Part 6

The decay of discipline in the Restoration period has been associated by some writers with the practice of appointing 'gentlemen captains' without experience to important commands at sea. The matter is discussed by Macaulay, picturesquely but with exaggeration[264]; Pepys, in the _Diary_, quotes Coventry as referring to the 'unruliness' of the 'young gentlemen captains'[265] and confessing 'that the more of the cavaliers are put in, the less of discipline hath followed in the fleet'[266]; and a Restoration paper printed in Charnock's _Marine Architecture_[267] very much shocks that author by its 'illiberal and improper observations' on the subject. He admits, however, that 'there certainly appears much truth and solidity in the general principle of them,' though 'it might have been wished for the sake of decency and propriety' that the writer 'had conveyed his animadversions in somewhat less vulgar terms.' The victim of Charnock's criticism traces every kind of evil to the year 1660, when 'gentlemen came to command in the navy.' These 'have had the honour to bring drinking, gaming, whoring, swearing, and all impiety into the navy, and banish all order and sobriety out of their ships'; they have cast their ships away for want of seamanship[268]; they have habitually delayed in port when they should have been at sea; a gentleman captain will bring 'near twenty landmen into the ship as his footmen, tailor, barber, fiddlers, decayed kindred, volunteer gentlemen or acquaintance, as companions,' and these 'are of Bishop Williams's opinion, that Providence made man to live ashore, and it is necessity that drives him to sea.' The writer concludes that 'the Crown will at all times be better able to secure trade, prevent the growth of the naval strength of our enemy, with £100,000 under a natural sea admiralty and seamen captains ... than with three times that sum under land admirals and gentlemen captains not bred tarpaulins.'

With some qualifications this is the view of Pepys. He disclaims hostility to gentlemen captains as such; but he quotes from a speech delivered by Colonel Birch in the House of Commons, in which he had urged that one of the 'present miscarriages' of the navy is that 'employment and favour are now bestowed wholly upon gentlemen, to the great discouragement of tarpaulins of Wapping and Blackwall, from whence ... the good commanders of old were all used to be chosen.'[269] Pepys also refers to the liberty taken by gentlemen commanders of 'thinking themselves above the necessity of obeying orders, and conforming themselves to the rules and discipline of the Navy, in reliance upon the protection secured to them therein through the quality of their friends at Court.'[270] Pepys himself was probably an impartial witness, for he was denounced by each side for favouring the other[271].

It is in a way remarkable that during the period of complaints against gentlemen captains we come upon the first establishment of an examination for lieutenants. Towards the end of 1677 complaints reached the Admiralty from Sir John Narbrough, commanding in the Mediterranean, of the 'defectiveness' of his lieutenants 'in their seamanship.'[272] Pepys also refers to 'the general ignorance and dulness of our lieutenants of ships' as 'a great evil' of which 'all sober commanders at this day' complain. They are 'for the most part (at least those of later standing) made out of volunteers, who having passed some time superficially at sea, and being related to families of interest at Court, do obtain lieutenancies before they are fitted for it.'[273] The result was the adoption on 18 December of a regular establishment[274], drawn up by Pepys[275], 'for ascertaining the duty of a sea-lieutenant, and for examining persons pretending to that office.' A lieutenant was required to have served three years actually at sea; to be 20 years of age at least; to produce 'good certificates' from the commanders under whom he had served of his 'sobriety, diligence, obedience to order,' and 'application to the study and practice of the art of navigation,' as well as three further certificates—from a member of the Navy Board who had served as a commander, from a flag officer, and from a commander of a first or second rate—'upon a solemn examination,' held at the Navy Office, of 'his ability to judge of and perform the duty of an able seaman and midshipman, and his having attained to a sufficient degree of knowledge in the theory of navigation capacitating him thereto.' Candidates were sometimes ploughed[276], and this, as Pepys points out, was an encouragement to the 'true-bred seaman' and greatly to the benefit of the King's service. 'I thank God,' he writes in 1678[277], 'we have not half the throng of those of the bastard breed pressing for employments which we heretofore used to be troubled with, they being conscious of their inability to pass this examination, and know it to be to no purpose now to solicit for employments till they have done it.'

To about the same time as the examination for lieutenants belongs another minor reform—an establishment for the better provision of naval chaplains. In April or May, 1677, the King and Lords of the Admiralty resolved 'that no persons shall be entertained as chaplains on board his Majesty's ships but such as shall be approved of by the Lord Bishop of London.'[278] The proposal originated in the first instance with Pepys, who designed it to remedy 'the ill-effects of the looseness wherein that matter lay, with respect both to the honour of God Almighty and the preservation of sobriety and good discipline in his Majesty's fleet.'[279] The details of the scheme were more fully worked out by resolutions adopted by the Admiralty Commission on 15 December, 1677[280].

An important measure which had an indirect bearing upon discipline was James II's 'establishment about plate carriage and allowance for captains' tables,'[281] dated 15 July, 1686. The title of the establishment gives little indication of its real scope; it was designed to give the Admiralty a better control over ships on foreign service, and at the same time so to improve the position of the commanders as to put them beyond the reach of temptations to neglect their public duty for private gain. The preamble refers to the 'general disorder' into which the discipline of the navy has 'of late years' fallen, and especially to the particular evil arising from 'the liberty taken by commanders of our ships (upon all opportunities of private profit) of converting the service of our said ships to their own use, and the total neglect of the public ends for which they, at our great charge, are set forth and maintained, namely, the annoying of our enemies, the protecting the estates of our trading subjects, and the support of our honour with foreign princes.' Commanders are accordingly forbidden to convey money, jewels, merchandise, or passengers without the King's warrant; and copies of orders given by admirals or commanders-in-chief are to be sent to the Secretary of the Admiralty, as also interim reports of proceedings, and a complete journal at the end of the voyage. In consideration of these requirements, commanders are to receive substantial additional allowances 'for the support of their tables,' ranging from £83 a year to £250 according to the ship's rate.

The reign of James II was in a peculiar degree a period of the framing and revising of 'establishments,' and on 13 April, 1686, a new establishment was made concerning 'volunteers and midshipmen extraordinary.'[282] This appears to be a confirmation of an earlier establishment of 4 May, 1676, designed to afford encouragement 'to families of better quality ... to breed up their younger sons to the art and practice of navigation' by 'the bearing several young gentlemen, to the ends aforesaid' on board the King's ships as 'volunteers,' and to provide employment for ex-commanders or lieutenants by carrying them as 'midshipmen extraordinary' over and above the ordinary complement assigned to the ship in which they sailed. Another 'establishment' of the same period is that of November, 1686, for boatswains' and carpenters' sea stores[283].

During the earlier part of Pepys's second Secretaryship, drunkenness gave a good deal of trouble. For instance, in 1685 the commander of the _Diamond_ complained that his officers were 'sottish, and unfit to serve the King,' particularly the gunner, who was 'dead drunk in his cabin when the powder was to be taken out.'[284] Pepys refers on 5 August, 1684, to 'the generality of that vice, now running through the whole navy,'[285] and on 4 February, 1685, he writes, 'Till that vice be cured, which I find too far spread in the navy, both by sea and land, I do despair of ever seeing his Majesty's service therein to thrive, and as I have given one or two instances of my care therein already, so shall I not fail by the grace of God to persevere in it, as far as I am able, till it be thoroughly cured, let it light where it will.'[286] In these efforts the Secretary of the Admiralty, was soon to be powerfully supported by the new King, 'there being no one vice,' Pepys writes on 15 February, 1685, 'which can give more just occasion of offence to his Majesty than that of drunkenness, for the restraining which, as well in the navy as in every other part of the service, I well know he has immoveably determined to have the severest means used, nor shall I in my station fail (according to his commands and my duty) to give my helping hand thereto.'[287]

In connexion with discipline it may be mentioned that even as early as the Restoration there were labour troubles in the dockyards. In 1663 a separate room was applied for in the new storehouse at Portsmouth for use as a workroom, 'as seamen and carpenters will never agree to work together.'[288] In the same year the clerk of the Portsmouth ropeyard complained of the workmen employed there. By hasty spinning they finished what they called a day's work by dinner-time, and then refused to work again till four o'clock. 'Yesterday,' he writes, 'about twenty-five of them left the work to go to the alehouse, where, I think, they remain.'[289] On 26 March, 1664, the shipwrights and caulkers at Deptford are complained of because they work very slowly, and 'give ill language' when pressed to work[290]. Later on, in January, 1671, Commissioner John Cox appears to have had almost as much trouble with the master workmen and their instruments in Chatham dockyard. They were remiss in their attendance, and met his efforts at their amendment by passive resistance[291].

The two great shipbuilding years of our period were 1666 and 1679—the first accounted for by the Second Dutch War, and the latter by the Act of 1677 for thirty new ships to which I have already referred[292]. How much was done during the Restoration period to strengthen the navy on its material side can be realised by a comparison made in tabular form in Pepys's _Register of Ships_[293]. In 1660 the navy consisted of 156 vessels, in 1688 of 173; but a comparison of numbers gives no adequate idea of relative strength. In 1660 there were only 3 first rates as against 9 in 1688; second rates, 11 at both dates; third rates, 16 against 39; fourth rates, 45 against 41; fifth rates, 37 against 2; sixth rates, 23 against 6—shewing that the tendency had been to build bigger ships. In 1660 there were only 30 ships of the first three rates, but in 1688 the number was nearly doubled, rising to 59. Another feature in the table is the development of the fireship and the yacht[294]. In 1660 there were no fireships in the navy; in 1688, 26. In 1660 there was one yacht, and in 1688 there were 14. The strength of the fleet may also be tested in another way, by comparing tonnage, men, and guns[295]. In 1660 the tonnage was 62,594; in 1688, 101,032. In 1660 the number of men borne on the sea establishment was 19,551; in 1688,41,940. In 1660 the total number of guns was 4,642; in 1688, 6,954.

In connexion with guns, the important achievement of the period was the systematising, under the methodical hand of Pepys, of the arrangements for determining the number and type of the armament of each rate, and the number of men required to work it. In 1677 he drew up a 'general establishment' of men and guns[296], and this was officially adopted as 'a solemn, universal, and unalterable adjustment of the gunning and manning of the whole fleet[297].'

Let me now sum up briefly our general conclusions.

In the light of the facts which I have endeavoured to set out in these lectures, the old notion that the naval administration of the Interregnum was pious and efficient and that of the Restoration immoral and slack appears crude and unsatisfying. But there is this element of truth in it—that vigorous efforts for the regeneration of the navy were to a certain extent rendered abortive by the corruption of the Court and the lowness of the prevailing political tone. Able and energetic reformers were baffled by want of money, and this was due partly to royal extravagance and partly to unsatisfactory relations with Parliament, which suspected peculation and waste. Discipline also was undermined by the introduction into the service of unfit persons, who obtained admission and were protected from the adequate punishment of their delinquencies by the interest of persons of quality at Court. Further, an atmosphere was created which enervated some of the reformers themselves. It is remarkable that in spite of these drawbacks so much should have been accomplished. The facts and figures contained in the naval manuscripts in the Pepysian Library go a long way to justify the claims made by Pepys on behalf of the administrations with which he himself was connected, and particularly on behalf of the Special Commission of 1686, which, as he says, 'raised the Navy of England from the lowest state of impotence to the most advanced step towards a lasting and solid prosperity that (all circumstances considered) this nation had ever seen it at.'[298] The characteristic vices of the Restoration, as he describes them, are all there—'the laziness of one, the private business or love of pleasure in another, want of method in a third, and zeal to the affair in most'—but except during the period 1679 to 1684 there was no abject incompetence and some steady progress. Even Charles II understood 'the business of the sea,'[299] 'possessed a transcendent mastery in all maritime knowledge,'[300] and when he was acting as Lord High Admiral transacted a good deal of naval business with his own hand[301]. James II was a real authority upon shipbuilding[302], took an interest in the details of administration[303], recognised the importance of discipline, and might have restored it if destiny had not intervened. But much more is to be attributed to the methodical industry of their great subordinate, and to his 'daily eye and hand' upon all departments of naval affairs. His vitality of character and variety of interests appear in the _Diary_, but from his official correspondence we get something different; for in a document which is so true to human nature as the _Diary_, it is almost inevitable that the diarist, although sufficiently self-satisfied, should be quite unconscious of his strongest points. We should expect business habits in a Government official, but in his correspondence Pepys exhibits a methodical devotion to business which is beyond praise. We have here sobriety and soundness of judgment; a sense of the paramount importance of discipline, and the exercise of a steady pressure upon others to restore it in the navy; a high standard of personal duty, which permits no slackness and spares no pains; and a remarkable capacity for tactful diplomacy. The decorous self-satisfaction of the _Diary_ has been replaced in later years by professional pride; and an outlook upon business affairs which had always been intelligent, has become profoundly serious. The agreeable vices of the _Diary_ suggest the light irresponsible cavalier. The official correspondence suggests that Pepys was a Puritan at heart, although without the Puritan rigidity of practice or narrowness of view. In his professional career he exhibits precisely those virtues which had made the naval administration of Blake's time a success—the virtues of the Independent colonels who manned the administrative offices during the First Dutch War. The change is that from the rather dissolute-looking young Royalist painted by Lely about 1669 to the ample wig and pursed official lips of the later portrait by Kneller[304].

It is not surprising that a man so observant, so experienced, and so absorbed in the navy should have drawn the moral of the naval history of his own time. In his _Memoires of the Royal Navy_[305], the only work which he ever acknowledged[306], Pepys states the essential 'truths' of the 'sea œconomy' of England, which are as valid to-day as when he wrote them down—'that integrity and general (but unpractised) knowledge are not alone sufficient to conduct and support a Navy so as to prevent its declension into a state little less unhappy than the worst that can befall it under the want of both'; 'that not much more (neither) is to be depended on even from experience alone and integrity, unaccompanied with vigour of application, assiduity, affection, strictness of discipline, and method'; but that what is really needed is 'a strenuous conjunction of all these.' For himself he claims due credit, for it was 'a strenuous conjunction of all these (and that conjunction only)' that redeemed the navy in 1686.

An anonymous admirer[307] wrote of Pepys as 'the great treasurer of naval and maritime knowledge,' who was 'aequiponderous' to his colleagues 'in moral, and much superior in philosophical knowledge and the universal knowledge of the œconomy of the navy.' Modern eulogies are phrased more simply, but we may fairly claim for this great public servant that he did more than anyone else under a King who hated 'the very sight or thoughts of business'[308] to apply business principles to naval administration.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Diary_, 13 June, 1664.

[2] Vols. ii.-v. of these letters have been calendared already, and calendars of vols. vi. and vii. are in preparation: see the writer's _Catalogue of Pepysian MSS._ (Navy Records Society's Publications), vols. ii. and iii.

[3] See Hollond's _Discourses of the Navy_, ed. J. R. Tanner, published by the Navy Records Society in 1896. This volume also includes Slyngesbie's _Discourse of the Navy_.

[4] Pepysian MSS., _Miscellanies_, x. 273.

[5] _Naval Tracts_ (ed. M. Oppenheim), iv. 143.

[6] See Appendix to Hollond's _Discourses_, pp. 361-406.

[7] _Diary_, 25 July, 1662.

[8] 'Interim Report of a Committee to inquire into abuses in the Victualling Department at Portsmouth' (_House of Commons Miscellaneous Reports_, vol. xxxvi. No. 55).

[9] _Discourses_, p. 131.

[10] _Discourses_, p. 149.

[11] _A Large and Severe Discourse_, &c. (Pepysian MSS., _Miscellanies_, x. 226).

[12] _A Large and Particular Complaint against Phineas Pett_, &c. (Pepysian MSS., _Miscellanies_, x. 257).

[13] _Discourses_, p. 140 _n._

[14] _An Account of Particular Abuses to be proved against the Officers of the Navy_ (Pepysian MSS., _Miscellanies_, x. 271).

[15] C. N. Robinson, _The British Fleet_, p. 347. There are two copies of the Report of 1608 in the Pepysian Library—MSS. 2165, and _Miscellanies_, iii. 355.

[16] _Discourses_, p. 100.

[17] _Naval Tracts_, iv. 147.

[18] _Naval Tracts_, iv. 143.

[19] _Discourses_, p. 154.

[20] Pepysian MSS., No. 2735, p. 65.

[21] Hollond, _First Discourse_ (_Discourses_, p. 78).

[22] _Ib._ p. 67.

[23] On 1 January, 1660.

[24] _Diary_, 31 May, 1669.

[25] _Diary_, 24 April, 1665.

[26] _Diary_, 13 June, 1666.

[27] See for instance a letter of 17 December, 1678, courteously discouraging a commander from sending his chaplain's sermon to the Bishop of London for his perusal, as owing to the pressing nature of his Parliamentary engagements the Bishop might not be 'at leisure to overlook it' (Pepysian MSS., _Admiralty Letters_, viii. 432).

[28] Pepysian MSS., _Admiralty Letters_, vi. 43.

[29] Historical MSS. Commission, _Fifteenth Report_, Appendix, pt. ii. p. 153.

[30] A list of Lord High Admirals and Admiralty Commissions from August, 1628, to March, 1689, is given in Pepysian MSS., _Miscellanies_, xi. 211-26.

[31] _Naval Tracts_, iv. 141.

[32] _History of England_ (2 vols. Longman, 1880), i. 218.

[33] Pepysian MSS., _Admiralty Letters_, xii. 71. We also find him desiring 'for his own satisfaction and use to have an account of the just rake of all the upright-stemmed ships in his royal navy, and the present seat of the step of each main-mast' (_ib._ xi. 200); and his pocket-book in the Pepysian Library (MSS. No. 488) contains a number of facts about the navy. For his interest in inventions see _Admiralty Letters_, xii. 91 and xiii. 23.

[34] Pepysian MSS. No. 2866, _Naval Minutes_, p. 175.

[35] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1667-8, p. xxxvi; _cf._ also _Diary_, 8 July, 1668 ('I to the Duke of York to attend him about the business of the Office; and find him mighty free to me, and how he is concerned to mend things in the Navy himself, and not leave it to other people').

[36] _Dictionary of National Biography_, ix. 208.

[37] _Diary_, 30 October, 1662.

[38] _Ib._ 12 April, 1667.

[39] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1631-3, p. 546.

[40] _State Papers, Domestic, Charles II_, i. 153.

[41] _Diary_, 31 July, 1661.

[42] _Ib._ 5 November, 1662.

[43] _Ib._ 28 December, 1662.

[44] _Diary_, 10 March, 1663.

[45] _Ib._ 11 March, 1663.

[46] _Ib._ 25 July, 1662.

[47] _Ib._ 5 July, 1664.

[48] _Ib._ 23 May, 1664.

[49] _Ib._ 13 June, 1663.

[50] _Ib._ 4 October, 1667.

[51] _Ib._ 17 July, 1660.

[52] _Diary_, 9 February, 1665.

[53] _Dictionary of National Biography_, iv. 361-2.

[54] _Ib._ xliv. 308-9.

[55] The Commissions of 1653 and 1659 (Pepysian MSS., _Miscellanies_, xi. 216, 218, 219).

[56] _Dictionary of National Biography_, xlv. 103.

[57] _Ib._ xlv. 102.

[58] H. B. Wheatley, _Samuel Pepys and the World he lived in_, p. 285.

[59] x. 358.

[60] _Report of the Navy Commissioners to the Duke of York_, 17 April, 1669; printed in Charnock, _Marine Architecture_, ii. 406.

[61] _Observations on the Navy and Sea Service_ (_Works_, viii. 336).

[62] _Dictionary of National Biography_, ii. 2-3.

[63] 'So home again, and in the evening news was brought that Sir R. Slingsby, our Comptroller, (who hath this day been sick a week) is dead; which put me into so great trouble of mind that all the night I could not sleep, he being a man that loved me, and had many qualities that made me love him above all the Officers and Commissioners in the Navy' (_Diary_, 26 October, 1661).

[64] _Dictionary of National Biography_, xxxvii. 253-4.

[65] _Diary_, 2 January, 1666.

[66] _Ib._ 20 August, 1666.

[67] _Ib._ 7 April, 1663; 5 October, 1663; 6 October, 1666; 4 January, 1669.

[68] _Ib._ 2 April, 1664.

[69] _Dictionary of National Biography_, i. 332.

[70] Pepys joined with Penn in recommending him as 'a most honest and understanding man, and fit for that place' (_Diary_, 5 October, 1667).

[71] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1672, p. 551.

[72] _Dictionary of National Biography_, xii. 363.

[73] _E.g._ 14 September, 1662 ('found him to admiration good and industrious, and I think my most true friend in all things that are fair'); 18 November, 1662 ('I am still in love more and more with him for his real worth'); and elsewhere.

[74] _Dictionary of National Biography_, vi. 470.

[75] _Diary_, 29 January, 1667.

[76] _Ib._ 25 August, 1668.

[77] _Naval Tracts_, iii. 398.

[78] Pepysian MSS. No. 2611, Sir William Penn's _Collections_, p. 4.