Chapter IV: Victualling; Discipline; Ships; Guns 57 (2)

The new programme was pushed forward with the utmost energy, but before it was completed the control of the navy again changed hands. In 1679 the excitement of the Popish Plot drove the Duke of York from England, and Pepys was involved in his disgrace. He was accused of conspiring with Sir Anthony Deane to send information about the navy to the French Government and to extirpate the Protestant religion; and was committed to the Tower on the Speaker's warrant[101]. His office at the Admiralty was, however, vacated by what was in form a voluntary resignation[102].

On the withdrawal of the Duke of York and the resignation of Pepys, the higher administration of the navy passed to a new Admiralty Commission of seven, who claimed and enjoyed, in addition to the powers of the previous Commission, those other prerogatives which the King had hitherto reserved to himself[103]. But although they had more power than their predecessors, they were much less competent to use it, for they were almost entirely without naval experience. Sir Henry Capel, the First Commissioner, had nothing to do with the navy until his appointment[104]. The same can be said of Daniel Finch, who, although he became famous afterwards as Earl of Nottingham, was at this time only a young politician just beginning his official life[105]. Sir Thomas Lee's reputation was that of a parliamentary debater[106]; and the other names are not notable. The Commission represents an intrusion of politicians into a sphere where they were quite out of place. The introduction of Lord Brouncker in 1681 was a step in the right direction, although he was not a professional seaman; and other improvements were effected in 1682, but they came too late. The Navy Board was still composed of experts, but they could not stop the mischief wrought by the incompetent authority under which they had to act. The Commissioners did not find a lenient critic in Pepys, and his comment upon them is worth quoting because it contains a shrewd appreciation of Charles II. 'No king,' he wrote in his private _Minute Book_, 'ever did so unaccountable a thing to oblige his people by, as to dissolve a Commission of the Admiralty then in his own hand, who best understands the business of the sea of any prince the world ever had, and things never better done, and put it into hands which he knew were wholly ignorant thereof, sporting himself with their ignorance.'[107] The last phrase brings before us vividly the King's characteristic way.

The result that followed was inevitable. The dockyards were disorganised; the effective force of the fleet was reduced; the reserve of stores was depleted. The Commissioners adopted a wasteful policy of retrenchment at all costs. Pepys writes of 'the effects of inexperience, daily discovering themselves' in the conduct of the Commission[108]; of 'general and habitual supineness, wastefulness, and neglect of order universally spread through' the whole navy[109], so that 'whereas peace used evermore to be improved to the making up the wasteful effects of war, this appears ... to have brought the navy into a state more deplorable in its ships and less relievable from its stores than can be shewn to have happened at the close of the most expenseful war.'[110] His indictment is supported by a formidable array of facts and figures, and as Macaulay points out[111], is confirmed by a report from an expert of the French Admiralty, so it cannot be dismissed as mere denunciation inspired by a natural prejudice against the men who had displaced him.

Things were so bad that in 1684 the Commission was revoked, and from this date until his death the office of Lord High Admiral was once more executed by the King, with the advice and assistance of 'his royal brother the Duke of York'[112]; and on his accession James II became his own Lord High Admiral. The office of Secretary of the Admiralty was revived, and Pepys was appointed thereto; and the government of the navy remained in the same hands until the Revolution.

The important episode of the period 1684-1688 is the appointment of the Special Commission of 1686 for the regeneration of the navy—an experiment in organisation for which Pepys was largely responsible[113]. A sum of £400,000 a year was to be assigned to the navy[114], and this was to be administered by a body of experts, on which the two most important figures were Sir Anthony Deane, the great shipbuilder, and Sir John Narbrough, the hero of the war with Algiers. The Commission was intended to last for a term of three years, the time estimated to be necessary for putting the navy into a state of thorough repair, but its work was performed with such energy and efficiency that the Commission was dissolved in October, 1688, after only 2½ years tenure of office, and the system of government by Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy acting under the Lord High Admiral was restored.

The way in which Pepys manœuvred Sir Anthony Deane on to the Commission deserves a passing notice. It was not an easy matter, as Deane replied to a flattering overture by pointing out that his ordinary business as a shipwright was bringing in to him 'more than double the benefit ... the common wages of a Commissioner of the Navy amounts to,' and moreover he was fifteen in family, 'and not without expectation of more.'[115] Pepys was then directed by James II to make a list of all the notable shipbuilders in England, one of whom might be selected as an alternative to Deane. The result was a very libellous and tendencious document[116]. Sir John Tippetts was dismissed because 'his age and infirmities arising from the gout (keeping him generally within doors, or at least incapable of any great action abroad) would render him wholly unable to go through the fatigue of the work designed for Sir Anthony Deane.' The second candidate, Sir Phineas Pett, is briefly dismissed with the words 'In every respect as the first.' Another candidate 'never built a ship in his life ... he is also full of the gout, and by consequence as little capable as the former of the fatigue before mentioned.' Another is 'illiterate ... low-spirited, of little appearance or authority'; his father 'a great drinker, and since killed with it.' Mr Lawrence, the master shipwright at Woolwich, is 'a low-spirited, slow, and gouty man ... illiterate and supine to the last degree.' Another is 'an ingenious young man, but said rarely to have handled a tool in his life'—a mere draughtsman. Another 'is one that loves his ease, as having been ever used to it, not knowing what it is to work or take pains ... and very debauched.' Another is 'a good and painful, but very plain and illiterate man; a Phanatick; of no authority and countenance.' And so he goes on through an appalling list of disqualifications, which had their intended effect upon the King's mind; they induced 'full conviction of the necessity of his prevailing with and satisfying Sir A. D.'[117] Satisfactory terms were arranged[118], and on Saturday, 13 March, 1686, Mr Pepys brought Sir Anthony Deane 'to the King in the morning to kiss his hand, who declared the same to him to his full satisfaction, and afterwards to my Lord Treasurer at the Treasury Chamber with the same mutual content.'[119]

The circumstances in which the second Secretaryship of Samuel Pepys came to an end are part of the general history of England, and need no repetition here. On 21 December, 1688, Pepys mentions that the King was 'a second time withdrawn,'[120] and on Christmas Day we find him writing to the fleet at the bidding of the Prince of Orange[121]. He continued to act as Secretary of the Admiralty until 20 February, 1689, but on 9 March he was directed to hand over his papers to his successor, Phineas Bowles[122]. He was too intimately associated with the exiled James for the government of the Revolution to continue him in power.

LECTURE III

FINANCE

It is scarcely a matter for surprise that those historians who were the first to appreciate the great Puritan movement, so long under a cloud, should have yielded to the temptation of over-emphasizing the contrast between the vigour and comparative purity of government during the Interregnum and its nervelessness and corruption under the Younger Stuarts. That some such contrast exists it is impossible to deny. The Commonwealth navy was on the whole well managed, and every reader of Pepys's _Diary_ knows that he was disposed to regret in private the administrative successes of the treasonable times. 3 June, 1667: 'To Spring Garden, and there eat and drank a little, and then to walk up and down the garden, reflecting upon the bad management of things now, compared with what it was in the late rebellious times, when men, some for fear and some for religion, minded their business, which none now do, by being void of both.' Or again, 4 September, 1668: 'The business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale and of no use, they being the people that at last will be found the wisest.' But it is possible, while dwelling upon a moral contrast, to ignore the difference in the financial situation. The virtuous Puritan colonels who controlled the navy under the Commonwealth had command of large financial resources, for confiscations and Royalist compositions were very productive, and the governments of the Interregnum could apply to the raising of taxes irresistible military force. As far as the compositions went, they were, however, living upon capital, and when this was exhausted, the pressure of financial difficulties soon began to be felt. The maintenance of the great professional army came to be a burden too heavy for the resources of the country as they stood in that day, and the navy suffered from the competition of the army for the available funds. The disease usually assigned to the Restoration period declared itself before the Restoration took place, and when the King came back he found the navy already deep in debt. In 1659 nearly half a million was due on account of wages alone, and the total debt must have been over three-quarters of a million[123]. An official report of July, 1659, estimated the outgoings at £20,000 a week, but pointed out that 'since May 31 has not been received above £8000 a week.'[124] It must be remembered that with 17th century money values these figures are very much larger than they look, and as the State had not yet invented funding debt, and so charging it on posterity, its position was that of an extravagant private person. Thus the naval administrators of the Restoration were succeeding to a bankrupt estate, and in the _Diary_ Pepys strikes a note of despair. 31 July, 1660: the navy 'is in very sad condition, and money must be raised for it.' 11 June, 1661: 'now the credit of the Office is brought so low, that none will sell us anything without our personal security given for the same.' 31 August, 1661: 'we are at our Office quiet, only for lack of money all things go to rack.' 30 September, 1661: 'the want of money puts all things, and above all the Navy, out of order.' 28 June, 1662: 'God knows, the King is not able to set out five ships at this present without great difficulty, we neither having money, credit, nor stores.'

The same difficulties were felt before, during, and after the Second Dutch War. In September, 1664, when war was impending, Commissioner Pett tried to buy tallow and candles for the navy at Maidstone, but found the country 'so shy' that they refused to deal[125]. In January, 1666, the Commissioner at Portsmouth wrote that all men distrust London pay[126]. Nearly half the letters to the Navy Board calendared for 1665-6 refer to the difficulties experienced by government agents in obtaining supplies[127]. In this way bargains were lost for want of ready money[128], and where credit was obtained, enormous prices had to be paid[129]. The hardships to private persons were intolerable. A firm of slop-sellers who had supplied goods to the value of £24,800 during the last two years, and had received only £800, would shortly be ruined in their estates and families[130]. A Bristol shipbuilder writes: 'I have so disabled myself in the relief of poor workmen that I am now out of a capacity of relieving mine own family: I have disbursed and engaged for more than I am worth.'[131] The Barber Surgeons' Company claim £1,496. 6_s._ 10_d._, long unpaid, for filling medicine chests, and complain of the opprobrious language they receive from surgeons who can get no pay[132]; and a certain poor widow, a creditor of the government, is in a most deplorable condition, without a stick of wood or coals to lay on the fire, and owing money to about fifteen people as poor as herself, who torment her daily[133].

The total annual charge of the navy in time of peace is not easy to calculate. On 18 February, 1663[134], Pepys himself estimated 'the true charge of the Navy,' since the King's coming in to Christmas last, to have been 'after the rate of £374,743 a year,' but it is not clear what this figure includes. Perhaps the pre-war expenditure may be put at not far short of £400,000. In a letter to Sir Philip Warwick, dated 14 March, 1666[135], he supplies materials for estimating expenditure in time of war. So enormous were the arrears that the sum of £2,312,876 would be needed to pay the fleet and yards to 1 August, 1665, to clear off the arrears of the Victualler and provide victuals for the current year, to finish ten new ships that had been ordered, and to meet wear and tear and wages for the first ten months of 1666. Towards this the total funds available, including a Parliamentary grant of £1,250,000 made in October, 1665, amounted to £1,498,483. Thus there was a deficit of £814,393. But to this would have to be added other charges not included in the first estimate—principally wear and tear and wages for the last two months of 1666, arrears of wages, and other debts, which would increase the deficit to £1,277,161, over and above 'the whole expense of the Office of the Ordnance.' In other words, the funds available for the navy in March, 1666, in the second year of the war, were scarcely more than half its probable requirements[136]. Nevertheless, Pepys derived great consolation from a calculation which he had made of the cost of the First Dutch War in 1653, whereby it appeared that 'the State's charge then seems to have exceeded the King's for the same service and time by £171,785.'[137] This is the justification of a note in the _Diary_ of 16 March, 1669: 'Upon the whole do find that the late times in all their management were not more husbandly than we.' To meet the situation recourse was again had to Parliament, and in October, 1666, the Commons voted £1,800,000, although their suspicion that the money was being wasted led to the appointment of that Commission of Public Accounts which was to give Pepys and his colleagues infinite trouble[138], and was to lay the foundation of Parliamentary enquiry into the proceedings of the executive.

As soon as the war came to an end, the higher authorities began to consider schemes of retrenchment in the navy. A committee appointed 29 July, 1667, by Order in Council, to consider the King's expenses called for a report upon the cost of the navy, and the Duke of York put forward some preliminary suggestions[139], the most important being a reduction of certain establishments and the closing of the dockyard at Harwich. He also suggested a reduction in the number of the Commissioners from ten to six, or at most seven, although he was disposed to resist any great reduction in their salaries on the ground that these should be sufficient to make the Principal Officers and Commissioners 'value their employments, and not subject them to a necessity of base compliances with others to the King's prejudice, by which to get one shilling to himself he must lose ten to the King, and when he shall have once subjected himself to an inferior pleasure by such a falsehood, he never more dares act the part of a good officer, being by his former guilt become a slave to his inferior.' This argument, while it served incidentally to protect Pepys's emoluments, is not a bad statement of the case for a living wage as an antidote to corruption. The scheme eventually adopted, suggested by Sir William Coventry, aimed at a reduction of peace expenditure to £200,000 a year[140], but the goal was never reached, for the naval expenditure of the next two or three years was not, as a matter of fact, limited to the £200,000 a year proposed, nor was ready money provided—an essential condition of the scheme. The policy of retrenchment on a great scale would have to be carried on for a long time before it could affect the accumulated masses of the navy debt[141], and there is abundant evidence of continued financial stringency after the war as well as before it. This carried its nemesis into the Third Dutch War. The comparative failure of the naval operations of 1673 was due to the fact that the fleet had been sent out insufficiently manned and equipped; and the want of a reserve of stores and of men and materials for refitting occasioned the loss of nearly six weeks in the best season of the year[142].

As soon as the Third Dutch War came to an end in February, 1674, another period of feverish retrenchment set in, and an attempt was made 'to lessen the growing charge in the navy, towards which no one particular seems more to conduce than that of reducing the number of the persons employed therein, both at sea and in the yards.'[143] Other economies were also practised. Ships as they came in were paid off and laid up[144], and it was decided to undertake no new works 'until his Majesty hath in some measure got over the debt which remains to him upon the old.'[145] Meanwhile the official correspondence contains frequent references to the shortness of money. For instance, in January, 1674, the _Swan_ was delayed at Plymouth 'from the unwillingness of the tradesmen to trust his Majesty further'[146]; and in December, 1677, Pepys reports from Sir John Kempthorne that 'the brewer at Portsmouth doth absolutely declare that he will not provide any beer for the _Rupert_ and _Centurion_ till he is better assured of his payment than he now is.'[147] At the beginning of 1678 the situation was somewhat relieved by the Parliamentary vote for preparations against France, but this improvement was of short duration, and in December we find Pepys referring to one of the most wasteful consequences of a want of money—'that mighty charge which has so long lain upon our hands for want of money wherewith to discharge those of the ships which remain yet unpaid off.'[148]

In spite of the frequent references to want of funds scattered up and down the official correspondence, the financial position of the navy greatly improved in the later years of the Restoration period. At Lady Day, 1686, the debts of the Navy Office were reckoned at £171,836. 2_s._ 9_d._—a remarkable reduction on the enormous totals of 1666[149]. After the accession of James II no less than £305,806 was paid by the Treasurer of the Navy on account of debts incurred in Charles II's reign[150], so it is not surprising to find that, both in the closing years of Charles II and the earlier years of James II, money was still difficult to get, and the old complaints recur although in a less aggravated form.

Bearing in mind these facts about finance, let us pass on to consider some of their practical results.

During the period from 1660 to 1688 the operations of the navy were grievously hampered by the deficiency of men, both in the dockyards and at sea; and this deficiency was mainly, if not entirely, due to the want of pay.

The state of things during the Second Dutch War was appalling. The _Diary_ contains pitiable stories of poor seamen starving in the streets because there was no money to pay their wages. 7 October, 1665: 'Did business, though not much, at the Office; because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money, which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon when we were to go through them, for then a whole hundred of them followed us; some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us.'[151] We hear of wages nine months[152], twenty-two[153], twenty-six, thirty-four[154], and even fifty-two[155] months in arrear. One captain with a breezy style complains that for want of pay 'instead of a young commander, he is rendered an old beggar.'[156] The crews of two ships petition the Navy Board to order them their pay 'that their families may not be altogether starved in the streets, and themselves go like heathens, having nothing to cover their nakedness.'[157] The Commissioner at Portsmouth writes of workmen in the yard there, that they are turned out of doors by their landlords, and perish more like dogs than men[158].

Naturally enough, this state of things affected discipline. The crews of the _Little Victory_ and the _Pearl_ at Hull mutinied for want of pay, and refused to weigh anchor[159], and in the yards the workmen gave a great deal of trouble. The Chatham shipwrights and caulkers, to whom two years' wages were owing, marched up to London to appeal to the Navy Board, as 'their families are denied trust and cannot subsist,' and under this pressure we are told that arrangements were made 'to pay off some of the most disorderly.'[160] At Chatham the Commissioner writes that he is almost torn to pieces by the workmen of the yard for their weekly pay[161]. Sir John Mennes writes from Portsmouth on 14 July, 1665, for money to be sent immediately to stop 'the bawlings and impatience of these people, especially of their wives, whose tongues are as foul as the daughters of Billingsgate.'[162] Apparently the money did not come, and in October the Commissioner was forced to lend the men ten shillings apiece to keep them from mutiny[163]. A fortnight later a mutiny actually broke out, but Commissioner Middleton shewed praiseworthy promptitude in dealing with it. According to his own account, he seized 'a good cudgel' out of the hands of one of the men, and took more pains in the use of it than in any business for the last twelve months. He adds: 'I have not been troubled since.'[164] On 27 October, 1666, the outlook in London was so threatening that the Navy Board applied to the Officers of the Ordnance for 'twelve well-fixed firelocks with a supply of powder and bullet' for the defence of the Navy Office, in view of 'the present great refractoriness and tumultuousness of the seamen.'[165] Nor did the trouble end when peace came, for the financial situation was still difficult. On 11 March, 1671, Jonas Shish wrote from Deptford to the Navy Board: 'The shipwrights and caulkers are very much enraged by reason that their wages is not paid them. The last night the whole street next the King's Yard, both of men and women, was in an uproar, and meeting with Mr Bagwell, my foreman, they fell on him, and it was God's great mercy they had not spoiled him. I was then without the gate at my son's house, and hearing the tumult, I did think how Israel stoned Hadoram that was over the tribute, and King Rehoboam made speed and gat him up to fly to Jerusalem, so I gat speedily into the King's Yard, for I judge if the rude multitude had met with me, I should have had worse measure than my foreman.'[166]

In view of these facts about pay, it is not surprising that it was found difficult to obtain men. In order to man the fleets for service against the Dutch it was necessary to employ the press, and this produced very poor material. Pepys notes in 1666 that men were pressed in London that 'were not liable to it,' 'poor patient labouring men and housekeepers,'[167] and he adds 'it is a great tyranny.' The redoubtable Commissioner Middleton, writing from Portsmouth on 29 March, 1666, tells Pepys that he is ashamed to see such pressed men as are sent from Devonshire—one with the falling sickness and a lame arm; another with dead palsy on one side and not any use of his right arm[168]. A year later he makes similar complaints from Chatham with regard to the pressed men supplied by Watermen's Hall. 'The Masters of Watermen's Hall are good Christians but very knaves; they should be ordered to send down ten or twelve old women to be nurses to the children they send.'[169]

On the outbreak of the Third Dutch War in 1672 the same difficulties recurred, but the complaints are less frequent and less serious, and the condition of things had evidently improved. But ships had still to be manned by pressing, and the quality of the pressed men left much to be desired. For instance, two watermen, pressed in 1673, are described as 'little children, and never at sea before,' who could not be suffered 'to pester the ship.'[170]

'It can never be well in the navy,' wrote Pepys on 5 September, 1680, 'till the poor seamen can be paid once in a year at furthest, and tickets answered like bills of exchange; whereas at this very day ... ships are kept out two or three years, and four of them just now ordered forth again only for want of money, after being brought in to be paid off.'[171] A little later he notes the effect of this upon discipline[172], and comments on the 'unreasonable hardship' entailed by 'the general practice of our navy' 'of paying those ships off first where the least sum clears the most men; those who have served longest, and therefore need their pay most, being postponed to those who have served least.'[173] In a maturer reflection made after his retirement, dated December, 1692, Pepys still places the 'length and badness of the payment of the seaman's wages' first among his 'discouragements.' This, together with 'their ill-usage from commanders, and want of permission to help themselves in intervals of public service by a temporary liberty of earning a penny in the merchant's' are 'discouragements that I cannot think anything can be proposed of temptations of other kinds sufficient to reconcile them to.'[174] Nevertheless, Pepys claimed credit for more punctual payments for the Special Commission of 1686, during the time they held office. 'Not a penny left unpaid,' he writes, 'to any officer, seaman, workman, artificer, or merchant, for any service done in, or commodity delivered to the use of the Navy, either at sea or on shore, within the whole time of this Commission, where the party claiming the same was in the way to receive it.'[175]

In connexion with the seamen something should be said about the organisation for the care of the sick and wounded. The credit of being the first English Government to recognise the obligation of providing for the sick and wounded belongs to the Commonwealth. The principle that the State should provide for those who had suffered in its service was laid down by the Long Parliament in 1642, and an attempt was made to apply it to the case of soldiers wounded in the Civil War[176]. A little later the same principle was applied to seamen, and the idea and the machinery were taken over by the Restoration statesmen. In October, 1664, in view of the impending war with the Dutch, a temporary Commission for the care of Sick and Wounded Seamen on the model of the Commission of 1653 was appointed for the duration of the war, the most active member of it being John Evelyn, the diarist[177]. This Commission was re-appointed in March, 1672, for the Third Dutch War, and the elaborate instructions given to it are to be found in the volume of _Naval Precedents_ in the Pepysian Library[178]. The Commissioners were to distribute the sick and wounded among the hospitals of England, 'thereby to ease his Majesty's charge'; and as soon as this accommodation was exhausted, they were to billet them upon private persons at the King's expense. London, Yarmouth, Ipswich, Southwold, Aldeburgh, Harwich, Chatham, Gravesend, Deal, Dover, Gosport, Southampton, Weymouth, Dartmouth, and Plymouth were specially assigned for the reception of sick and wounded men set ashore from their ships. At these 'places of reception' as they were called, the Commissioners were to appoint an agent, and to provide 'a physician (if need be) and chirurgeon, and nurses, fire, candle, linen, medicaments, and all things necessary,' but in 'as husbandly and thrifty a manner' as might be. The Commission was also charged with the care of prisoners of war, and was instructed to provide for their maintenance on a scale 'not exceeding 5_d._ per diem for every common seaman and inferior officer, and 12_d._ per diem for every commission officer.' For a time also it was concerned with awarding gratuities to the 'widows, children, and impotent parents of such as shall be slain in his Majesty's service at sea'; but in 1673 these duties were taken over by another commission, for Widows and Orphans, and a regular scale was established on which gratuities were to be given. Widows of men slain in the service were to receive a gratuity equal to eleven months of their husband's pay, an additional third being allowed to each orphan except those who were married at the time of the father's death. If the deceased left no widow, his mother was to receive the bounty, provided that she was herself a widow, indigent, and over 50 years of age. The bounty to a child was to be allowed to accumulate until it was of an age to be apprenticed. This Commission terminated at the end of the war, and by an order of 21 December, 1674, its functions devolved on the Navy Board.

These arrangements were all admirable upon paper, and the members of the Commissions displayed indefatigable industry, but in this department of affairs as in others the best of schemes were wrecked on the rock of finance. On 30 September, 1665, Evelyn wrote that he had 5000 sick, wounded, and prisoners dying for want of bread and shelter. 'His Majesty's subjects,' he adds, 'die in our sight and at our thresholds without our being able to relieve them, which, with our barbarous exposure of the prisoners to the utmost of sufferings, must needs redound to his Majesty's great dishonour, and to the consequence of losing the hearts of our own people, who are ready to execrate and stone us as we pass.'[179] On 5 June, 1672, the same loyal and humane gentleman wrote in a similar strain from Rochester: 'I have near 600 sick and wounded men in this place, 200 prisoners, and the apprehension of hundreds more.... I hope there will be care to supply my district here with moneys, or else I shall be very miserable, for no poor creature does earn his bread with greater anxiety than I at present.'[180] The moneys did not come, and by the end of the summer some of the localities were becoming restive at the non-payment of arrears. There was a great deal of noise made at Gravesend when the Commissioners of the Navy passed by, and on 27 August Evelyn wrote to Pepys: 'Those cursed people of Gravesend have no bowels, and swear that they will receive not a man more till their arrears are discharged. We are above £2000 indebted in Kent, where our daily charge is £100 for quarters only. Judge by this how comfortable a station I am in.'[181]

When the war came to an end the temporary Commission was withdrawn, and by a warrant from the Lords of the Admiralty dated 28 March, 1674, its duties were handed over to James Pearse, 'chirurgeon-general of his Majesty's navy.'[182] Pearse was a man of business after Pepys's own heart, and he carefully systematised the whole of his functions, reducing them 'into such a method that it is not possible for me (or whomsoever shall succeed me) to wrong his Majesty or injure his subjects.'[183]

'Mariners and soldiers maimed in his Majesty's service at sea' were entitled to relief out of the Chest at Chatham, a fund provided by deducting 6_d._ a month from each man's pay. Fourpence a month was also deducted for the maintenance of a chaplain, and Pepys explains how the Chest benefited from an arrangement by which all moneys were also assigned to it 'arising out of the seamen's contributions for a chaplain upon ships where (by the remissness or impiety of the commander) no chaplain is provided.'[184] A paper of 24 July, 1685[185], gives the scale of this relief:

A leg or arm lost is £6. 13. 4. paid as present relief, and
so much settled as an annual pension for his lifetime £6 13 4

If two legs be lost his pension is doubled £13 6 8

For the loss of two arms, in consideration of his being
thereby rendered uncapable of getting a livelihood
any other way, per annum £15 0 0

But if an arm be on, and disabled only, is £5 per annum £5 0 0

An eye lost is £4 per annum £4 0 0

... And where any wound or hurt occasions a fracture, contusion, impostumation, or the like, under the loss of a limb, such are viewed by the chirurgeons, and certified to deserve what in their opinions may be a proportionable reward in full satisfaction. And these sorts of hurts frequently accompany the loss of a limb in other parts of the body, for which they have a reward apart from their annual allowance, according to the chirurgeon's discretion.

One more question remains for our consideration to-day—that of the rates of pay in the navy during the period 1660-88.

As far as the rates themselves were concerned the story is one of steady improvement. In 1653 the pay of a general or admiral of the fleet had been £3 a day during his employment; of a vice-admiral, £2; and of a rear-admiral, £1[186]. The scale adopted by Order in Council, 26 February, 1666[187], raised the admiral's pay from £3 to £4; the vice-admiral's from £2 to £2. 10_s._; and the rear-admiral's from £1 to £2. The vice-admiral of a squadron only was to get 30_s._ and the rear-admiral of a squadron £1. The pay of the other officers was not increased beyond the rates fixed in 1653[188]. The able seamen in 1660 received 24_s._ a month; the ordinary seamen, 19_s._; the apprentices or 'gromets,' 14_s._ 3_d._; and the 'boys,' 9_s._ 6_d._ The wages of the carpenter, boatswain, and gunner varied from £2 to £4 a month according to the rate of the ship. Monthly wages in harbour, as distinguished from sea wages, were on a lower scale[189]. In 1686 a new establishment of wages[190] made a few minor changes, but the pay of the seamen was not affected thereby.

The misfortune of the 'poor seaman' was not that his rate of pay was insufficient, but that he could not get his money, or if he got it at all it was in the depreciated paper currency known as the 'ticket.' A ticket was a certificate from the officers of his ship, issued to each seaman, specifying the term and quality of his service. This, when countersigned by the Navy Board, was the seaman's warrant for demanding his wages from the Treasurer of the Navy on shore. The original purpose of tickets was to save the necessity of transporting large sums of money on board ship, but the want of funds in the navy soon made it the regular practice to treat tickets as inconvertible paper, and to discharge all seamen with tickets instead of money—or with money for part of their time and a ticket for the rest. Theoretically, the ticket should have supplied the seaman with credit almost up to the full amount of his wages, but in practice the long waiting and uncertainty of payment caused a great depreciation of tickets. We hear of women brokers standing about the Navy Office, offering to help seamen who might have tickets to ready money—but always upon terms. They took them to Mrs Salesbury in Carpenter's Yard, near Aldgate, who bought them for cash at a discount of at least 5_s._ in the £, and sometimes more[191]. This caused great discontent among the seamen, who naturally objected to being paid by the State in depreciated paper, and on 13 February, 1667, Pepys records in the _Diary_ that 'there was a very great disorder this day at the Ticket Office, to the beating and bruising of the face' of one Carcasse, the clerk. The grievance attracted attention, and in 1667 the House of Commons enquired into 'the buying and selling of tickets.'[192] The 'infinite great disorder' of the Ticket Office also attracted the notice of the Commissioners of Public Accounts[193], but the reply of the Navy Board when invited to justify the practice was conclusive. 'We conceive the use of tickets to be by no other means removable than by a supply of money in every place, at all times, in readiness where and when ... any ... occasions of discharging seamen shall arise.'[194]

Apart from the disastrous results of the practice of issuing tickets without money to pay them, the actual machinery of the system was better under Charles II than it had hitherto been. Printed tickets with counterfoils had been invented under the Commonwealth, and were in use as early as August, 1654[195]; but in 1667 elaborate instructions for the examining and signing of tickets and comparing them with the counterfoils were issued by the Navy Board to protect the Office against fraud[196]. John Hollond complains of the abuses to which even a solvent ticket system gave rise. It enabled 'wrong parties' to secure the seaman's wages—these being 'such as have wrought upon the advantage of the men's necessities'—'either pursers, clerks of the check, or creditors, whether alehouse-keepers, or slopsellers, or else pretended sweethearts.'[197] He also notes the facilities which the system afforded for the abuse of 'dead pays,' tickets being issued for seamen who were dead or who never served, and men suborned to personate them at the pay-table[198]. This was particularly easy in time of war, when the pressure of business was too great to allow of the tickets being properly examined.

A new and important principle in connexion with the pay of naval officers was established in 1668. Deane had urged in 1653 that seamen should be entered for continuous service and kept on continuous pay like soldiers[199], but the practice of the navy was quite different, both for officers and men. Hitherto it had been usual to regard naval officers as appointed for particular services, and possessing no claim upon the Government when these services had been discharged. The result of this was that, except in time of war, the field of employment was far too small, and a number of good officers were thrown upon their own resources. But at the close of the Second Dutch War the Government formally recognised for the first time the claims of officers to pay in time of peace. The first step did not go far, but the principle now accepted was destined to lead to the modern system of continuous employment. By an Order in Council of 17 July, 1668[200], it was provided that, in consideration of 'the eminent services performed in the late war against the Dutch by the flag officers,' and the fact that 'during the time of peace several of them are out of employment, and thereby disabled to support themselves in a condition answerable to their merits and those marks of honour his Majesty hath conferred on them,' they should receive 'pensions' in proportion to the scale of pay on active service which had been fixed at the beginning of the war. These 'pensions' ranged from £150 a year for captains of flag-ships up to £250 a year for rear-admirals and vice-admirals of fleets[201]. By an Order of 26 June, 1674, the same scale was established for flag officers who had served in the Third Dutch War[202]; and in 1674 and 1675 the system of half-pay for officers when they were not being actually employed was further extended to the captains and masters of first and second rate ships who had served in the war[203], and to the commanders of squadrons[204].

In 1672[205] another important change relating to pay was made by the Council. The principle of pensions on superannuation was adopted for officers. These were to be 'equal to the salary and known allowances they enjoyed,' provided that they had completed fifteen years of service 'where the employment is constant, such as that of boatswains, gunners, pursers, carpenters, &c.,' or eight years where it is not constant, 'such as that of masters, chirurgeons, &c.' In 1673[206] the principle of superannuation was extended from cases of old age to officers wounded in service at sea. Such officers were to receive one year's wages, 'and the continuance of them in pay during the whole time they shall by good proof appear to have lain under cure.'

LECTURE IV

VICTUALLING; DISCIPLINE; SHIPS; GUNS

The arrangements for victualling had always had an important bearing upon the contentment and efficiency of the seamen. 'However the pay of the mariners, both for sea and harbour, may be wanting for some time,' wrote one of the Victuallers, 'yet they must have continual supplies of victuals, otherwise they will be apt to fall into very great disorders.'[207] Pepys, in his private _Minute Book_[208], makes the same point. 'Englishmen,' he says, 'and more especially seamen, love their bellies above anything else, and therefore it must always be remembered, in the management of the victualling of the navy, that to make any abatement from them in the quantity or agreeableness of the victuals, is to discourage and provoke them in the tenderest point, and will sooner render them disgusted with the King's service than any one other hardship that can be put upon them.' But in this department also the want of money had fatal effects, and contributed more than any other cause to the comparative failure of the administration to provide victuals of good quality, sufficient quantity, and promptly delivered where they were required.

Before the Restoration the victualling was being managed by Victualling Commissioners 'upon account,' the State keeping the business in its own hands[209]. But the system had scarcely a fair trial owing to financial embarrassments[210], and just before the King's return matters were as bad as they could well be[211]. The restored Government reverted to the older system of contract, and in September, 1660, Denis Gauden was appointed contractor under the satisfying title of 'surveyor-general of all victuals to be provided for his Majesty's ships and maritime causes,' with a fee of £50 a year, and 8_d._ a day for a clerk[212]. The whole burden of the victualling therefore rested upon a single man, and when the war with the Dutch broke out, he was unable to grapple with its demands; yet no fundamental change could be made in the system until the Government was in a position to settle accounts with him. Thus the victuals, although on the whole good in quality, were deficient in quantity, and when Gauden was remonstrated with he could always reply, and generally with perfect truth, that it was impossible for him to do better as long as the Government failed to carry out their part of the contract, and to make payments on account at the stipulated times[213]. In the spring of 1665, when the fleet was fitting for sea, complaints of the failure of the Victualler were frequent[214]. Later on, when Pepys went down to visit the fleet in September, Lord Sandwich told him that most of the ships had been without beer 'these three weeks or month, and but few days' dry provisions.'[215] In this year complaints of uneatable provisions occur, though not often, but when they were bad they were sometimes very bad. On 10 August, Commissioner Middleton wrote to Pepys from Portsmouth that the _Coventry_ was still in port; her beer had nearly poisoned one man, who 'being thirsty drank a great draught.'[216] Probably now, as undoubtedly later, the backwardness of the victualling in turn reacted upon the deficiency of men, for the sailors deserted from ships where they could get no food[217].

The practical breakdown of the victualling system during the spring and summer of 1665 led to the establishment, at Pepys's suggestion, of new machinery for keeping the Victualler up to the mark—a Surveyor of Victuals appointed at the King's charge in each port, with power to examine the Victualler's books; and a central officer in London to whom they were to report weekly[218]. As soon as Pepys's plan was adopted, he wrote to suggest that he himself should be the new Surveyor-General of Victualling[219], and on 27 October he accepted office[220] at a salary of £300 a year[221]. The appointment was temporary only, and came to an end at the conclusion of peace. While it lasted it effected a slight improvement. Pepys himself was much pleased with the success of his arrangements, and he was complimented upon them by the Duke of York[222]. As he had £500 a year from Gauden as well as the £300 from the King[223], he managed to do well out of the war.

The experience of the war had shewn the weak points of the one-man system, and in subsequent contracts several Victuallers were associated in a kind of partnership[224], but the fundamental difficulty was one of finance, and this a mere multiplication of persons did little to meet. Thus there are complaints in 1671[225], and the difficulties were greatly increased when the Third Dutch War broke out in the spring of 1672. The Victuallers received such scanty payments from the Government that they had to carry on the service with their own money and credit[226], and eventually their condition in respect of funds became 'so exceeding strait' that they could not make proper deliveries[227]. This provoked the commanders at sea to take the field against them, and Prince Rupert was so annoyed that he declared that he would never thrive at sea till some were hanged on land[228]; and a little later expressed the opinion that the only way to deal with the Victuallers would be to send one of them on shipboard, there to stay in what condition his Majesty shall think fitting, till they have thoroughly victualled the fleet[229].

It is, on the whole, to the credit of the Victuallers that the complaints as to quality are not more numerous than they are during this period of large demands and scanty payment. If you would care for illustrations, on 15 March, 1671, on board the _Reserve_ 'there was a general complaint amongst the seamen, both of the badness of the meat and want of weight.'[230] On 6 September, 1672, there was a protest from the _Gloucester_ against the badness of the beer; but the Victuallers replied rather ambiguously that their beer was as good as ever was used in the fleet, and they counted themselves happy in that they had been afflicted with less bad beer 'by many degrees than ever was in such an action.'[231] On 29 September the commander of the _Augustine_ wrote to say that the doctor attributed the sickness among his men to the extreme badness of the beer[232]; while objection was also taken to an untimely dispensation of rotten cheese[233].

The victualling contract of which we possess the fullest details was that of 31 December, 1677[234]. From this it appears that the daily allowance of each man was 'one pound averdupois of good, clean, sweet, sound, well-bolted with a horse-cloth, well-baked, and well-conditioned wheaten biscuit; one gallon, wine measure, of beer' ... 'two pounds averdupois of beef, killed and made up with salt in England, of a well-fed ox ... for Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays'—or, instead of beef, for two of those days one pound averdupois of bacon, or salted English pork, of a well-fed hog ... and a pint of pease (Winchester measure) therewith' ...; 'and for Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, every man, besides the aforesaid allowance of bread and beer, to have by the day the eighth part of a full-sized North Sea cod of 24 inches long, or a sixth part of a haberdine 22 inches long, or a quarter part of the same sort if but 16 inches long ... or a pound averdupois of well-savoured Poor John, together with two ounces of butter, and four ounces of Suffolk cheese, or two-thirds of that weight of Cheshire.' The contract provides for English beef because there was a strong prejudice in the navy against Irish beef. Pepys quotes one writer as saying 'The Irish meat is very unwholesome, as well as lean, and rots our men'[235]; and John Hollond argues that to serve Irish beef was greatly to discourage the seamen[236]. 'Haberdine' is salt or sun-dried cod, and 'Poor John' is salted or dried hake.

In the case of vessels sailing 'to the southward of the latitude of 39 degrees N.' it was allowable for the contractors to vary the diet—'In lieu of a pound of biscuit, a pound of rusk of equal fineness; in lieu of a gallon of beer, a wine quart of beverage wine or half a wine pint of brandy ... in lieu of a piece of beef or pork with pease, three pounds of flour and a pound of raisins (not worse than Malaga), or in lieu of raisins, half a pound of currants or half a pound of beef suet pickled; in lieu of a sized fish, four pounds of Milan rice or two stockfishes of at least 16 inches long; in lieu of a pound of butter or two pounds of Suffolk cheese, a wine pint of sweet olive oil.' The separate victualling contract for the Mediterranean[237] provided for this lighter diet there in any case; but the variation was not popular among the seamen. In Captain Boteler's _Six Dialogues about Sea Services_, printed in 1685 but written some fifty years earlier, the 'admiral,' who, having just been appointed to the 'high-admiralship,' is occupied throughout the book in remedying an abysmal ignorance of naval matters by conversation with a 'sea-captain,' suggests that it would be better for the health of the mariners if the ordinary victualling were assimilated 'to the manner of foreign parts.' 'Without doubt, my lord,' replies the captain, 'our much, and indeed excessive feeding upon these salt meats at sea cannot but procure much unhealthiness and infection, and is questionless one main cause that our English are so subject to calentures, scarbots, and the like contagious diseases above all other nations; so that it were to be wished that we did more conform ourselves, if not to the Spanish and Italian nations, who live most upon rice-meal, oatmeal, biscake, figs, olives, oil, and the like, yet at the least to our neighbours the Dutch, who content themselves with a far less proportion of flesh and fish than we do, and instead thereof do make it up with pease, beans, wheat-flour, butter, cheese, and those white meats (as they are called).' To this view the admiral assents, but he adds, 'The difficulty consisteth in that the common seamen with us are so besotted on their beef and pork as they had rather adventure on all the calentures and scarbots in the world than to be weaned from their customary diet, or so much as to lose the least bit of it.' I should explain that a calenture is a fever, associated with delirium, to which sailors in the tropics were peculiarly liable; and scarbot is the scurvy[238].

Pepys expected much from the new contract of 1677[239], but the old complaints of delay and bad quality recur[240], and in 1683 his successors decided to abandon contract in favour of a state victualling department resembling in its general character the system of victualling 'upon account,'[241] established from 1655 to the Restoration. If we may infer anything from the silence of the _Admiralty Letters_, hitherto so vocal upon the subject, this change of method resulted in an improvement in the victualling of the navy, and on the whole the Victualling Office did not come out badly under the test of the mobilisation of 1688. The necessity for this had been realised about the middle of August, and at first the delays caused a good deal of anxiety; but by the end of October Pepys was able to report that the fleet is 'now (God be thanked) at the Gunfleet, and in very good condition there.'[242] There were still ships waiting to be got ready for sea, but of these he writes: 'I do with the same zeal continue to press the despatch of the rest that are behind that I would do for my victuals if I were hungry.'[243]