitterly complained that, in accordance with a Council order of 6th Dec.

1652, they were not permitted to go on shore, nor visitors allowed to

come on board, when in the Downs, and presumably other places, keeping

them ‘under a degree of thraldom and bondage.’ This regulation was

then new to them, but it remained in existence long enough to be one

of the injustices the mutineers of 1797 desired to have redressed. The

conclusion arrived at was a prayer that

they may be relieved in those grievances and may reap some

fruits of all their bloodshed and hardships, and that they

may not be imprested to serve, they humbly apprehending it to

be inconsistent with the principles of Freedom and Liberty to

force men to serve in military employments, either by sea or

land; and that your petitioners may be as free as the Dutch

seamen, against whom they have been such instruments in the

Lord’s hands for the good of their country; but that if the

Commonwealth have occasion to employ any of your petitioners

they may be hired as the Dutch are, and that they, or their

lawful attorney, may be paid every six months at the furthest,

and that such other encouragement to their relations may be

assured in case they are slain in the service as shall be

agreeable to justice, etc., as their necessity calls for, and

that all other liberties and privileges due to your petitioners

as freemen of England may be granted and secured.

The Council of State must have felt that the world was indeed moving

when English seamen called themselves freemen, demanded the rights of

freemen, and no longer admitted prescription as sufficient reason for the

continuance of their wrongs. The fact that there is no reference, printed

or manuscript, to this petition does not, of course, prove that it was

not considered and replied to, but it is certain that if any promises

were made not the slightest practical result followed them. There is a

paper assigned to this date which may have had an indirect connection

with the affair.[1308] It is a report from the Admiralty to the Protector

and Council dilating on the state of the naval administration and the

difficulties with which they had to deal. Every sentence of their long

narrative has reference to the want of money, and may be abstracted into

the one particular that while £8000 a week was allowed to the Admiralty

the victualling and stores absorbed more than this amount, leaving

nothing for wages and other expenses.

Notwithstanding these embarrassments favourite captains and handy

ships seem to have had no difficulty in obtaining crews. Referring

to the _Speaker_ and the _Hind_, an official writes: ‘Men have been

on board seven or eight days in hopes of being entered, which I have

refused to do, having had very much trouble to reduce them to their

complement.’[1309] The _Sapphire_, when commanded by Heaton, was another

vessel in which men were eager to serve, and to such purpose that out of

84 prizes brought into Plymouth between August 1652 and December 1655

twenty were taken by her.[1310]

[Sidenote: Confusion after Cromwell’s Death.]

The death of Cromwell, and the intrigues which followed that event,

intensified the disorder existing in naval affairs, but even before

September 1658 the strong hand which had kept some sort of order seems

to have been losing its grip. In July the Commissioners of the Admiralty

told the Council that ‘the credit of your Navy is so greatly impaired

that, having occasion to buy some necessary provisions, as tallow and

the like, your ministers can obtain none but for ready money,’ and they

complained that out of the customs and excise, nominally set apart for

the Navy, half was diverted to the army, £2000 a week to the Protector,

and judges’ and other salaries taken from it.[1311] The navy debt on 1st

July was returned at £573,474, and of this £286,000 was due for wages,

so that we can understand why some crews had been for two and three

years unpaid. Yet the succession of Richard Cromwell was well received

by the fleet in the Downs, and the officers and crews of vessels on

outlying stations, such as the _Paradox_ at Milford and _Assurance_ at

Scarborough, hastened to announce their satisfaction. When Montagu wrote

to Stokes, commanding in the Mediterranean, for signatures to an address

promising fidelity to Richard, only one officer of that squadron, Captain

Saunders, of the _Torrington_, manifested any hesitation about signing

it.[1312]

In their address to the new Protector the officers of the fleet, in

expressing their affection for the memory of Oliver, speak of ‘the

indulgence he showed to us who served him in his fleet’; but, unless

they were alluding to the higher scale of pay and the arrangements, to

be presently noticed, made for the care of the sick and wounded, one or

both of which may or may not have been owing to his initiative, it is

difficult to divine what indulgences they had to be especially grateful

to him for.[1313] By June 1659 there was owing for wages £371,930,[1314]

and it may be imagined that if the men, whom it was important to

conciliate, remained unpaid, merchants supplying stores, victualling

agents, and dockyard workmen fared still worse. In September the crew

of the _Marmaduke_ solicited some redress; they said they were abused

by their officers, cheated of their victuals and pinch-gut money,[1315]

and had to go begging about the streets, ‘scoffed and jeered at by other

nations.’ On 1st February 1660 the wages debt was £354,000, some ships

having been four years unpaid,[1316] and these figures, the correlatives

of which existed in every other branch of the administration, form the

best explanation of the equanimity with which the Restoration was viewed

by the seamen and others who may have seen in the return of Charles II

their only chance of payment.

[Sidenote: Care for the Sick and Wounded.]

Under the Commonwealth occurs the earliest attempt to afford the men some

of that attention to which, when ill or wounded, they were entitled. The

arrangements made in 1649 and 1652, although sufficient for ordinary

needs, were inadequate to the necessities of the Dutch war; and the

State was compelled to supplement the existing resources for the relief

of disabled men, and to provide additional aid for widows and orphans.

After the action of 28th and 29th September 1652 the Council ordered the

lord mayor to provide space for the wounded in the London hospitals,

and on 18th October £500 was assigned to the mayor of Dover to meet the

expense of the injured landed there. On 15th December the Admiralty

Committee passed a formal resolution that every care was to be taken

of the sick and wounded, both at sea and on shore, and that the London

hospitals were to receive some, and the most suitable port towns the

others. Every ship was to be allowed medical comforts—rice, oatmeal, and

sugar—at the rate of £5 per 100 men, every six months, and, for the first

time, men invalided ashore were continued in pay till death or recovery.

A special hospital was to be provided at Deal, and from 1st January 1653

half the space in all English hospitals, as they became empty, to be

reserved for the seamen.[1317]

In February and March 1653, Portsmouth, Deal and Dover were full of

wounded men; surgeons were sent down to these towns, and seven shillings

a week granted for the support of each man. Judging from the returns, the

death-rate among the injured was not so high as might have been expected,

if the conditions existing at Portsmouth also obtained elsewhere. There

the sick were mostly in private or beer houses, which were said to be

small and stifling, besides exposing their occupants to the temptation

of drink; of the town itself the governor, Nath. Whetham, had nothing

good to say, dwelling on ‘the filthy nastiness of this place,’ unpaved,

undrained, and enduring an epidemic of small-pox.[1318] The town must

have been continually full of suffering men, since for two months alone

of 1654 the cost of the sick and hurt there was £2300, of which £580 went

to the surgeons and £325 to the nurses.[1319]

Knowing that they would be repaid any outlay, the civic authorities of

the coast towns were attentive to the wants of the invalids, and, for a

time, the government spent liberally in this direction. In August 1653

there were 1600 men at Aldborough, Ipswich, and adjacent villages, whose

charges amounted to some thousands of pounds, cleared in due course,

while smaller sums of £958, £400, and £1366 were sent, on account, to

Dover, Weymouth, and Harwich; at Yarmouth between 3rd August 1653 and

6th February 1655 £2851 was expended in the town for the same purpose.

In some respects the sick men were better off than their able-bodied

fellows. Monk and Deane reproached the Admiralty Commissioners for

paying the former their wages, but not the latter, and ‘we think it

neither in reason nor conscience to employ men who must perish for want

of clothes lost in the service, and whose families are starving, and yet

their pay is due, their tickets signed, and their captains satisfied they

will not run away.’[1320]

Hitherto all the duty of superintendence had been thrown on the Navy

Commissioners, but, in view of their protests that they were overwhelmed

by their own more special work, a new department was created from 29th

September 1653, consisting of four commissioners at £150 a year each and

fifteen subordinate officers, who divided £1090 a year between them. They

took the title of ‘Commissioners of sick and wounded at Little Britain,’

where their office was situated, were to supervise the distribution

of invalided men, provide surgeons and medicines, and control the

authorities of the towns. They had also to take charge of prisoners, see

that the convalescent returned to their ships, and were authorised to

grant gratuities up to £10 and pensions up to £6, 13s 4d.

[Sidenote: Pensions.]

A pension or gratuity might be augmented by appeal to the Admiralty

Committee, although we may be certain that such a petition was rarely

successful, but the corresponding gifts to officers’ widows were on a

much more liberal scale. To seven captains’ widows sums ranging from

£400 to £1000 were granted in April 1653, and it seems a somewhat uneven

ascent from the seaman’s widow at £10 to the captain’s at £1000. So far

as applicants of inferior rank were concerned, the Commissioners must

have had their time fully occupied if they investigated every case as

closely as that of Susan Cane. They held that £5 was enough for her,

as she had not lived with her husband, led a loose life, and possessed

more than ordinary skill in making stockings. The institution of a new

benefaction caused new rogueries, and soon some of the office clerks

were levying commissions on the donations given to these women and

were in partnership with people who made real or false claims on their

behalf.[1321] In the two years ending with May 1656 some £12,000 had

been disbursed on behalf of men sent on shore ill or injured;[1322] but

it is apparent that, although the Commonwealth procedure compared very

favourably with the indifference which preceded it, the tender anxiety

the government displayed for the sailor’s welfare, when it had urgent

need of him, languished after the Dutch war and died away with the

Spanish one. Later, in the year 1656, the bailiffs of Yarmouth wrote to

the Admiralty Commissioners that the Commissioners at Little Britain were

now careless about paying for the men sent on shore, leaving it to the

bailiffs to spend the town money and get it back how or when they could.

The squadron before Mardike was considered very unhealthy, there being

usually about ten per cent. sick, and when these were sent home they were

simply laid on the ballast and shot about by the pitching and rolling of

the ship;[1323] and another paper mentions the ‘noisome smells’ produced

by the condition of these men. Fleets must, however, have been much

healthier than in earlier times, since on 24th March 1659 the number

of sick in nearly 3000 men under Montagu was only nineteen, and but

seventy-two in 2803 under Goodson.[1324]

In 1656 independent charities relating to the sick and maimed existed in

the shape of the Chatham Chest, Ely Place, the Savoy Hospital, and the

Commissioners, and it was then suggested that they should be amalgamated,

both on account of economy and the prevention of fraud, but this was

never done. For several years the Treasurer of the Navy paid £735 a week

for the support of pensioners, but in what proportion this was divided

among the foregoing charities is uncertain.

[Sidenote: The Chatham Chest.]

Of these institutions the only one of which we have any details is the

Chatham Chest. For the three years 1653-5 the accounts stand:—[1325]

Revenue[1326] Revenue from Lands[1327] Expenditure

£ £ _s_ _d_ £ _s_ _d_

1653 5653 433 6 8 10,065 0 0

1654 4000[1328] 433 6 8 4531 18 10

1655 4000[1328] 433 6 8 4500 0 0[1329]

There was thus an excess of outlay over receipts, for these three

years, of more than £4000, and Edward Hayward, then in charge, asks for

assistance from the central authority. He probably obtained it, as on

another occasion, Hutchinson was ordered to lend the Chest £3000.[1330]

In March 1656 a report was drawn up which made the income from land £382,

10s a year, and recommended the removal of the Chest to London to save

expense and the inconveniences experienced by the men. From this report

we learn that officers’ widows were entitled to pensions from it, but not

those of the men.[1331] In June 1657 there were 800 or 900 pensioners,

but half the arrears were unpaid; a year later the situation was worse

and the delay had reduced the men ‘to such extreme misery that I fear

many of them have perished of late,’ the writer, Pett, having been forced

to leave Chatham to escape these outcries. Pett adds, ‘If Rochester

Cathedral were given to the governors to be improved ... it might go

towards paying the arrears.’

There are two references in the Commonwealth papers which suggest that

Hayward did not escape suspicion then of having appropriated Chest money

to his own use, but in the inquiry into its management, begun in 1662,

the weight of scrutiny fell upon Pett. Hayward said that he had lost

all the books relating to the years 1648-55, although he afterwards

produced some of them. From the interrogatories addressed to Pett we may

infer that he and captain John Taylor, who was jointly responsible with

him, amicably passed each other’s accounts; that the accuracy of these

accounts was attested by only some of the officers who should have signed

them; that the same travelling expenses were entered three or four times

over; that he and Taylor had taken large sums from the Chest as salary,

no commissioner having ever before charged for his management; and that

such items occurred as £52, 13s 4d for the governor’s dinners, etc., at

one meeting, £10 a year salary to a ‘mathematician,’ and £9 to Taylor

‘for relief for a fall.’[1332]

[Sidenote: The Victualling.]

The quality of the food supplied to the men and the honesty of the

victualling agents both steadily deteriorated during the Commonwealth.

Complaints began to be frequent about 1650, and a fresh contract was

then entered into with Colonel Pride and others to undertake the duty at

eightpence per head at sea, and sevenpence in harbour, the government

bearing the cost of transport to fleets on service.[1333] The lax system

in force was not, however, calculated to act as a deterrent; in May 1650

a victualling office clerk, who had embezzled £137, gave security for it,

and was suspended, but, inferentially, only until the money was refunded.

It may be said that, generally, the object of the Navy authorities,

in cases of fraud and embezzlement by clerks or officers, was not so

much to punish as to obtain restitution. Possibly they found it to be

the most effective form of punishment. During 1652 the pressure caused

by the necessity of supplying an unprecedentedly large number of men

produced more disorders in this branch of the service, and in June the

contractors were called before the Council, told that their explanations

were unsatisfactory, and heard the Admiralty Commissioners directed to

continually watch and inspect the victuals furnished.

The story of the victualling arrangements during these eleven years

brings out the most striking point of difference between the Commonwealth

administration and those which were antecedent to it, in the fact that

matters affecting the health and comfort of seamen were not ignored

as in previous periods. This, we know, was greatly due to political

necessity, but the letters remaining, written by officials of all ranks,

show that a conscientious recognition of justice due to the sailors, and

of responsibility for their welfare, widely existed. This sentiment is

much more clearly marked among captains, admirals, and commissioners than

among the ruling politicians, although members of the government were

doubtless not unaffected by the prevailing spirit; the financial straits

of the country, however, first cramped, and then destroyed, reforms which

otherwise might have become permanent.

In 1652 new buildings for the Victualling department were built in

several ports; and from February 1650 the slaughterhouse at Deptford,

standing on ‘the poore’s ground’ and originally devoted to the service

of Greenwich Palace, was taken for that of the state.[1334] In 1653 the

rate rose to ninepence a head, and it may be roughly calculated that the

Victuallers were called upon to provide at least some 7,500,000 lbs. of

bread, 7,500,000 lbs. of beef and pork, and 10,000 butts of beer, besides

cheese, butter, fish, and other necessaries. The mechanism at their

command was little superior to that used by their predecessors under

Charles I, and English agriculture could hardly yet have recovered from

the effects of the civil war. The victualling contracts between September

1651 and December 1652 came to £332,000,[1335] a sum representing a

drain on the food resources of the country difficult to meet, not so

much, perhaps, in quantity as in suddenness, although since 1648 there

had been an unbroken series of years of dearth. Remembering commissariat

experiences of our own, happening under much more favourable conditions

within living memory, the wonder is, not that there should have been

complaints, but that there should have been comparatively so few under

circumstances, which might almost have excused absolute failure.

Pride and his associates were condemned because they were judged by a

higher standard than had previously existed, but under Charles I their

management would have been praised as highly successful.

When complaints came in they were not officially pigeon-holed but at once

inquired into, and, so far as lay with the Admiralty Committee, the wants

relieved. On 17th May 1653, a captain reported that he had no medical

extras; on the 19th the Navy Commissioners were ordered to examine into

this and remedy it; on 16th June the Generals of the fleet wrote about

the badness of the provisions, and on the 20th the Navy Commissioners

were directed to take the Victuallers to task. The beer was the most

frequent subject of protest, and the difficulty was met by sending water

in its place, to the extent of 500 tuns at a time, the men being allowed

twopence a day to reconcile them to the change. At least one brewer laid

the blame on the prices paid him, and frankly said he could give nothing

better for the money. Beer and other provisions, ‘decayed and unfit for

use,’ were licensed for export free of customs, perhaps in the hope that

such stores would go to Holland. In October 1654 Pride and his colleagues

gave notice of their intention to resign their contract, and, after some

debate, it was decided to constitute the Victualling a department under

the immediate care of the Navy Commissioners, captain Thos. Alderne being

made its head, with a salary of £500 a year.[1336] Alderne died 10th

April 1657, and was succeeded by three of the Navy Commissioners, majors

Robt. Thompson, Neh. Bourne, and Fr. Willoughby, who were thenceforward

styled ‘Commissioners of Navy and Victualling,’ and who received an

additional £250 a year each for their services.[1337]

Alderne and his successors may or may not have been competent, but they

had little chance of doing well under the financial embarrassments amid

which they worked; they considered themselves fortunate in being able

to continue supplies, of whatever quality, from hand to mouth. In June

1655 bakers and brewers were petitioning the Admiralty Committee, that

although in January they had been promised monthly cash payments, not

one penny had yet been paid them. The whole of one long despatch of

Blake’s[1338] is made up of complaints about the provisions sent out, and

censure of the officials at home. We, who have wider knowledge than Blake

could then have, now know that the defaults were due to the situation

rather than to the men. Orders might be given in London, but the local

contractors were either not properly controlled, or, more probably, were

defiant, knowing that the Admiralty could hardly go on provisioning the

fleets without the credit they gave it. If the seamen protested to those

individuals they obtained scant consideration. Some of the _Tiger’s_

crew went ashore at Harwich to show the victualling agent their bread

and beer which, their captain agreed, was not fit for food. The agent

sent for the baker and brewer, and the former told the men that they were

‘mutinous rogues,’ that it was good enough for their betters, and next

time should be worse. In another port the local agent told the purser of

the _Maidstone_, whose men had shown provisions absolutely putrid, and to

whom he had promised improvement when they were before him, that the more

they complained the worse they should have. This coming to the ears of

the men, some of the _Maidstone’s_ crew went ashore and wrecked his house.

As the end of the Commonwealth approached matters became as bad as they

could well be. At Plymouth, in January 1660, the victualler reported

that he had been obtaining stores hitherto on his own credit, but

would do so no longer; that there were six ships in port with starving

crews, and another six expected, and that the only way open to him was

to turn the men ashore to shift for themselves.[1339] In February the

Navy Commissioners warned their chiefs that, unless money was provided

within a week, there would be a failure of provisions everywhere, and

that having done their utmost by persuasion they must be acquitted of

blame. Judging from the number of their letters still existing, the Navy

Commissioners must, about this time, have been pressing the Admiralty

Committee for money nearly every day, either for wages or stores; it

was not their fault if any one remained unpaid. Warrants authorising

revictualling were posted freely, but, as captain Heaton wrote from

Plymouth, nothing was said about the money, without which they were of no

use. Heaton describes graphically the cruel poverty to which some of the

townspeople there, who had trusted the government, were reduced:—

One cries, ‘For God’s sake spare me £20 to keep me out of

prison;’ another begs for money to buy his family meat to eat,

and to-day I saw a poor women beg of Mr Addis ten shillings of

her due, to buy her four poor children bread, as for alms. Not

long since a baker with sad complaints prevailed with Mr Addis

for £23, and was as glad of it as though the money had been a

free gift.’[1340]

While this letter was travelling up to London two others, of the same

date, were coming from Hull. One, from the captain of the _Bryer_ to the

Admiralty Committee, says that he has already written nine times to them,

and that his officers are compelled to buy their own food, and his men to

forage for themselves on shore; the other, from the victualling agent at

Hull, acknowledges the receipt of their warrant to furnish the _Bryer_

and _Forester_, but, before acting on it, desires to know how he is to

be paid. Truly the pious hope of captain Harman, of the _Kentish_, that

Lawson would ‘be an instrument of bringing the victualling to its former

splendour,’ was one not likely to lack fulfilment for want of occasion.

[Sidenote: Medals and Rewards.]

It had long been customary to give medals and chains to distinguished

officers, but Parliament, for the first time, extended this form of

distinction to the men. The first reference is a somewhat doubtful one,

being an order of the House of 15th Nov. 1649, for medals for ‘several

mariners’ who had done good service the previous year, but who may

possibly have been officers. About the second, however, there is no

question. In 1650 captain Wyard, of the _Adventure_, a hired merchantman,

fought a gallant action off Harwich against greatly superior force, and

he, his officers, and crew were awarded medals of different values,

ranging from the one of £50 intended for himself down to others worth 5s

for the men, each ‘with the service against five ships engraved on one

side and the arms of the Commonwealth on the other.’[1341] There were at

least 20,000 men employed during 1652-4, but the whole number of medals

for the war was only 169; of these 79 were small ones, and may have

been intended for the seamen, although, as they were all of gold, it is

unlikely. Nine of the larger ones were with chains, the smaller weighed

18dwt. 11gr. each, and the total cost was £2060. One alone had ‘the

service done in the _Triumph_ expressed on it.’[1342] Blake and Monk had

chains worth £300 a piece given them, and Penn one of the value of £100.

The government was never unduly liberal in dealing with naval men. Major

Fr. White, for bringing the news of Dunbar to London, was given £300;

capt. Young, for following the Spanish fleet for a week in 1657, and then

seeking Blake with the information which enabled him to destroy it at

Santa Cruz, was granted £100.

[Sidenote: Seamen’s Clothing.]

The sale of clothes to the men was not confined to any one vendor, and

scandals in this department, if they existed, do not appear to have

attracted the attention of the authorities till 1655. Then an order was

issued from the Navy Office that, ‘upon the consideration of the several

abuses done by those that serve the state’s ships with clothes, by

exorbitant prices and bad goods, to the prejudice of the poor seamen,’

the clothiers were not to send any on board ship without the permission

of the Navy Commissioners.[1343] Two months later prices were fixed as

follows[1344]:—

_s_ _d_

Canvas jackets 1 10 each

” drawers 1 8 ”

Cotton waistcoats 2 2 each

” drawers 2 0 ”

Shirts 2 9 each

Shoes 2 4 a pair

Linen stockings 0 10 ”

Cotton ” 0 10 ”

This outfit, if a complete one, does not seem all that could be desired

for winter service in the Channel, although it is a nearer approach

to a uniform than existed much later. The Commissioners were careful

to repudiate any responsibility for the clothes,[1345] though, as we

see, they interfered when they considered it necessary, and allowed a

sum, usually £2, to each man if his kit had been lost in action or by

shipwreck.

[Sidenote: The Navy List.]

Compared with the accessions of previous reigns the following list of

new vessels is startling in its magnitude, and the cost of building

and maintenance is another item which helps to account for the chronic

difficulties besetting the Treasurer of the Navy[1346]:—

+-----------------------+-----+-----+------------+------------+----+-----

| |Prize|Built| At | By |Net |Gross

+-----------------------+-----+-----+------------+------------+----+-----

| | | | | | |

| 1 _Fairfax_ | | 1649|Deptford | | 789|

| 2 _Guinea_(B)[1347] | | 1649| | | 375| 500

| 3 _Jermyn_* | 1649| | | | |

| 4 _President_[1348] | | 1649|Deptford |P. Pett, sr.| 445| 593

| 5 _Speaker_ | | 1649|Blackwall |H. Johnson | 778| 928

| 6 _Old Success_ | 1649| | | | 380| 506

| 7 _Tiger’s Whelp_* | 1649| | | | |

| 8 _Advice_ | | 1650|Woodbridge |P. Pett, jr.| 516| 690

| 9 _Amity_(B) | | 1650| | | 354| 472

| 10 _Assistance_ | | 1650|Deptford |H. Johnson | 521| 694

| 11 _Concord_(B) | | 1650| | | |

| 12 _Centurion_ | | 1650|Ratcliff |P. Pett, sr.| 531| 690

| 13 _Dover_ | | 1650|Rotherhithe |Castle | 571| 681

| 14 _Eagle_ | 1650| | | | |

| 15 _Elizabeth Prize_* | 1650| | | | |

| 16 _Foresight_ | | 1650|Deptford |Shish | 524| 698

| 17 _Great Charity_ | 1650| | | | 400| 553

| 19 _Marigold_ | 1650| | | | |

| 20 _Portsmouth_ | | 1650|Portsmouth |Eastwood | 422| 600

| 21 _Mary Prize_* | 1650| | | | |

| 22 _Reserve_ | | 1650|Woodbridge |P. Pett, jr.| 513| 688

| 23 _Antelope_ | | 1651| | | |

| 24 _Bryer_* | 1651| | | | 180|

| 25 _Convertine_ | 1651| | | | 500| 666

| 26 _Discovery_(B) | | 1651| | | |

| 27 _Fortune_ | 1651| | | | |

| 28 _Gilliflower_(B) | | 1651| | | |

| [1349] | | | | | |

| 30 _Martin Prize_* | 1651| | | | |

| 31 _Mayflower_(B) | | 1651| | | |

| 32 _Mermaid_ | | 1651|Limehouse |Graves | 289| 385

| 33 _Nightingale_ | | 1651|Horseleydown|Shish | 289| 385

| 34 _Peacock_ | 1651| | | | |

| 35 _Pearl_ | | 1651|Ratcliff |P. Pett, sr.| 285| 380

| 36 _Old President_ | 1651| | | | |

| 37 _Little President_ | 1651| | | | |

| 39 _Sapphire_ | | 1651|Ratcliff |P. Pett, sr.| 442| 589

| 40 _Tresco_* | 1651| | | | |

| 41 _Worcester_[1350] | | 1651|Woolwich |Russell | 629| 838

| 42 _Adam and Eve_ | 1652| | | | 200|

| 43 _Advantage_ | 1652| | | | |

| 44 _Arms of Holland_ | 1652| | | | |

| 45 _Convert_ | 1652| | | | |

| 46 _Crow_ | 1652| | | | |

| 47 _Deptford_ | | 1652| | | |

| 48 _Diamond_ | | 1652|Deptford |P. Pett sr. | 547| 740

| 49 _Dolphin_ | 1652| | | | |

| 50 _Drake_ | | 1652|Deptford |P. Pett | 113| 153

| 51 _Duchess_ | 1652| | | | |

| 52 _Endeavour_ | 1652| | | | |

| 53 _Falmouth_ | 1652| | | | |

| 54 _Gift Major_ | 1652| | | | 480| 653

| 55 _Golden Falcon_ | 1652| | | | |

| 56 _Golden Lion_ | 1652| | | | |

| 57 _Heartsease_ | 1652| | | | |

| 58 _Hound_ | 1652| | | | |

| 59 _Hope_ | 1652| | | | |

| 60 _Hopewell_(B) | | 1652| | | |

| 61 _Horseleydown_ | | 1652| | | |

| 62 _Hunter_ | 1652| | | | |

| 63 _Kentish_ | | 1652|Deptford |Johnson | 601| 801

| 64 _Marmaduke_(B) | | 1652| | | 400| 533

| 65 _Martin_ | | 1652|Portsmouth |Tippetts | 92| 124

| 66 _Merlin_ | | 1652|Chatham |Taylor | 105| 141

| 67 _Middleburgh_ | 1652| | | | |

| 68 _Oak_ | 1652| | | | |

| 69 _Paul_ | 1652| | | | 290| 384

| 70 _Peter_ | 1652| | | | |

| 71 _Plover_ | 1652| | | | |

| 72 _Princess Maria_ | 1652| | | | |

| 73 _Raven_ | 1652| | | | |

| 74 _Recovery_ | 1652| | | | |

| 75 _Ruby_ | | 1652|Deptford |P. Pett, sr.| 556| 745

| 76 _Sampson_ | 1652| | | | |

| 77 _Sophia_ | 1652| | | | 300| 400

| 78 _Stork_ | 1652| | | | |

| 79 _Sun_ | 1652| | | | |

| 80 _Sussex_ | | 1652| | | |

| 81 _Swan_ | 1652| | | | |

| 82 _Violet_ | 1652| | | | |

| 83 _Waterhound_ | 1652| | | | |

| 84 _Welcome_ | 1652| | | | 400| 533

| 85 _Weymouth_* | 1652| | | | 120| 160

| 86 _Wildman_ | 1652| | | | |

| 87 _Augustine_ | 1653| | | | 359| 478

| 88 _Bear_ | 1653| | | | 395| 526

| 89 _Black Raven_ | 1653| | | | 300|

| 90 _Bristol_[1351] | | 1653|Portsmouth |Tippetts | 532| 680

| 91 _Cardiff_ | 1653| | | | |

| 92 _Church_ | 1653| | | | 300|

| 93 _Elias_ | 1653| | | | 400| 533

| 94 _Essex_ | | 1653|Deptford |Ph. Pett | 742| 989

| 95 _Fairfax_[1352] | | 1653|Chatham |Taylor | 745| 993

| 96 _Falcon Flyboat_ | 1653| | | | |

| 97 _Fortune_ | 1653| | | | |

| 98 _Golden Cock_ | 1653| | | | |

| 99 _Hare_ | 1653| | | | |

|100 _Half moon_ | 1653| | | | 300|

|101 _Hampshire_ | | 1653|Deptford |Ph. Pett | 481| 594

|102 _Hector_ | 1653| | | | 150| 200

|103 _John Baptist_ | 1653| | | | |

|104 _Katherine_ | 1653| | | | |

|105 _King David_ | 1653| | | | |

|106 _Little Charity_ | 1653| | | | |

|107 _Lizard_* | 1653| | | | 100| 133

|108 _Mathias_ | 1653| | | | 500| 666

|110 _Newcastle_ | | 1653|Ratcliff |Ph. Pett | 631| 841

|111 _Orange Tree_ | 1653| | | | 300|

|112 _Ostrich_ | 1653| | | | |

|113 _Paradox_* | 1653| | | | 120| 160

|114 _Pelican Prize_ | 1653| | | | |

|115 _Plover_ | 1653| | | | |

|116 _Plymouth_ | | 1653|Woolwich |Ch. Pett | 741| 988

|117 _Portland_ | | 1653|Wapping |Taylor | 605| 806

|118 _Redhart_* | 1653| | | | |

|119 _Renown_ | 1653| | | | |

|120 _Rosebush_ | 1653| | | | 300| 400

|121 _Satisfaction_ | 1653| | | | 220| 293

|122 _Sparrow_ | 1653| | | | 60| 80

|123 _Swiftsure_[1353] | | 1653|Woolwich |Ch. Pett | 740| 986

|124 _Tulip_ | 1653| | | | |

|125 _Westergate_ | 1653| | | | 270| 365

|126 _Wren_ | 1653| | | | |

|127 _Yarmouth_ | | 1653|Yarmouth |Edgar | 608| 810

|128 _Adviser_ | | 1654| | | |

|129 _Basing_ | | 1654|Walderswick |Shish | 255| 340

|130 _Cat_* | 1654| | | | |

|131 _Colchester_ | | 1654|Yarmouth |Edgar | 287| 382

|132 _Fagons_[1354] | | 1654|Wivenhoe |Page | 262| 349

|133 _Gainsborough_ | | 1654|Wapping |Taylor | 543| 724

|134 _Gloucester_ | | 1654|Limehouse |Graves | 755| 1006

|135 _Grantham_ | | 1654|Lidney |Furzer | 265| 323

|136 _Indian_ | 1654| | | | |

|137 _Islip_ | | 1654| | | |

|138 _Jersey_ | | 1654|Maldon |Starling | 560| 746

|139 _Langport_ | | 1654|Horseleydown|Bright | 781| 1041

|140 _Lyme_ | | 1654|Portsmouth |Tippetts | 769| 1025

|141 _Maidstone_ | | 1654|Woodbridge |Munday | 566| 754

|142 _Marston Moor_ | | 1654|Blackwall |Johnson | 734| 978

|143 _Nantwich_ | | 1654|Bristol |Bailey | 319| 425

|144 _Newbury_ | | 1654|Limehouse |Graves | 765| 1020

|145 _Nonsuch Ketch_(B) | | 1654| | | 60| 80

|146 _Preston_ | | 1654|Woodbridge |Cary | 550| 642

|147 _Seahorse_ | 1654| | | | |

|148 _Selby_ | | 1654| Wapping |Taylor | 299| 398

|149 _Sorlings_*[1355] | 1654| | | | 250| 333

|150 _Taunton_ | | 1654|Ratcliff |Castle | 536| 714

|151 _Torrington_ | | 1654| ” |Ph. Pett | 738| 984

|152 _Tredagh_ | | 1654| ” | ” | 771| 1008

|153 _Winsby_ | | 1654|Yarmouth |Edgar | 607| 809

|154 _Bridgewater_ | | 1655|Deptford |Chamberlain | 742| 989

|155 _Cornelian_* | 1655| | | | 100|

|156 _Dartmouth_ | | 1655|Portsmouth |Tippetts | 230| 306

|157 _Eaglet_ | | 1655|Horseleydown|Huggins | 60| 80

|158 _Fame_* | 1655| | | | 90| 120

|159 _Hawk_ | | 1655|Woolwich |Cooper | 60| 80

|160 _Hind_ | | 1655|Waveney |Page | 60| 80

|161 _Naseby_ | | 1655|Woolwich |Ch. Pett |1229| 1638

|162 _Norwich_ | | 1655|Chatham |Ph. Pett | 246| 328

|163 _Pembroke_ | | 1655|Woolwich |Raven | 269| 368

|164 _Portsmouth | 1655| | | | |

|165 _Redhorse Pink_ | 1655| | | | |

|166 _Roe_ | | 1655|Waveney |Page | 60| 80

|167 _Wexford_* | 1655| | | | 130| 173

|168 _Accada_(B) | | 1656| | | |

|169 _Beaver_* | 1656| | | | |

|170 _Blackmoor_[1356] | | 1656|Chatham |Taylor | 90| 110

|171 _Bramble_ | 1656| | | | 112| 160

|172 _Cheriton_ | | 1656|Deptford |Challis | 194| 261

|173 _Chestnut_[1356] | | 1656|Portsmouth |Tippetts | 90| 110

|174 _Dunbar_ | | 1656|Deptford |Challis |1047| 1396

|175 _Elias_[1357] | 1656| | | | |

|176 _Griffin_* | 1656| | | | 90| 120

|178 _Hunter_* | 1656| | | | 50| 66

|179 _Jesu Maria_ | 1656| | | | |

|180 _Kinsale_* | 1656| | | | 90| 120

|181 _Lark_* | 1656| | | | 80| 100

|183 _Oxford_ | | 1656|Deptford |Challis | 240| 320

|184 _Raven_* | 1656| | | | |

|185 _Vulture_* | 1656| | | | 100| 133

|186 _Wakefield_ | | 1656|Portsmouth |Tippetts | 235| 313

|187 _Wolf_* | 1656| | | | 120| 160

|188 _Cygnet_ | | 1657|Chatham |Taylor | 60| 80

|189 _Forester_ | | 1657|Lidney |Furzer | 230| 306

|190 _Greyhound_* | 1657| | | | 150| 200

|191 _Hart_ | | 1657|Woolwich |Ch. Pett | 55| 75

|192 _Lily_ | | 1657|Deptford |Challis | 60| 80

|193 _Parrot_ | | 1657|Chatham |Taylor | 60| 80

|194 _Rose_ | | 1657|Woolwich |Ch. Pett | 55| 75

|195 _Swallow_ | | 1657|Deptford |Challis | 60| 80

|196 _Bradford_ | | 1658|Chatham |Taylor | 230| 306

|197 _Cagway_* | 1658| | | | 60| 80

|198 _Coventry_* | 1658| | | | 200| 266

|199 _Fox_* | 1658| | | | 120| 160

|200 _Francis_* | 1658| | | | 90| 110

|201 _Gift Minor_* | 1658| | | | 120| 160

|202 _Lichfield_* | 1658| | | | 200| 266

|203 _Maria_* | 1658| | | | 120| 180

|204 _Richard_ | | 1658|Woolwich |Ch. Pett |1108| 1477

|205 _Leopard_ | | 1659|Deptford |Shish | 636| 847

+-----------------------+-----+-----+------------+------------+----+-----

---+-------+------+-------+--------+----+-------------------------------+

+-------+------+-------+--------+----+-------------------------------+

| Ft. | Ft. | Ft. | Ft. | | |

1| 116 | 35.8 | 14.6 | 17.6 | 64 |Burnt at Chatham, March 1653. |

2| 90 | 28 | 14 | | 30 | |

3| | | | | |Disappears before 1653. |

4| 102.9 | 29.6 | 12.6 | 15.6 | 42 | |

5| 116 | 34.9 | 14.6 | 17 | 64 | |

6| | | | | 34 | |

7| | | | | |Sold before Nov. 1658. |

8| 100 | 31.2 | 12.3 | 15.7 | 40 | |

9| 85 | 28 | 14 | | 30 | |

10| 102 | 31 | 13 | 15 | 40 | |

11| | | | | 26 |Sold, Aug. 1659. |

12| 104 | 31 | 13 | 16 | 40 | |

13| 100 | 31.8 | 13 | 16 | 40 | |

14| | | | | 12 |Hulk at Chatham in 1660. |

15| | | | | |Disappears before 1653. |

16| 102 | 31 | 13 | 14.6 | 40 | |

17| 106 | 28.6 | 11.10 | 14 | 38 | |

18| 100 | 20.8 | 15.4 | | 38 |Burnt at Portsmouth, Feb. 1656.|

19| | | | | 30 |Sold, 1658. |

20| 99 | 28.4 | 14.2 | 15 | 38 | |

21| | | | | 36 |Sold, June 1657. |

22| 100 | 31.1 | 12.4 | 15.6 | 40 | |

23| 120 | 36 | 16 | | 56 |Wrecked on coast of Jutland, |

24| | | | | 18 | |

25| | | | | 40 | |

26| | | | | 20 |Burnt at Jamaica, 1655. |

27| | | | | |Captured by Dutch, Aug. 1652. |

28| | | | | 32 |Sold, June 1657. |

29| 103 | 30.1 | 15 | | 38 |Lost on Newarp Sands, 1657. |

30| | | | | |Sold before Sept. 1653. |

31| | | | | 20 |Sold, 1658. |

32| 86 | 25.2 | 10 | 12 | 22 | |

33| 86 | 25.2 | 10 | 12 | 22 | |

34| | | | | |Sold before Nov. 1658. |

35| 86 | 25 | 10 | 12 | 22 | |

36| | | | | |Sold, Aug. 1655. |

37| | | | | 12 |Sold, 1657. |

38| 86 | 25.2 | 10 | 12 | 22 |Wrecked on the Seven Stones, |

| | | | | | 1656. |

39| 100 | 28.10| 11.9 | 13.6 | 38 | |

40| | | | | |Wrecked, 1651. |

41| 112 | 32.6 | 14 | 16 | 48 | |

42| | | | | 20 |Sold, June 1657. |

43| | | | | 26 |Sold, August 1655. |

44| | | | | 32 |Blew up in West Indies, July |

| | | | | | 1656. |

45| | | | | 26 |Sold, 1659. |

46| | | | | 36 |Sold, 1656. |

47| | | | | 4 |Sold, 1659. |

48| 105.6 | 31.3 | 3 | 16 | 40 | |

49| | | | | 30 |Disappears before 1658. |

50| 85 | 18 | 7 | 9 | 14 | |

51| | | | | 24 |Sold, 1654. |

52| | | | | 36 |Sold, 1656. |

53| | | | | 20 |Sold, 1659. |

54| 90.8 | 30.8 | 11.6 | 13.6 | 26 | |

55| | | | | 28 |Sold, 1658. |

56| | | | | |Sold, 1653. |

57| | | | | 36 |Sold, 1656. |

58| | | | | 36 | |

59| | | | | 26 |Sold, 1657. |

60| | | | | 20 |Sold, 1656. |

61| | | | | 4 |Sold, 1655. |

62| | | | | |Lost in action of July 1653. |

63| 107 | 32.6 | 13 | 15 | 40 | |

64| | | | | 32 | |

65| 64 | 19.4 | 7 | | 14 | |

66| 75 | 18 | 7.8 | 9 | 14 | |

67| | | | | 32 |Sold before Nov. 1658. |

68| | | | | |Lost in action of July 1653. |

69| 84 | 26 | 9.6 | 10.6 | 22 | |

70| | | | | 32 |Sold, 1653. |

71| | | | | 26 |Sunk in action of Feb. 1653. |

72| | | | | 36 |Wrecked on the Goodwins, 1658. |

73| | | | | 36 |Recaptured by Dutch, April |

| | | | | | 1654. |

74| | | | | 26 |Sold, 1655. |

75| 105.6 | 31.6 | 13 | 16 | 40 | |

76| | | | | 32 |Sold, 1658. |

77| | | | | 26 | |

78| | | | | |Hulk at Deptford in 1660. |

79| | | | | 12 |Sold, 1654. |

80| | | | | 46 |Blew up at Portsmouth, 9th Dec.|

| | | | | | 1653. |

81| | | | | 22 |Sold, 1654. |

82| 98 | 28 | 11 | 12.6 | 44 |Hulk at Woolwich in 1660. |

83| | | | | 32 |Sold, 1656. |

84| | | | | 36 | |

85| | | | | 14 | |

86| | | | | 16 |Sold, 1657. |

87| 100 | 26 | 14 | 14 | 26 | |

88| 106 | 26.6 | 14.6 | 14.6 | 36 | |

89| | | | | 38 |Sold, 1654. |

90| 104 | 31.1 | 13 | 15.8 | 44 | |

91| | | | | 18 |Sold before Nov. 1658. |

92| | | | | 30 |Hulk at Harwich in 1660. |

93| 101 | 27.6 | 11 | 14.6 | 36 | |

94| 115 | 33 | 13.8 | 17 | 48 | |

95| 120 | 35.2 | 14.6 | 16.6 | 52 | |

96| | | | | 24 |Sold, 1658. |

97| | | | | 26 |Sold, 1654. |

98| | | | | 24 |Sold, 1656. |

99| | | | | 12 |Wrecked, 1655. |

100| | | | | 30 |Sold, 1659. |

101| 101.9 | 29.9 | 13 | 14.10 | 38 | |

102| | | | | 30 | |

103| | | | | 12 |Sold, 1656. |

104| | | | | 36 |Sold before Nov. 1658. |

105| | | | | 12 |Sold, 1654. |

106| | | | | 30 |Sold, 1656. |

107| | | | | 16 | |

108| | | | | 38 | |

109| 32 | 14 | 7 | 7 | | |

110| 108.6 | 33.1 | 13.3 | 16 | 44 | |

111| | | | | 26 |Sold, 1655. |

112| | | | | |Hulk at Portsmouth in 1660. |

113| | | | | 12 | |

114| | | | | 34 |Sold, 1655. |

115| | | | | 26 |Sold, 1657. |

116| 116 | 34.8 | 14.6 | 17 | 54 | |

117| 105 | 32.11| 12.10 | 16 | 44 | |

118| | | | | 6 |Sold, 1654. |

119| | | | | 20 |Sold, 1654. |

120| | | | | 34 | |

121| | | | | 26 | |

122| | | | | 12 |Sold, 1659. |

123| 116 | 37.4 | 14.10 | 18 | 60 | |

124| | | | | 32 |Sold, 1657. |

125| 86 | 24.6 | 11.6 | 13 | 34 | |

126| | | | | 12 |Sold, 1657. |

127| 105 | 33 | 13.3 | 17 | 44 | |

128| | | | | 8 |Taken by a privateer in 1655. |

129| 80 | 24.6 | 10 | 12 | 22 | |

130| | | | | 8 |Retaken by a privateer in 1656.|

131| 83 | 25.6 | 10 | 12 | 24 | |

132| 82 | 24.8 | 10 | 12 | 22 | |

133| 100.10| 31.10| 13 | 15 | 40 | |

134| 117 | 34.10| 14.6 | 18 | 50 | |

135| 80 | 25 10| 11.6 | 28 | | |

136| | | | | 44 |Sold, 1659. |

137| | | | | 22 |Wrecked near Inverlochy, 24th |

138| 102.10| 32.2 | 13.2 | 15.6 | 40 | |

139| 116 | 35.7 | 14.4 | 17 | 50 | |

140| 117 | 35.2 | 14.4 | 18 | 52 | |

141| 102 | 31.8 | 13 | 16 | 40 | |

142| 116 | 34.6 | 14.2 | 17 | 52 | |

143| 86.8 | 26.4 | 10.4 | 12.6 | 28 | |

144| 117 | 35 | 14.5 | 17.6 | 52 | |

145| 27 | 15.6 | 6 | | 8 |Taken by a privateer, March |

146| 101 | 30 | 13 | 16 | 40 | |

147| | | | | 26 |Sold, 1655. |

148| 85.6 | 25.8 | 10 | 12 | 22 | |

149| | | | | 28 | |

150| 100.6 | 31.8 | 13 | 16 | 40 | |

151| 116.8 | 34.6 | 14.2 | 17 | 52 | |

152| 117.3 | 35.2 | 14.5 | 17 | 50 | |

153| 104 | 33.2 | 13 | 17 | 44 | |

154| 116.9 | 34.7 | 14.2 | 17 | 52 | |

155| | | | | 12 | |

156| 80 | 25 | 10 | 12 | 22 | |

157| | | | | 8 | |

158| | | | | 10 | |

159| 42 | 16 | 8 | | 8 | |

160| 42 | 16 | 8 | | 8 | |

161| 131 | 42 | 18 | 11 | 80 | |

162| 81 | 25 | 10.6 | 12 | 22 | |

163| 81 | 25 | 11.6 | 12 | 22 | |

164| | | | | 4 |Retaken by a privateer, July |

| | | | | | 1655. |

165| | | | | 10 |Sold, 1658. |

166| | | | | 8 | |

167| | | | | 14 | |

168| | | | | 10 |Wrecked, 1659. |

169| | | | | 6 |Sold before Nov. 1658. |

170| 47 | 19 | 10 | | 12 | |

171| | | | | 14 | |

172| 76 | 24 | 10 | 11 | 20 | |

173| 47 | 19 | 10 | | 12 | |

174| 123 | 46 | 17.2 | 21 | 64 | |

175| | | | | |Used as hulk at Plymouth in |

| | | | | | 1660. |

176| | | | | 12 | |

177| | | | | 8 | |

178| | | | | 6 | |

179| | | | | |Used as hulk at Portsmouth in |

| | | | | | 1660. |

180| | | | | 10 | |

181| | | | | 10 | |

182| 123.6 | 41 | 16.6 | 18 | 64 | |

183| 72 | 24 | 10 | 11 | 22 | |

184| | | | | 6 |Sold before Nov. 1658. |

185| | | | | 12 | |

186| 74 | 23.6 | 9.9 | 11.6 | 26 | |

187| | | | | 16 | |

188| | | | | 6 | |

189| | | | | 22 | |

190| 60 | 26.6 | 11.6 | | 20 | |

191| 50 | 14.6 | 5.6 | 5 | 6 | |

192| | | | 5 | 6 | |

193| | | | 5 | 6 | |

194| 50 | 14 | 5.6 | 5 | 6 | |

195| | | | 5 | 6 | |

196| 85 | 25.6 | 10 | 12 | 28 | |

197| | | | | 8 | |

198| | | | | 20 | |

199| 72 | 23 | 8.6 | 10 | 14 | |

200| | | | | 10 | |

201| | | | | 12 | |

202| | | | | 20 | |

203| | | | | 12 | |

204| 124 | 41 | 18 | 20 | 70 | |

205| 109 | 33.9 | 15.8 | 17 | 44 | |

206| 108 | 35 | 13.11 | 16 | 52 | |

207| | | | | 1 | |

---+-------+------+-------+--------+----+-------------------------------+

Thus 207 new vessels were added to the Navy during these eleven years,

of which 121 were on the active list in 1660; besides 22 others still

remaining of the old Royal Navy and 17 more, originally of the same

era, which had been used but had been sold, wrecked, or lost in action

between 1649 and 1660. We are told that ‘the principal thing the Long

Parliament aimed at was to outsail the Dunkirkers,’[1359] and the

large number of light vessels of twenty-two guns, or under, shows how

earnestly they set themselves to this task. In a few cases the names of

old ships were altered—the _Charles_ to _Liberty_, the _Henrietta Maria_

to _Paragon_, the _Prince_ to _Resolution_, and the _St Andrew_ and _St

George_ lost their saintship. The _Sovereign_ is, once or twice, called

the _Commonwealth_, but here the proposed change of name never became an

actual one.

[Sidenote: Alterations and Improvements.]

In October 1651 the Council of State were considering ‘some encouragement

to be given to Messrs Pett for their success in contriving and building

of frigates.’ The improvements consisted, we may be certain, in moulding

the under-water section on finer lines, and probably in reducing the

height of the hull above water and lengthening the keel by lessening the

rake, fore and aft, and so diminishing the undue proportion the length

‘over all’ bore to the keel. Such alterations would have tended to abate

the pitching, from which these old ships must have suffered terribly, to

have given them a steadier gun platform, and to make them more weatherly,

although from the journal of the _Gainsborough_ it appears that she,

at any rate, was nearly unable to beat to windward.[1360] At first the

new frigates, of whatever class, were built without forecastles, but

experience led to the conclusion that they were advisable in the larger

ships, it being found necessary sometimes to run them up at sea, and

eventually only fifth- and sixth-rates were still built without them.

But this was an advance on the old system, which had constructed the

smallest vessels on exactly the same plan as the largest. Beyond Pett’s

improvements, which really belong to the period of Charles I rather

than to that of the Commonwealth, there was little progress in matters

relating to sails and the better adjustment of weights. Fore and aft

sails are still rarely mentioned, and then only in connection with small

vessels, and there is no record of the introduction of any mechanical

appliances calculated to lighten or quicken the physical work necessary

in handling a ship. The sail area was still small for the tonnage, nor,

in view of the crankness of the ships, did it appear possible to increase

it. The _Sovereign_, cut down in 1652, and then of 100 guns and 2072

gross tonnage,[1361] carried 5513 yards of canvas in a complete suit of

sails;[1362] in 1844 the regulation equipment for a second-rate of 84

guns and 2279 tons (the _Thunderer_), was 12,947 yards. Of course the

line-of-battle ship of 1844 would be in reality a much bigger vessel than

the _Sovereign_, but the excess in length and breadth would not alone

explain the ability to bear more than double the extent of canvas.

As had been customary for at least 150 years, each ship possessed three

boats—long boat, pinnace, and skiff—which were respectively 35 feet, 29

feet, and 20 feet long in those belonging to second-rates, and 33 feet,

28 feet, and 20 feet in third-rates. In no list of equipments or stores

are davits mentioned. The long boat was apparently still towed astern;

it invariably was in 1625, since the Cadiz fleet of that year lost every

long boat in crossing the Bay of Biscay. How the other boats were now

hoisted to the ship is uncertain.[1363]

[Sidenote: Shipbuilding.]

Early in the Commonwealth administration John Holland, one of the Navy

Commissioners, recommended that the service shipwrights should not be

allowed to keep private yards, seeing that if they were dishonest there

was no way of tracing government timber, or other materials, used for

their own purposes, a reason which does not say much for government

methods of supervision. But the state yards were obviously inadequate to

the demands suddenly made upon their capacity, and recourse was necessary

to the yards belonging to government shipwrights and to private builders.

In 1650 and 1651 the _Pelican_, _Primrose_, _Pearl_, _Nightingale_, and

_Mermaid_ were bought in this way, the first at £6, 10s, the others at

£5, 8s a ton.[1364] Vessels built in private yards were subjected to

continual inspection at the hands of the government surveyors, and, in

many cases, the materials were supplied by the Navy Commissioners, who

only desired such prices for them ‘as shall be moderate and fit between

man and man.’

During 1651-53 Parliament was continually ordering new frigates to be

commenced, and the master shipwrights who possessed building slips seem

to have tried to get the work placed in their own yards rather than

in the government ones. In April 1652, when two new vessels were to

be commenced, Peter Pett and Taylor recommended that they should be

given out to contract, as there was not enough timber in the government

stores. Whatever may have been the knowledge or sense of duty possessed

by some of their subordinates, the Commonwealth Navy Commissioners

were the wrong men upon whom to try _finesse_, more appropriate to the

preceding or following administrations. All that Pett and Taylor obtained

by their move was an intimation that they, at all events, would not be

allowed to compete, and this was followed by an urgent recommendation

to the Admiralty Committee that, as there was in reality plenty of

timber available, the two men should be ordered to proceed with the

work at once in the state’s yards.[1365] On other occasions the London

shipwrights combined to put pressure on the Admiralty by refusing to

tender below certain rates, and Edmond Edgar, of Great Yarmouth, based

a claim to consideration on the fact that he had cut in and broken down

the combination.[1366] There are several petitions, like this one of

Edgar’s, from shipbuilders, for compensation on account of vessels turned

out from their yards larger than had been specified in the original

contracts, and thereby exposing them to loss. As the Admiralty tried to

be just rather than generous in dealing with contractors, we may suppose

that the miscalculations, like those which occurred under Charles I,

were due really to ignorance rather than to a not very hopeful attempt

to obtain larger profits by deliberately ignoring instructions. Country

builders, moreover, sometimes worked under difficulties they could

scarcely have anticipated when tendering. Bailey, who built two ships at

Bristol, desired the government to authorise him to pay his men more than

two shillings a day, and thus free him from the liability to ten days’

imprisonment and a £10 fine incurred, according to the city ordinances,

by those who paid more.[1367]

[Sidenote: Decoration.]

In accordance with the tendency of the time the decoration of ships was

reduced to a minimum. Until 1655 the use of gilding appears to have

ceased, special orders being in some cases given that vessels under

repair were not to have any gold used upon them, and the cost of carved

work in fifth-rates was fixed at £45, an amount which was not passed

without serious questioning. In 1655 this severe simplicity was, to a

certain extent, relaxed, since, in August, Richard Isaacson undertook

the gilding and painting of two second-rates at £120 each. So far as

the outside was concerned, the figurehead, arms on stern, and two

figures on the stern gallery were to be gilt; the hull, elsewhere, was

to be painted black, picked out in gold where carved.[1368] The Navy

Commissioners held that the decoration ought not to cost more than £80,

being unnecessary and ‘like feathers in fantastic caps.’ Figure heads

were sometimes exuberant in style. The _Naseby’s_ consisted of Oliver on

horseback, ‘trampling upon six nations.’

[Sidenote: Relation between Tonnage and Guns.]

The following table gives the equipment in offensive weapons and stores

for typical vessels of each rate; the scale was not implicitly adhered

to, but it is the first sign of an attempt to establish a permanent

relation between guns and tonnage such as became afterwards almost

invariable. The paper belongs to 1655, but it is not likely that any

material alteration occurred before 1660.[1369] The first establishment

of third-rates was 140, of fourth-rates 130, and of fifth-rates 100 men;

these were subsequently raised to 160, 150, and 110 men respectively:—

+------------------------+------+------+---------+---------+------+-----+

| | | | | | | |

+------------------------+------+------+---------+---------+------+-----+

|1st-rates _Resolution_ | 19 | 9 | 8 | 30 | 5 |2580 |

| | | | | | | |

|2nd-rates _Victory_ | | 6 | 0 | 24 | 4 |1900 |

| | | | | | | |

|3rd-rates _Marston Moor_| | 4 | 2 | 26 | 8 |2080 |

| | | | | | | |

|4th-rates _Portland_ | | | 24 | 6 | 8 | 908 |

| | | | | | | |

|5th-rates _Mermaid_ | | | | 18 | 4 | 660 |

| | | | | | | |

| _Cat_ | | | | | | |

|6th-rates _Hare_ | | | | | 8 | 240 |

+------------------------+------+------+---------+---------+------+-----+

+------------------------+------+-------+-------+--------+-----+--------+

+------------------------+------+-------+-------+--------+-----+--------+

|1st-rates _Resolution_ | 720 | 330 | 300 | 20 | 200 | 100 |

| | | | | | | |

|2nd-rates _Victory_ | 740 | 203 | 120 | 12 | 80 | 40 |

| | | | | | | |

|3rd-rates _Marston Moor_| 670 | 180 | 120 | 10 | 60 | 40 |

| | | | | | | |

|4th-rates _Portland_ | 462 | 100 | 60 | 7 | 60 | 40 |

| | | | | | | |

|5th-rates _Mermaid_ | 260 | 40 | 0 | 4 | 40 | 20 |

| | | | | | | |

| _Cat_ | | | | | | |

|6th-rates _Hare_ | 40 | 14 | 0 | 3 | 20 | 12 |

+------------------------+------+-------+-------+--------+-----+--------+

[Sidenote: The Fleets.]

Of the large number of prizes passed into the service many had not been

built as men-of-war, and, as soon as the immediate need had ceased, were

sold, if only for the momentary relief the money thus obtained gave the

harassed treasury. In one year, ending with October 1654, nine were

sold for £6181. Notwithstanding the enormous increase in the strength

of the Navy the Commissioners found it hardly equal to the provision

of the over-sea fleets, now required, and the fifty or sixty cruisers

in the four seas which replaced the half-dozen small vessels formerly

considered sufficient, and which number, relatively large as it was,

did not succeed in entirely crushing the enterprise of the Dunkirk and

Stewart privateers. The recollection of what commerce had suffered from

piracy must have remained very lively, and, at the close of the civil

war, strong summer and winter ‘guards’ were still maintained; in October

1651 there were thirty-six vessels cruising in home waters.[1371] During

the Dutch war every available ship was needed with the fleets, and the

Channel was sometimes so devoid of protection that two prizes, taken off

the Land’s End in December 1653, were brought up Channel to Flushing

without, during the six days occupied in the voyage, and of which one was

spent in lying to off Dungeness, meeting a single English man-of-war.

When peace was made with Holland the protective cordon round the coasts

was renewed, and increased rather than decreased in strength during

the last years of the Commonwealth. To illustrate the way in which the

ships were employed one station list for May 1659 may be quoted.[1372]

In the Downs, 12, of 232 guns; watching Ostend, 3, of 70 guns; off the

mouth of the Thames, 2, of 12 guns; between the Naze and Yarmouth, 2,

of 34 guns; off Lynn Deeps, 2, of 20 guns; between Yarmouth Roads and

Tynemouth Bar, 3, of 66 guns; on Scotch coast, 2, of 52 guns; with the

mackerel boats, 2, of 24 guns; with the North Sea boats, 1, of — guns;

in mouth of Channel, 4, of 76 guns; between Portland and Alderney, 2, of

26 guns; on Irish coast, 3, of 50 guns; on convoy service, 8, of — guns;

and 6 others have not their duties specified. The large increase in the

effective of the Navy diminished the necessity for hired merchantmen, and

the need became less as the Dutch prizes were refitted for service. The

caste feeling which divides the professional from the amateur fighter

was beginning to be strongly marked among officers who had gone through

the experiences of the civil war, and who by a succession of events had

been retained in the service of the state instead of being returned to

mercantile pursuits, as had been the case formerly on the cessation

of warfare. Both these causes helped to do away with the use of hired

merchantmen, although at one time thirty or forty were in pay. Blake

desired that not more than two-fifths of the fleets should consist of

hired ships, that they should carry at least twenty-six guns, and be

commanded and officered by approved men. The proportion does not appear

to have risen to this figure even before prizes became plentiful, and so

eager was the government to adapt suitable prizes that it did not always

wait for legal condemnation, and sometimes found itself compelled to make

terms with the injured owners when the ship had been used and sold out

of the service. After long efforts the owners of the _Golden Falcon_,

captured in 1652, obtained, in March 1659, a decree of the Admiralty

Court in their favour; but the vessel had been sold a year before, and

the Navy Commissioners were ordered to pay her appraised value when

taken. Nor is this a solitary instance.[1373]

[Sidenote: Merchant Shipping.]

In 1652 there was a survey of merchant shipping throughout the kingdom,

but the resulting reports have not survived. In December 1653 there

appear to have been only sixty-three merchantmen, of 200 tons and

upwards, in the Thames suitable for service; but the size of these does

not show much advance on the tonnage of the previous generation; one was

of 600, four of 500, two of 450, five of 400, twenty-five of from 300 to

400, and the remainder under 300 tons.[1374] According to one (royalist)

writer both the merchant navy and trade decreased under the Commonwealth;

but the customs receipts directly contradict the latter and inferentially

negative the former portion of his statement.[1375] Store ships and

transports were paid for at the rate of £3, 15s 6d a month per man, the

owners sending them completely ready for sea. If a ship was meant to go

into action the state took the risk of loss, paid and provisioned the

men, and supplied powder, shot, and any guns necessary beyond the normal

number. When stores were sent out as part of an ordinary trader’s cargo,

the cost of freight was, to the Straits of Gibraltar, from 40s to 44s a

ton; to Alicante, 50s to 54s; to Leghorn, 60s to 64s; and to Jamaica,

£4.[1376]

[Sidenote: Privateering.]

Private enterprise turned naturally towards letters of marque as

a lucrative, if hazardous, speculation. In July 1652 letters were

restricted to owners able to send out vessels of not less than 200 tons

and 20 guns, but it was soon found out that this limitation was almost

prohibitive. Such privateers were further placed under the direct control

of the admirals, and compelled to keep them and the Council informed

of their proceedings.[1377] Afterwards letters of marque were more

charily issued, since it was found that they were competing for men

against the regular service, much to the disadvantage of the latter,

the looser discipline and larger chance of prize money of the privateer

being much more to the sailor’s liking. Frequently ordinary trading

ships sailed with letters of marque among their papers on the chance

of some profitable opportunity occurring; but from 1st August 1655 all

such commissions were, without exception, revoked, in consequence of

the difficulty their possessors seemed often to find in distinguishing

between the ships of enemies and those belonging to friendly states.

Thenceforward, although still at war with Spain, Englishmen acting

under them were to find themselves in the position, and liable to the

punishment, of pirates.

[Sidenote: Caroline Ships lost or sold.]

Besides the losses of the Commonwealth Navy in the ships, from 1649

onwards, noted in connection with their names in the preceding list, the

following vessels of the old Navy were lost or sold; as well as various

prizes dating from the civil war, and merchantmen bought during the same

period, not here entered:—

_Bonaventure_, lost in action.

_Charles_, wrecked.

_Crescent_, broken up.

_Defiance_, sold.

_Garland_, lost in action.

_Greyhound_, lost in action.

_Happy Entrance_, burnt at Chatham.

_Henrietta_, sold.

_Henrietta Maria_, burnt in West Indies.

_Leopard_, lost in action.

_Mary Rose_, wrecked.

_Merhonour_, sold.

_Nicodemus_, ”

_Roebuck_, ”

_1st Whelp_, ”

_2nd Whelp_, ”

_10th Whelp_, ”

The _Bonaventure_, _Garland_, and _Leopard_ were lost to the Dutch, but

the two former were burnt and sunk when fighting under the Dutch flag in

July 1653. The _Merhonour_, _Defiance_, and _2nd Whelp_, all three long

laid up as useless, were handed over to Taylor in 1650, at a valuation

of £700, in part payment of his shipbuilding bill; the _1st Whelp_ was

used for some time as a hulk at Deptford, and the _10th Whelp_ remained

in commission till 1654. The _Greyhound_ was blown up in action with two

privateers, in 1656, by her captain, Geo. Wager, when she was boarded and

practically taken by 100 of the enemy, who went up with her.[1378] The

_Henrietta Maria_ and _Happy Entrance_ were burnt by accident in 1655 and

1658; the _Mary Rose_ was wrecked off the coast of Flanders in 1650, and

the _Charles_ off Harwich in the same year.

Whenever ships were lost on the British coasts the authorities did their

best to recover the stores, and, in the case of the _Charles_, men were

still engaged in 1660 patiently fishing for her guns. At first Bulmer,

a man whose name has been mentioned under Charles I as an inventor in

connection with maritime matters, was employed, but it was not until May

1657, after seven years of search, that he triumphantly announced that

he had discovered her exact position. He was succeeded by Robert Willis,

described as a diver, who was more fortunate in that he did at last

recover at least two brass guns, for which he was allowed 20s a cwt. As

the Admiralty had been for eight years at the expense of a hired hoy and

the wages of the men occupied in work, it might have been cheaper to have

allowed the guns to remain under water. The methods used are not alluded

to, but, as the diving-bell was described by Bacon in the beginning of

the century, it must have been a well-known appliance; and Bourne had

described a diving dress on the modern principle in 1578.

One other man-of-war, the _Phœnix_, belonging to Badiley’s squadron, was

captured on 7th September 1652 by the Dutch off Leghorn, and gallantly

retaken in November by eighty-two volunteers, under captain Owen Cox, who

boarded her at daybreak while at anchor amidst the enemy’s fleet. Cox

did not disdain to eke out the lion’s with the fox’s skin, since, in the

afternoon, he hired ‘a bumboat or two with good wine to go aboard and

sell it cheap;’ the Dutch were consequently keeping a careless watch, but

fighting continued below for two hours after the ship was under way. Cox

further promised £10 to each man with him, but this was still unpaid in

June 1653, and he then tells the Council of State that the men ‘persecute

him to fulfil his engagement’; and Badiley wrote that ‘since their

exploit they are very turbulent and disorderly.’ Cox was granted £500 for

his good service;[1379] he was killed in the action of July 1653, while

still in command of the _Phœnix_.

[Sidenote: Piracy.]

Complaints of piracy, in the strict sense, are very few during this

period, and there is not a single reference to the presence of a Turk

in the narrow seas. In face of the Commonwealth Navy there were no more

of such incidents as the sack of Baltimore. The French, Dutch, and

Spanish privateers, who kept our men-of-war continually on the alert,

and occasionally overpowered a smaller one, sailed under some sort of

commission, either from their own states or the Stewarts, and did not,

therefore, possess that freedom from responsibility which in warfare

soon degenerates into savagery. The owners of the _Constant Cavalier_,

for instance, cruising under a commission from the nominal Charles II,

had to give a bond for £1000 not to injure his allies or his loyal

subjects.[1380] That the Dunkirkers and others found privateering by no

means so easy a road to fortune as it had been in the days of Charles

I is sufficiently shown by the number of their captured ships taken

into the national service, besides the loss of many more not considered

suitable for that purpose. Their best opportunity was during the Dutch

war, when the cruisers were mostly withdrawn to strengthen the fleets:

but even then the government usually managed to provide convoys for the

coasting trade. English, Scotch, or Irish seamen taken in a privateer

were summarily transported to the plantations.[1381]

A history of the administration of the Royal Navy and of merchant shipping in relation to the Navy from MDIX to MDCLX, with an introduction treating of the preceding period · 第 3 / 6 章