Part 13

On the side of the authorities it has to be remembered that had any man been allowed ashore he would certainly never have been seen again, at any rate, so long as he had any money. In most fleets also, an attempt at a substitute was made by allowing ship to ship visiting. Such visits invariably resulted in drunken bouts and subsequent floggings. Nelson went further--he instituted theatricals on shipboard. It is generally clear that--very crudely, of course--the authorities were not blind to the desirability of relieving the tedium of imprisonment on board ship.

The feeding of the men in the days of the Great War is generally considered to have been villainous. It was one of the causes of the Mutiny; but there is some reason to believe that it was not invariably bad. Rodney’s fleet is said to have been excellently provisioned, and much of what has been written about “thieving pursers” in the past is now known to be mythical. It was a classical legend that the purser stole and swindled with bad food. He might do so, and many did. But all did not, either from honesty or because they did not get the chance. Under Nelson or Rodney an unscrupulous purser stood to have a very bad time indeed, and there were others very keenly alive to the fact that good feeding and efficiency went hand in hand. The bad food at the time of the mutinies seem to have been a feature of that particular time, and even so due rather to mismanagement than much else. For the rest, the real culprits were economists on shore, who had no connection whatever with the Fleet, and were merely interested in husbanding the financial resources of the country.

The provisions as made were almost uniformly good, and the stories of unscrupulous contractors who, in league with the pursers, foisted inferior food on the Fleet, may mostly be dismissed. Such cases occurred now and again, but comparatively rarely. “Rogues in authority” were mainly mythical. There are yarns by the score. There are corresponding yarns to-day, quite as plentiful, which the careless historian of the future will no doubt swallow. For example, at the present day it is an article of faith with every bluejacket that the first lieutenant pockets odd sixpences out of the canteen, and nothing ever can or ever will remove the impression.

It is absolutely absurd; but within the last ten years I have had it chapter and verse all about the peculation of 1s. 4d. by a first lieutenant whose private income ran well into five figures! It is a sea-legend so hoary that bluejackets honour it, no matter how ridiculously improbable. The purser of the days of the Great War was not perhaps entirely clean handed, but as Commander Robinson has pointed out,[71] even at the Spithead Mutiny, when the provision question was very much to the fore, the mutineers did not complain of the purser, but of the system and regulations. It was people on shore, not the man afloat, who, when it came to the point, mixed up the instrument with the handlers thereof.

The Spithead trouble, which was purely naval (the Nore Mutiny was more or less political) arose entirely, so far as food was concerned, out of the economists already referred to. Vast stores of provisions had been accumulated, and many were going bad. Pursers received very strict orders to use up the old “likely to decay soon” before touching the new. The result was the issue of decayed pork, stinking cheese, and mildewed biscuits to an unprecedented degree. A badness that had hitherto been more or less occasional chanced just about the Mutiny period to be general.

The men were by no means starved or badly fed, presuming the food to be good. The usual scale was somewhat as follows:--A daily issue of a pound of biscuit and a gallon of beer or else pint of wine; and when these were exhausted, one gill of Navy rum diluted with three of water twice a day. On Tuesdays and Saturdays an issue of 2lbs. of beef was made; on Sundays and Thursdays 1lb. of pork. Over the week the issue of other articles was 2lbs. pease, 1½lbs. oatmeal, 6ozs. of butter, an equal amount of sugar, and 12ozs. of cheese and half-a-pint of vinegar nominally per man; but actually every four men took the provisions of six. Nine pounds of meat a week could hardly be called starvation fare even to-day, and in those times it was an extraordinarily liberal diet for men who at home would not have had anything like it.[72] Except in cases with admirals like Collingwood (who in the matter of understanding the ratio of health to efficiency was about the most incompetent admiral the British Navy ever had), it was generally seen to that, whenever possible, fresh provisions could be purchased from traders who regularly visited blockading fleets.

Furthermore, rations were normally varied so far as circumstances would permit, and when possible fresh beef and mutton were substituted for the salt meat allowance. Nelson went to almost extravagant lengths in these directions; but the majority of other officers were not far behind. Whatever hell the Lower Deck of the Fleet entailed, the blame in hardly any case lay with the officers, executive or otherwise, but entirely with civilian officials and Members of Parliament with ideas of their own about economy. All the reliable evidence is to the effect that the responsible authorities desired their fighting men to live (relatively speaking) like fighting cocks, that the difference between the ideal and the real was due to civilian influence, and that even so it was only really thoroughly bad just before the Great Mutiny. Had it been a regular thing the Mutinies would probably never have happened, the men would have been too used to the conditions to find in them a special cause of complaint.

The whole trouble in messing in the old days arose out of quality, not quantity. The beef and pork were almost invariably bad, owing to the system of using up the old provisions first, with a view to economy. Every ship carried tons of good provisions going bad, while those already bad and decayed were being consumed. Consequently the men starved in the midst of relative plenty.

It remains to add that the officers fared little better.[73] On the whole, taking their general shore food into consideration, it may be argued that they fared worse. As a rule, they had to eat what the men ate, a fact too often forgotten by those who believe that the officers of those days generally peculated on provisions for the men.

Both aft and forward there was one consolation. Liquor was plentiful enough for anyone who wanted to be half seas over by eventime. So was the hard life lived, with an occasional battle to break the monotony.

To both officers and men battle seems to have been the “beano” of to-day. Conditions on board were not rosy enough to make life worth clinging to, while battle meant a good time afterwards to those who got through unscathed. There was only one terror--being wounded. The horrors of the cockpit are beyond exaggeration. The surgeons did their best. They were poorly paid men[74] and expected to find their own instruments: only if they could not did they borrow tools from the carpenter.[75]

They heated their instruments before use so as to lessen the shock of amputation; they doped their patients with wine or spirit so far as might be. They took all as they came in turn, whether officer or man. If anyone seemed too badly wounded to be worth attention they had him taken above and thrown overboard. If, at a hasty glance, taking off an arm or a leg, or both, seemed likely to promise a cure, they gave the wounded man a tot of rum and a bit of leather to chew, and set to work! The wounded who survived were treated with a humanity which makes the “more humanity to the wounded” of the Spithead mutineers a little difficult to understand at first sight. They were fed on delicacies; and anything out of the ordinary on the wardroom table was always sent to them. They also got all the officers’ wine.

On the other hand, time in the sick bay was deducted from their pay,[76] and they were liable to all kinds of infectious diseases caught from the last patient.

To satisfy the demands of the economists, lint was forbidden and sponges restricted, so that a single sponge might have to serve for a dozen wounded men. Blood-poisoning was thus indiscriminately spread, and a wounded man thus infected with the worst form of it, was mulcted in his pay for medicines required. When the Spithead mutineers demanded “more humanity to the wounded” those were the things that probably they had in mind. It has further to be remembered that a man wounded too badly to be of any further use afloat was flung ashore without pension or mercy. The surgeons were fully as humane as their brethren ashore, possibly much more so, from the mere fact that any community of men flung together to sink or swim together compels common sympathies. To the men the purser was classically a thief, the surgeon a callous brute, the officers generally brutes of another kind. This cheap view of the situation has been perpetuated _ad lib_. But all the best evidence is to the effect that, as a rule, and save in exceptional cases, most of those on board a warship pulled together, and that all strove to make the best of things. Things to be made the best of were few, no doubt, and the grumblers and growlers are the folk who have left most records. Allowing for the different era, similar growls can be found to-day. To-day the contented man says nothing; the discontented says a little, and outside sympathisers say a great deal. The truth probably lies with the actually discontented’s version somewhat discounted. In the days of the Great War, the same fact probably obtained. Unquestionably the seaman proper loved the sea and his duty, despite all hardships and drawbacks. To this fact is to be attributed the easy victories of the Great Wars, and, relatively to corresponding shore life, sea life afloat can hardly have been quite so black as most people delight to paint it.[77]

The pay of the Navy of the period remains to be mentioned. It ran as follows:--

Captain--6s. to 25s. a day, according to the ship, plus a variety of allowances.

Midshipmen--£2 to £2 15s. 6d. a month.

Surgeons--11s. to 18s. a day, with half-pay when unemployed.

Assistant-Surgeons--4s. and 5s., with half-pay when unemployed.

Chaplains--about 8s. 6d. a day, with allowances.

Schoolmasters--£2 to £2 8s. a month, with bounties.

Boatswains--£3 to £4 16s. a month.

Boatswain’s Mate--£2 5s. 6d. a month.

Gunner--£1 16s. to £2 2s. a month.

Carpenter--£3 to £5 16s. a month, according to the ship.

Quartermaster--£2 5s. 6d. a month.

Sailmaker--£2 5s. 6d. a month.

Sailmaker’s Assistant--£1 18s. 6d. a month.

Master-at-Arms--£2 0s. 6d. to £2 15s. 6d. a month.

Ship’s Corporals--£2 2s. 6d. a month.

Cook--11s. 8d. a month and pickings.

Able Seaman--11s. a month (33s. a month after 1797).

Ordinary Seaman--9s. a month (25s. 6d. a month after 1797).

Landsman--7s. 6d. a month (23s. a month after 1797).

Ship’s Boy--13s. to 13s. 6d. a month.

As a rule the men received their pay in a lump when the ship paid off. Hence those extraordinary scenes of dissipation with which the story books have made us sufficiently familiar. Jews[78] and women soon fleeced the Tar, who was generally too drunk to know what he was doing, there being dozens of willing hands ready to see to it that he was well plied with liquor.

_FLAGS._

In the year 1800 the Union flag was altered to its present form by the incorporation of the red cross of St. Patrick. This flag, the Union Jack, was used for flying on the bowsprit,[79] and at the main masthead by an Admiral of the Fleet. To hoist it correctly, _i.e._, right side up, was a special point of importance in the Fleet of Nelson’s day, and many a foreigner seeking to use British colours got bowled out from hoisting the flag incorrectly, _i.e._, without the greater width of white being uppermost in the inner canton nearest the staff. To this day many people on shore do the same.

The ensign was coloured according as to whether the Admiral was “of the white,” “blue,” or “red.” It was flown, as till quite recently, from the mizzen peak.

For battle purposes this variety ensign died out after Trafalgar, where, in order to avoid confusion, Nelson ordered all ships to fly the white ensign--he himself being a Vice-Admiral of the white, while Collingwood was Vice-Admiral of the blue. Trafalgar was thus the first battle to be fought deliberately under the white ensign.

IX.

THE BIRTH OF MODERN WARSHIP IDEAS.

In 1816 took place the bombardment of Algiers, whereby 1,200 Europeans who were in slavery were released. None of these, however, proved to be British subjects. A noticeable feature of the bombardment was the heavy damage done by the large ships engaged.

For the year 1817 the _personnel_ stood at 21,000 only. Ships in commission were fourteen of the line and 100 lesser craft. Two hundred and sixty-three (of which eighty-four were of the line) were laid up “in ordinary” and the remaining ships were condemned.

In this year a new rating of ships was introduced. Up till now the carronades had not been included in the armament of ships. Under the new rating they were included, and so the thirty-eight gun ship actually carrying fifty-two guns appeared for the first time with her proper armament.

Although the Navy was so reduced, considerable attention was paid to shipbuilding and improvement of construction. Trussed frames were introduced, and a variety of other inventions which had long been in use in France. Much attention was paid to the strong construction of the bow, with a view to resisting raking fire.[80] Sterns were also made circular to enable more guns to bear aft. A curious objection to this was made on the grounds that in time of war it was the enemy who would be in retreat and most in need of stern fire, and that by the introduction of this into the British Navy the enemy would copy and so have the advantage of being better able to defend himself than heretofore! It was, however, pointed out that perhaps war vessels propelled by steam might be met with in blockades, and that it would be extremely important to sail away from these and be able to destroy them while so doing!

The years 1818 and 1819 passed uneventfully. The _personnel_ was 20,000, and the estimates averaged between six and seven million pounds. They remained at about this figure for several years, and beyond some slight operations in Burmah, in 1824, the British Navy performed no war services till the year 1827. In the Burmese operations, the _Diana_, a small steam paddle vessel took part. It is also of some interest to record that Captain Marryat, the naval novelist, commanded the _Lorne_ (twenty) in these operations.

In 1827, the combined fleets of England, France and Russia met those of the Turks and Egyptians at Navarino, in connection with the war between Turkey and Greece. The allied fleet consisted as follows:--

{ Three ships of the line. BRITISH { Four frigates. { Several other vessels.

{ Three ships of the line. FRENCH { Two lesser vessels. { Two schooners.

RUSSIAN { Four ships of the line. { Four frigates.

The combined Turko-Egyptian fleet consisted of three ships of the line, fifteen large frigates, eighteen corvettes, and a number of gunboats, etc.

The Turkish fleet was anchored in the harbour. The combined fleet sailed into the harbour and anchored to leeward of the Turks. These fired upon some English boats and a general action ensued, in which the greater part of the Turko-Egyptian fleet was destroyed with the loss of somewhere about 4,000 men. The Allies lost 650, and the principal English ships were so damaged that they had to be sent home for repairs.

At and about this time, and right on for some years, an enormous number of experiments were carried out between ship and ship with a view to improving the sailing qualities, and side by side with this, the question of propulsion other than by sail was first seriously considered. A certain number of small steam tugs had been added to the Navy, there being no less than twenty-two such built in the reign of George IV. Of these the largest was built in 1835. Very little reliance was placed on steam at first for any possibilities outside towing and harbour work, and a great deal of energy was expended in devices to enable ships to be moved by manual labour. In place of the “sweeps” of ancient history, paddles were fitted, and in 1829 the _Galatea_ (forty-two) frigate was thus moved at a speed of three knots in a dead calm.

The _Galatea_ was commanded by Captain, afterwards Admiral Sir Charles, Napier, who so long ago as 1819 had been concerned in financing an unsuccessful attempt to run iron steamers on the Seine. The first ship in which hand paddles were tried was the _Active_, frigate. No success was met with, but Napier evolved a different system for the _Galatea_. Those of the _Active_ were worked by the capstan; Napier installed a series of winches along each side of the main deck. It took about two-thirds of the ship’s company to work them.

The earliest known use of steam was as long ago as in the year 1543. The account of it was in the original records which had been preserved in the Royal Archives of Simancas, among the State Papers of the city of Catalonia, and those of the Naval Secretary of War, in the year 1543, and was extracted on the 27th August, 1825, by the keeper, who signed his name “Tomas Gonzalez.”

The inventor, a naval officer named Garay, never revealed the secret of his invention, but mention is made of a “cauldron of boiling water” and “wheels of complicated movement on each side of the vessel.” He succeeded in obtaining a speed of “two leagues in three hours,” also “at least a league an hour” with his device, fitted to a 200-ton vessel named _Trinidad_.[81] Honours were bestowed on Garay, but the monarch who had patronised him, being busy with other matters, did not follow up the invention. Otherwise much naval history might have been different from what it is.

In 1736, Jonathan Hulls took out a patent in England for a stern wheel. It should be remembered that at this time the question of means of propulsion other than by sail was eagerly considered, and that paddles came to be tried in the place of oars, with a view to more continuity of action. Steam ideas somewhat trended to the idea of sucking water in forward and ejecting it aft. The screw propeller also was known certainly at as early a date as the paddle.

In 1789, a sixty-feet boat was driven for nearly seven miles an hour with a twelve horse-power engine, but for a very long time nothing was expected except canal work and towing. Even as steam progressed, it did so in the merchant service first.

By the year 1818, however, the Americans had built a sea-going steamer, _Savannah_, which crossed the Atlantic to Russia. On her return voyage the United States was reached twenty-five days after leaving Norway.

In England, in the year 1821, a steam mail service, between Holyhead and Dublin, was established, and in 1823 a steam mail service between England and India was seriously asked for, and in 1829 the subject again came upon the _tapis_.

In 1839, the steam liner _Great Britain_, was laid down. She was 322 feet long overall and a beam of fifty-one feet, and a displacement of 2,984 tons, with 1,000 horse-power. It was originally intended to make her a paddle-vessel. Instead of that, however, she was made a screw-steamer, and made her first trip in December, 1844, when she succeeded in exceeding her anticipated speed.

This serious attention to steam in the mercantile marine naturally attracted considerable interest in the Navy, the more so as two naval officers, Captains Chappel and Claxton, were the principal promoters of the mercantile enterprises. It was, however, generally pointed out that useful as steam might be for such purposes, it was unsuitable for warships proper, on account of the liability of the machinery to damage, and the practical impossibility of combining paddles with sailing. It was laid down that the first essential of a warship was to be able to sail, that if steam power could be usefully applied as an auxiliary it might be “desirable.”

After considerable experiments and investigations, it was found possible to place the machinery under the water-line, but the paddle-wheels were still exposed, and the armament space available was so slight that steam did not gain much favour.

The first steam vessel actually brought into the British service was the _Monkey_, built about the year 1821. She was bought into the service and used as a tug.

In the following year, the _Comet_ was specially built for the packet service,[82] but none of these were steam warships.

In 1843, the success of the _Great Britain_ influenced the Admiralty, and the _Penelope_ (forty-six) was cut apart and lengthened by sixty-five feet, and had engines of 650 horse-power fitted to her.

In 1844, the Earl of Dundonald (Cochrane) submitted plans to the Admiralty for a steamer of 760 tons, called the _Janus_. This vessel was built with an engine of his own design, but as this was a failure, ordinary engines were fitted.

In all these steamers the gun-fire was chiefly end-on, but in 1845 the _Odin_ and the _Sidon_, especially designed for broadside fire, were put in hand.

So long ago as the year 1825, the paddle was recognised as a source of danger for warships, and in that year a two-blade propeller, designed by Commander Samuel Brown, was accepted.

In 1836, Ericsson (subsequently to be of _Monitor_ fame) patented some propellers in England, but as he met with very little sympathy from the authorities, he retired to America. The main objections to the propeller appears not to have been due to any lack of appreciation so much as opposition from those who had invested heavily in paddle-propulsion plant.

In 1842, however, the Admiralty seriously took the question up. The _Rattler_, of 777 tons, and 200-horse-power, was lashed stern-to-stern with the paddle-yacht _Electro_ of the same displacement and horse-power. Both ships were driven away from each other at full speed, and the _Rattler_ succeeded in towing the _Electro_ after her. After this, in 1844, a screw frigate, the _Dauntless_, was ordered to be constructed; but as late as the year 1850, steam was merely regarded as an auxiliary, and received little or no consideration outside that.

The use of iron instead of oak as a material for shipbuilding was first seriously considered about the year 1800. In 1821, an iron steamer was in existence, and in 1839 the _Dover_ was ordered to be built for Government service as a steam packet. In 1841, the _Mohawk_ was ordered by the Admiralty for service on Lake Huron, but the first iron warship for the Royal Navy proper was the _Trident_, of 1850 tons and 300 horse-power, built at Blackwall, by Admiralty orders, in 1843.

Iron, as a material for warship construction, was looked on with considerable suspicion, both in England and in France. Experiments were conducted at Woolwich with some plates rivetted together like the sides of an iron ship, these plates being lined inside with cork and india-rubber (the first idea of a cofferdam). It was expected that this preparation, which was known as “kamptulicon,” would close up after shot had passed through and prevent ingress of water. This was found to be quite correct, but the egress of shot on the other side had quite the opposite result. The plates were sometimes packed with wood and sometimes cased with it, but the general result of the experiments was held prejudicial to the use of iron, which was supposed to splinter unduly compared to wood.