Chapter III: Part 3

To the above list, given by Ralph Willett in a paper on British naval architecture, other examples may be added from the researches of James. He speaks of the cannon-serpentine and bastard-cannon as corresponding with the 42-pounder. The carronade dates as late as 1779, and takes its name from the Scotch town where it was invented. Another comparatively recent gun he speaks of as Gover’s, or Congreve’s, the Americans naming a similar weapon a Columbiad. Other guns are not mentioned by the historian, though of all our marine artillery they played, as small weapons, the largest part in our wars last century. The swivel cannon carried a shot of half a pound; it was fixed in a socket on the ship’s side, or stern, or bow, and in her tops. The socket that supported it was bored in a piece of oak, hooped with iron, to enable it to sustain the recoil. It was, indeed, a modernized form of the old pettararoe, and was turned about at will by an iron handle affixed to its cascabel; when worked in the tops it was charged with musket-balls, and fired down at the enemy’s decks. The coehorn was a small mortar, also fixed on a swivel, and chiefly used for firing grenadoes, as they were called, or bullets from merchantmen’s close quarters when they were boarded. For yard-arm fighting there was the “powder-flask”—a flask charged with gunpowder, and fitted with a fuse; it was hurled into the enemy’s deck immediately before the assault. Another device was the “stink-pot,” still in vogue with John Chinaman, an earthen shell suspended from the yard-arm or end of the bowsprit. This machine was charged with powder mixed with materials which threw up a disgusting, suffocating smoke and smell. The notion of these apparatuses was to create confusion, in the midst of which and under cover of the thick vapour the detachment rushed aboard, cutlass, and sword, and pistol in hand. Another contrivance was the “organ,” the grandfather of the Mitrailleuse—a machine formed of six or seven musket-barrels fixed upon one stock so as to be fired at once. There was also the fire-arrow, a small iron dart, furnished with springs and bars, and a match saturated with powder and sulphur, wound round the shaft. It was usually fired from a swivel, at the enemy’s sails. The match was ignited by the explosion, and the dart, penetrating the sail, set the cloths on fire. The springs and bars prevented the arrow from passing through the canvas. The musquetoon was a sort of carbine, with a barrel spirally rifled from the breech; the explosion lengthened the ball to about the breadth of a finger. The old fire-pike possessed something of the character of the fire-arrow. Another weapon of the fusil pattern is indicated in Sir William Monson’s “Building of Ships:” “As I have said, such a ship that has neither forecastle, copperidge head, nor any other manner of defence, but with her men only; that hath no fowlers, which are pieces of great importance, after a ship is boarded and entred, or lieth board and board; for the ordnance stands her in little stead, and is as apt to endanger themselves as their enemy; for in giving fire, it may take hold of pitch, tar, oakum, or powder, and burn them both for company; but a murderer or fowler, being shot out of their own ship, laden with dice shot, will scour the deck of the enemy, and not suffer the head of a man to appear.” It is evident that the “murderer” or “fowler” was a sort of fusil.[16]

Footnote 16:

I find this word “murderer” frequently occurring in Hakluyt.

There are some curious features of sixteenth and seventeenth century maritime warfare preserved in this fine old captain’s Naval Tracts. He tells us that the French used to conceal half their soldiers in the hold and to call them up as they were required, the others who had been fighting going below. The Dunkirkers, like the Spanish whom Anson fought,[17] flung themselves flat on the deck before the enemy, so that the shot, great and small, should fly over them. The Hollanders he charges with Dutch courage. “Instead of cables, planks, and other devices to preserve their men, the Hollanders, wanting natural valour of themselves, used to line their company in the head, by giving them gunpowder to drink, and other kind of liquor to make them sooner drunk; which, besides it is a barbarous and unchristianlike act, when they are in danger of death to make them ready for the devil, it often proves more perilous than prosperous to them by firing their own ships or making a confusedness in the fight, their wits being taken from them.” It will be supposed that the seamen of Blake had a higher notion of Dutch courage than Monson.

Footnote 17:

See the description of the fight with the galleon in Anson’s “Voyage
Round the World.” This book, that bears the name of Walters, Chaplain
to the Centurion, was in reality written by Benjamin Robins. _Naval
Chronicle_, vol. viii. 267.

It is two centuries ago since the _Sovereign_ was launched, a vessel of 1657 tons. There is a curious account of her in Heywood.[18] She was a big ship for those times, and is about as good an example as I know to illustrate the mighty change that has been worked in two hundred years. Her dimensions were—Length of keel, 128 ft.; beam, 48 ft.; length over all (that is, from the fore-end of her “beak” to the stern), 232 ft., making a difference of 104 ft. as between the length of her keel and that of her upper deck and head! She was 76 ft. high from the bottom of her keel to the top of her lantern, of which kind of furniture she carried five, in the biggest of which ten persons could comfortably stand upright. Her decorations were extraordinarily gorgeous. “All sides,” we read, “were carved with trophies of artillery and types of honour, as well belonging to sea as land, with symbols appertaining to navigation; also their two sacred Majesties’ badges of honour; arms with several angels holding their letters in compartiments, all which works are guilded over, and no other colour but gold and black.” Her figure-head was a Cupid, or a child bridling a lion; her bows were also apparently ornamented with six figures; on the stern was carved Victory “in the midst of a frontispiece; upon the beak-head sitteth King Edgar on horseback, trampling on seven kings.”[19] It would have seemed like a violation of the choicest canons of old romance to furnish such a pageant as this with the plain guns grimly generalized with which the vessels of succeeding days fought for king, commonwealth, home and beauty. We look in the description of her for culverin and cannon royal, for the chace ordnance and small artillery of those gilt, plumed, and glowing times, and find them sure enough. It must have been heartrending to the curled and booted captain of those days to have offered so gay and brilliant a fabric to the iron bullets and fiery arrows of the foe. Think of the Cupid being knocked on the head, and King Edgar violently hammered off his horse!

Footnote 18:

Quoted by Ralph Willett in his “Disquisition on Shipbuilding,” 1800.

Footnote 19:

“The prime workman,” says Heywood, “is Captain Phineas Pett, overseer
of the work, whose ancestors—father, grandfather, and great
grandfather—for the space of two hundred years, have continued in the
same name, officers and architects in the Royal Navy.” This, as
Willett points out, indicates a regular establishment as far back as
1437, the reign of Henry VI.

It is interesting to observe how such a ship entered into action. First, the vessel’s company were divided into three parts—one to tack the ship, the second to ply the small shot, the third to attend the great guns. Sail was to be shortened to foresail, main and fore-top sail. A “valiant and sufficient man” was sent to the helm. Of course every officer was expected to do his duty; the boatswain to sling the yards, to “put forth” the flag, ancient and streamers, to arm the top and waist cloths, to spread the netting, provide tubs for water, and the like. Then the gunner was to see that his mates had care of their “files, budge barrels, and cartridges, to have his shot in a locker for every piece, and the yeoman of the powder to keep his room and to be watchful of it.” A hundred years later found some enlargement of these plain prescriptions.[20] The boatswain and his mates see to the rigging and sails; the carpenter and his crew prepare shot-plugs and mauls and provide against injury to the pumps; the master and his mates attend the braces; the lieutenants visit the different decks; crows, “handspecs,” rammers, sponges, powder-horns, matches, and train tackles are placed by the side of every cannon; the hatches are closed to prevent the men from deserting their posts by skulking below. The marines are drawn up in rank and file; the gun-lashings are cast adrift and the tompions withdrawn; after which the enemy is to be beaten! This is the routine of a hundred years ago. What is it now? Not less widely different from the discipline of the times of forty-two pounders, of round, grape, and canister, of chain, bar, star, and other dismantling missiles, than was the routine of the epoch of double dogs and pestilent serpetens from the days of the spears of the Picts and the coracle of the nude Briton. Yet what did those little minions and sakers do for us? We shall have reason to be well satisfied if the hundred-ton gun of to-day obtain for us one-half the triumphs which were achieved for our country by those little cannon-royal and brass swivels of the times of Raleigh, Blake, and Shovel.

Footnote 20:

See Falconer’s “Dictionary.”

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_THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG._

Whatever may have been the other causes of our wars with the Hollanders, one was unquestionably the herring. No doubt the insinuations of Richelieu greatly perturbed the phlegmatic Batavian, and helped him into a fighting posture; but the bloater was at the bottom of it. We took that fish for a text whereon to discourse concerning our title to dominion over the sea; and though in these days it is as much the mackerel as the herring, as much the cod as the mackerel, as much the turbot as the cod over which the dispute continues, the old battles in the heart of which Blake curled his whiskers and Tromp flourished his broomstick are still fought, though, to be sure, without Ruyter’s fire-ships or the eloquent thunder of Monk’s cannon-royal.

The conflict now is shorn of its old glory. It is waged, indeed, close into the Thames, though not so high as the Hope; nor, in the direction of the Medway, does it approach Sheerness; and upon the eastern coast the struggle is often within view of Scarborough and the Norfolk cliffs. But there is no more smoke of battle. It is the Dutchman sneaking across the Englishman’s trawling gear with “the devil”; it is the Frenchman shearing under cover of the blackness through the league long drift-nets of the Shoreham or Penzance smack. Years have brought to this nation the philosophic mind. Instead of declaring war we station a gunboat, put on a concerned face when we hear of the Dover and Brixham men assaulting the crews of the Boulogne and Calais craft, and read without emotion of the capture of a bellicose Hans Butter-box by a small steamer with a whip at her masthead. Yet the honour of our flag is so inextricably woven with the literature and traditions of these fishing squabbles that, spite of the insignificance to which the easy indifference of “my lords” would reduce them in our day, the reflection of a great and piercing light in our history is upon them, from the lustre of which they gather a complexion that is not wholly sentimental.

In 1609 Hugo Grotius wrote a book, which he called “Mare Liberum.” It is heavy reading in these times of Wilkie Collins and Miss Braddon, and the heavier, perhaps, for being in Latin. But it was deemed a treatise of very great eloquence, especially by the Dutch, to whose ocean-rights it specially referred. In short, the object of Grotius was to prove the weakness of our title to the sovereignty of the seas, the deep, in his opinion, being a gift from God and common to all nations. This was answered by John Selden, the most amazing scholar that any age or country ever produced, of so candid and great-hearted a nature, as is particularly exhibited in his Table-Talk, that it is difficult to read his astonishing answer to Grotius without wishing that his patriotism had dealt with a subject more answerable to his convictions than this question of sea rights. But his “Mare Clausum” is a volume that one would think must be of abounding and enduring interest to Englishmen. It was translated into English by special command by Marchmont Nedham (as he spells his name), and published in that form in 1652. It probably has few readers now. Yet such was the opinion of its potency as a sustained argument that it was believed, to use the language of Nedham, “had he (_i.e._ Selden) persisted with the same firm resolution in this honourable business of the sea, as he did in other things that were destructive to the nation’s interest, the Netherlanders had been prevented from spinning out their long opportunitie to an imaginarie claim of prescription; so that they would have had less pretence to act those insolencies now which in former times never durst enter the thoughts of their predecessors.”

The book pre-eminently concerns the honour of our flag, of our dominion over the seas, more particularly in regard to the right of our kings and queens to grant licences to foreigners to fish in the sea, and of the obligation on all ships of what denomination soever to strike their topsails to our flag, or in other words to salute the symbol of Britannia’s sovereignty wherever they shall encounter it. For how many centuries this act of courtesy has been exacted as a right by the monarchs of England you must read Selden’s book to discover. Writing in James I.’s reign, he shows how he traces it back for above four hundred years by this: That at Hastings it was decreed by King John, in the second year of his reign, with the assent of the peers, “if the governor or commander of the King’s navie, in his naval expeditions (which were all in that age upon the Southern Sea) shall meet any ship whatsoever by sea, either laden or empty, that shall refuse to strike their sails at the command of the King’s Governor or admiral or his lieutenant, but make resistance against them which belong to his fleet; That then they are to bee reputed enemies if they may bee taken, yea, and their ships and goods be confiscated as the goods of enemies.” He points out that it was accounted treason in any man who omitted to acknowledge the King of England in his own sea by striking sail; nor would the circumstance of his country being friendly with that of the transgressor protect him. Another illustration of the antiquity of this custom, or exaction rather, Selden finds in a gold rose-noble,[21] that was coined in the reign of Edward III. The stamp on one side of it represented a ship floating on the sea, and a king, armed with sword and shield, sitting on the ship as on a throne, the device being obviously intended to represent the maritime dominion of the ocean. All that Selden has to say about fishing in the sea is full of interest. He points out that Henry VI. gave leave to the French, and other foreigners, to fish, sometimes for six months, sometimes for a year; but this leave “was granted under the name even of a passport or safe conduct; yea, and a size or proportion was prescribed to their fishing boats or busses that they should not be above thirty tons.” The French had to obtain leave from the English admiral to fish for soles for the table of their own king (Henri Quatre), and such boats as were caught fishing without a licence were seized as trespassers. In the Eastern waters the Hollanders and Zealanders were forced to seek permission to fish from the Governor of Scarborough Castle, and Selden quotes Camden’s expression of wonder at the vast sum of money the Hollanders made by this fishing upon our coast and at the apathy of the English, “who have ever granted them leave to fish, reserving alwaies the honour and privilege to themselves, but through a kindle of negligence resigning the profit to strangers.” It is on the mass of evidence as to the antiquity of the British claim to the sovereignty of the seas that Dr. Campbell, the historian, bases his opinion respecting the naval power of the Early Britons, who are generally considered as a race of painted wild men, who speared fish or crossed their rivers and creeks in wicker boats covered with hides.

Footnote 21:

The value of this coin was 6_s._ 8_d._ as money then was. The
Alchymists pretended that it was made by their arts; interpreting the
inscription on the reverse, _Jesus autem transiens per medium corum
ibat_, to signify that gold was made by secret art amid the ignorant.
Four rose-nobles weighed an ounce.

The question of this dominion became a vital one to this country with the growth and the aggressions of Holland. Was she or England to be sovereign of the sea? And was an English ship, figuratively speaking, to bow to a Dutch one when she met her? Selden offered the world precedents enough on our behalf. That King John should have claimed a universal striking to the Royal flag was surely proof that what might impress the foreigner as an extraordinary pretension was founded on the unquestioned rights of our predecessors. Edward III., in his commissions to his admirals, repeatedly styled himself sovereign of the English seas, affirming, with perfect justice, that he derived the title from his progenitors. In Hakluyt there is preserved a curious metrical admonition, presumably written in or about the sixth year of the reign of Edward IV., entitled “De politia conservatira Maris,” with a heading to the general introduction that runs thus: “Here beginneth the prologue of the processe of the libel of the English policie, exhorting all England to keep the sea, and namely the narrow sea; shewing what profite commeth thereof, and also what worship and salvation to England, and to all Englishmen.” It will be owned that the anonymous author’s appeal was not addressed to deaf ears. An immortal proof of British resolution in this direction occurs in the reign of Queen Mary. Lord William Howard, created Baron of Effingham, was sent with a fleet of twenty-eight sail presumably to guard the coast, but in reality to escort Philip of Spain, whose own fleet, however, consisted of one hundred and sixty vessels. His admiral came sailing along with the Spanish flag flying at his masthead, which so offended Lord William Howard that he fired a shot at him and forced him to strike or haul down his colours before he would make his compliments to the prince.[22] This was followed by another lively example of a like kind. When the Spanish fleet went to fetch Anne of Austria, who was in Flanders, Sir John Hawkins, with a small squadron of her Majesty’s ships, was riding in Cattewater. The Spanish admiral endeavoured to pass without saluting. Sir John sent a shot at the Admiral’s rigging, but no notice was taken of it. A second shot fired went clean through the Spaniard’s hull. On this the Don sent an officer of distinction with compliments and complaints to Sir John Hawkins, who refused to admit the officer or hear what he had to say; but simply required him to tell his admiral that, having neglected to pay the respect due to the Queen of England, in her seas and port, he must not expect to lie there but to be off within twelve hours. Sir John’s flag was flying on the _Jesus of Lubeck_; to this ship came the Spaniard full of remonstrance, declaring he knew not what to make of the treatment he had received, seeing that there was peace between the two Crowns. “Put the case, sir,” said Sir John, “that an English fleet came into any of the King, your master’s, ports, his Majesty’s ships being there, and those English ships should carry their flags in their tops, would not you shoot them down and beat the ships out of your port?” The Spaniard confessed himself in the wrong, and submitted to the penalty the English Admiral imposed.

Footnote 22:

To strike is to lower. The old salutation was the striking or lowering
of the top-sail. The introduction of the topgallant-sail must have
rendered this courtesy extremely inconvenient.

It was the Hollander, however, who gave the English most trouble in regard to the honour of the flag. In or about 1604 Sir William Monson was cruising with a fleet with instructions to assert the superiority in the British seas which came to James I. from his ancestors. Sir William has told the story himself in his “Naval Tracts.” On his return to Calais in July, 1605, he found an addition of six ships to the Dutch squadron he had left off Dover three days before. One of them was the Admiral’s. “Their object,” he says, “in coming in shew was to beleaguer the Spaniards who were then at Dover.” As Sir William approached, the Dutch Admiral struck his flag thrice, meaning that the Spaniards as well as others should conclude that, by continuing to “wear” his flag, he represented a sovereignty of the sea as complete as that of the English. Sir William requested him to take in his flag; he refused, alleging that he had struck it three times, which he held was acknowledgment enough. There was some discussion, after which he was told that if he did not salute, the British Admiral would weigh anchor and fall down to him, and then the force of the ships should determine the question; “for rather than I would suffer his flag to be worn in view of so many nations as were to behold it, I resolved to bury myself in the sea.” “The Admiral, it seems, on better advice,” adds Sir William, “took in his flag and stood immediately off to sea, firing a gun for the rest of the fleet to follow him. And thus I lost my guest the next day at dinner as he had promised.” Amongst others who witnessed this was Sciriago, the Spanish General, who told Sir William that if the Hollanders had worn their flag, times had strangely altered in England, for he remembered his old master King Philip the Second being shot at by the Lord Admiral of England for wearing his flag in the narrow seas when he came to marry Queen Mary.

In spite of treaties of peace between England and Holland, the trouble about the fishing continued. Disputes arose over the payment of the assize-herring in Scotland, and the Dutch sent ships of war to protect their herring-boats against the penalties which must attend the refusal to pay the licence money. In 1609 King James issued a proclamation concerning fishing, in which it was stated that commissioners had been authorized “at London for our realms of England and Ireland, and at Edinburgh for our realm of Scotland,” to issue licences to such foreign vessels as intend to fish for the whole or any part of the year, and that the licences were to be taken out “upon pain of such chastisements as shall be fit to be inflicted upon such as are wilful offenders.” The fishing quarrel rose to a height again in 1618, but it does not appear that the honour of the flag was involved in these trawling politics until 1652. In that year Commodore Young encountered a Dutch man-of-war whose captain refused to salute the English colours. The commodore sent a boat with a polite request that the Dutchman would strike; but mynheer answered very honestly that the States had threatened to take off his head if he struck; whereupon a fight began, with the result that the Dutchman had to haul down his colours. This was on May 14; on the 19th Van Tromp bore down upon Blake, who was lying off Dover. Blake sent three shots at the Dutch flag as a hint; which Tromp answered with a broadside, and then followed an action that lasted till nine at night, when, Blake being reinforced, the Dutch made off. Peace was made in 1654. In that treaty nothing was said as to our sovereignty in respect to the fisheries, but amongst other articles was the acknowledgment of the dominion of the English at sea and the agreement to strike to the meteor bunting. But the prowess of Admiral Blake may have provided for this without any obligation of specification; for in this year, coming to an anchor off Cadiz, a Dutch Admiral who was there would not hoist his flag whilst Blake was present. Indeed, such was the awe in which Blake was held, that the Algerines, merely with the idea of obtaining his favour, made a point of overhauling the Sallee rovers for English prisoners and sending all they found to him.

The honour of the flag seems a noticeable element in the origin of the war of 1665. Sir John Lawson, in command of a squadron of ships, was in the Mediterranean with De Ruyter. The Dutch admiral saluted the English flag, a compliment which Lawson refused to return, alleging that his orders did not allow him to strike to the subjects of any king or State whatever. It may be supposed that such treatment pretty liberally envenomed the soul of the fine old Dutchman, who, when he was shortly afterwards sent to commit hostilities against us, made sail on that adventure with a hot heart. In 1674 we find the Dutch in the treaty of peace professing to understand a point that in spite of previous treaties they had refused to admit. In the treaty with Cromwell they had agreed that their ships should salute the English, and in subsequent treaties the same undertaking appears. But their usual apology for failure was that striking was a mere matter of civility, and that if they declined to pull off their hat there was no obligation upon them to do so. But by 1674 the political atmosphere had been cleared by British cannons, and the Dutch were now able to distinguish. The treaty ended the doubt; what was before styled courtesy was here confessed a right. Not only was the extent of the British sovereignty clearly defined; the State undertook that whole fleets, as well as separate ships, “should strike their sails to any fleet or single ship carrying the King’s flag, as the custom was in the days of his ancestors.” It was said by Secretary Coke in a letter addressed by order of Charles I. to Sir William Boswell, Ambassador at the Hague, “This cannot be doubted, that whosoever will encroach upon him (the King) by sea, will do it by land also, when they see their time. To such presumption ‘Mare Liberum’ gave the first warning piece, which must be answered with a defence of ‘Mare Clausum,’ not so much by discourses, as by the louder language of a powerful navy, to be better understood when overstrained patience seeth no hope of preserving her right by other means.”

“The spirits of your fathers,
Shall start from every wave,”

sings Campbell, and in Coke’s words one finds a noble example of the sort of message those spirits knew how to deliver. What has been done for the honour of the flag by a language louder than discourses may be easily traced through the Rookes, the Shovels, the Mansels, the Howes, the Rodneys, Keppels, Nelsons.

How has that honour broadened since the days of striking topsails! Colonial men-of-war are now entitled to fly the flag of the British Navy. There was obviously much deliberation before the resolution was arrived at in respect of the Gayundah, a vessel that has the honour to signally advance that great scheme of federation which is occupying the minds of all English-speaking men. Indeed, it is perfectly obvious that no flag could be so fitly flown at the masthead or peak of our Colonial men-of-war as those same colours which the heroism of the grandsires of our distant kinsmen rendered emblematic of power, justice, and freedom.

The British national flag is the Union Jack. This consists of the blended crosses of St. George, red; of St. Andrew, white; of St. Patrick, red, marginating Scotland’s cross so as to admit of a portion of the white being shown. These several crosses combined upon a blue ground form that meteor flag of which the poet writes, though not certainly that noble piece of bunting which, we are reminded by the same poet in the same song—

“Has braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze.”

The wishes of the Colonials were eminently honourable and loyal, and the gratification of their desires in respect of a flag whose glory and traditions are certainly not less theirs than they are ours should prove a source of sincere satisfaction to the people of this country. For the honour of the flag! We know what that inspiration has done for us of old, and how it must influence in the future the world-wide English-speaking races whose artillery shall thunder under the shadow of Britain’s blood-red cross.[23] Without his flag what would be fighting or even mercantile Jack? We all know how old Commodore Dance, at the head of his little squadron of tea ships, put to flight the formidable Frenchman bristling with tiers of cannon. Even under the red flag, symbol of peaceful trade, there have been performed many noble and valorous exploits, and it is no doubt the memory of scores of brilliant deeds performed by the British merchant sailor that excites the regret very widely felt that in these times, when the water is smooth, and the political barometer fairly high, the foreigners in their hundreds should be driving the English mariner out of his legitimate home—the British forecastle.

Footnote 23:

In the last century the Union flag, as it was called, bore these
words:— “For the Protestant Religion and for the Liberty of England.”
The flags of that time are thus described: THE JACK.—Blue, charged
with a saltire argent and a cross gules, bordered argent. MERCANTILE
FLAG: Red, with a franc-quarter argent, charged with a cross gules.
There seems to have been two royal standards, the colour unsettled,
some saying that it ought to be yellow, others white. One was charged
with a quartered escutcheon of England, Scotland, France and Ireland.

The other royal flag is described as “quarterly, the first and fourth
quarter counter-quartered, in which the first and fourth azure, three
fleurs-de-lis or the royal arms of France, quartered with the imperial
ensigns of England, which are in the second and third gules, eight
lions passant; gardant in pale.” The rest of this description, so far
as I can make out the heraldic jargon, seems to represent the Royal
Standard of to-day.

Formerly, if a council of war was to be held at sea, the Admiral hung
his flag in the main-shrouds, that is, in the lower rigging; the
vice-admiral in the fore-shrouds; and the rear-admiral in the
mizzen-shrouds.

But it is to naval story that we must turn for nearly all of what pertains to the honour of the flag. The contests have been tough and sharp touching the “doffing” question. Whether it was our duty to bow first to the haughty Spaniard at sea, as he maintained, or whether it was for him to “make a leg” at the sight of good Queen Bess’s flag, was a question for Drake and Raleigh, for Hawkins and that noble gentleman Charles Howard, Baron of Effingham, to settle, just as Blake and Monk and Ascue and Commodore Young, as has been shown, decided the same matter with reference to the broomstick of the brave and desperate Dutchman. It was the sailor of Queen Elizabeth’s day, however, that made the flag the emblem which the world has ever since recognized it to be. The story of Sir Robert Mansell, Admiral of the “narrow seas,” as the English Channel was then termed, is typical of our naval history from the first chapter of it. He went to Gravelines to receive the Spanish Ambassador, whilst Sir Jerome Turner, his Vice-Admiral, attended at Calais for the French Ambassador. “But,” says the quaint historian, “the Frenchman coming first and hearing the Vice-Admiral was to attend him, the Admiral the other, in a scorn put himself in a passage boat in Calais and came forth with flag in top. Instantly Sir Jerome Turner sent to know of the Admiral what he should do. Sir Robert Mansell sent him word to shoot and strike him if he would not take in the flag. This, as it made the flag be pulled in, caused a great complaint, and it was believed it would have undone Sir Robert Mansell, the French faction put it so home; but he maintained the act and was the better beloved of his Sovereign ever after to his death.”

Even the old pirates talked of the honour of their flag! a very dismal piece of bunting, indeed, consisting of a skull, cross-bones, and hour-glass on a black ground. Yet let such records as “Tom Cringle’s Log,” which are very true history, though disguised with the mask of fiction, bear witness to the furious heroism with which those murderous savages, in earrings and sashes, in ringlets and jack-boots, fought for the abhorred flag at their masthead, swaying in masses half-naked at their cannons, and occasionally blowing themselves to pieces in their efforts to sink the enemy, just as ancient mariners tell of mutilated sharks twisting round to get at their own wounds in their dreadfully gluttonous desire to eat themselves up. Nelson stormed in among the Frenchmen and the Spaniards with six flags flying in different parts of his rigging, because he could not endure to think of the possibility of a stray shot making him look, even for a breathless moment, to have struck. There is very little change between the flags of his time and those of ours. Of course this regards the colours as shown by men-of-war; in signalling Marryatt’s Code—as all other codes which existed prior to the clever combinations of the author of “Peter Simple”—has made way for the International Code. In the British Navy flags are either red, white, or blue, and are hoisted at one or another of the royal mastheads, according to the rank of the Admiral. This has been the custom for centuries. Previous to 1801 the Union flag, as it was called, bore only the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew; but it was then, as after, appropriated to the Admiral of the Fleet, who was regarded as the first military officer under the Lord High Admiral.

Indeed, the history of our flags is the history of our Navy. Much of the interest one finds in reading the old accounts of naval battles lies in waiting to see who was the first to strike. Just as a ship looks glorified when “dressed”—that is to say, when she has hung out all her colours from peak end to mastheads, and from mastheads to the end of the flying-jibboom, and thence to the water—so is our national marine story radiant with the flags, pennons, and “ancients,” which flutter through it, sometimes blowing saucily, sometimes riven and seared with flame and bullet, sometimes a mangled rag valiantly hanging by a nail at the top of the mast, or “seized” in the rigging, whilst below it the battle rages like a thunderstorm. It is, indeed, in these days, almost inconceivable that mortal men should ever have been able to achieve for the honour of their flag the triumphs which rendered the British colours the terror they became. Campbell, Brenton, James, Naval Chronicles, Annual Registers, Maritime Records of all sorts and descriptions teem with illustrations of dauntless bravery, of headlong fearlessness such as might make one believe that the Jacks of those days not only bore a charmed life, but were giants as mighty in stature as the early Irish are supposed to have been, to judge from the colossal remains that are occasionally dug up in various parts of that “kingdom.” It is impossible to read the voyage of Anson or the accounts of the early explorers of the South Seas without a feeling of pity for the miserable terror aroused in the Spaniards, the half-castes, and blacks by the sight of the English flag or by the sound of an English voice. The way the story usually runs is—the vessel is seen to approach, is recognized as an English South Seaman; whereupon the Governor collects all his plate and treasure, piles it into waggons drawn by mules, which he sends up country, and then hastily follows, occasionally, in his fright, leaving his wife behind him. A wretched priest is sent off in a boat pulled by shivering blacks, and, with teeth chattering, suggests a compromise, which the English regard as a stratagem to furnish the Governor with time enough to make good his escape. So they send the priest ashore with a polite intimation that if, by a certain hour, so many thousands of ducats and dollars, not to mention silver candlesticks and golden crucifixes, are not brought off and safely stowed away in their hold, they will sack and burn the town. If the Governor fails to comply, then we are admitted to a humiliating spectacle. The English row ashore, and find the coast lined with troops; but as the boats approach the troops retire, and by the time the keels have grounded upon the beach, the Governor’s army, along with a band of music and several hundreds of horsemen, are to be observed watching the proceedings of the English from the top of a very lofty hill. Such was the honour of the flag! Such is it still, and such is it sure to remain in the hands of those distant children of Old England who will grasp the halliards by which it is hoisted.

But let the humble “driver,” the obscure trawler, have his merit too. Were the herring woven into the symbolism of the Royal Standard it would not be amiss. When you hear the pensive cry of “fine bloaters,” or the melodious rattle of “Caller herrin,” think how much the honour of the flag owes to that kind of fish. The sovereignty of the sea is still ours, but to justify our inheritance we ought really to suffer our souls to be tinged with the old Parliamentary spirit in our response to the cries of our fishermen calling upon the country to help them against the Flemish “devil” in the North Sea, and the drift-net-cutting weapon of the Calais smacksmen in our “narrow waters.”

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_THE NAVAL OFFICER’S SPIRIT._

In Admiral Hobart Pasha’s sketches are many well told stories, all of them delivered with the rough simplicity of the seamen. The most striking is a slaving yarn. Some boats were in pursuit of a vessel, full to the hatches with negroes. One of them, swept forward by desperate rowers, succeeded in getting close under her bows, and a man in her sprang aboard, “like a chamois.” The slaver was going through it at six knots, and the boat, from which the man had leapt, do what the oarsmen would, dropped astern. In a few moments was heard the report of a pistol, and the vessel suddenly swept round into the wind, all aback, and her way stopped. The boats thereupon dashed alongside, and after a short struggle took possession of the brig. “There we found our lieutenant standing calmly at the helm, which was a long wooden tiller. He it was who had jumped on board alone, shot the man at the helm, put the said helm down with his leg, while in his hand he held his other pistol, with which he threatened to shoot any one who dared to touch him.”

The date of this is not given, but it falls well within living, indeed, within comparatively recent memory, and, like much else that is told in this autobiography, serves as an example of the survival of a spirit which makes our naval history as lively as if the annals were due to the imagination of the Scotts, Marryats, and Coopers of romance, and certainly far more inspiring and stirring than the choicest novels could prove.

It has always seemed to me as if the whole philosophy and spirit of British naval history lay in that memorable remark of Blake: “It is not for us to mind State affairs. We are to prevent foreigners from fooling us.” It is the broad humorous simplicity of the old salt, his shrewd perception and unadorned habit of going to work, that make all about him fascinating reading. Lord Anson said to Captain Campbell, after the defeat of Conflans, “The king will knight you if you think proper.” “Troth, my lord,” responded the captain, “I ken nae use that will be to me.” “But your lady may like it,” said Anson. “Weel, then,” replied Campbell, “His majesty may knight her if he pleases.” One finds the same curious sturdiness in demanding rights as in rejecting honours. There is nothing in this way to beat Admiral Vernon’s letter, dated June 30, 1774, to the Secretary to the Admiralty. During his retirement he had been passed over in a promotion of flag-officers. “That I might not,” he wrote, “by any be thought to be one that would decline the public service, I have thought proper to remind their lordships I am living, and have, I thank God, the same honest zeal reigning in my breast that has animated me on all occasions to approve myself a faithful and zealous subject and servant to my Royal master; and if the first Lord Commissioner has represented me in any other light to my Royal master, he has acted with a degeneracy unbecoming the descendant from a noble father, whose memory I reverence and esteem, though I have no compliments to make to the judgment or conduct of the son.”

The first lord was Daniel, Earl of Winchelsea. Long service at the cannon had taught the old sea-dogs the virtue of thunder.

In the account of the loss of the _Earl of Abergavenny_, it is stated that a midshipman was appointed to guard the spirit-room. The sailors pressed eagerly upon him. “Give us some grog!” they cried; “it will be all one an hour hence.” “I know we must die,” replied the gallant young officer, coolly, “_but let us die like men_!” Armed with a brace of pistols, he kept his place even while the ship was sinking. Byron has employed this incident in “Don Juan.” The captain of the _Earl of Abergavenny_ was John Wordsworth, brother of the poet.

There is an extraordinary instance of naval spirit preserved in “Burnaby’s Travels in North America,” published in 1775. Captain St. Loe, commander of an English man-of-war lying in Boston harbour, being ashore on a Sunday, was taken into custody for walking on the Lord’s Day. On Monday he was carried before a justice and fined. Refusing to pay, he was sentenced to sit in the stocks one hour during the time of change. The sentence was executed. Whilst the captain sat in durance, the magistrates gravely admonished him to respect in future the wholesome laws of the province, and he was further exhorted for ever after to reverence and keep holy the Sabbath Day. At the expiration of the hour he was liberated. On regaining the use of his legs he stood up, expressed himself as greatly edified by the lesson he had learned, and declared himself so thoroughly converted as to rejoice the hearts of the Boston saints. He acted his part so well that he became extremely popular among the godly folks, who, on the day fixed for the sailing of the ship, accepted his invitation to dine with him on board. He gave them a capital dinner, plied them with bowls and bottles, and in a short time the whole ship resounded with their roaring merriment. On a sudden a body of sailors burst into the cabin, laid hold of the saints and pinioned them, then dragged them on deck, where they were stripped and tied up. How many lashes the boatswain and his mates dealt them is not stated; but the story goes that “when they had suffered the whole of the discipline, which had flayed them from the nape of the neck to the hams, the captain took a polite leave, earnestly begging them to remember him in their prayers. They were then let down into the boat that was waiting for them, the crew saluted them with three cheers, and Captain St. Loe made sail.”

This fairly comes under the heading of what Wordsworth calls the “good old plan.” And who can tell how much blood would have remained unshed had the nations left the settlement of personal affronts to ingenious individual retaliation? There is a most engaging and delightful history of England’s navy yet to be written on the plan of Granger’s entertaining story by biography. James is accurate, but dry; Brenton is always readable; but James and he are not both wanted. Dr. Campbell is dull. Tediousness, however, is inevitable in a narrative that does but tell the same story, somewhat varied, over and over again. One sea battle is very much like another, and the mind is quickly oppressed with details of starboard and larboard tacks, of falling top-masts, of broadsides and lowered colours. But let some diligent collector go to work on an anecdotal history of the navy, and I should say he can scarcely miss of a great audience. How lively, for example, would prove such a chapter as this of the spirit of the naval officer suggested to me by Admiral Hobart’s book! Let a few plums, picked up here and there from old records and chronicles, suffice as an example of the sort of pudding that awaits a cook.

On July 25, 1776, Sir Thomas Rich, in her Majesty’s ship _Enterprise_, met with a French fleet of two ships of the line and several frigates, commanded by the Duc de Chartres. The French admiral hailed the _Enterprise_, and desired the captain to come on board immediately, to which Sir Thomas replied that if the Duke had anything to communicate he must come on board the _Enterprise_, as he should not go out of his ship. The Duke insisted that he should, or he would sink him. “You can do as you please,” exclaimed Sir Thomas Rich, “but the only orders I receive are from my own admiral.” On this the Duke begged him _as a favour_ to come on board, as he wished much to make his acquaintance. Sir Thomas at once went, and was received with the utmost respect.

Here is another plum from the memoirs of Sir Thomas Graves, Rear-Admiral at the Battle of Copenhagen. The scene was Noddle’s Island, off Boston. An American, more daring than the rest, advanced nearly half-way between his own people and the Marines of the squadron. Graves, who was then captain, was not a little irritated by the sight of this one Yankee insolently and contemptuously defiant of the whole of the British seamen and marines, and, borrowing a musket and bayonet from a brother officer, went out to meet the American champion in single combat. The Yankee allowed Graves to come within fifty yards of him. “The eyes of our respective parties are on us,” shouted Graves, and, after assuring the other that he had no intention to fire “before he could feel him with the point of his bayonet,” added that if the battle ended in his favour he should carry the Yankee’s scalp away with him as a trophy. Just as he said this he kicked against a stone and fell headlong, whereupon the American discharged his musket at him, threw it down, and took to his heels. The shot narrowly missed Graves, who fired in his turn without hitting his man, and then retreated, receiving as he went the fire of a score or two of persons who had concealed themselves in order to assist their American champion. A ludicrous forecast of the fight between the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_ sixty or seventy years later!

There is wonderful spirit in that saying of old Benbow during the engagement with Du Casse. His right leg was broken to pieces by a chain shot. He was carried below to be dressed, and whilst the surgeon was at work, a lieutenant expressed great sorrow for the loss of the Admiral’s leg. Benbow replied, “I am sorry for it too, but I had rather have lost them both than seen this dishonour brought upon the English nation. But, do ye hear, if another shot should take me off, behave like brave men and fight it out.” That a man should talk composedly during the agonies of amputation by such surgical skill as was then to be found in the cockpit, is, I think, an extraordinary illustration of the fortitude and self-devotion of the sea-braves of those times.

“The spirit of your fathers” shows in many directions. It is related in the life of Rodney that when that fine old Admiral’s poverty became a subject of public notoriety, De Sartine suggested to the Duke de Biron that the command of the French fleet in the West Indies should be offered him. On this the Duke invited Rodney to spend some weeks with him, and one morning, whilst strolling about the grounds, sounded the Admiral on the subject. Rodney, not catching the Duke’s drift, thought him deranged, and began to eye him with some alarm. Eventually de Biron came out boldly with the proposal. “Those,” says the biographer, “who remember the worthy Admiral, and can recollect the countenance he would assume when anything unexpectedly broke upon him, may imagine his aspect and demeanour. He answered thus: ‘My distresses, it is true, have driven me from my country, but no temptation whatever can estrange me from her service. Had this offer been a voluntary one of your own, I should have deemed it an insult; but I am glad to learn that it proceeds from a source that _can do no wrong_!’”

It is in action, perhaps, that one finds the naval spirit, the wit, the heroism, the tenderness, the patriotism of the service best illustrated. I am fond of that anecdote of old Captain Killigrew (related by Campbell) whilst on a cruise with six frigates in 1695. He met with a couple of French men-of-war. When Killigrew came up with one of them, named the _Content_, “the whole French crew,” says Campbell, “were at prayers, and he might have poured in his broadside with great advantage; which, however, he refused to do, adding this remarkable expression: ‘It is beneath the courage of the English nation to surprise their enemies in such a posture.’” This sort of humanity sometimes finds form in a kind of ironical politeness. In Howe’s memoirs it is related that whilst the British fleet lay off Cape Race two large French men-of-war were discovered. Howe, with a press of sail, arrived just alongside the sternmost Frenchman, the _Alcide_, the captain of which hailed to know whether it was peace or war. Howe answered, “Prepare for the worst, as I expect every moment a signal from the flagship to fire upon you for not bringing to.” And then, observing a number of officers, soldiers, and ladies on deck, he pulled off his hat, and, speaking in French, begged they would go below, as they had no personal concern in the contest, and he would rather that they retired before he began the action. The French captain was again requested to go under the English admiral’s stern; he refused, and then Howe told him that the signal was out to engage—a red flag hoisted at the fore-topgallant-masthead. The French commander called out, “Commencez, s’il vous plaît!” to which Howe replied, “S’il vous plaît, monsieur, de commencer!” The two ships delivered their broadsides almost simultaneously. The _Alcide_ struck in half an hour. “My lads,” cried Howe, to his crew, “they have behaved like men, treat them like men.”[24]

Footnote 24:

She carried fewer seamen than Howe’s ship.