Chapter XVI: Part I: The Seamen (2)

They were prophetic words, and as another illustration of the methods which were to secure the sailors’ love and loyalty we find in October, among the notes of business to be considered by the Lords of the Admiralty, ‘poor men’s petitions presented above six months, and never read.’ Mutiny had become merely a form of protest, and captains looked forward to it as only a sign of dissatisfaction. One of them writes to Nicholas that his crew are in ‘an uproar’ about their offensive beer, and that if he finds no fresh supply at Plymouth he is sure of a mutiny;[1017] another commander was forced to pawn his spare sails and anchors to buy food for his men.[1018] Apsley died in 1630, leaving his affairs deeply involved, the crown still owing him large sums. His coadjutor, and then sole successor, Sir Sampson Darell, did not fare better at the hands of the government, although his requirements were so much less. In June 1632 he informed Nicholas that he would be unable to continue victualling unless he was paid, having raised all the money he could on his own estate.[1019] If he received anything on account it was evidently not enough to insure permanent improvement, since a year later we hear that the cruisers are ‘tied by the teeth’ in the Downs for want of provisions.[1020] During these years the debts incurred from the early expeditions of the reign were being slowly discharged, and the scantiness of the available resources for fresh efforts is shown by the way Pennington complains that six or seven weeks of preparation were needed to collect three months’ victuals for four ships.[1021]

From the absence of references in the State Papers to the non-payment of wages it would seem as though they were now paid with comparative regularity, but the expressions of disgust at the quality of the provisions are as continuous and vigorous as before. Besides methods of cheating in the quantities served out, for which the victuallers and pursers were answerable, ‘the brewers’—of course with the connivance of the victuallers—‘have gotten the art to sophisticate beer with broom instead of hops, and ashes instead of malt, and (to make it look the more lively) to pickle it with salt water, so that while it is new it shall seem to be worthy of praise, but in one month wax worse than stinking water.’[1022] The same writer says that the English were the unhealthiest of all ships, in consequence of the practical application of the proverb that ‘nothing will poison a sailor.’ Then he laments that English mariners, formerly renowned for patience and endurance, were now physically weak, impatient, and mutinous—and blames the sailor for the change.

[Sidenote: The Ship-money Fleets.]

The first systematic issue of ship-money writs was in October 1634, and in the summer of 1635, the resulting fleet was at sea. As usual the provisions were an unfailing source of indignation, and Lindsey, who was in command, told the Lords Commissioners that much of the beef was so tainted that when it was moved ‘the scent all over the ship is enough to breed contagion.’ The crews were made up with watermen and landsmen ignorant of their work, and many were weak and sickly; three men-of-war and several of the hired merchantmen were quite disabled by the sickness on board them.[1023] A special matter of complaint was the large number of volunteers and their servants who went for a harmless summer cruise on Lindsey’s ships. That they were useless and in the way was of less importance than that officers were aggrieved by finding their cabins taken from them to house these people in comfort, and that the seamen were irritated by seeing the idlers given the first choice of food, having to wait for their own till the visitors were served.[1024] If the greater part of the beef was fetid, and the officers and volunteers had right of selection, what could have been left for the men?

Apparently the sailors had as little liking as ever for the royal service, since, in 1636, the old difficulties were renewed in obtaining seamen for the second ship-money fleet under Northumberland. In April the men were said to be continually running away; in June out of 250 men turned over from the _Anne Royal_ to the _St Andrew_ 220 deserted.[1025] When Northumberland returned in the autumn, typhus was rife in his squadron, and Mervyn reported that the men ‘in this weather fall sick for want of clothing, most of them barefoot and scarcely rags to hide their skins.’[1026] Northumberland, not content with merely commanding in state, attacked the shortcomings of the naval administration furiously when he came ashore. Many of his strictures relate to subjects to be noticed, subsequently, but concerning the men he said that they were incapable both bodily and in their knowledge of seamanship; that out of 260 men in the _James_ not more than twenty could steer, that in the _Unicorn_ there was hardly a seaman besides the officers, that nearly one-third of the _Entrance’s_ crew had never been to sea, and that of 150 men in the last-named ship only twelve could take the helm.[1027] The provisions, he said, were bad and meagre, and the men defrauded of a fourth or fifth of their allowance. Moreover sick men must either be kept on board ‘or turned ashore in danger of starving, not to be received into any house, so as some have been seen to die upon the strand for lack of relief.’

Such was the tender care monarchy by divine right, with its paraphernalia of Commissioners and Lords of the Admiralty, vouchsafed to that class of its subjects which happened to be voiceless and helpless. But if the coming struggle between divine right and capitalist right was to render the sailor’s assistance valuable, and temporarily improve his position, the experience of succeeding generations was to show that to him it made little difference whether life and health were sacrificed under the stately forms of monarchical procedure, or by the more obviously sordid processes of mercantile traffic. There was no ‘glorious revolution’ for men whose welfare depended on a legislature influenced by merchants and shipowners, and ignoble with the soulless ethics of the eighteenth century.

[Sidenote: Victualling.]

According to official documents the victualler, Sir Sampson Darell, must have died not long after Apsley, as his accounts for five years are passed by his executrix.[1028] The absence of professional control did not probably cause any extra mismanagement; at any rate no murmurs are heard on that score. It is impossible to say now whether Apsley was a victim, or only received his deserts, in having claims for £69,436 in 1626 and £94,985 in 1627 rejected because his books were signed by only three instead of four Commissioners and on account of insufficient particulars. As they were not finally refused until 1637 his representatives were allowed plenty of time to prove their case. In February 1637 John Crane, ‘chief clerk of our kitchen,’ was made Surveyor of marine victuals, his appointment dating from 20th Nov. 1635. The allowance of drink and solid food was the same as in the last century, and sugar, rice, and oatmeal were medical luxuries theoretically provided for sick men in the 1636 fleet, on the equipment of which Northumberland expressed such trenchant criticisms. Crane undertook the victualling at the rate of eightpence halfpenny a man per day at sea, and sevenpence halfpenny in harbour, but in March 1638 he gave the necessary year’s notice to terminate his contract.[1029] He found that during 1636 and 1637 he had lost a penny three farthings a month on each man, and owing to the general rise in prices, anticipated a further loss of as much as 3s 4¾d a head, per month, in 1638. He entreated an immediate release from his bargain, or he would be ruined, and he had thirteen children. In all these memorials one invariably finds that the petitioner possesses an enormous family.

In 1637 the Earl of Northumberland was again at sea in what Sir Thomas Roe expected would be ‘one turn to the west in an honourable procession,’ and the Earl himself wrote, ‘No man was ever more desirous of a charge than I am to be quit of mine.’[1030] He was, however, the first competent admiral among the nobility that Charles had been able to find. From the absence of any accounts of mutiny and disorder we may take it that either the men were better treated this year or that the superior officers were tired of complaining. In 1638 Northumberland was ill, and all the work the ship-money fleet did was to convoy two powder-laden vessels through the ships blockading Dunkirk.[1031]

[Sidenote: Discipline.]

We have seen that men like Pennington and Mervyn had not the heart to punish for insubordination under the circumstances of privation which made their crews seditious and disobedient, and the normal discipline on a man-of-war was, in all likelihood, sufficiently lax. Some of the regulations, however, if they were carried out, were strict enough, although they will compare favourably with the bloodthirsty articles of war of the succeeding century, and they show some difference from previous customs. Prayer was said twice daily, before dinner and after the psalm sung at setting the evening watch, and any one absent was liable to twenty-four hours in irons. Swearing was punished by three knocks on the forehead with a boatswain’s whistle, and smoking anywhere but on the upper deck, ‘and that sparingly,’ by the bilboes. The thief was tied up to the capstan, ‘and every man in the ship shall give him five lashes with a three-stringed whip on his bare back.’ This is, I think, the first mention of any form of cat. The habitual thief was, after flogging, dragged ashore astern of a boat and ignominiously dismissed with the loss of his wages. For brawling and fighting the offender was ducked three times from the yardarm, and similarly towed ashore and discharged; while for striking an officer he was to be tried for his life by twelve men, but whether shipmates or civilians is not said.[1032] If a man slept on watch three buckets of water were to be poured upon his head and into his sleeves, and any one except ‘gentlemen or officers’ playing cards or dice incurred four hours of manacles. It is suggestive to read that ‘no man persume to strike in the ship but such officers as are authorised.’[1033]

There was no specially prepared fleet in 1639, but in October Pennington was in command of a few ships in the Downs, watching the opposed Dutch and Spanish fleets also lying there. Both he and Northumberland had pressed the King, but in vain, for instructions as to his course of action in certain contingencies. At last directions were given him that in the event of fighting between them he was to assist the side which appeared to be gaining the day, a manner of procedure which Charles doubtless thought was dexterous diplomacy, but which most students of the international history of his time will consider as ignominious as it was futile. The Dutch attacked the Spaniards as they were taking in 500 barrels of gunpowder, supplied with the connivance of the English government[1034]—again Charles’s trading instincts were too strong—drove a score of their vessels ashore, and scattered the remainder. Unfortunately Pennington, instead of also attacking the Spaniards, fired into the Dutch, who did not reply.[1035]

[Sidenote: The Seamen and the Civil War.]

During 1640 and 1641 Charles was fully occupied with his Scotch and parliamentary difficulties, and naval business was again falling into disorder. In July 1641 Northumberland tells Pennington that he does not see how the insubordination the latter reports is to be remedied, as there is no money with which to pay wages.[1036] In October Sir William Russell, one of the Treasurers of the Navy, had been a long time out of town, and the other, Sir Henry Vane (the younger), ‘seeing there is no money in the office, never comes near us.’ Perhaps it was not altogether displeasing to the parliamentary leaders that, in view of the arbitrament towards which King and Parliament were tending, the seamen should be rendered discontented and rebellious. In January 1642, 2000 sailors offered their services and protection to Parliament, and when, in July, the King appointed Pennington, and Parliament Warwick, to the command of the fleet, the men in the Downs, apparently without any hesitation, followed Warwick, although the former must have had with them the influence of a trusted and favourite officer. In several instances the crews of ships on outlying stations forced their captains to submit, or put their royalist officers ashore and themselves took charge. It is difficult to speak with absolute certainty, but an examination of the data available leads to the conclusion that only one small vessel, the _Providence_, adhered to the royal cause.

We need not conclude that this unanimity implied any deep feeling about the general misgovernment of Charles or the important constitutional questions at issue. The sailor, contrary to the impression apparently prevailing among feminine novelists, is usually an extremely matter-of-fact individual, with the greater portion of his attention fixed on the subjects of his pay and food. All he could associate with the crown were memories of starvation and beggary, of putrid victuals fraught with disease, and wages delayed, in payment of which, when he at last received them, he found a large proportion stick to the hands of minor officials. The Parliament paid him liberally and punctually, and he, on his side, served it honestly and well. For him was not necessary—perhaps he was not capable of feeling—the curious psychical exaltation of the ‘New Model,’ but in a steady, unimaginative way, without much enthusiasm but without a sign of hesitation, he kept his faith and did more to destroy royalist hopes than historians, with few exceptions, have supposed. Under the administration of the Navy Committee there were no recurrences of the confusion and unruliness which had before existed, and until the Rainsborow mutiny of 1648, speedily repented, the seamen showed no symptom, for six years, of discontent or of regret for the part they had chosen.

[Sidenote: Parliament and the Seamen.]

Without feeling an indignation which would have been in advance of their age at the hardships and dishonesty of which the sailor had been the victim, the position of the parliamentary chiefs compelled them to treat him with a discreet consideration. He was fed decently; wages were raised to nineteen shillings a month, and were given in full from the date of his joining his ship, instead of from that of its sailing; and an attempt was made to raise a sufficient number of men without impressment, the officers responsible being only directed ‘to use their best persuasion.’[1037] Seamen, however, had been too long accustomed to compulsion to enter into the principles of voluntaryism, and an act allowing pressing and punishing contumacy with three months’ imprisonment, must have been received by them as something they could understand.[1038] The utter absence of difficulties or remonstrances during the years of the civil war shows how smoothly the naval administration worked, and Parliament appeared to place even more reliance on the sailors than on their officers, since on 18th Oct. 1644, Warwick issued a proclamation ordering that ‘none shall obey the commands of their superior officers ... if the same commands be tending towards disloyalty towards the Parliament.’ This was a dangerous power to place in the hands of the men, unless it was felt that their discipline and fidelity could be depended upon.

The late Mrs Everett Green speaks of ‘the inherent loyalty of the sailors to their King,’[1039] making this remark in connection with, and as explanatory of, the difficulty experienced by the Council of State in obtaining men in 1653. I must confess that, notwithstanding the weight justly attaching to her opinions, I am quite unable to see during these years any sign of this loyalty. Under the government of Charles they had been compelled to serve by force, and had lost no opportunity of venting their anger and discontent; when the occasion came they eagerly and unanimously fought against the sovereign to whom they were supposed to be inherently loyal, without one instance of desertion or dissatisfaction of sufficient mark to be noticed in the State Papers. When a mutiny did at last occur it was due to circumstances connected not with the rights of the King, but with the narrower personal jealousies of naval command; it happened when the fighting was done, and, in all probability, would not have happened at all under the stress of conflict. During the Commonwealth they continued to serve the state under conditions of great strain and trial, which might well have tried men of greater foresight and self-control than seamen, without, with perhaps one exception, more than slight and unimportant outbursts of insubordination of a character which, allowing for the looser discipline of that time, occur to-day in all large standing forces. Whatever, at any time, their momentary irritation against the Parliament, it never took the form of loyalty to Charles II. It may be suggested that a more likely explanation of the difficulties of 1653 lies in the fact that the estimates required 16,000 men against the 3000 or 4000 sufficient for the fleets of Charles I.[1040] At the most liberal computation the returns of 1628,[1041] do not give, allowing for omissions, more than 18,000 men available for the royal and merchant marine; at least double that number would have been necessary to supply easily the demands of the two services in 1653. In no case under the Commonwealth did the men show that despairing recklessness of consequences which characterised their outbreaks between 1625 and 1642. More significant still is the fact that the savage fighting of the first Dutch war, against the most formidable maritime antagonist we have ever faced, was performed in a fashion very different from the perfunctory and half-hearted service rendered to Charles I. And it is a further curious illustration of their hereditary loyalty that while they endured much hardship and privation rather than serve either under Rupert or Tromp against the Commonwealth, we are told by Pepys that they manned the Dutch ships by hundreds—perhaps thousands—during the wars of Charles II.

If, on the other hand, we are to really believe that ‘inherent loyalty’ was continuously latent in the English sailor, what words are fitting for the selfish and reckless indifference to the simplest human rights which tortured him into twenty years of consistent rebellion? On sea as on land Charles’s misdeeds followed him home. In his days of power he had been deaf to the appeals of men who perished that he might attempt to be great, and to the cries of their suffering wives and children. In 1642 the sailors were deaf to his commands. What might—in all human probability would—have been the result after Edgehill if, during the winter of 1642-3, he had been able to blockade the Thames?

[Sidenote: Merchant Seamen.]

Private shipowners have always paid higher wages than the crown, and for several centuries the latter offered no compensatory advantages. From various chance allusions the rates of merchant seamen’s wages during this period are found to vary between 22s and 30s a month. The stores provided for them could not have been worse than those of a man-of-war; but they had special difficulties, peculiar to the merchant service, to expect when in private employment. In 1628 among their grievances they complained that they were liable to make good any damage done to cargo, even after it had left the ship, until it was safely stored in the merchant’s warehouse.[1042] In 1634 they petitioned, in view of the dulness of trade, that exportation of merchandise in foreign bottoms should be prohibited,[1043] but a year later a more important matter occupied their attention. All engagements were made by verbal contract, and it often happened at the end of the voyage that the owner disputed the terms, when the sailor was left helpless, having no proof to bring forward.[1044] Moreover, if, as frequently occurred, he was pressed out of a homeward bound vessel, his position was still more hopeless, while if he died at sea there was small chance of his family obtaining anything. In 1638 it was intended to form a Trinity House fund, on the plan of the Chatham Chest, for the benefit of merchant seamen and officers; one shilling a month was to be deducted for this purpose, from the wages of officers, and fourpence from the pay of the men, except those belonging to coasters, who were to give sixpence.[1045] The matter progressed so far that there was a proclamation issued in accordance with these views,[1046] but the scheme did not come into operation till 1694. In that year it was enforced in connection with Greenwich Hospital at the rate of sixpence a man; in 1747 this was raised to one shilling and so continued until 1834. The whole story belongs to a later volume, but the merchant sailor never received the least benefit from the levy extorted from his scanty earnings, and at a moderate computation was robbed of at least £2,500,000 during that period. But he helped to endow many fat sinecures and to thus support the Constitution.

If from one case referred to a court of law we may infer others, the form and amount of punishment on a trader was left to the discretion of the captain. On a Virginia ship an insubordinate boy was hung up by his wrists with 2 cwt. tied to his feet, with what results we are not told. The boy’s complaint came before Sir H. Martin, judge of the Admiralty court, who refused any redress, because of the necessary ‘maintenance of sea discipline.’[1047] But notwithstanding hard fare, hard usage, and sometimes doubtful wages, the position of the sailor on a merchantman was infinitely preferable to his fate when compelled to exchange it for a man-of-war. We meet with no instances of mutiny on merchant ships until they are hired by the crown, and the traditional hardihood and courage of the English seaman were always evinced when he was free of the crushing burden of the royal service. Sir Kenelm Digby, when commanding a squadron in the Mediterranean in 1628, noticed that while foreigners invariably ran from him, the English, without knowing his nationality, always stopped and prepared to fight ‘were they never so little or contemptible vessels.’[1048]

[Sidenote: The number available.]

With proper organisation there were sufficient men available at the beginning of the reign to have manned both the royal and merchant marine, as will be seen from the following returns made in 1628, but it is probable that the numbers did not increase much during subsequent years:—[1049]

+-------------------+--------+-----------+
| | Seamen | Fishermen |
+-------------------+--------+-----------+
|London | 3422 | 302 |
|Kent | 181 | 231 |
|Cinque Ports | 699 | 193 |
|Essex | 309 | 357 |
|Suffolk | 804 | 326 |
|Norfolk | 600 | 436 |
|Lincoln | 66 | 126 |
|Devon | 453 | 86 |
|Northumberland | 33 | 260 |
|Cumberland | 72 | |
|South Cornwall | 731 | 393 |
|North ” | 154 | 88 |
|South Wales | 753 | |
|Southampton and } | | |
| Isle of Wight } | 321 | 209 |
|Dorset | 958 | 86 |
|Bristol | 823 | |
+-------------------+--------+-----------+

There were 2426 watermen in London, also liable to impressment. Of the seamen two-thirds were at sea, one-third at home, their favourite abiding place being Ratcliff. Yorkshire, North Wales, Chester, and some parts of Sussex are omitted, and the figures for Northumberland cannot include the Newcastle coal traffic, which in 1626 employed 300 colliers;[1050] it may be, however, that their crews are reckoned in the London total.

In various ways, during the war time, Parliament showed its satisfaction with the work done by officers and men, and occasionally rewarded them by extra gratuities of a month’s pay, or presents of wine. Doubtless these donations were also in the nature of bribes on the part of a power without much historic prestige compared with its opponent, and depending for existence on the goodwill of men who served with a closer regard to pay than to sentiment; but that the parliamentary authorities considered their relations with the Navy fairly secure is shown by the fact that in 1645 they ventured to place the service under martial law.[1051] In 1647 wages, per month, were raised for officers, according to rates, as follows—[1052]

£ _s_ _d_ £ _s_ _d_
Captain 7 0 0 to 21 0 0
Lieutenant 3 10 0 ” 4 4 0
Master 3 18 8 ” 7 0 0
Master’s mate 2 2 0 ” 3 5 4
Pilot 2 2 0 ” 3 5 4
Carpenter 1 15 0 ” 3 3 0
Boatswain 1 17 4 ” 3 10 0
Gunner 1 15 0 ” 3 3 0

[Sidenote: The Chatham Chest.]

The Chatham Chest, founded by Hawkyns and others in 1590, for the relief and support of injured or disabled sailors, was not of so much use to them during these years as it should have been. The original contribution was sixpence a month from able, and fourpence from ordinary, seamen, with threepence from boys. In 1619 the gunners joined the fund, and from 1626 all, whether able and ordinary, seamen or gunners, were to pay sixpence.[1053] The sixpences were unfailingly deducted from their wages, but the distribution was more irregular. Every formality was employed for the safe custody of the money, and in 1625 an iron chest with five locks was ordered for this purpose, the keys to be kept by five representative officers of different grades, who could only open it when together, and who were to be changed every twelve months. As an illustration of the value of these precautions the Treasurer of the Navy, Russell, the very next year took £2600, out of the Chest with which to pay wages, subsequently excusing himself by the ‘great clamours’ then being made and the poverty of the state. He did not commence to return this money till 1631, and in 1636 £500 of it was still owing. Sir Sackville Crowe, when Treasurer between July 1627 and December 1629, took out £3000, and this sum, with the accruing interest, is regularly carried forward as a good asset till 1644, when there is a gap of ten years in the accounts, and in 1654 it no longer appears. From the character of the man it is very unlikely that he ever paid. In 1632 a commission of inquiry issued, but if any report was ever made it has not come down to us. In January 1636 the Chest had £542 in hand and possessed Chislett farm producing £160 a year,[1054] but it was said that its narrow resources were further depleted by money having ‘been bestowed on men that never were at sea.’

Sir John Wolstenholme and others were directed, in December 1635, to inquire into the administration, and their report was sent in by April 1637.[1055] The yearly receipts from land were now £205; since 1617, when there was £3145 in hand, £2580 had been received in rents and £12,600 from the sixpences. Out of this £3766 had been expended in purchasing land and £10,621 in relieving seamen; £159 remained in the Chest, and £3780 was owing to it. Of the £3780 some of the items went back to Elizabethan days, and Roger Langford, Sir Peter Buck, some of the master shipwrights, and two ladies were among the debtors. Between 1621 and 1625, inclusive, there was paid £1722 in gratuities and pensions, and between 1625 and 1629, £1372;[1056] as the first series were mostly peace, and the second war years, the men were either very successful in avoiding injury between 1625 and 1629 or, as is more likely, were defrauded of the benefits they could rightly claim. The result of the commission was that fresh rules, signed by Windebank, were shortly afterwards made, directing the Treasurer of the Navy to pay over the sixpences within one month of their deduction from wages, to make up the accounts yearly and ‘publish them to all the governors,’ that no pension was to exceed £6, 8s 4d a year, although an additional gratuity might be given, and that the keepers of the keys were to be changed yearly.[1057] As the last regulation was only a repetition of the one made in 1625, it is to be presumed that it had been previously ignored.

Neither now nor afterwards, neither in official papers nor in the sheaves of ephemeral publications which enlightened this and the succeeding century, does it seem, with one exception, to have entered into the minds of those who ruled or those who tried to teach that the cost of providing for the wants or age of men disabled by service should in justice fall upon the country they had spent their youth and health in protecting, instead of on an accident fund maintained from their own meagre earnings. The one government which in this, as in other matters, had a higher perception of its duties was that of Cromwell, and even here only in a limited sense. The host of pamphleteers who in the succeeding reigns lamented the condition of the royal and merchant marine, or aired their universal panaceas for its ills, only rang the changes on further methods for the exploitation of the seaman to the private profit of the shipowner and the general profit of the state. For him to carry the burden of empire was to be its own reward.

The only consecutive accounts preserved for this reign are contained in two volumes kept in the Museum at Greenwich.[1058] They extend from 14th April 1637 to 23rd April 1644, and, in round figures, give the following results:—

+-------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+----------------+
| | Owing |Received|Expended| Received | No. of |
| | to | | | from |Pensioners[1059]|
| | chest | | | land | |
| +-------+--------+--------+-----------+----------------+
| | £ | £ | £ | £ | |
|1637-8 | 3768 | 1545 | 1361 | 248 | 62 |
|1638-9 | 6215 | 1609 | 1215 | | 59 |
|1639-40 | 5600 | 1849 | 1364 | | 59 |
|1640-1 | 5200 | 2371 | 2019 | | 35 |
|1641-2 | 4800 | 2761 | 2635 | 479 | 55 |
|1642-3 | 4400 | 2108 | 1738 | | 60 |
|1643-4[1060] | 4400 | 1238 | 958 | | 61 |
|1644[1061] | 4400 | 845 | 483 | 321[1062]| |
+-------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+----------------+

We do not know on what principle donations were allowed, but, besides being slow and uncertain, gratuities were frequently dispensed by favour rather than by merit. In 1637 a man hurt in 1628 received £2, and Apslyn, a shipwright, had £5, 3s 4d, being compensation for the loss of his apprentice’s services during 62 days, a sort of loss certainly never intended to be indemnified by the founders of the Chest. The majority of the men on the pension list, had £5 or £6 each, but most of the payments to injured men were of a donative character not involving any further responsibility. Medical charges relating to the dockyards were also met from the Chest, a Chatham surgeon being paid £43, 1s 4d in 1638 for attending to shipwrights injured while working on the _Sovereign of the Seas_. The next year has a somewhat belated entry of £3 to Wm. Adam, barber-surgeon, ‘for sundry hurts and bruises received in Queen Elizabeth’s service,’ and again we find £33, 11s 4d paid to a Woolwich medical man for care of shipwrights injured in rebuilding the _Prince_; in 1640 surgeons were attached to the dockyards whose salaries of £40 a year were paid from the Chest money. The compensation for a bruise ranged from £1 to £2. Sometimes widows were granted burial money and a further small sum for ‘present relief,’ but never, apparently, pensions. A normally recurring item is a gift of £4, 10s a year to the almshouse founded by Hawkyns at Chatham, and with equal regularity there is an annual outlay of some £5 for the governors’ dinners.

However open to criticism may have been the administration of the Chatham Chest at this time, it was undoubtedly in a condition of ideal purity compared with the depths of organised infamy to which it sank during the eighteenth century.

[Sidenote: The Rainsborow Mutiny.]

The reign of Charles I commenced with mutinies; it ended in 1648 with another which deserves examination, since upon it some writers have based an inference of general unfaithfulness to the Parliament, while in reality, whatever conclusions may be deduced, that, so far as the bulk of the men were concerned, is not one of them. From the days of Elizabeth, when they were accustomed to be led by captains who were seamen by vocation and sometimes by descent, often of their own class, and who understood them and their wants, the men had shown an intense dislike to the landsmen who by a change of system in later years had been placed over them, who obtained their posts mainly by rank or influence, were ignorant of maritime matters, and were associated with a succession of disasters and years of abject misery. Manwayring, writing in the reign of James I, says that volunteers usually returned knowing as little as when they sailed, since the professional seamen hated them, and gentlemen generally, and would give no instruction. Another seaman attributed the disasters of the early years of the reign to the appointment of landsmen as captains and officers.[1063] The experiences of more recent years were not likely to have lessened that feeling.

During the war, therefore, the fleet had been commanded chiefly by admirals and captains who were trained seamen of no exceptional social position, but, judging from subsequent events, there must have been a sufficient leaven of landsmen in places of trust to keep alive the old prejudices. When, therefore, Wm. Batten, an experienced officer of many years’ standing, who was vice-admiral and commanding in the Channel, and who had done good service to the state, was displaced in 1647, and his responsible charge given to Colonel Rainsborow, who began actual control in January 1648, there was doubtless some murmuring, although no evidence of it has survived. Nothing occurred during the winter, and in May 1648 there were forty-one ships in commission, of which only three were commanded by military officers; but the appointment of Rainsborow may have been regarded, as it actually proved to be, as the commencement of a return to the old system. Moreover the Navy, generally, was presbyterian in feeling, while Rainsborow was a fanatical Independent and, judging from one of the accusations brought against him, does not appear to have exercised his authority with tact or discretion. In addition to this a certain amount of ill-feeling existed between the army and the Navy, the latter not being inclined to coerce the Parliament to the extent desired by the army, and Batten, in the ‘Declaration’ which explained his reasons for desertion, dwelt on the efforts of the army leaders ‘to flood the ships with soldiers.’ If the accusation was true, it would be a certain way, in the state of feeling between the two services, to give fresh life to the latent antagonism existing. We have no details of the workings of discontent which led up to action any more than we have of the secret cabals which preceded the Spithead mutiny of 1797, but in each case the outbreak was equally sudden. Towards the end of May the crews in the Downs put Rainsborow ashore, giving as their reasons:—

1st. The parliament of late grant commissions to the sea
commanders in their own names, leaving out the King. 2nd.
Several land-men made sea commanders. 3rd. The insufferable
pride, ignorance, and insolency of Col. Rainsborow, the late
vice-admiral, alienated the hearts of the seamen.[1064]

Rainsborow had made his mark as a soldier, but he was not a stranger to the sea, for he had commanded a man-of-war in 1643. It is noticeable that no complaints are made about their treatment by the government, about their pay or victuals, and succeeding events showed how little the great majority of the fleet were in sympathy with the grandiloquent threats of the ringleaders on the King’s behalf. Warwick was at once sent to resume the command of the fleet and adjust the differences existing. Whitelocke says that the men ‘sent for the Earl of Warwick’ and that ‘the Derby House Committee, to follow the humour of the revolters,’ directed Warwick to go, so that at this stage it is evident that having rid themselves of Rainsborow, they looked to Warwick rather than to Charles. We do not know what measures the earl took, but, in the last days of June, the crews of nine ships,[1065] perhaps terrified at finding they received such slight support from the others and fearing punishment, possibly also influenced by Batten, went over with him to the Prince of Wales in Holland. That so long an interval elapsed between the commencement of the revolt and their desertion shows how little the latter was at first contemplated.

It has been recently said: ‘While the army was so formidable the navy scarcely existed. The sailors generally were for the King. Many had revolted and carried their ships across to Charles II in Holland, while in the crews that remained disaffection prevailed dangerously.’ It would be difficult to mass more inaccuracies in so many words. There were forty-one fighting-ships actually at sea, a larger number than had been collected since the days of Elizabeth, and immeasurably superior as a fighting machine to anything which had existed since 1588. The ‘many’ which had revolted were nine, and of these three were small pinnaces of an aggregate of 210 tons and 180 men; of the others, one was a second and the rest third and fourth-rates. If ‘disaffection prevailed dangerously,’ it is strange that not only did none of the remaining ships join the revolters, but they were known to be ready to fight them, and Batten on one occasion avoided an action on account of ‘the very notable resistance’ to be expected.[1066] Instead of being disaffected, Warwick found that on board his own ship they prepared for fighting ‘with the greatest alacrity that ever I saw ... which, as the captains informed me, was likewise the general temper of the rest of the fleet.’ Finally the sailors in the Downs, who ‘generally were for the King’ and were actuated by ‘inherent loyalty,’ concurred in December in the Army Remonstrance, requiring that Charles I, ‘the capital and grand author of our troubles,’ should be brought to justice for the ‘treason, blood, and mischief’ he had caused. The after story of the revolted ships is just as instructive on the point of their disaffection to the Parliament. No sooner had they reached Holland than the men commenced to desert. By November five vessels had been brought back to England, and the ill-will manifested on the others was so pronounced that it was necessary to place strong bodies of cavaliers on board to keep the seamen in subjection.[1067]

The outburst would have been serious had it been general. It was confined to a small section of the naval force, was due to dissensions relating to men rather than principles, and gives small countenance to the view that the Navy repented the part it had taken. The loyalty of the majority and the speedy penitence of the minority were the best tests of the temper in which the Parliament was judged by those who upheld it afloat; and if the disaffected minority loved Rainsborow and his employers little they showed that they liked Charles Stuart less.

CHARLES I

1625-1649