Chapter XIII: Introduction: The Navy Before 1509 (11)

Among the malpractices examined into at some length by the commissioners was the sale and purchase of places, already referred to. Hugh Lidyard was made clerk of the checque at Woolwich by Sir John Trevor, for which he was to pay Trevor £20 yearly and a hogshead of wine; another witness deposed that ‘of late years the general way of preferment is by money and few that he knoweth ... come freely to their places.’ Pursers paid from £70 to £120 for their posts, boatswains £20, and cooks £30. Robert Hooker gave Edward Masters, of Nottingham’s household, £130 for the pursership of the _Repulse_, this he sold for the same amount and bought that of the _Quittance_ for £100. His profit he made by victualling the men for sixpence a day, and he admitted that at least ten more men were carried on the books than were on board. Naturally, as promotion went by length of purse,

‘the officers put in and keep in whom they list though they be
never so unfit, and put out whom they list though never so fit,
and woe be to him that taketh exception to any man though he
be never so unruly ... it breaketh the hearts of them that are
worthy.’

It was equally natural that men who had paid heavily for their employments were unscrupulous in recouping themselves. ‘The captains being for the most part poor gentlemen did mend their fortunes by combining with the pursers,’ who were in league with the victuallers to send in returns of more men than were on board the ships. Boatswains and gunners sold their stores, shipwrights stole timber, and captains sheltered and took bribes from pirates, or turned their vessels into merchantmen to enable owners of goods to evade payment of customs. The Surveyors of victualling were accused of overcharging and of frauds to at least £4000, in four years.

[Sidenote: The Reorganisation of 1618.]

James had every reason to sharply check the waste going on, for the crown debt, which was only £400,000 at his accession, had mounted to £1,000,000 in 1608, while the deficit in revenue was £70,000 a year.[867] But ‘an oration’ in broad Scotch from the lips of the conceited pedant staggering under the weight of the Tudor crown did not prove an effective method of reform. The old knaveries continued even as though James had not made a speech. In 1613 Cotton attempted, through the intervention of Northampton and Rochester, to obtain another inquiry; but his efforts failed through the influence of Nottingham and the intrigues of Mansell. In 1618 the naval administration was worse than ever, and other departments were equally corrupt; ‘the household was one mass of peculation, and extravagance.’[868] Even now Sir Lionel Cranfield, who was the moving spirit in the endeavour to purify the public service, might have failed had not Buckingham himself desired to occupy the post of Lord Admiral. Nottingham at last retired with a gratuity of £3000 and another pension of £1000 a year. Mansell was succeeded, from the 10th May 1618, by Sir William Russell, a merchant, who paid him for his place and who was wealthy enough to advance subsequently £30,000 towards fitting out the Cadiz expedition of 1625.[869] It is probable that, from his lack of technical knowledge, Russell’s direction, if more honest than Mansell’s, would have been as unsuccessful had he been entrusted with control, but his duties were financial only and confined to the keeping of accounts. The other officers were ‘sequestered from their posts’ and their business entrusted to a board of Navy Commissioners, appointed for five years and responsible to the Lord Admiral. Of the Commissioners, Sir John Coke was the leading spirit and received £300 a year; one was in charge of Chatham, with a salary of £200 a year; another, William Burrell, a shipbuilder, was placed at Deptford to supervise all building and repairs, for which he received £300 a year; and Thomas Norreys acted as Surveyor with £200 a year.[870] Immediate benefit was obtained from the reform; the fleet and dockyards were kept in repair, theft was checked, and two new ships a year were built in five consecutive years, all for less money than Mansell had squandered in doing nothing efficiently. Buckingham appears, also, to have not only given his subordinates a loyal support but to have been honestly anxious to obtain the best men for the service, and to render officers and sailors contented. The chronic emptiness, however, of the treasury, for which he was largely answerable, made his endeavours in this last direction of less avail.

[Sidenote: The Navy Commissioners.]

The new Commissioners,[871] on entering office, sent in a report of the state of affairs they found existing in the various naval departments;[872] all the frauds of 1608 were still flourishing, with some new ones due to the lapse of time. Places were still sold, and at such high prices that the buyers ‘profess openly that they cannot live unless they may steal’; the cost of the Navy had of late been some £53,000 a year, ‘that could not keep it from decay.’ For building a new ship in place of the _Bonaventure_ £5700 had been allowed but, although £1700 had been paid on account of it, no new vessel had been commenced, and though this same ship ‘was broken up above seven years past yet the King hath paid £63 yearly for keeping her.’ Further, ‘the _Advantage_ was burnt about five years since and yet keepeth at the charge of £104, 9s 5d; the _Charles_ was disposed of in Scotland two years since and costeth £60, 16s 10d for keeping.’ For repairing the _Merhonour_, _Defiance_, _Vanguard_, and _Dreadnought_, £23,500 had been paid

‘for which eight new ships might have been built as the
accounts of the East India Company do prove; yet all this while
the King’s ships decayed and if the _Merhonour_ were repaired
she was left so imperfect that before her finishing she begins
again to decay.’

In nine years £108,000 had been charged for cordage, and the Commissioners express their intention of reducing the expenditure on this item by two-thirds.

At a later date some of the Commissioners themselves did not escape suspicion. In 1623 Sir John Coke, still the leading member, wrote to Conway that all went well until the Algiers voyage, but that he then suspected that some of his colleagues were selling their own wares to the government. They, of course, denied the allegation when Coke was frank enough to openly tax them with it, but ‘ever since I carried a watchful eye over them and employed fit persons to discover their dealings.’[873] A man like Coke was probably not popular even among those with whom he was associated, still less with the gang whose deceits and illicit gains he had greatly helped to terminate. We may read something of the temper and feelings of the discarded Navy Officers in his appeal for protection against Sir Guilford Slingsby, a year later, who had threatened that, unless he was restored to office by Lady day, Coke should not outlive that date.[874] Slingsby was reappointed Comptroller by Charles I and then again gave evidence of his peculiar qualifications for the exercise of authority over others. But there is no doubt that the administration of the Commissioners was pure enough compared with that of Mansell. Their failures were due to causes they were unable to deal with, such as want of money and the bad treatment of the men. So far as the latter were concerned the Commissioners did not—and probably had no power to—reverse the disposition to employ landsmen of influence as captains who were out of sympathy with their men and had no care for their feelings or interests. It was in this and the succeeding reign that there grew up that bitter hatred and contempt for gentlemen captains, to which seamen so often gave expression for a century afterwards, and of which traces are to be found in the present century.

At the close of their first five years of office the Commissioners sent in a report of the work done by them.[875] They said that whereas they found in 1618 twenty-three serviceable and ten unserviceable ships, of altogether 15,670 tons, four decayed galleys and four hoys, costing £53,000 a year, they have now thirty-five serviceable vessels of 19,339 tons, besides the hoys and galleys, and the expense has been little more than £30,000 a year, including the charges for building ten new ships.

[Sidenote: Naval Expenditure.]

This last amount does not coincide with those given in the table below, from the _Pipe Office Accounts_, but that may be from the inclusion in the latter of extraneous expenses, such as the Algiers expedition, considered by the Commissioners to be outside the range of their comparison:—[876]

+----+--------+-------+-----------+-----------+------+----------+-------+
| | Amount |Victua-| Sea | Total |Stores|Ordinary |Extra- |
| |received| lling | Charges | spent | | ordinary|
+----+--------+-------+-----------+-----------+------+----------+-------+
|1603| £42619 |£32920 |£13247 |£42271 | | | |
|1604| 24000 | 12469 | 6248 | 24002 |£9616 |£6789 | |
|1605| 29000 | 16042 | 9760 | 28672 | 7312 | |£22493 |
|1606| 22100 | 10156 | | 18984 | | | |
|1607| 21000 | 9452 | 2896 | 25200 |11000 | 5242 | 19900 |
|1608| 38424 | 12103 | 6859 | 36554 | | | |
|1609| 42400 | 10200 | | 43396 | | | |
|1610| 36607 | 10432 | | 36358 | | | |
|1611| 42300 | 8670 | 3428 | 40153 |25520 | 8143 | 31921 |
|1612| 34200 | 8672 | 3934 | 33930 | | 8867 | |
|1613| 50355 | 19625 | 8814 | 55987[877]|25000 |10100 | 45786 |
|1614| 48463 | 15275 | 7996 | 56848 | | | |
|1615| 45643 | 15387 | 7764 | 57968 |16295 | 8313 | |
|1616| 40515 | 12886 | 7800 | 41269 |15268 | 4625 | |
|1617| 31213 | 13716 | | 25548 | | | |
|1618| | 10465 | 5165 | 27489 | 8000 | | |
|1619| 31606 | 6324 | | 32610 | 2355 | 5789 | |
|1620| 38300 | 14680 | 2960[878]| 35872 | 5936 | | |
|1621| 54264 | 23369 | 2945[879]| 51000 | |10723 | |
|1622| 52385 | 11143 | 7765 | 45450 | |13011[880]| |
|1623| 59200 | 23414 | 24000 | 62000[881]| | | |
|1624| 26529 | 6430 | 3079 | 31125 | | | |
+----+--------+-------+-----------+-----------+------+----------+-------+

Seamen’s wages remained unchanged till the end of the reign when the rate reached fourteen shillings a month, and the pay of the officers was raised in 1618. Not only was it difficult to keep the men on board the ships, but the expensive and wasteful system of impressment made the eventual outlay even heavier. In 1624 an estimate was drawn up of the expenses for fitting out a fleet of twelve men-of-war: 3000 men were required, of which number the river was to supply 800 at press and conduct money of 2s 6d a man, the remaining 2200 being obtained from ‘remote places’ at a cost of eight shillings a man. At their discharge one shilling and seven shillings a man conduct money respectively, for the river and country districts would again have to be paid. The total estimate for twelve men-of-war for five months, and fifty merchantmen for six months, was, £94,874, a sum which shows the great increase in prices since the days of Elizabeth, and partly explains the rise in the yearly expenditure.[882]

[Sidenote: Piracy.]

Piracy, though still a school for seamanship, was no longer the flourishing business it had been under Elizabeth; the trade, to use a modern phrase, was ‘cut up.’ Spanish commerce was almost destroyed in northern latitudes, and the Dutch was well able to protect itself, while new competitors were found in the Mediterranean rovers who hovered round the English coasts and even stretched out into the North Atlantic, and in the fast sailing Dunkirk privateers who swarmed in the Channel. In 1605 Hannibal Vivian wrote from the west country, ‘let it not offend you that I inform you from time to time of the piracies and depredations daily committed on this coast.’ However repugnant piracy may have been to some of the officials it commended itself still to many natives of the western counties. Out of one pirate crew, thirty-five in number, seventeen belonged to Dartmouth and Kingswear, and the mayor and others of Plymouth were accused of buying the stolen goods and favouring the escape of the men. The government appeared helpless; if they sent ships to sea the captains ‘pretend to pursue, and when well away in some distant port write up that a leak had been sprung, obtain warrants to repair in port, and so remain for the captain’s benefit.’ Sometimes they even took the pirates’ goods on board and sheltered the criminals themselves. If any of the corsairs were caught the general opinion among them that they were only liable ‘to a little lazy imprisonment,’ was usually justified by results. Ireland was said to be ‘the nursery and storehouse of pirates,’[883] for, besides providing its own quota of sea-rovers it offered the hospitality of its ports to those vessels belonging to the Barbary corsairs that required repair.[884]

In 1616 the weakness of the Crown was shown by a warrant being granted to two London merchants to prepare a ship to go pirate hunting with permission to retain for themselves three-fourths of the goods seized.[885] About this time there was a fleet of thirty Turkish ships in the Atlantic, and another Salleeman had recently been captured in the Thames;[886] between 1609 and 1616 the Algerines had captured 466 British ships and reduced their crews to slavery,[887] and in the latter year Sir Francis Cottington wrote to Buckingham that their strength and boldness exceeded all previous experience. Mansell’s voyage of 1620-21 cost at least £34,000, and probably much more, but ‘such was the misgovernment of those ships,’[888] that within a few weeks of his return an Algerine fleet was at work again in the narrow seas. The inhabitants of Swanage seem to have been especially nervous since they petition for a block-house, ‘the Turks being grown exceedingly audacious.’ Matters grew even worse towards the close of the reign. Some Weymouth merchants desired to fit out ships of their own to deal with the incubus terrorising commerce, but permission was refused, mainly because it was injurious to the Lord Admiral’s profits and ‘dishonourable to the King.’ Others, however, of the Weymouth tradesmen dealt with the robbers, and the local Admiralty officers were supposed to connive at the traffic.[889]

The Lizard light was objected to because ‘it will conduct pirates,’ and to most people it will read strangely now that it was forbidden at the instance of the Trinity Corporation. The Newfoundland Company, in asking for assistance, said that since 1612 damage to the amount of £40,000 had been committed by the marauders, and that over 1000 men had been forced or persuaded to join them.[890] One of the freebooters was admiral of a large pirate fleet. In 1624 the Navy Commissioners were desired to certify how many men-of-war would be required to clear the southern and western coasts, just as they had often enough before been required to certify; the process seldom proceeded further.

[Sidenote: The Merchant Marine.]

That ‘merchantmen dare hardly sail’ was scarcely a condition of things conducive to commercial enterprise. Piracy was becoming a more serious drawback than formerly because ships were bigger and more costly, the network of commerce more sensitive and complex, and losses could no longer be recouped by successful privateering on a small scale. Little can be said of the merchant shipping of these years, as the returns of available ships, so frequently occurring among the Elizabethan papers, are entirely absent for this period. But all the notices of trade met with, are invariably characterised by lamentation. The Dutch were said to be obtaining the carrying trade owing to the greater cheapness with which their vessels were built and worked, the difference in their favour being as much as one-third of the English owner’s demand for freight. In 1620 it was stated that the number of London-owned ships had fallen to one-half of that of former years, and, as accounting for part of the decrease, we have a certificate for 1618 of vessels belonging to the river but lately sold for want of employment.[891] The list in question shows an enormous depreciation in value, since none of them could have been very old:—

+-----------------+----+----+------+--------+
| |Tons|Guns| Cost |Sold for|
| | | | £ | £ |
| +----+----+------+--------+
|_Neptune_ | 500| 30 | 5000 | 1500 |
|_Paragon_ | 280| 24 | 3200 | 1000 |
|_Martha_ | 250| 20 | 2400 | 500 |
|_Industry_ | 350| 26 | 4500 | 2000 |
|_Clement and Job_| 300| 24 | 3600 | 1000 |
+-----------------+----+----+------+--------+

The building price here almost certainly does not include the cost of ordnance, while it is probable that the sale price does, and it will be noticed that these merchantmen are nearly as strongly armed as men-of-war. Complaints came from all quarters: the Muscovy Company had employment for only two instead of seventeen ships, as in former days, and the Norway trade was ‘in pawn to the Dutch’; the Levant Company found its trade destroyed by piracy, and still more by the competition of the Dutch, who now sent one hundred ships a year to the Mediterranean. The greater portion of the Newcastle coal traffic was carried on in foreign bottoms; there were some twenty vessels trading to Spain and Portugal, and fifty or sixty to the North German ports, but in both cases the Dutch trade was now far greater than ours; and the fisheries in English waters were entirely in the hands of the Hollanders who were reputed to make a profit of £1,000,000 a year from that which under a stronger sovereign would have been held for England. The Newfoundland and Iceland fisheries, which employed 150 and 120 sail respectively, were still chiefly in English hands, but the Greenland, to which fifteen sail were sent, had to face the ubiquitous Dutch competitor.[892]

During this reign the most flourishing association was the East India Company, although its profits were not so large as were those of its Dutch rival.[893] In twenty years it had despatched eighty-six ships, of which eleven had been seized by the Dutch, and fourteen had been wrecked or worn out, and the estimation in which it was held is shown by its being more heavily assessed towards the expenses of the Algiers expedition than was any other company. This association attempted, in 1613, to start iron and shipbuilding works near Cork, but was forced, by the hostility of the natives, to discontinue the enterprise. The largest merchantman built during the reign of James, the _Trade’s Increase_ of 1100 tons, was constructed for the East India Company. With a smaller ship, the _Peppercorn_ of 250 tons, it was launched in January 1610, and there are some curious notes by the captain of the _Peppercorn_ describing the event.[894] On Saturday, 30th December the king came down to name the two ships, but every attempt to launch them failed, and continued efforts on the Sunday, ‘God made fruitless that day.’ On 1st Jan. the _Peppercorn_ was launched, and it was only then found that the dockhead was too narrow to let the _Trade’s Increase_ pass. On the Wednesday, however, she was got clear and the captain of the _Peppercorn_ complains that ‘on this ship was all the Company’s pride set; she was altogether regarded, tended and followed while the other, the _Peppercorn_ was left in manner desolate.’ The _Trades Increase_ was wrecked in 1613 on her first voyage. The hire of merchantmen taken up for government service was still two shillings a month per ton; and the bounty of five shillings a ton on new and suitable vessels ceased in 1624, only to be renewed early in the next reign for similar ships.

Merchants, generally, were liable to the exactions and dishonesty of the officials of the Customs department as much as in the previous reign. But by this time the two formerly antagonistic interests seem to have come to a working arrangement. We are told that merchants and the farmers of the customs were now in partnership, and that goods were cleared on payment of little or no duty. The importation or exportation of prohibited wares was only a matter of terms; and, altogether, the king was frequently defrauded of 75% of the customs.[895] The collection of light dues was placed in the hands of the customs’ farmers, and, when a licence to build a lighthouse at Dungeness was granted to Sir Edward Howard in 1615, they had to receive the one penny a ton payable from all ships passing it. At Winterton there was also another light, and the receipts were £1000, of which, £350 went in expenses.[896] As the Trinity House claimed the control of the coast lights as a part of its privileges, there was a good deal of litigation on the subject during the reign.

[Sidenote: The Navy List.]

In the following list[897] certain vessels, the _Defiance_, _Dreadnought_, _Merhonour_, and _Repulse_ have been admitted as rebuilt and new, although it is quite possible that, notwithstanding the large sums spent upon them, they were only more or less badly repaired.

+----------------------+-----+-----+------+-------+----+----+-----+-----+
| |Built| Re- |Burden|Ton and|Guns|Keel|Beam |Depth|
| | |built| |Tonnage| | ft.| ft. | ft. |
| +-----+-----+------+-------+----+----+-----+-----+
|_Nonsuch_[898] | | 1603| | 636 | 38 | 88|34 | 15 |
|_Assurance_[899] | | 1603| | 600 | 38 | 95|33 | 14.6|
|_Speedwell_[900] | | 1607| | 400 | | | | |
|_Anne Royal_[901] | | 1608| | 800 | 44 | 103|37 | 16 |
|_Lion’s Whelp_ | | 1608| | 90 | | | | |
|_Red Lion_[902] | | 1609| | 650 | 38 | 91|35.2 | 16 |
|_Due Repulse_ | | 1610| | 700 | 40 | 97|37 | 15 |
|_Prince Royal_ | 1610| | | 1200 | 55 | 115|43.6 | 18 |
|_Phœnix_ | 1612| | | 250 | 20 | 70|24 | 11 |
|_Primrose_ | | 1612| | | | | | |
|_Merhonour_[903] | | 1612| | 800 | 44 | 104|38 | 17 |
|_Dreadnought_ | | 1612| | 450 | 32 | 84|31 | 13 |
|_Defiance_ | | 1612| | 700 | 40 | 97|37 | 15 |
|_Vanguard_ | | 1615| | 650 | 40 | 102|35 | 14 |
|_Seven Stars_ | 1615| | | 140 | 14 | 60|20 | 9 |
|_Convertine_[904] | 1616| | | 500 | 34 | | | |
|_Desire_ | 1616| | | 80 | 6 | 66|16 | 6 |
|_Rainbow_[905] | | 1618| | 650 | 40 | 102|35 | 14 |
|_Antelope_ | | 1618| | 450 | 34 | 92|32 | 12.6|
|_Happy Entrance_ | 1619| | 437 | 582 | 32 | 96|32.6 | 14 |
|_Constant Reformation_| 1619| | 564 | 752 | 42 | 106|35.6 | 15 |
|_Victory_ | 1620| | 656 | 875 | 42 | 108|35.9 | 17 |
|_Garland_ | 1620| | 512 | 683 | 34 | 93|33 | 16 |
|_Swiftsure_ | 1621| | 650 | 887 | 42 | 106|36.10| 16.8|
|_Bonaventure_ | 1621| | 506 | 675 | 34 | 98|33 | 15.8|
|_St George_ | 1622| | 671 | 895 | 42 | 110|37 | 16.6|
|_St Andrew_ | 1622| | 671 | 895 | 42 | 110|37 | 16.6|
|_Triumph_ | 1623| | 692 | 922 | 42 | 110|37 | 17 |
|_Mary Rose_ | 1623| | 288 | 394 | 26 | 83|27 | |
+----------------------+-----+-----+------+-------+----+----+-----+-----+

Two other third-rates, the _Mercury_ and _Spy_, were built in 1620 by Phineas Pett—who went as captain of one of them—for some London merchants to go with the Algiers fleet. By a warrant of August 1622 they were ordered to be taken into the Navy, but their names do not appear in any list of James or Charles.

Of the nineteen vessels added to the Navy during Mansell’s term of office two were commenced before his appointment, one was bought, two of the five new ones were mere pinnaces, and of the remainder most were very expensive repairs rather than rebuildings.

[Sidenote: The New Ships.]

In 1603 James had resolved to have three ships built, but the _Nonsuch_ and _Assurance_, both ordered before his accession, were the only quasi new ones. Although no real accessions were made for some years James took sufficient pride in his fleet to be eager to show it to visitors; in 1606 he ordered all the available vessels ‘to be rigged and put in warlike order’ preparatory to a visit from himself and the King of Denmark, which took place in August. In 1610 the Prince of Brunswick came to see the Navy. In 1608 the _Ark Royal_, Nottingham’s flagship in 1588, was rebuilt, and her name which should have lived in popular memory with that of the _Golden Hind_, changed to the _Anne Royal_, in honour of the commonplace Queen. She was rechristened by Sir Oliver Cromwell. The _Swiftsure_, rebuilt and renamed the _Speedwell_, is noteworthy as being the first important English man-of-war lost by misadventure at sea since the _Mary Rose_ foundered in 1545. She went ashore near Flushing in November 1624, a mischance that her captain—Chudleigh—attributed to a drunken pilot.[906] He, at any rate, lost all control over his crew, whose discipline seems to have been quite unequal to the sudden strain of an unexpected accident. Of Mansell’s rebuildings the most striking points are the amounts spent—nearly £60,000 can be traced in the _Pipe Office Accounts_—and the time taken, ships being usually two, three, or four years in hand.

It was probably due to the express desire of James that on 20th October, 1608 the keel was laid of the _Prince Royal_ of 1200 tons, the largest ship yet designed for the Navy. Under the new rules of measurement in force in 1632, she was certified as of 1035 net, and 1330 gross tonnage. Her construction was assigned to Phineas Pett, and many intrigues, reaching even the Court, centred round her. The other shipwrights were both jealous and critical, and openly expressed their disapprobation both of the material used and the manner in which it was employed. In 1609, Baker, now an old man of seventy-nine years, but still in active employment, William Bright, Edward Stevens, and some other shipwrights, with Waymouth as an unofficial expert, were ordered to report on the execution of the work. Pett did not like Waymouth, whom he describes in his autobiography as ‘great kilcow Waymouth,’ and ‘a great braggadocio, a vain and idle fellow.’ Baker, and perhaps some of the others must have been chosen on the governmental principle of setting personal enemies to inspect each other’s performances, seeing that he had not long before stated on oath that he thought both the Petts ‘simple’ and quite unfit to be entrusted with the production of a large ship.[907] Pett naturally had little love for Baker, although he had years before attempted to be friendly with the veteran, begging him not to so easily credit malicious reports, and ascribing all his knowledge of his art, ‘if I have any,’ to the elder man.[908] But the system that made it to each man’s pecuniary interest to obtain as many ships as possible to build and repair, and to exert all his personal influence to that end, converted the dockyards into nests of intrigue.

Pett was protected by Nottingham and Mansell, and ‘he is reported to be their right hand and they cannot do without him,’ said Bright, another of Pett’s competitors, and who was therefore chosen to sit in judgment upon him. Nottingham, Suffolk and Worcester were then appointed to make further inquiry, and their report being satisfactory, and therefore displeasing to Northampton, the latter desired another investigation, which the King acceded to by naming a day when he would examine the vessel and hear the conflicting evidence himself. He and Prince Henry came to Woolwich on 8th May 1609, and after a long day of scrutiny and discussion, Pett emerged triumphant from the ordeal. Time, however, was on the side of the objectors. The _Prince Royal_ was never subjected to any serious work, but in 1621 the Commissioners wrote to Buckingham that she was then only fit for show, that she cost in the first instance, £20,000, and would require another £6000 to make her fit for service, and that she was built of decaying timber and green unseasoned stuff.[909] These were the very points on which Baker and his fellows had insisted, and on which they had been defeated in 1609. She attracted universal attention when building. The King, the Prince of Wales, Princess Elizabeth, and the French ambassador came several times to visit her when approaching completion, and ‘nobles, gentry, and citizens from all parts of the country round,’ resorted to Woolwich. An attempt to launch her was made on the 24th September 1610, the whole of the Royal family being present, but, as in the case of the _Trades Increase_, the dockhead was too narrow to permit her to pass. A second essay was more successful.

The _Prince Royal_ was the first three-decker built for the English Navy.[910] She was gorgeously decorated, according to the taste of the time, with carvings and ‘curious paintings, the like of which was never in any ship before.’ She was double-planked, ‘a charge which was not formerly thought upon, and all the butt-heads were double bolted with iron bolts.’[911] There is one payment of £868 for her painting and gilding, work done by Robert Peake and Paul Isackson, the latter of whom belonged to a family for several generations employed in decorating men-of-war. The four upper strakes were ornamented with gilt and painted badges, arms and ‘mask heads,’ and the Prince’s cabin was ‘very curiously wrought with divers histories.’ Carving cost £441, and included fourteen ‘great lions’ heads for the round ports.’[912]

[Sidenote: The Commissioners’ Improvements.]

It was possibly the result of Cotton’s abortive effort in 1613 to procure a further inquiry into the administration, that several of the old ships were rebuilt about that time, but, as the Commissioners subsequently remarked, at prices that would have more than provided new ones in their stead. It was not until the Navy Commission took control in 1618 that the systematic production of new ships was commenced. It will be seen from the preceding list that from that date they carried out for five years their expressed intention of adding two ships a year to the Navy. They also made certain recommendations, to be kept in view by themselves and their successors, that embodied improvements, perhaps the result of the trenchant criticisms of the beginning of the reign.[913]

The fleet was to average thirty seagoing ships, and building was to be confined to Deptford, where two vessels could be worked upon simultaneously. The length of keel was to be treble the breadth, ‘but not to draw above sixteen feet because deeper ships are seldom good sailors,’ besides, ‘they must be somewhat snug-built, without double galleries and too lofty upperworks, which overcharge many ships and make them loom fair but not work well at sea.’ It is no reproach to the Commissioners, who could but act on the best professional advice obtainable, to have to remark that their ships were nearly as crank as their predecessors, and all required to be furred or girdled to make them at all trustworthy in a seaway; and at a later date, even the smaller stern galleries given them excited much adverse criticism.

They continue,

‘For strengthening the ship we subscribe to the new manner of
building—1st, making three orlops, whereof the lowest being
placed two feet under water, strengtheneth the ship though her
sides be shot through; 2nd, to carry this orlop end to end;
3rd, the second or main deck to be sufficiently high to work
guns in all weathers.’

From this it is evident that the orlop deck as built in the _Merhonour_, _Garland_, and _Defiance_ of 1589 did not run the whole length of the ship, and that if the ‘new manner’ is to be accepted literally, even the _Prince Royal_ was not a two-decker. Cooking galleys were to be placed in the forecastle, as the weights carried at each end with a comparatively empty midship section caused ‘hogging,’ besides wasting valuable stowage space and producing other inconveniences. Wynter had recommended this forty years before, but the new regulation remained inoperative for some time longer. The lower ports were now to be at least four and a half feet above the water line. Most of the Commissioners’ ships were built with three decks, but with smaller and lower superstructures on the upper deck than had been previously customary. Bad as they were they seem to have been steadier than their predecessors.

An undated State Paper, calendared under 1627, but which from its arguments in favour of a third deck—a question finally closed long before 1627—more probably belongs to this period, gives us some particulars of the internal arrangements of a man-of-war. The lowest deck was to carry the bread and other store-rooms, the cables and officers’ cabins, besides a certain number of the crew who were also to be berthed upon it. The second deck was to be laid five and a half or six feet above this, and in a ship like the _Lion_ was to be pierced for nine ports a side, and four chase-ports fore and aft. The ports were to be at least two feet three inches square, ‘and that there be built between every two ports hanging cabins to fold up to the decks for the lodging of men.’ Otherwise this deck was to be kept clear instead of being hampered by the cables stowed upon it in two-decked ships. Readers desirous of technical details relating to the position and dimensions of floor, timbers, riders, butts, carlings, clamps, foot and chain waling, standing and running rigging, etc., will find much exact information in the State Papers of the next reign dealing with the surveys taken of most of the new and old ships in 1626 and 1627.

The Commissioners ordered that the _Elizabeth_ and _Triumph_ should be sold; £600 is entered in the accounts as received for their hulls in 1618, although as late as 1615, £537 had been spent in repairing them. The _Mercury_ had been sold in Ireland in 1611, the _Foresight_ condemned in 1604, the _Quittance_ and _Tremontana_ were to be broken up, and the hulls of the _Garland_ and _Mary Rose_ were to be used for a wharf in conjunction with a proposed new dock at Chatham. The _Bonaventure_, _Charles_, and _Advantage_ had long ceased to exist, and the _St Andrew_ and _St Matthew_ had been given to Sir John Leigh in 1604 as being then no longer servicable. The _Victory_ is said to have been rebuilt into the _Prince Royal_, but the connection is not altogether clear. In one paper[914] of 1610, there is a distinct, and apparently conclusive statement, occurring twice over, ‘The _Victory_ now named the _Prince Royal_.’ On the other hand Cotton, in his report of 1608,[915] writes, in discussing the waste and embezzlement of material,

‘Thus did the _Victory_ for the transportation, dockinge, and
breaking uppe stand the King in fower or five hundred poundes
and yet noe one parte of her serviceable to any use about the
buildinge of a new as was pretended for a coulour. To conclude,
though we set her at the rate of 200ˡⁱ yet it had been better
absolutely for the King to have given her away to the poor than
to have bin put to the charge of bringing her from Chattam to
Wollich noe other use having bin made of her than to furnish
Phinees Pette (that was the only author of her preservation)
with fewell for the dyette of those carpenters which he
victualled.’

This also appears conclusive. A possible explanation lies in the fact that, the _Victory_ having ceased to exist, the _Prince Royal_ may have been laid down in that name, and afterwards changed to the later appellation.

The four galleys were a source of constant expense, one or the other being in continual need of repair, rebuilding, or shed protection from the weather. They were never used, and in 1629, having ‘been long laid aside as useless vessels’ were ordered to be sold. The new _Antelope_ and _Rainbow_ of 1618 were not claimed by the Commissioners as among the vessels of which they should have the credit although they were both completed after their entry into office. The _Happy Entrance_ and _Constant Reformation_ were launched in the presence of the King at Deptford, and were named by him with intent to commemorate Buckingham’s accession to his post and the good effects to be expected from it. In 1624 no new vessels were built and the last Navy list of James I is as follows:—[916]

+--------------+-----------------+------------------+---------------+
| First rank | Second rank | Third rank | Fourth rank |
+--------------+-----------------+------------------+---------------+
| _Prince_ | _Repulse_ | _Dreadnought_ | _Phœnix_ |
| _Bear_ | _Warspite_ | _Antelope_ | _Seven Stars_ |
| _Merhonour_ | _Victory_ | _Speedwell_ | _Charles_ |
| _Anne Royal_ | _Assurance_ | _Adventure_ | _Desire_ |
| | _Nonsuch_ | _Convertine_ | |
| | _Defiance_ | _Happy Entrance_ | |
| | _Lion_ | _Bonaventure_ | |
| | _Vanguard_ | _Garland_ | |
| | _Rainbow_ | _Mary Rose_ | |
| | _Constant | | |
| | Reformation_ | | |
| | _Swiftsure_ | | |
| | _St George_ | | |
| | _St Andrew_ | | |
| | _Triumph_ | | |
+--------------+-----------------+------------------+---------------+

There were also the four galleys and some hoys; eleven of the vessels were noted as needing more or less substantial repairs and most of the old ones were broken-backed. The ten new ships cost £6 a ton for the larger and £5, 6s 8d for the smaller ones, against £16 a ton under Mansell’s improvident management, but these prices were for the hulls and spars alone.[917] According to the _Pipe Office Accounts_ the cost of the _Happy Entrance_ and _Constant Reformation_ was £8850; of the _Victory_ and _Garland_ £7640, which included masts and spars, carving and painting; of the _Swiftsure_ and _Bonaventure_ £9969, and here an additional £1169 was paid for sails, anchors, and fittings; of the _St George_ and _St Andrew_ £9632, and £1306 more for fittings down to boats and flags; and £8106 for the _Triumph_ and _Mary Rose_. Taking them from Deptford to Chatham varied between £73 and £418, doubtless depending on the number of men employed and the time occupied. Burrell’s contracts for 1619 were at £7, 10s and £8 a ton, and the £5, 6s 8d and £6 quoted above were only due to the fact that the ten ships measured 1899 tons more than was expected which reduced the average.[918] He apparently had to bear the loss; no alteration was made in the way of calculating tonnage during the reign.

There is little to be said about any improvements in rigging or canvas during this period. Fore and aft sails are still absent; studding sails and booms are spoken of in the _Nomenclator Navalis_,[919] but are not alluded to in any naval document. It may be of interest to quote from the same manuscript the rules governing the proportions of masts and yards.

Mainmast three times four-fifths of the beam.
Foremast four-fifths of mainmast.
Bowsprit do. do.
Mizenmast one-half of mainmast.
Topmasts half the length of lower masts.
Main yard five-sixths of length of keel.
Fore yard four-fifths of mainyard.
Top yard three-sevenths of mainyard.
Cross-jack yard four-fifths of mainyard.
Spritsail yard do. do.

[Sidenote: Shipwrights.]

Baker, Pett, and Burrell were the three chief shipwrights of the reign; Ed. Stevens, John Adye, Wm. Bright, Clay, Hen. Goddard, and Maryott were less known men. Baker died on 31st August 1613 at the age of eighty-three. As a boy and man he had seen the rise of the modern Navy, and had himself largely helped by his skill to produce the type of ship that was found sufficient for that age. That during the whole of his long life he appears, so far as existing records show, to have quarrelled with, or spoken ill of, equals, inferiors, and superiors may be charitably attributed rather to the unfortunate conditions governing a shipwright’s position than to any natural bent of character. The writings or utterances of other shipwrights, that have come down to us, show them to have been in no way superior to Baker in these respects. The ships built by him represented sound and honest work. He died in harness while in charge of the repairs of the _Merhonour_ which had been built under his superintendence twenty-four years previously, and he was long remembered as ‘the famous artist of his time.’

Pett had been favoured by Nottingham and Mansell but does not appear to have experienced the same partiality from the Commissioners. They chiefly employed Burrell, who had previously been master shipwright to the East India Company, but during the next reign Pett came again into favour, and was made a principal Officer and Commissioner for the Navy shortly after Burrell’s death in 1630. The master shipwrights received two shillings a day and lodging money, but all these men had extra allowances, partly dating from the last reign. Baker had a pension of £40 a year, besides his Exchequer fee and payments from the Navy Treasurer. Bright had one shilling and eightpence a day which had been originally given to Richard Chapman for building the _Ark Royal_, and had been continued in whole or part to him. Pett’s Exchequer fee had been retained in the family since it was first granted in the second year of Mary’s reign.[920] Probably the orthodox scale of wages would not alone have retained these men in the royal service and the pensions were used to make their posts more valuable.

[Sidenote: Dockyards.]

Deptford was still the principal yard, but Chatham was rapidly coming into greater importance; Portsmouth is hardly mentioned. In 1610 the dry dock at Deptford was enlarged and a paling made round the yard,[921] and in the same year there is a charge of £34, 19s for tools to make cordage at Woolwich. By 1612 cordage was being made there at £28 a ton, and in 1614 the ropehouse was extended at a cost of £368, and 305 tons of cordage made there in the year.[922] It was, however, still far from supplying the needs of the Navy since in 1617 cordage to £10,400 was bought. A Dutchman, Harman Branson, superintended the rope factory, at a salary of £50 a year. In 1619 the wooden fence at Deptford was replaced by a brick wall; the only reference to Portsmouth is for the cost, in 1623, of ‘filling up the great dock there, and ramming the mouth of the said dock with rock stones for the better preserving of the yard against the violence of the sea.’[923] This was the end of the earliest dry dock in England. A dock had been frequently urged for Chatham, but it was not until the Commissioners came into power that the matter was seriously taken up. They at once devoted their attention to the Medway, for which one reason may have been the great cost attendant on the removal, backwards and forwards, of ships between Chatham and Deptford. It has been mentioned that the hulls of the _Garland_ and _Mary Rose_ were used to support a dock wharf at Chatham; they were joined there by an old antagonist, the _Nuestra Señora del Rosario_. A sum of £61, 1s 3d was paid to

‘Thomas Wood, shipwright, and sundry other ... employed in
digging out the old Spanish ship at Chatham, near the galley
dock, clearing her of all the stubb ballast and other trash
within board, making her swim, and removing near unto the
mast dock where she was laid, and sunk for the defence and
preservation of the wharf.’[924]

The old Spaniard, however, was not even yet at rest. In 1622 occurs the concise entry, ‘The hull of the ship called Don Pedroe broken up and taken away.’ The men of the seventeenth century were not emotional and saw no reason in a useless trophy. They did, in 1624, have a new wharf ‘made at Sir Francis Drake’s ship,’ but there were fees attached to the preservation of that.

In 1619 and 1620, two mast docks were made at Chatham, each 120 feet long, 60 feet broad, and five ‘flowers’ deep, and six acres of ground were enclosed with them.[925] A further great extension followed in the shape of a lease from Sir Robert Jackson of 70 or 80 acres of land, called ‘Lordslands,’ on a term of 100 years at £14 a year. Part of this was used for a new dock, part for a ropehouse now put up, and part for brick and lime kilns, etc.[926] The dock cost £2342, and a path, 137 rods long, was made to it from Chatham church.[927] From a new road having been necessary it would seem to have been quite apart from any previously existing buildings. In 1623 another dock was building under the direction of the shipwrights, and the lease of a house on Chatham Hill, for the use of the Officers, bought from the Dean and Chapter of Rochester.[928] In 1614 the principal Officers were lodged at Winchester House as there is a charge of £138, 8s 6d for its repair for their use, and a rent of £70 a year was paid; stores were also kept there.

The chain, placed by Hawkyns across the Medway at Upnor, is not again referred to until 1606, when it was partly repaired and partly renewed. But some time before 1623 it must have become worn out, as in that year it was replaced by a boom made of sixteen masts and forty-three cwt. of iron with cordage proportionate, at a cost of £238, 10s 5d; the hulls of two ships and two pinnaces were also devoted to the strengthening of the barricade. At the same time the water-way through St Mary’s creek was again blocked at a cost of upwards of £400.[929] This boom must have been very light, and its history was short and unfortunate, for in 1624 it was broken by ice and carried out to sea. It must have been quickly replaced since, from an incidental reference it existed in 1625, and in 1635 two small vessels, the _Seven Stars_ and the _Moon_, were moored at each shore end for its protection. In the latter year it was said to be causing deposits of gravel and closing the fairway, and opinions oscillated between a new boom and an iron chain.

The dockyards shared the disorganisation of the other departments; notwithstanding the exposures of 1608 ten years later the storehouses at Deptford were said to be ‘full of rotten wood and bad cordage,’ the scales were light by one pound in the cwt., and while bad materials were knowingly received, the good were sold to boatswains and other ships’ officers at low prices. In 1624 Chatham yard remained uninclosed so that strangers came and took away timber, nails, or any portable article. In 1604 the stores at Deptford included 210 masts, 322 loads of timber, 41,000 feet of plank, 171 cables, 499 hawsers, 15 serviceable and 28 unserviceable anchors, 24 compasses, 40 bolts of canvas, 24,000 tree-nails, and many other articles down to ‘a decayed pitch pot,’ and it is likely that they were larger in number and better in quality at this date than at any time during the succeeding fifteen or sixteen years.[930] The value of Deptford yard was estimated at £5000, and it was at one time proposed to remove the whole plant to Chatham.[931]

So far as the staff were concerned the ‘ordinary’ of a dockyard included shipkeepers and inferior officers attached to ships lying up, Upnor Castle (for Chatham), clerical work, rents, watchmen, clerks, storekeepers, and the superior officers; the ‘extraordinary,’ shipwrights, carpenters, joiners, pumpmakers, sawyers, sailmakers, and bricklayers. In 1622 wages, per day, were: shipwrights 1s 2d to 2s; caulkers 7d to 2s; carpenters 1s 3d to 1s 10d; pumpmakers 1s 6d to 2s; joiners 1s 4d to 1s 8d; sailmakers 1s 8d; sawyers 1s 2d to 1s 4d; bricklayers 10d to 1s 6d; and labourers 8d or 9d.[932] All these men, except the labourers, had lodging money, varying from 5s 4d in the case of the master shipwrights to so small a sum as twopence, and probably as an allowance by the week.

[Sidenote: Ordnance and Ship Armament.]

The armament of ships was still very heavy for their tonnage and accounted in some measure for their rolling proclivities and the impossibility of obtaining a comparatively steady gun platform. Sometimes it was necessary to dismount some of the guns,

‘The _Dreadnought_ carries 36, yet four of them for seven
years have been buried in her ballast, as some are also in the
_Answer_ and other ships.’[933]

This stowage of the guns strained the vessel dangerously and caused leaks, and, as gravel ballast was still employed, an injury was a very serious matter from the difficulty in reaching the damaged part. The following gives the number of guns carried by some of the ships, and their weights:—[934]

+----------------------+-------+------+---------+---------+------+
| | Cannon| Demi | | Demi | |
| |Periers|Cannon|Culverins|Culverins|Sakers|
+----------------------+-------+------+---------+---------+------+
| | | | | | |
|_Prince Royal_ | 2 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 13 |
|_White Bear_ | 2 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 9 |
|_Merhonour_ | 2 | 6 | 12 | 12 | 8 |
|_Anne Royal_ | 2 | 5 | 12 | 13 | 8 |
|_Victory_ | 2 | 2 | 16 | 12 | 4 |
|_Swiftsure_ | 2 | 2 | 16 | 12 | 4 |
|_Constant Reformation_| 2 | 2 | 16 | 12 | 4 |
|_St George_ | 2 | 2 | 16 | 12 | 4 |
|_St Andrew_ | 2 | 2 | 16 | 12 | 4 |
|_Triumph_ | 2 | 2 | 16 | 12 | 4 |
|_Defiance_ | 2 | 2 | 14 | 12 | 4 |
|_Repulse_ | 2 | 2 | 14 | 12 | 4 |
+----------------------+-------+------+---------+---------+------+

+----------------------+-------+----------+-------+--------------------+
| | | | | |
| |Fawcons|Portpieces|Fowlers| Weight |
+----------------------+-------+----------+-------+--------------------+
| | | | |Tons cwts. qrs. lbs.|
|_Prince Royal_ | | 4 | | 83 8 0 21 |
|_White Bear_ | | 4 | | 77 9 3 23 |
|_Merhonour_ | | 4 | | 66 16 1 0 |
|_Anne Royal_ | | 4 | | 64 15 2 4 |
|_Victory_ | 2 | | 4 | 42 0 0 25 |
|_Swiftsure_ | 2 | | 4 | 46 8 0 19 |
|_Constant Reformation_| 2 | 4 | | 53 2 0 23 |
|_St George_ | 2 | 2 | 2 | 47 15 2 24 |
|_St Andrew_ | 2 | | 4 | 52 2 3 20 |
|_Triumph_ | 2 | | 4 | 50 10 1 21 |
|_Defiance_ | 2 | 4 | | 55 17 0 25 |
|_Repulse_ | 2 | | 4 | 52 7 0 1 |
+----------------------+-------+----------+-------+--------------------+

Comparison of the rebuilt ships with the armament they carried under Elizabeth is vitiated by the fact that we do not know whether they were again of the same size. If, as is possible, they were bigger there seems to have been a tendency to reduce the weight of ordnance—there is also an inclination towards greater uniformity.