Chapter XIX: Part III: The Administration (2)

Cordage (1625), £26, 13s 4d a ton.
” (1629), £32 a ton.
” (1631), £30 ”
” (1640), ” ”
Tar (1631), £8, 10s a last.
” (1635), £10, a last.
Rosin (1631), £13, a ton.
Train oil (1631), £20 a ton.
Crooked and straight timber (1631), £1, 10s a load.
Knee timber (1631), £2, 10s a load.
Elm ” ” £1 6s ”
” ” (1640), £1, 12s ”
” plank (1626), £1, 18s ”
Oak ” ” £2, 2s ”
” ” (1640), £3, 11s ”
French canvas (1635), £22 a bale.
Ipswich ” (1626), £1, 6s a bolt.
” ” (1635), £1, 10s a bolt.
Powder (1627), £5 a barrel.
” (1646), £4, 10s a barrel.
Round shot (1627), £11 a ton.
Musket shot (1627), £14 a ton.
Hammocks (1625), 2s each.
” (1642), 2s 7d each.
Anchors (1626), £1, 10s to £2 per cwt.
” (1631), £2 per cwt.
” (1640), £1, 13s per cwt.
Beer (1635), 28s to 34s the tun.
” (1646), 38s the tun.
Beef in 4-lb. pieces (1635), 9d and 10d the piece.
Pork in 2-lb. pieces (1635), 5d and 6d the piece.
Codfish (1635), £4, 3s the cwt.
Biscuit ” 13s and 14s the cwt.
Seamen’s clothes (1628):—[1271]
Shirts, 3s 4d each;
caps, 2s each;
cotton breeches, 2s 8d each;
stockings, 1s 4d a pair;
canvas suits, 6s each;
cotton waistcoats, 3s each.

THE COMMONWEALTH

1649-1660

[Sidenote: The Events of the Interregnum.]

Among the many social and political developments which characterised the era of the Commonwealth the most interesting, to the naval student, is the sudden expansion of our maritime power and the extension of its field of action. There was no previous experience to justify our rulers in supposing that the drain in men and money necessary to the support of a great navy—equal to that of the combined powers of Europe—could be borne by a state already exhausted by civil war; and it may well be that, although the sequence of events showed the maintenance of such a force not to be beyond the national capacity, the strain on the national resources between 1649 and 1660 was a large factor in creating the popular discontent which welcomed the return of the Stewarts.

Under Charles I the pecuniary resources of the crown were unequal to the construction of ships during war time, while the launch of one, or at the most two, a year in the time of peace was thought to be sufficient cause for legitimate pride and congratulation: under the Commonwealth they were ordered by tens at the time, and in one year—1654—twenty-two new men-of-war left the slips, besides the hired merchantmen in pay and the numerous prizes fitted out for naval service. Under Charles the preparation of a single fleet for a peaceful summer cruise in the narrow seas necessitated a previous year of preparation, while the coasts were supposed to be sufficiently protected by the occasional presence of a few small vessels: under the Commonwealth, besides a powerful reserve kept in the Downs ready for immediate action, besides the numerous cruisers patrolling the coasts, we find for the first time that Mediterranean station which has played so great a part in English history occupied in force, a moderately strong West Indian squadron, and the small beginning of the North American station. The rulers of the Commonwealth only did, so far as home waters were concerned, what Charles vaguely desired to do with the Navy; but the wildest dreams of Charles never pictured the permanent Mediterranean and West Indian fleets.

It usually happens in statesmanship that administrative or executive development on any particular line is due rather to circumstances than intention, and the history of the republican Navy is an illustration of this rule. At the close of the civil war it was proposed to reduce the naval establishments, and measures were being already taken to that effect when the Rainsborow mutiny occurred. The escape of Rupert from Kinsale with the fleet, of which three of the revolted ships formed the nucleus, together with the encouragement his presence at sea gave to individual privateering, necessitated an immediate and large increase in the Navy, which then had to protect the trade routes as well as chase or blockade him. Rupert’s career made it obvious that the area of the civil war had widened, and that henceforth it would be the duty of the Navy to deal with the enemies of the republic at the circumference of the circle, its internal foes being helpless without aid from abroad. How little those in power anticipated the changes a few years were to effect in our maritime strength, and how doubtfully they regarded the means available to contend even with Rupert, they themselves frankly tell us. In June 1649 they congratulated themselves that they had a fleet at sea such as they scarcely hoped for or their enemies expected, but ‘how the Commonwealth will be able to continue the same in successive years is not easy to evidence.’[1272] But the episode of Rupert was followed by the more expensive Dutch and Spanish wars, both of which required the existence of large fleets at sea and an ample reserve, and their sequel in the prolonged visits of Blake and his successor, Stokes, to the Mediterranean, from which we may date the reappearance of England as a European power.

The crucial difficulty of finance, which had wrecked the designs of Charles I, presented fewer obstacles to Parliament and the Protector. By means of the monthly assessments, delinquents’ compositions, sale of lands, excise, and other methods, the sum of £95,000,000 is declared to have been raised between 1642 and 1660.[1273] This gives an average of upwards of five and a quarter millions a year, against far less than a million a year raised by Charles, and, even allowing for the cost of the army and the debts incurred during the civil war, enables us to understand the comparative ease with which the heavy naval expenses were met at first by the government, and why outbreaks of discontent on the part of the men were few, and at once easily appeased by the payment of wages which had been allowed to become too long over-due. The financial system of the Commonwealth was reckless and improvident, inasmuch as it largely consisted in living on capital by the alienation of private or corporate property which, if confiscated, should have been held to the profit of the state; but probably no system of taxation alone could have met the demands of the army and Navy during those years. Not only the naval but every other branch of the administration was overwhelmed with debt in 1660.

[Sidenote: The Dutch War.]

By far the most important event of the interregnum was the Dutch War, since our success in that struggle shaped the future course of English commercial development and, in its results, caused English fleets to be henceforward influential factors in continental politics. Although the conditions were, in reality, not at all unequal, an attack made on the richest and greatest maritime power in the world by a nearly bankrupt state which, with the exception of the passable success of 1596, had failed in every important naval enterprise undertaken since 1588, and which in that year had only succeeded—so far as the fruits of victory were concerned—by the chance of wind and wave and the aid of the very nation now assailed, must have seemed to many contemporaries a more than hazardous venture. When success seemed to be definitely inclining towards this country, the _Weekly Intelligencer_ of 7th June 1653 soberly remarked that ‘our generals ... were the first who have made it known that the Dutch are to be overcome by sea.’ The relative position of England and the United Provinces was very similar to that of England and France at present or recently—on the one hand a country with a great commerce and a great navy, but a navy which, in the nature of things, could only bear a percentage relation to the vast pecuniary interests it was required to protect and the extent of sea it was called upon to traverse; on the other a power which, with far less at stake commercially, had for years been expending on its naval establishments a sum which must have equalled or exceeded the total value of its merchant marine,[1274] whose fleets had been yearly increased, and whose seamen had been freshly trained by ten years of warfare. How ruinous the war was to Dutch commerce may be measured from the fact that between 27th July 1652 and 8th March 1653 Dutch prize goods were sold, probably much below the normal market values, for £208,655, 3s 11d.[1275] For Holland then, as would be the case for England now, it was not sufficient to merely hold her own, for anything short of absolute maritime supremacy is ruin to a nation whose existence depends on an unlimited carrying trade and the unchecked export and import of material. The Dutch did not hold their own, but their flag was by no means driven off the seas, and the Dutch navy certainly not incapable of further action, when the miseries undergone by a teeming population brought the republic to its knees in 1654.

Many circumstances and conditions coincided in weakening the position of the United Provinces. Their share in the thirty years’ war, being almost entirely confined to land operations, had resulted in attention being devoted to the army at the expense of the navy, which had seen little real service since the conclusion of the truce with Spain in 1609. The country was distressed by the economies rendered necessary by the heavy public debts, and was yet suffering from the results of a great commercial crisis experienced in 1646-7.[1276] While in England faction was, for the time, crushed, in Holland the attempts of the stadtholder William II in 1650 and 1651 to seize supreme power had given rise to personal and political animosities which had outlived their author, and which are said to have had a disastrous influence on the way some of the higher Dutch officers did their duty. But it was on the side of the _personnel_ and administrative systems of the two countries that a comparison is so favourable to England. The naval organisation of the Dutch republic was directed by five distinct admiralty boards, each exercising separate control, preparing its own ships, appointing its own officers, and depending for co-ordinate action on the limited, and frequently disputed, authority of the states-general. As might have been expected, this system failed even to curb the Dunkirkers, from whom the Dutch suffered nearly as much as did the English[1277].

Never, on the other hand, so far as administration was concerned, had England been better prepared for war. Instead of officials who, as in the preceding half-century, owed their posts to court influence, to purchase, or to seniority, the work was in the hands of men chosen for business aptitude and who, in most instances, had given proof of higher qualifications on the field of battle or in parliamentary committees. Of the latter class was the Admiralty Committee; but the Navy Commissioners, and especially those Commissioners in charge of the dockyards, on whom fell most of the duty of organisation, were officers who had been taught by actual warfare. Prompt, capable, honest, and energetic, sparing themselves neither in purse nor person, and frequently bringing religious fervour as a spur to their daily service, they conveyed to war on another element the same thoroughness and zeal which had made them victorious on land.

Victory in the civil war had only been gained when a weak and hesitating commercialism, scared at its own audacity, and longing for a settlement that would secure its own liberties at whatever sacrifices of the hopes and consciences of others, had been steel-edged by Puritan vigour. The men of that stern mental and moral creed were now in authority throughout the kingdom and wielding its resources. Pitted against a nation of lower ideals, sleekly prosperous, whose national genius had for years tended more and more to take the one groove of trade, unwrought and unpurified by the searchings of soul that all thinking Englishmen must have gone through in those years, all the spiritual elements of success were on the side of England.

Never, before or since, were the combatant branches of the Navy so well supported. As a rule our seamen have had to beat the enemy afloat in spite of the Admiralty ashore, but here they had every assistance that foresight and earnestness could give. As a result of the political troubles of 1650 and 1651 many of the oldest and most experienced of the Dutch captains had been dismissed as adherents of the house of Orange, and their places filled by men of whose cowardice and incapacity bitter complaints were made by their admirals. The English captains were officers practised by years of sea experience, or soldiers who brought their traditions of hard fighting to bear in a fresh field. The United Provinces had perhaps four times as many seamen as a reserve to draw upon; but, ill paid and ill fed,[1278] devoted to peaceful pursuits, and frequently discontented with the mercantile oligarchy governing them, the men, although once in action they fought well, did not give that almost enthusiastic service which characterised the Englishmen.

The news sheets of 1652-3 usually take the goodwill of the men for granted, and this silence is itself significant; but occasionally actual references are made, and these references, even if inventions, may be taken as indicative of the spirit with which the men were reputed to be imbued. They had for the Dutch that hatred their fathers felt for Spaniards, and, for the first time for many years, they found themselves well treated[1279]—comparatively punctually paid, properly clothed, well fed, cared for when sick or wounded, and promised advantages in the shape of prize money never previously allowed. What wonder they served the Commonwealth, during its earlier years, as the crown had never been served since the days of Elizabeth?

In number of ships England, even at the outbreak of the war, was not so ill-matched as has been supposed. ‘You never had such a fleet as in the Long Parliament,’ said Haselrig on one occasion,[1280] and political necessities had as yet prevented any decrease in the strength maintained up to 1648. During 1649-51 the magazines were kept well supplied and forty-one new ships were added to the Navy list, practically doubling its effective; besides these were the hired merchantmen in pay, or recently discharged, and manned by trained crews accustomed to work together. According to some accounts the Dutch navy had been allowed to fall to so low a number as fifty men-of-war, and, although merchantmen were taken into the service, their crews, hurriedly got together and new to their surroundings, were no match, so far as skill went, for their opponents. Throughout the war the Dutch, although they possessed many more ships, never succeeded in sending to sea any materially larger fleets than ours. Fifteen hundred prizes are said to have been taken from them during the war, a number at least double the whole ocean-going merchant marine of England.[1281] If they possessed more vessels a far larger proportion of them were unfit for battle, and if ours were slower under sail they were more solidly built and more heavily armed, advantages which told in days when tactics were elementary, and when, for the first time for a century, English seamen tried to fight yardarm to yardarm.[1282] Yet another circumstance was most fortunate for England; for a greater part of the year the prevailing winds gave us the weather-gage and the choice of attack. Dutch merchant fleets returning from the westward had to run the gauntlet of the south coast, and some of the most desperate actions of the war were fought on account of—and hampered by—considerations for the safety of these convoys. If they took the long and dangerous route round Scotland, they were still liable to capture when almost within sight of home. It will be seen, if these views are correct, that almost the sole advantage held by the United Provinces was one of finance, and that, although it might have caused political difficulties or revolt under a monarchy, had no immediate influence in a country held down by a victorious army.

[Sidenote: Prize Money.]

Charles I fell, throughout his reign, into the error of supposing that, if ships and guns were provided, devotion to his person would ensure loyalty and spontaneous service on the part of the men. He found, in 1642, that seamen are not sentimental, and that their sense of duty drew them towards the best paymasters. That perception of their own best interests, which had impelled the Long Parliament throughout the civil war to treat the seamen liberally, had still stronger reasons for existence in the years following 1648 when the maintenance, possibly of the republic, certainly of peace at home, depended on the action of the fleet. Throughout the history of the Navy any improvement in the position of the man-of-war’s man is found to bear a direct relation to the momentary needs of the governing classes, and in 1649 the necessity of dealing with Rupert at once woke the tender conscience of the Council to some further improvements that might be made in his condition. Gibson, who was all through the war, says that ‘from the year 1641 the bread and beer was of the best for fineness and goodness;’ but fresh orders were issued by the Council of State to find out and prosecute any agents supplying victuals of bad quality. Hitherto Lent had been strictly kept, being pecuniarily advantageous to the crown as well as spiritually profitable to the men, although physically ‘of much discontent to them;’ in future its observance was to cease, as was also the abatement of food on Fridays, ‘being begotten by the covetous desires of the contractors for victuals, though coloured with specious pretence of abstinence and religion.’[1283]

Besides raising their pay the Council also desired that ‘all just satisfaction be given to seamen, and that they reap all the benefit of the act passed for their encouragement in distribution of prize goods,’ and expressed themselves as anxious to appoint persons acceptable to the men as commissioners of prize goods.[1284] The act referred to, passed in February 1649, amplified and fixed authoritatively the merely parliamentary resolution of October 1642, which gave the men, beyond their wages, one-third of the value of a prize. Directed especially at Rupert’s squadron and Stewart privateers, the new act gave the officers and men of a state’s or hired ship one-half the value of a man-of-war captured; the other half went to a fund for the relief of sick and wounded and the wives and children of those killed, while if the enemy was destroyed they were to be paid at the rate of from £12 to £20 a gun, according to the size of the pieces it had on board. The net proceeds, after condemnation in the Admiralty Court and sale of goods, of a merchantman taken by a man-of-war were to be divided into three parts, of which one went to the officers and men, one to the fund for sick and wounded, and one to the state. If the merchantman were prize to a hired ship in the state’s service, two-thirds went, as before, to the crew and the sick fund, but the remaining third was divided into two parts, of which one was taken by the owners of the ship, and the other by the state. The tenths which had formerly been a perquisite of the Lord Admiral were now to be devoted to rewards and medals; and owners of English ships recaptured from an enemy had to pay one-eighth of the value of vessel and cargo as salvage.

Doubtless both Parliament and the executive intended to work this enactment loyally, but the needs of the treasury overcame their good intentions, and the delay in the distribution of prize money was a chronic source of discontent. Therefore from 1st January 1653 a new scheme came into operation, which gave ten shillings a ton for every ton the prize, whether merchantman or man-of-war, measured, and £6, 13s 4d for every gun she carried; for every man-of-war destroyed, £10 a gun; and the Lord Admiral’s tenths were to be devoted to the sick and wounded and the relief of widows and orphans.[1285] These distributions were to be made by the collectors of prize goods three days after payment of wages, a regulation which must have savoured of irony to those who were waiting, sometimes years, for wages. For the moment, however, the sailor was considered in every possible way, and, in May, Blake and his colleagues were ordered always to exchange prisoners if possible, ‘as it will tend much to the satisfaction of the seamen when they see that care is had of them.’[1286] Matters progressed smoothly enough till the Dutch war strained our finance desperately, and from 1648 till May 1653 there are but two instances of insubordination to be found.[1287]

When the Dutch war broke out the want of men was greater than the want of ships, and it was decided to press all seamen between fifteen and fifty years of age, a ticket being given to each man with his three halfpence a mile conduct money, specifying his physical appearance, and which he was called upon to present at the port where he joined his ship.[1288] Attempts were made to keep crews in the service by carrying forward thirty shillings of each man’s wages when he was paid off; but this, wrote the Navy Commissioners, caused ‘so much clamour and discontent that we are scarce able to stay in the office.’[1289] Under James and Charles the men had been glad to get any pay at all, and they probably strongly objected to any proceeding which was by way of a return to old customs. Eventually, however, the government did this and more, for a couple of years later it was customary to keep three months’ pay in hand if the men were turned over to another ship.

[Sidenote: The Articles of War.]

A long step in advance towards the future discipline of the Navy was made in 1652, when, on 25th December, the House of Commons enacted the first articles of war to which the service had ever been subjected, and which were grounded on some regulations for the government of Warwick’s fleet passed by the House in March 1648-9.[1290] These articles have escaped the notice of writers upon naval law, who begin their history of the subject with those passed in 1661; these latter, however, were only based upon those previously existing, which are the groundwork of all subsequent modifications and additions experience has shown to be necessary down to the present day. They were thirty-nine in number, and, so far as paper penalties were concerned, were rigorous enough. No punishment was adjudged for the infraction of the first article relating to the due performance of divine service; and the thirty-ninth is only a vague reference to offences not mentioned in the preceding articles, and which were punishable according to the ‘laws and customs of the sea.’ Of the remaining thirty-seven thirteen carried the infliction of death unconditionally, and twelve that of death or lesser punishment, according to sentence of court-martial, or court of war, as it was then called.

The parliamentary bark seems to have been much more ferocious than its bite since, in all the numerous courts-martial mentioned in the State Papers and elsewhere, there is no instance to be found in which the death sentence was carried out, and very few in which it was pronounced. Moreover precautions were taken against the exercise of tyranny by inferior officers, inasmuch as the promulgation of the code was accompanied by an order that the accused was only to be tried for serious offences in the presence of a flag officer, and that no finding involving life or limb was to be carried out without the approval of the Generals or the senior officer in command; and as trifling charges were to be heard before the captain and seven officers of the ship in which the offence was committed the offender had a fair chance of an impartial trial. Very soon after the Restoration this regulation fell into abeyance and prisoners obtained justice—too often Jeddart—at the hands of the captain alone. Only one case of a really severe sentence on foremast men is to be found. In December 1653, in the middle of the war, six seamen of the _Portland_ were found guilty of inciting to mutiny and were sentenced to death. This was commuted, so far as three were concerned, to thirty lashes apiece, and for the other three to stand one hour with their right hands nailed to the mainmast of the flagship with halters round their necks.[1291] There is no record of the infliction of such severe punishment by any other court-martial.

As might be expected in a mercantile community the thirty-fifth article, relating to convoy duty, was the longest and most explicit. Under Henry VIII, and later, convoy money had been a legal charge; recently it had become difficult to obtain convoy protection at all, and when given owners and captains had been exposed to vexatious and illegal demands. Now, any man-of-war captains not performing such duty thoroughly and efficiently, and defending ‘the ships and goods in their convoy without either diverting to other parts and occasions, or refusing or neglecting to fight in their defence if they be set upon or assailed, or running away cowardly, and submitting those in their convoy to peril and hazard,’ were to make good to the owners any pecuniary loss so caused. As, in the case of a valuable cargo and a penniless naval captain, such a sentence might be equivalent to escaping scot-free, death was also added as a possible punishment. Any captain or officer demanding or receiving a gratuity was to be cashiered. From 19th October 1649 the House had resolved that convoy should henceforth be provided without charge, and in 1650 the east coast fishermen were gratefully acknowledging the benefits resulting. Matters, however, did not progress altogether smoothly. Sometimes merchantmen were independent, and when the government provided men-of-war for the Mediterranean, would not ‘stay half a day’ to obtain their protection.[1292] But when the owners belonging to Poole, Weymouth, Dartmouth, and Plymouth united, nine months later, in begging for a stronger guard than usual to Newfoundland the Council recommended them to defer sending a fleet till next year, as a convoy could not be spared.[1293] From other papers the truth seems to have been that, although a vessel or two could have been found for the work, the Council desired to obtain for national purposes the men who would have manned the merchantmen.

The option of sailing with or without convoy was not always left to the discretion of owners. In February 1653 the Council sent orders to some of the eastern ports that no vessel was to sail without protection, for which preparations were being made; but in July the owners of three ships destined for the Mediterranean petitioned for leave to send them without the escort, which had been twice promised during sixteen months of delay, and of which there was still no sign. Criticism must take into account the fact that these things were happening during the strain of a great war and that under ordinary circumstances, or when merely at war with Spain, there was no want of promptness in the action of the authorities. On 25th February 1656 Hull petitions for a convoy, and on the 29th it is ordered; Newcastle on 10th February 1657 obtains an order the same day. In January 1660 twenty-five ships were on convoy duty, one being sent down to St Helena to meet the returning East Indiamen (this had been for some years customary), two to the Canaries, and four to the Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: Wages.]

The articles of war seem in this generation to have troubled the sailors but little, since, in nearly every instance, we find officers the prisoners before the court. A court-martial would not enable the Treasurer to pay wages and prize money too long over-due, or silence men of whom one, who knew them well, said that they were ‘an unruly and untamed generation,’ and that he found ‘no hope to satisfy them without their full pay.’[1294] But there are signs that, notwithstanding delays in payment, the men gave heartier obedience to the Commonwealth than they had given to the crown under similar circumstances. On one occasion 180 men were sent down to join the _Fairfax_, but, not finding their raw shipmates already on board to their liking, announced that they would not go to sea ‘to do those men and boys’ work for them.’ But instead of attempting to desert they betook themselves to other ships.[1295] Three months afterwards the Navy Commissioners received the welcome news that the men were coming in ‘cheerfully and in great numbers since the publication of the late encouragement to them,’[1296] and from some places they were coming up as volunteers. From Dover and Deal came the information that the new arrangements were ‘much liked,’ and that the greater number of the men were willing to serve.[1297] Commissioner Peter Pett reported from Chatham that he found ‘the seamen in general to be very tractable and complying, and begin to attend to their duties handsomely.’

So far as wages were concerned, the encouragement spoken of related to the increased pay which took effect from 1st Jan. 1653. During the civil war the rate had been 19s a month; in the fleets sent against Rupert it had been raised to 25s for that particular service, and it was now to be 24s for able seamen (‘fit for helm and lead, top and yard’), 19s for ordinary, and 14s 3d for gromets,[1298] and 9s 6d for boys. Each man’s capacity was to be marked on his wages ticket when paid off, the first sign of the present discharge note. As a further inducement, by an order of 29th Jan. 1653, 20 men in first-, 16 in second-, 12 in third-, 8 in fourth-, 6 in fifth-, and 4 in sixth-rates were to be rated as midshipmen, with pay from £1, 10s to £2, 5s a month, according to the class of ship, and from 14th Dec. 1655 no one was to be so rated unless able to undertake an officer’s duties, if necessary.[1299] Of course the increase by the government caused a corresponding rise in merchant seamen’s wages; and at Ipswich, soon afterwards, the latter were so hard to come by as to be obtaining master’s pay.

[Sidenote: Soldiers on board Ship.]

It was estimated, although the number proved to be insufficient, that 16,000 men would be required in 1653, and many of these were untrained landsmen and boys, almost useless at sea. The remaining thousands needed were drawn from the ranks of the army. It has been suggested that soldiers were sent on board to keep the sailors in subjection, but, beyond the quite adequate explanation of a war demanding a larger number of men than the maritime population had ever before been called upon to supply, there is not the slightest trace of ill-feeling between soldiers and sailors such as would have inevitably occurred had the latter understood it as an attempt at intimidation. The expressed purpose was ‘to perform as far as they are able, all service as seamen, and to be ordered in like capacity as the rest;’ evidently they were expected to help in deck work and where no especial training was requisite. Altogether some 3000 or 4000 soldiers were sent on board the fleet; and it is significant of the different discipline, or the different spirit, animating the army and the Navy, that, although the new comers suffered the same vexations as the seamen in relation to postponed pay and prize money, in addition to the hardships peculiar to the sudden change in situation and duties, they do not appear to have troubled the executive with a single complaint beyond one meek remonstrance about the absence of hammocks.[1300]

[Sidenote: Causes of Discontent.]

The seamen appear to have decided that their duties began and ended on salt water. Captain Taylor, at Chatham, informed the Admiralty Commissioners that ships might be sent to sea in half the time and at one-third of the cost if the men could only be persuaded to help in their preparation; but ‘not one will help to get out ballast, or take it in, or do almost anything tending towards dispatch.’ Instead of working they haunted the beershops, which have always been the curse of their class. Bourne, the Commissioner at Harwich, had ‘the beginning of an ugly mutiny,’ attributable to drink; but Bourne eventually succeeded in putting down the alehouses at Harwich. At Plymouth vested interests were too strong for Hatsell, the agent there:—

The men come tippling ashore, and then march away in their mad
fits.... The abominable strong drink brewed in this town is of
more prejudice to the state and to the poor men than the heads
of all the brewers and alehouse keepers here are worth.... The
government here protest they cannot remedy it, as the brewers
have grown so rich they contend with them at law.... This
strong drink is from 26s to 28s a hogshead, and stronger than
sack, and when a sailor has drunk one bowl of it it makes him
half out of his wits.[1301]

Such a letter explains many of the so-called mutinies.

The system of payment, again, exposed the men to every temptation, since a ship might be a year or two at sea and no wages were given or expected until she was ordered in for repairs or laid up, the result being that when money was extraordinarily scarce cruisers were kept unnecessarily in commission to postpone the settling day. Money was sometimes borrowed when a squadron returned to port, and of £32,000 obtained in this manner in 1657, £10,200 was still owing in 1659.[1302] There are numerous expostulations from officers about their long over-due pay, but, read by themselves, these lamentations are sometimes apt to leave a wrong impression. Edward Larkin, for instance, gunner of the _Mayflower_, petitions in 1655 for two and a half years of his ‘dearly earned wages,’ of which he has only received six months; his wife and family are turned out of doors, his goods seized, and he himself arrested for debt. This, taken alone, appears to be a pathetic indictment of the ways of the administration, but here the corrective is supplied by another paper which is an account of stores embezzled by the said Edward Larkin.

There was more difficulty, so far as willingness was concerned, in manning the fleets during the war with Spain than during the Dutch war. The men feared tropical climates, and ‘are so afraid of being sent to the West Indies that they say they would as soon be hanged.’ Moreover as the years went by the Commonwealth did not pay more promptly. There is no sign, so far as their debates go, that Parliament, in improving the position of the men, had ever been moved by other than purely selfish motives, and it may have been felt that less now depended on the attitude of the Navy, or that there was less likelihood, under any provocation, of a serious outbreak. Slight ones frequently occurred and were invariably attributed, by the officers on the spot, to the non-payment of wages or prize-money, and were as invariably appeased when these claims were settled. Sometimes discontent was rather an excuse than a cause; when the crew of the _Ruby_ refused to sail, alleging that they had no clothes and that the ship was defective, they were easily persuaded back to duty when withdrawn from the influence of their landladies, who ‘have been the greatest instruments to hinder their going on board.’ In the matter of prize money officers of high rank fared little better in dealing with the commissioners of prize goods. There are two letters on this subject addressed in August 1654 to the commissioners. The first is mild in tone; the second, signed by sixteen captains in the Downs, curtly points out that their prize money for the three last actions with the Dutch is still due and that unless it is immediately paid they will appeal to the Protector.[1303] If captains were compelled to combine and threaten we may imagine how the sailors raged vainly against official penury or inertia.[1304]

Poverty occasionally caused the prize money gained by one section of the naval force to be applied to the payment of wages due to another; in October 1655 Blake’s men were partly paid this way, and, vaguely, the deficiency thus made ‘to be supplied some other way.’ There are hints that the Admiralty Court itself was not above suspicion. Captain Kendal, of the _Success_, wrote, in April 1654, that sixteen months previously he had taken a Dutch ship, still uncondemned; ‘but I suppose the bribes do appear very large in the Admiralty Court,’ and, ‘I fear there hath been much corruption in the Admiralty Court.’

It is but fair, however, to the prize commissioners to notice that the difficulties of the position were not altogether due to themselves. In 1654 they wrote to the Admiralty Court stating that they had sold ships and goods to the value of £70,000, but could not keep the proceeds, because compelled to meet the sums charged upon them by the Council of State, notwithstanding the decrees of the Court ordering them to hold the money. Being uneasy about their position they desired security or indemnity.[1305] Another source of abuse was the custom by which crews were allowed to plunder a prize, on or above the gun deck, of all articles except arms, ammunition, and ship’s stores. English merchantmen recaptured from an enemy sometimes experienced more loss from the rescuer than from the original captor. The owners of the _Sarah_, recaptured by the _Falmouth_, found that while the enemy had done five pounds of damage the Englishmen had helped themselves to the value of £500, and five or six other ships were similarly treated.[1306]

[Sidenote: The Protests.]

While the majority of the men made protest against their wrongs in the useless and prejudicial form of riots, there seem to have been a thinking minority who were able to apply to their own situation the principles for which they had fought, and which had sent Charles to the block and Cromwell to Whitehall. These men drew up a petition to the Protector, which, before being forwarded, was considered, on 17th October 1654, by a council of two admirals and twenty-three commanding officers, held on board the _Swiftsure_ in the Downs, at which it was decided that it was lawful for them to petition and that the grievances stated were real, except the one relating to foreign service.[1307] It was a sign of the times that admirals and captains should have acknowledged such a right in the ‘common sailor,’ and that they did not think themselves warranted in striking out the portion of which they disapproved; they decided that it should be ‘so far owned by us’ as to be presented to the Generals. The petition was as much a remonstrance as a prayer, and, after claiming that they had done the country good service and borne with hardship, sickness, and bad food for its sake, went on to remind the Protector that Parliament had declared its intention of enlarging the liberties of the people, ‘which we were in great hopes of.’ Their hopes have scarcely yet, so far as regards seamen, been realised, but it is expressive of the vast progress the events of a few years had caused in the political education and self-respect of a class hitherto proverbially debased and unreflecting, that constitutional declarations and logical applications of the principles their rulers suited to themselves should have begun to replace the hopeless, unhelpful turbulence of the last generation.

They seem to have objected to foreign service mainly because their families were left without support for a longer period than usual, and bitterly complained that, in accordance with a Council order of 6th Dec. 1652, they were not permitted to go on shore, nor visitors allowed to come on board, when in the Downs, and presumably other places, keeping them ‘under a degree of thraldom and bondage.’ This regulation was then new to them, but it remained in existence long enough to be one of the injustices the mutineers of 1797 desired to have redressed. The conclusion arrived at was a prayer that

they may be relieved in those grievances and may reap some
fruits of all their bloodshed and hardships, and that they
may not be imprested to serve, they humbly apprehending it to
be inconsistent with the principles of Freedom and Liberty to
force men to serve in military employments, either by sea or
land; and that your petitioners may be as free as the Dutch
seamen, against whom they have been such instruments in the
Lord’s hands for the good of their country; but that if the
Commonwealth have occasion to employ any of your petitioners
they may be hired as the Dutch are, and that they, or their
lawful attorney, may be paid every six months at the furthest,
and that such other encouragement to their relations may be
assured in case they are slain in the service as shall be
agreeable to justice, etc., as their necessity calls for, and
that all other liberties and privileges due to your petitioners
as freemen of England may be granted and secured.

The Council of State must have felt that the world was indeed moving when English seamen called themselves freemen, demanded the rights of freemen, and no longer admitted prescription as sufficient reason for the continuance of their wrongs. The fact that there is no reference, printed or manuscript, to this petition does not, of course, prove that it was not considered and replied to, but it is certain that if any promises were made not the slightest practical result followed them. There is a paper assigned to this date which may have had an indirect connection with the affair.[1308] It is a report from the Admiralty to the Protector and Council dilating on the state of the naval administration and the difficulties with which they had to deal. Every sentence of their long narrative has reference to the want of money, and may be abstracted into the one particular that while £8000 a week was allowed to the Admiralty the victualling and stores absorbed more than this amount, leaving nothing for wages and other expenses.

Notwithstanding these embarrassments favourite captains and handy ships seem to have had no difficulty in obtaining crews. Referring to the _Speaker_ and the _Hind_, an official writes: ‘Men have been on board seven or eight days in hopes of being entered, which I have refused to do, having had very much trouble to reduce them to their complement.’[1309] The _Sapphire_, when commanded by Heaton, was another vessel in which men were eager to serve, and to such purpose that out of 84 prizes brought into Plymouth between August 1652 and December 1655 twenty were taken by her.[1310]

[Sidenote: Confusion after Cromwell’s Death.]

The death of Cromwell, and the intrigues which followed that event, intensified the disorder existing in naval affairs, but even before September 1658 the strong hand which had kept some sort of order seems to have been losing its grip. In July the Commissioners of the Admiralty told the Council that ‘the credit of your Navy is so greatly impaired that, having occasion to buy some necessary provisions, as tallow and the like, your ministers can obtain none but for ready money,’ and they complained that out of the customs and excise, nominally set apart for the Navy, half was diverted to the army, £2000 a week to the Protector, and judges’ and other salaries taken from it.[1311] The navy debt on 1st July was returned at £573,474, and of this £286,000 was due for wages, so that we can understand why some crews had been for two and three years unpaid. Yet the succession of Richard Cromwell was well received by the fleet in the Downs, and the officers and crews of vessels on outlying stations, such as the _Paradox_ at Milford and _Assurance_ at Scarborough, hastened to announce their satisfaction. When Montagu wrote to Stokes, commanding in the Mediterranean, for signatures to an address promising fidelity to Richard, only one officer of that squadron, Captain Saunders, of the _Torrington_, manifested any hesitation about signing it.[1312]

In their address to the new Protector the officers of the fleet, in expressing their affection for the memory of Oliver, speak of ‘the indulgence he showed to us who served him in his fleet’; but, unless they were alluding to the higher scale of pay and the arrangements, to be presently noticed, made for the care of the sick and wounded, one or both of which may or may not have been owing to his initiative, it is difficult to divine what indulgences they had to be especially grateful to him for.[1313] By June 1659 there was owing for wages £371,930,[1314] and it may be imagined that if the men, whom it was important to conciliate, remained unpaid, merchants supplying stores, victualling agents, and dockyard workmen fared still worse. In September the crew of the _Marmaduke_ solicited some redress; they said they were abused by their officers, cheated of their victuals and pinch-gut money,[1315] and had to go begging about the streets, ‘scoffed and jeered at by other nations.’ On 1st February 1660 the wages debt was £354,000, some ships having been four years unpaid,[1316] and these figures, the correlatives of which existed in every other branch of the administration, form the best explanation of the equanimity with which the Restoration was viewed by the seamen and others who may have seen in the return of Charles II their only chance of payment.

[Sidenote: Care for the Sick and Wounded.]

Under the Commonwealth occurs the earliest attempt to afford the men some of that attention to which, when ill or wounded, they were entitled. The arrangements made in 1649 and 1652, although sufficient for ordinary needs, were inadequate to the necessities of the Dutch war; and the State was compelled to supplement the existing resources for the relief of disabled men, and to provide additional aid for widows and orphans. After the action of 28th and 29th September 1652 the Council ordered the lord mayor to provide space for the wounded in the London hospitals, and on 18th October £500 was assigned to the mayor of Dover to meet the expense of the injured landed there. On 15th December the Admiralty Committee passed a formal resolution that every care was to be taken of the sick and wounded, both at sea and on shore, and that the London hospitals were to receive some, and the most suitable port towns the others. Every ship was to be allowed medical comforts—rice, oatmeal, and sugar—at the rate of £5 per 100 men, every six months, and, for the first time, men invalided ashore were continued in pay till death or recovery. A special hospital was to be provided at Deal, and from 1st January 1653 half the space in all English hospitals, as they became empty, to be reserved for the seamen.[1317]

In February and March 1653, Portsmouth, Deal and Dover were full of wounded men; surgeons were sent down to these towns, and seven shillings a week granted for the support of each man. Judging from the returns, the death-rate among the injured was not so high as might have been expected, if the conditions existing at Portsmouth also obtained elsewhere. There the sick were mostly in private or beer houses, which were said to be small and stifling, besides exposing their occupants to the temptation of drink; of the town itself the governor, Nath. Whetham, had nothing good to say, dwelling on ‘the filthy nastiness of this place,’ unpaved, undrained, and enduring an epidemic of small-pox.[1318] The town must have been continually full of suffering men, since for two months alone of 1654 the cost of the sick and hurt there was £2300, of which £580 went to the surgeons and £325 to the nurses.[1319]

Knowing that they would be repaid any outlay, the civic authorities of the coast towns were attentive to the wants of the invalids, and, for a time, the government spent liberally in this direction. In August 1653 there were 1600 men at Aldborough, Ipswich, and adjacent villages, whose charges amounted to some thousands of pounds, cleared in due course, while smaller sums of £958, £400, and £1366 were sent, on account, to Dover, Weymouth, and Harwich; at Yarmouth between 3rd August 1653 and 6th February 1655 £2851 was expended in the town for the same purpose. In some respects the sick men were better off than their able-bodied fellows. Monk and Deane reproached the Admiralty Commissioners for paying the former their wages, but not the latter, and ‘we think it neither in reason nor conscience to employ men who must perish for want of clothes lost in the service, and whose families are starving, and yet their pay is due, their tickets signed, and their captains satisfied they will not run away.’[1320]

Hitherto all the duty of superintendence had been thrown on the Navy Commissioners, but, in view of their protests that they were overwhelmed by their own more special work, a new department was created from 29th September 1653, consisting of four commissioners at £150 a year each and fifteen subordinate officers, who divided £1090 a year between them. They took the title of ‘Commissioners of sick and wounded at Little Britain,’ where their office was situated, were to supervise the distribution of invalided men, provide surgeons and medicines, and control the authorities of the towns. They had also to take charge of prisoners, see that the convalescent returned to their ships, and were authorised to grant gratuities up to £10 and pensions up to £6, 13s 4d.

[Sidenote: Pensions.]

A pension or gratuity might be augmented by appeal to the Admiralty Committee, although we may be certain that such a petition was rarely successful, but the corresponding gifts to officers’ widows were on a much more liberal scale. To seven captains’ widows sums ranging from £400 to £1000 were granted in April 1653, and it seems a somewhat uneven ascent from the seaman’s widow at £10 to the captain’s at £1000. So far as applicants of inferior rank were concerned, the Commissioners must have had their time fully occupied if they investigated every case as closely as that of Susan Cane. They held that £5 was enough for her, as she had not lived with her husband, led a loose life, and possessed more than ordinary skill in making stockings. The institution of a new benefaction caused new rogueries, and soon some of the office clerks were levying commissions on the donations given to these women and were in partnership with people who made real or false claims on their behalf.[1321] In the two years ending with May 1656 some £12,000 had been disbursed on behalf of men sent on shore ill or injured;[1322] but it is apparent that, although the Commonwealth procedure compared very favourably with the indifference which preceded it, the tender anxiety the government displayed for the sailor’s welfare, when it had urgent need of him, languished after the Dutch war and died away with the Spanish one. Later, in the year 1656, the bailiffs of Yarmouth wrote to the Admiralty Commissioners that the Commissioners at Little Britain were now careless about paying for the men sent on shore, leaving it to the bailiffs to spend the town money and get it back how or when they could. The squadron before Mardike was considered very unhealthy, there being usually about ten per cent. sick, and when these were sent home they were simply laid on the ballast and shot about by the pitching and rolling of the ship;[1323] and another paper mentions the ‘noisome smells’ produced by the condition of these men. Fleets must, however, have been much healthier than in earlier times, since on 24th March 1659 the number of sick in nearly 3000 men under Montagu was only nineteen, and but seventy-two in 2803 under Goodson.[1324]

In 1656 independent charities relating to the sick and maimed existed in the shape of the Chatham Chest, Ely Place, the Savoy Hospital, and the Commissioners, and it was then suggested that they should be amalgamated, both on account of economy and the prevention of fraud, but this was never done. For several years the Treasurer of the Navy paid £735 a week for the support of pensioners, but in what proportion this was divided among the foregoing charities is uncertain.

[Sidenote: The Chatham Chest.]

Of these institutions the only one of which we have any details is the Chatham Chest. For the three years 1653-5 the accounts stand:—[1325]

Revenue[1326] Revenue from Lands[1327] Expenditure
£ £ _s_ _d_ £ _s_ _d_
1653 5653 433 6 8 10,065 0 0
1654 4000[1328] 433 6 8 4531 18 10
1655 4000[1328] 433 6 8 4500 0 0[1329]