Whenever England is engaged in a naval war or any war including
maritime operations on an extensive scale, a difficult problem has to
be solved--how to man the ships? In the army, every regiment has a
sort of corporate existence; it never dies--the exceptions, the actual
disbandment of a regiment, being very rare indeed. The number of men
varies according to the peace-footing or the war-footing at which
the regiment may stand at any particular date; but at all times many
hundreds of trained men belong to it. Not so in regard to a ship of
war. When not wanted for warlike, cruising, or other service, it is
'out of commission;' all the officers and men are paid off; and the
ship, moored at Portsmouth or some other naval station, is stripped
of most of its paraphernalia, ammunition, and stores, and 'laid up
in ordinary,' with a few dockyard or harbour men to take care of it.
When wanted again for active service, it has to be 'put in commission'
again; commissioned officers and crew have alike to be engaged anew,
just as though the ship were fresh from the builder's hands. Officers
are always plentiful enough, the number on half-pay in peace-time being
very large--nearly the whole of them desirous of engaging in active
service on full pay. With the sailors, the A.B. (able-bodied) and
common seamen, the case is different; competition for their services
being kept up by the owners of large commercial vessels.
The difficulty of suddenly obtaining a large additional number of
seamen was seriously felt at the commencement of the Crimean war;
but the Admiralty solved the perplexity by organising a _Royal Naval
Reserve_, and obtained the sanction of parliament for the necessary
outlay. The Reserve was to comprise men who, provided they attend
drill a certain number of days in each year, may follow any avocation
they please at other times; it being a well-understood matter of
agreement that they shall be ready for active service on the breaking
out of war. Of course ship-owners did not at first relish this scheme,
seeing that it established a new kind of competition against them for
hands; but in practice no particular inconvenience has resulted. The
men are permitted to take their drill whenever it best suits them;
twenty-eight days per year all at one time, or in periods of seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one days. Certain qualifications are insisted
on before enrolment, including a medical examination in regard to
health. The 'retainer' which the seaman receives, and the prospect of
pension, operate as inducements to steadiness and against desertion;
and it is known that this is exercising a beneficial effect on the
mercantile marine, seeing that ship-owners now give a preference to
Royal Naval Reserve men whenever they can get them. Mixing with the
regular men-of-war's men during the one month's drill is also found to
be beneficial; and some of the Reserve go through all their exercises
with as much steadiness as a regular crew. The Admiralty are empowered
by parliament to engage thirty thousand men in this way; the Reserve
now comprises twenty thousand; and it is believed that there would be
no great difficulty in making up the full complement.
In a recently published Report by the Admiral Superintendent of
the body, the following remarks occur: 'After all the expense the
country has been put to, and will have to bear prospectively, for the
organisation and maintenance of the Royal Naval Reserve, will the men
be forthcoming when wanted? This can only be tested in the day of
trial, when the Queen's Proclamation will call the Reserve out for
active service; but I hold that we have as reliable guarantees that
the men will present themselves, as under any system that could be
devised on the basis of voluntary service. The men have entered on
an engagement to serve, they have received drill-pay and retainers
under this engagement, and without being branded by public opinion,
could not shrink from the fulfilment of their duty. It would be doing
an injustice to the _élite_ of the merchant service to suppose that
they are entirely devoid of patriotism, and would not desire to serve
in defence of their country. Their prejudices against service in the
royal navy have been in a great measure removed; and they would feel
themselves competent from previous training to work the guns and handle
a rifle and cutlass.'
Very little has yet been done to take the Reserve on a cruise for
rehearsal or practice. A merchant seaman, to fit him for the Reserve,
requires chiefly to be made familiar with the great-gun exercise, to
handle the sword and rifle, to be steady and silent under instruction,
and to obey implicitly the orders he receives. This training he will
receive on board the drill-ships especially set apart for the purpose,
or at batteries representing the section of a ship, quite as well as in
a man-of-war. The Reserve of the first class (for the force is divided
into classes) have already been seamen in the merchant service, and do
not require instruction in seamanship.
The drill-ships and the practice-batteries are distributed pretty
well around the coasts of the United Kingdom at about forty different
stations--eight in Scotland, seven in Ireland, and the rest in England
and Wales. There are nearly always some men on drill at every ship and
battery; but it is noteworthy that in the fishing season in certain
parts of Scotland and in the Isles the drill is pretty nearly in
abeyance--herrings being more important just then than big guns and
cutlasses. The first-class men are far more numerous than the second,
shewing that the main body are already fairly good seamen before they
enter the Reserve. As to numbers in different places, the drill-ships
near busy ports are naturally more frequented than those off a thinly
populated coast. The _President_ in the Thames, the _Eagle_ at
Liverpool, the _Unicorn_ at Dundee, the _Netley_ at Inverness, the
_Castor_ at North Shields, the _Dædalus_ at Bristol, are among the
drill-ships which receive the greatest number of enrolled men for drill
during the year. Liverpool takes the lead in the number of outsiders
(seven-eighths of whom, however, are already merchant seamen) who apply
for enrolment. Half the whole number in the force are under thirty
years of age, young men with plenty of health and strength in them.
Rather less than half are at home or in the coasting-trade; rather more
than half voyaging in foreign seas, mostly, however, on short voyages
that will end within a month. More of these voyages are to the Baltic
and the North Sea than to any other waters; the next in numbers are
those to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
The officers who command or control the body comprise lieutenants,
sub-lieutenants, engineers, assistant-engineers, and midshipmen. The
lieutenants must have served as sub-lieutenants one year or upwards;
most of them have been duly qualified masters of merchant-ships.
Midshipmen are promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant on the fulfilment
of prescribed conditions as to efficiency, &c.
The men of the first-class now receive a grant of a suit of clothing
on enrolment and re-enrolment--an arrangement which they much relish,
as an improvement on the plan at first adopted, when each man was left
to dress pretty much at random, provided he looked something like a
sailor. Nearly all the A.B.s in the mercantile marine have joined or
offered to join the body; thus affording proof that it is popular.
The second-class Reserve are mostly fishermen, who are unacquainted
with square-rigged vessels, and are unaccustomed to long absence
from their homes; but they are fitted for coast-defence service. In
Scotland and especially in the Shetlands, the second-class serves as
a stepping-stone to the first. Their pay is less than that of the
first-class, and they have no claim for pension; therefore they have
an inducement to try for promotion. The authorities have had under
consideration the question whether to establish a third-class, to
consist of boys belonging to the mercantile training-ships; but no
decision appears at present to have been arrived at.
In a discussion which took place at the Royal United Service
Institution some time back, it was generally admitted that our band
of hardy fishermen might be made to form an excellent Naval Reserve
irrespective of regular seamen of the mercantile marine. 'There are,'
it was urged, 'one hundred and fifty thousand men and fifteen thousand
boys employed in the fisheries of the United Kingdom; besides the
large number in the Canadian Dominion and Newfoundland. It would not
be difficult to raise from among our large population of _bonâ fide_
fishermen a Reserve equal to the full standard originally recommended.
The drill could be taught in the most efficient manner and with the
least expense to the government by sending a gunboat to visit the
fishing-boats at the slack season. The local knowledge possessed by the
fishermen would be of immense value in coast-defence; and there is an
advantage in their having fixed places of residence and never sailing
under a foreign flag; added to which is the value of their physical
strength, hardy and domesticated habits, and good character.'
And now a few words for the _Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers_, another
body intended for defensive purposes in the event of war. There is a
corps known as the _Coast Guard_, to fulfil service on the coast in
case of invasion; and under the same kind of control are the _Royal
Naval Coast Volunteers_. These two bodies together comprise nearly
twenty thousand men, all good seamen, and receiving liberal pay. But
there is something more peculiar about the _Royal Naval Artillery
Volunteers_ likely to interest general readers. They are virtually an
offshoot or supplement of the Volunteer Rifles, intended solely for
defence against invaders. Who the invader is to be we do not know;
haply and happily we may never know; but a thought on the subject now
and then is reasonable enough. Our coast-line is very extensive, and
needs watching at a considerable number of unprotected spots. Besides
regular troops, Volunteer infantry, and cruising war-ships, it has
long been felt that a naval artillery corps would be a useful addition
for serving in gunboats and mortar rafts, and operating in the new
art of torpedo-defensive warfare. A small Marine Volunteer Corps was
raised at Hastings about 1863; others were afterwards raised in London,
Liverpool, and Bristol; and at length, in 1873, parliament passed an
Act sanctioning the formation of a body to be known as the _Royal
Naval Artillery Volunteers_. So far from being men who are paid for
their services, these Volunteers have to provide their own uniform and
to pay a small subscription to a corps fund; they really enter into
the matter _con amore_, giving time, exertion, and some money for a
purpose which may eventually be valuable to our common country. The
government provide ships, great guns, rifles, pistols, cutlasses, and
other gear for practice. Whether artisans, yachtsmen, or rowing-men
would join the corps in any considerable number, could only be known by
awaiting the result; but it turns out that clerks--mostly in commercial
firms--come forward more readily than any other class. They like the
bodily exercise and the open air after many hours of desk-plodding.
The idea is to render these Volunteers handy in the defence of rivers
and estuaries, by the management of floating-batteries, armed rafts,
and torpedoes. In practising with big guns at such places as London,
Liverpool, and Bristol, there are of course neither real shot nor
blank cartridges actually propelled from the weapon; a flash and a
slight report are all; to run out, point, fire, and re-adjust are the
exercises practised; and this is no small work with a sixty-pounder
gun. After this big-gun drill, the Volunteers go through their rifle,
cutlass, and pistol drill; and the young men are all the better for
two or three hours of muscular exercise and ocular training. They wear
a useful blue-and-white uniform while thus engaged. The _Rainbow_
gunboat in the Thames off Somerset House, the _President_ in the West
India Docks, and two similar vessels at Liverpool and Bristol, are
set apart by the Admiralty as drill-ships for the purpose. The total
strength is somewhat under seven hundred men, with a naval instructor,
petty-officer instructors, lieutenants, sub-lieutenants, shipkeepers,
armourers, &c.
Even if never really wanted for river and estuary defence, these
energetic young men will have no reason, bodily or mental, to
regret the step they have taken--the devotion of a couple of hours
occasionally after office or warehouse time to a right good exercise
of muscle, nerve, brain, eyesight, attention, and intelligence. It is
a national comfort to know that rifle and artillery volunteering are
alike free from many of the evils of young men's recreations; they do
not tempt to drinking, to betting, nor to dissolute companionship. All
honour to those who promoted, and to those who carry out the movement.