CHAPTER V
The people—The boys—Manning—The divisions—The messes— The dress—The King’s allowance—Grog—Marines
There were various ways of entering the Royal Navy, “through the hawse-holes.” The greater number of our seamen were pressed into the fleets from merchant-ships, or sent aboard by my Lord Mayor, or by the sheriffs of the different counties. A large number volunteered in order to get the bounty. But a certain percentage joined the fleet as boys, either through the Marine Society, or from love of adventure. The Marine Society sent a number of lads to sea in each year. Their boys were generally between thirteen and fifteen years of age. Some of them were “recommended” by magistrates for petty crime or vagrancy. Some were beggars, or street Arabs, snatching their living from the gutters. Some were errand-boys, horse-holders, shop-lads, etc. Most of them were poor children, whose parents could not clothe nor feed them. Some were apprentices, or charity boys, who were more “inclined to hazard their necks than to live a sedentary life.” The Marine Society gave these lads a brief preliminary training aboard a ship in the Thames, under a boatswain and boatswain’s mate. They then sent them to sea, in men-of-war, as ship’s boys or volunteers of the second and third classes. As ship’s boys, they received £7 or £8 a year, which kept them in clothing till they were strong enough to rank as seamen. A ship’s boy was generally put to all the dirty and trivial work of the ship, such as cleansing the pigstys, hen-coops, head, etc. A number of them were rated as servants to the midshipmen, boatswains, warrant, gun-room and ward-room officers. These wretched creatures lived the lives of dogs, particularly those allotted to the midshipmen. Those who were not made servants were hunted about and bullied by the sailors, who loved “to find the opportunity to act the superior over someone.” Those who survived the brutality of their shipmates, and failed to desert from the service, in time became ordinary seamen, drawing 25s. a month.
TWO OF NELSON’S SAILORS
A boy was allowed half the usual ship’s allowance of rum and wine. He received pay for the half he did not draw. With the ration allowed to him—half-a-gill of rum, and a quarter of a pint of wine a day—he was able to get blind drunk, or to purchase little luxuries, just as he pleased. If he got drunk, or in any other way transgressed the rules of the navy, he was flogged, but with the boatswain’s cane instead of with the cat. In action, he was stationed at a gun, with orders to supply that gun with cartridges from the magazine. He was not allowed to supply more than one gun with powder until the boys of some of the guns were killed or wounded. In a hot engagement he was kept running to and fro, over the bloody and splinter-scattered deck, carrying the cartridges from the magazine. He was warned to carry his cartridges under his coat, so as to avoid the flying sparks from the touch-holes. If he tried to bolt away from the magazine into the shelter of the orlop-deck the midshipman stationed at the hatchway promptly shot him, or beat him back with the pistol butt. The boys (with good reason) were generally berthed apart from the men. They seem to have slung their hammocks in the sheet-anchor cable-tiers, or on one of the upper gun-decks, according to the size of the ship in which they sailed.
The true man-of-war’s man, or bluejacket, was said to have been “begotten in the galley and born under a gun.” He was a prodigy, “with every hair a rope-yarn, every tooth a marline-spike, every finger a fishhook, and his blood right good Stockhollum tar.” This kind of man-of-war’s man was rare. When he sailed aboard our men-of-war he generally held some position of authority, as captain of a top, or boatswain’s mate. We had never a ship’s crew of his like, even at the beginning of the French wars, when our ships were manned by the pick of the merchant-service. There were other kinds of sailor, for the King was always in want of men, and a man-of-war refused nothing.
The royal fleets were manned, as we have seen, by various expedients. A certain proportion of the man-of-war’s men came to sea as boys, and remained in the service all their lives, partly because they were too strictly kept to escape, and partly because “once a sailor always a sailor”—the life unfitted them for anything else. A large number joined the navy because their heads had been turned by patriotic cant; and very bitterly they repented their folly after a week aboard. A number came willingly, from merchant-ships, attracted by the high bounties or premiums, offered for seamen volunteering. Some came willingly, deceived by those placards in the seaports, which promised abundance of grog and plenty of prize-money to all who entered. But the greater number came unwillingly, by the imprest or quota, or from my Lord Mayor. The press-gang was especially active in securing sailors from merchant-vessels. Very frequently they stripped such ships of their crews and officers, leaving their captains without enough hands to work the ships home. It was a cruel hardship to the poor merchant-sailors; for often, on coming to a home port, after a long voyage, they would be snatched away before they had drawn their wages. Instead of enjoying a pleasant spell ashore they would be hurried aboard a King’s ship, to all the miseries of a gun-deck. It was the custom to say that a sailor was better situated on a man-of-war than on a merchant-vessel; that he had better food, better treatment, and better money. As a matter of fact the merchant-seamen regarded the Royal Navy with dread and loathing. There can be little doubt that the thought of the press-gangs, and the fear of service in the navy, drove many of our best merchant-seamen into American ships, where they were rather less subject to impressment. In the war of 1812 a number of them fought against, and often helped to defeat, the English frigates and small men-of-war.
We live at a convenient distance from those times, and regard them as glorious.—“The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy.” Man is always ready to ignore the pounds of misery and squalor which go to make each pennyweight of glory. Our naval glory was built up by the blood and agony of thousands of barbarously maltreated men. It cannot be too strongly insisted on that sea life, in the late eighteenth century, in our navy, was brutalising, cruel, and horrible; a kind of life now happily gone for ever; a kind of life which no man to-day would think good enough for a criminal. There was barbarous discipline, bad pay, bad food, bad hours of work, bad company,[22] bad prospects. There was no going ashore till the ship was paid off, or till a peace was declared. The pay was small at the best of times, but by the time it reached the sailor it had often shrunken to a half or third of the original sum. The sailor was bled by the purser for slops and tobacco; by the surgeon for ointment and pills; and by the Jew who cashed his pay-ticket. The service might have been made more popular by the granting of a little leave, so that the sailors could go ashore to spend their money. It was the long, monotonous imprisonment aboard which made the hateful life so intolerable. When the long-suffering sailors rose in revolt at Spithead, they asked, not that the cat might be abolished, but that they might go ashore after a cruise to sea, and that they might receive a little more consideration from those whose existence they guaranteed.
Having secured a number of reliable sailors from the merchant-ships and sailor’s taverns, the captains of men-of-war commissioning filled up their complements by taking any men they could get. The press-gangs brought in a number of wretches found in the streets after dusk. It did not matter whether they were married men with families, tradesmen with businesses, or young men studying for professions: all was fish that came into the press-gang’s net. The men were roughly seized—often, indeed, they were torn from their wives by main force, and knocked on the head for resisting—and so conveyed on board, whether subject to impressment or not. They could count themselves lucky if their neighbours came to the rescue before the press-gang carried them off. When once they were aboard they were little likely to get away again, for though they had permission to “state the case,” if they thought themselves illegally seized, the letters of appeal were very seldom successful. The press-gangs were sometimes rewarded with head money to make them zealous in their duty.
We have already described the Lord Mayor’s men. We will now describe the “quota,” or “quota-bounty” men, such as manned our fleets from 1795-1797. It was found that neither the press nor the bounty attracted men in sufficient numbers. Laws were passed by which the English counties were compelled to furnish a quota of men according to an established scale. The English seaports were put under a similar contribution. The sheriffs of the counties, and the mayors of the sea-port towns, at first found the arrangement by no means a bad one. They were able to ship off their rogues, criminals, poachers, gipsies, etc., without difficulty. After a time, when the rogues had grown wary, they found it difficult to make up the quotas. They had to offer bounties to induce men to come forward; bounties in some cases amounting to more than £70. It was said of the “most filthy creatures” who took advantage of the bounties that “they cost the King a guinea a pound.” They came aboard coated with filth, crawling with parasites, “so truly wretched, and unlike men,” that the lieutenants must have been disgusted to receive them. Criminals sentenced at the sessions were offered the alternative of going to sea. The direct consequences were that our ships of war were frequently manned by criminals and petty thieves, who stole from each other, and skulked their work, and deserted when they could. The lower gun-decks became the scene of nearly every vice and crime in the calendar. Theft aboard ship was punished with cruel severity, but these shore-going gentry robbed right and left, in gangs or singly, as though their fingers were indeed fish-hooks. Dr Johnson was right in wondering why folk came to sea while there were gaols ashore. Perhaps no place has contained more vice, wickedness, and misery, within such a narrow compass, than a ship of the line at the end of the eighteenth century.
When a ship’s crew[23] had been brought aboard they were examined by the first lieutenant, who lost no time in allotting them to their stations. Elderly, reliable seamen, who knew their duty and could be rated as able, were stationed on the forecastle to do duty about the anchors, bowsprit, and fore yard. They were called sheet-anchor or forecastle men, and next to the gunner’s crew and boatswain’s mates they were the finest men in the ship. They took great pride in making the forecastle the cleanest and trimmest place aboard. A visitor anxious to learn the state of the discipline of a vessel had but to go forward to her forecastle. If the forecastle were spotless, the hammocks well stowed, the paint work and bright work brilliant, and the ropes pointed and beautifully flemished, then the ship (he might be quite sure) was in pretty taut order. A forecastle or sheet-anchor man slept on the lower deck, far forward.
TWO OF NELSON’S SAILORS
Having picked his forecastle men, a lieutenant had to select his “topmen.” There were three divisions of topmen, one for each mast—fore, main, and mizzen. The topmen had to work the three masts above the lower yards. The lieutenant chose for the topmen all the young, active seamen who had been to sea for three or four years. Their work was very arduous, and very exacting. It was the hardest work of the ship, and demanded the smartest men, yet no men were more bullied than those to whom the duty fell. A topman lived in continual terror. He was at all times under the eye of the officer of the watch. His days were passed in an agony of apprehension lest something should go wrong aloft to bring him to the gangway. Smartness aloft was, to many captains, the one thing essential aboard a man-of-war. A topman had to be smart, and more than smart. He had to fly up aloft at the order, lay out on the yard, reef or furl, lay in, and be down on deck again, before a boatswain’s mate could draw his colt. The sailors raced “mast against mast” whenever sail was made or shortened, and whenever a spar was struck or sent aloft. They were not only smart, they were acrobatic. They were known to run aloft and to run along the yards to the yard-arms, and this in blowing weather, and with the ship rolling. But, no matter how swift they were, the captain and lieutenant, who watched from the deck, wished them to be swifter. It did not matter to these two flinty ones whether the men were doing their best, and breaking their hearts to do better. All they cared for was the honour of the ship, and perhaps a word from the admiral. Then it was:
“What are you doing on the yard, there? Are you all asleep there, mizzentop? The main-topmen are nearly off the yard. Stow that bunt, you crawling caterpillars, or I’ll stop the grog of the lot of you.”
Then the curses and blaspheming followed, with threats of the cat and disrating. The poor fellows on the yard would redouble their efforts, dripping with sweat as they pounded the heavy canvas into the skin. That was the heart-breaking part of the business: doing one’s level best and getting damned for one’s pains. Then, directly the job was done, a wild rush from the yard took place. Many captains had the savagery to flog the last man down, so that every man risked his neck to get down quickly. In reefing top-sails this rule invariably punished the best man—i.e. the man at the yard-arm or post of honour. The captains do not seem to have considered that the last man down was generally the first man up. Their cruelty caused the death of many poor seamen, who fell from aloft while racing up or down, or while working recklessly on the yard. An old sailor has told us of a captain of a top who deliberately threw himself overboard rather than suffer punishment for some slight irregularity aloft. “These men are frequently punished,” says Jack Nastyface, “and are always in dread when aloft lest they should be found fault with for not being quick enough, for punishment is sure to follow, and sure enough their conjectures are too true: for they are not only flogged, but their grog is stopped.”
Next in importance to the topmen were the men of the after-guard, a company composed of poor seamen and landsmen, despised by all the real sailors. The duties of the after guard were easy, if dishonourable. They worked the after braces, the spanker, main-sail, and lower stay-sails. It was their duty to keep the after parts of the ship clean. At quarters they were stationed at guns on the gun-deck, or as sail-trimmers, or as small-arm men, as the lieutenant directed. The after-guard in a first-rate ship numbered about 90 men, while the forecastle, fore and main tops were manned by from 60 to 70 each. A mizzentop needed fewer men, from 25 to 30 being the usual number. The after-guards, marines, and waisters invariably manned the capstans when anchor was weighed.
The largest division of a ship’s company, and the most ignoble, was that of the waisters, the men stationed in the waist, the men “without art or judgment,” who hauled aft the fore and main sheets, and kept the decks white. They were the scavengers, swabbers, pumpers, the doers of the ship’s dirty work, the pigsty keepers, and ship’s sewer men. They were sometimes ordinary seamen who were strong enough but too stupid to be stationed aloft. Generally they were landsmen, unfit for other duties. They had charge of all the live stock, if the ship carried any, and he that was “good for nothing else” was “good enough for a waister.” Large ships generally carried about twice as many waisters as after-guard men. In small ships the proportion was more nearly equal.
Lastly, there were the idlers, or men with day duty, who stood no watch at sea. Among these were the holders, who lived in the hold, in perpetual semi-darkness, creeping about, on their queer occasions, among the casks and stinks. Then there were the poulterers, who fed the captain’s geese in the boats on the booms, or crammed the chickens in the hen-coops. Then there were painters, in charge of the port-red, yard-blacking, side-yellow, and white, with the oil for mixing them and the brushes for laying them on. There were tailors, who made fine clothes for the crew of the captain’s jolly-boat, and did odd jobs, for payment, for the other members of the crew. There were the mast men, one to each mast, to keep the ropes beautifully coiled, and the brass on the fife-rails polished. There were butchers to kill the live stock and fatten the pigs; barbers to clip and shave; and hairdressers to dress the men’s queues, and comb out the wigs of the officers. There was the lady of the gun-room—an old man, who kept the gun-room clean. There were the ward-room cooks, and the captain of the sweepers; the captain of the head, and the writer to the first lieutenant; the loblolly-boys, and the sick-bay sentinels. All of these had “all night in,” with the reservation that, if all hands were wanted during the night, they should turn out with the rest to the pressing duty on deck.
The topmen, forecastle men, after-guards, and waisters were divided into two watches, larboard and starboard. They slept at night in hammocks on the lower-deck, packed like sardines, row after row, stretching across the ship from side to side. The hammocks during most of Lord Nelson’s career were of a dull, brown colour, not unlike the colour of a tanned sail. Afterwards they were made of white canvas, or “twilled sacking,” which was kept white by frequent washing. The hammocks were slung by cords to wooden battens or cleats, nailed to the beams above the gun-decks. The rule was “fourteen inches to a man,” but some ships afforded sixteen inches, and one or two as much as eighteen. The petty officers, who slept by the ship’s side, had each about two feet of space, as “they are not to be pinched.” In practice, the rule was not so severe as it sounds. In most ships the watches were berthed alternately, a man of the larboard watch alternating with a man of the starboard watch in each row of hammocks, so that at night every other hammock in each row was vacant, and the pressure made more tolerable. In those ships in which this rule was not observed the watches slept on their respective sides, jammed together in great discomfort. The berthing of the men on their respective sides of the ship had the further disadvantage of putting the vessel out of trim, by bringing a great weight to one side, instead of spreading it equably.
Each man had two hammocks, one in use and the other clean. Hammocks were shifted and scrubbed once a week, and hung up to dry between the masts. In the morning of each day, at half past seven, the sleepers were roused from their blankets by the boatswain’s pipe, the pipes of his mates, and the “All hands. Turn out and save a clue. Out or down here. Rise and shine. Out or down here. Lash and carry.” Those who snuggled into their hammocks for an extra minute were promptly cut down, and beaten about the shoulders with colts or cobs. One was expected to turn out at the first sound of the pipe. The sailors generally slept “all standing, like a trooper’s horse”—that is, without taking off many of their clothes. The clothes they did take off they generally laid carefully under their pillows, lest the thieves should get them during the night. On turning out, they slung their clothes about them with all speed, and at once set about lashing their hammocks into tight sausage-like rolls. This they performed by a cord, called a hammock lasher. A correctly-lashed hammock was secured by “seven turns.” Directly the seven turns were passed the hammock was lowered on deck, the clues, or head and foot supports, were carefully twisted under the lashing, and the sailor slung the roll over his shoulder, and ran on deck to stow it. The hammock nettings, where the hammocks were stowed, ran all round the upper part of the ship, making a sort of bulwark, six or seven feet high, for the protection of the marines and small-arm parties. The quarter-masters, master’s mates, and midshipmen superintended the stowing of the hammocks, and rejected every hammock too loosely lashed to pass through a regulation hoop. Each division of the ship stowed their hammocks in certain well-defined parts of the nettings, as the forecastle men on the forecastle, the foretop men under the fore-rigging, and the marines on the poop. Each hammock was numbered on a white painted patch, with a few plain blue letters indicating the station of its owner. During the daytime, in fine weather, the hammocks were left in the nettings, exposed to the sun and wind. In wet or foul weather they were covered with canvas covers, painted white or yellow, and known as hammock cloths. At night, at about 7 or 7.30 P.M., they were piped down—i.e. removed from their places in the nettings, and slung at their respective battens on the berth-deck. The berthings, the places where the men slept, were indicated by custom. The forecastle men slept forward; the foretop men next to the forecastle men; then the main-top men, waisters, and after-guard. The marines either slept aft, just forward of the gun-room, or in the recesses of the orlop, forward of the after cockpit. The idlers stowed themselves away among the men, towards the ship’s sides, or in their little nooks below the gun-decks, in the wings and tiers.
For meals, the sailors divided themselves into messes, of from four to eight members apiece. They always messed apart from the marines, for the “guffies,” or “jollies,” were not very popular among them. Each mess had a narrow mess table, which could be hooked up, out of the way, to the beams above, when not in use. At meal times the mess tables were fixed between the guns, so as to swing with the pitch of the ship. Each sailor had a knife, spoon, and hook-pot, an earthenware bowl, and a platter. The knife he always wore about his person, in a belt or lanyard. The other crockery he kept in a wooden tub, called a mess kid, which was secured to the ship’s side. When the ship went into action these tubs were hurried below, out of the way, or flung bodily overboard. The crockery had to be supplied at the sailor’s own cost. If “a sudden lurch,” during meal times, sent the crockery flying he was forced to purchase tin or wooden ware from the purser, to use till he could buy new china. The messes were very friendly and cheery little parties. They liked to be trim and neat, and to make a brave show with their gear. They hated to be seen using the purser’s crockery. Each was presided over by that member of the mess who acted as mess cook for the week. The mess cook had to receive the provisions for the mess from the purser, at the daily issuing of victuals. He had to deliver the meat, peas and oatmeal to the cook in good time. On duff-days he mixed the duff in a handkerchief, whistling a tune while he stoned the raisins (if any were issued), so that none should suspect him of eating them. At tea or supper time he drew the grog for the mess, from the sacred tub under the care of the master’s mate. What was more, he drew a “cook’s portion,” or double allowance, for himself, with which he could buy himself all manner of little luxuries. This extra tot of grog made the post of mess cook to be much desired by all hands. It amply compensated them for the trouble and anxieties of the office.
In some ships the berths, messes, or spaces between the guns were separated and shut off by small screens of canvas for the greater privacy. At night they would be let down to form little shut-off apartments for the privileged petty officers who slept there. The members of each mess were expected to keep their berth scrupulously clean, free from grease spots, biscuit crumbs, and any mess of oatmeal or soup. One of the men of each mess cleaned up after a meal, to remove any disorder of the kind. A man who found himself among uncongenial messmates had permission to change his mess on the first Sunday in each month. This regulation was very wise and humane, and was much esteemed by the sailors. It was customary to speak to the first lieutenant before making the change, giving some reason for the proposed alteration. Some men, who could not agree with their comrades through some fault of temperament, went from mess to mess, till they had disgusted all hands. They then messed alone, as best they could, in out-of-the-way nooks. Quarrelsome and loose-tongued persons, and all those suspected of being white mice, were ostracised in this way. The mess was the one pleasant place aboard where a man could talk freely and cheerily. A man who violated the sanctity of such a place, by quarrelling, privy gambling, political talk, or incitement to mutiny, was not fit to remain in the community. His presence was a danger to all concerned. The petty officers generally messed in those parts of the lower-deck where they slung their hammocks. The sailors were free to make chums where they would, and to mess where they pleased. They availed themselves of the liberty to some extent, but it must be remembered that party spirit always ran very high aboard these ships. A forecastle man affected to despise a topman; a topman despised an after-guard man, and called him a “silk stocking gentleman,” or a “gentleman’s son,” while a member of the after-guard looked down upon a waister, and called him a “Jimmy Dux,” or farmer. All four grades united in despising the marines, calling them “the pipeclays,” the “guffies,” the “jollies,” “the johnny-toe-the-liners.” Sailors pretended to have a strong dislike for the members of the sea regiment. They affected to hate them so heartily that they could hardly be induced to use pipeclay, or to learn the platoon.
The “berth” was not only the place where the seaman ate his meals; it was in many ships the place where he kept his belongings. In frigates, the seamen and marines were allowed to carry small sea chests to sea, one chest to every two men, each chest to lie in its owners’ berth, but the permission was cancelled if the chests were insecurely fastened to the side of the ship. In action, of course, these chests were struck down into the hold, out of the way. In line-of-battle ships the decks were kept too strictly to allow of sea chests being carried. The sailor kept his gear in a painted black canvas bag, big enough to hold his very limited wardrobe. In some line-of-battle ships he was allowed to keep his bag in the berth. In others he had to keep it in a rack in the wings on the orlop-deck, to which access might be had at certain times. In these ships a sailor generally kept a change of clothes in his hammock, so that if he were drenched during the night-watch he might put on dry things when he came below, without waiting till the racks were opened. Some captains were very careful to see that the bags were dried in the sun after heavy weather. Others were needlessly careful to have them all properly numbered, and painted (or even pipeclayed) alike. It was necessary to keep a very strict watch upon the bags, for all the ships swarmed with thieves, and a bag left about the decks, or left unguarded, was swiftly emptied. Any article left loose upon the deck, and found by a ship’s corporal or boatswain’s mate, was taken to the quarter-deck, and exposed to the ship’s company. If the owner claimed it he had his grog stopped, or weakened. If the owner did not claim it it was sold at the next sale of dead men’s effects.
A HORSE MARINE
The sailor’s kit was a very simple affair. He had a hammock, with or without a “donkey’s breakfast,” or straw mattress, covered by two thick blankets. Pillow and hammock stretcher were merely matters of personal taste. Sheets were unknown, save in some of the sick-bays. For foul weather he had a short wrap-rascal coat of “rug” or frieze, and a leathern or thick felt or tarred canvas apron, reaching below the knee. Sea boots, coming to the knee or thigh, were never worn by the seamen. In foul weather they wore their ordinary low shoes, with extra thick woollen stockings and knee-breeches, a rig no more uncomfortable than the sea boot, and fully as effective in keeping the legs dry. In fine weather, when ashore, the sailor usually wore a short, round, very smart blue jacket, with a row of flat gold or bright brass buttons down the right side and on the cuffs. His trousers were either of blue cloth, or of white duck, cut extremely loose, and a shade too long, so that they nearly covered the feet. These garments were kept in position by a sheath-knife belt, or by a black silk handkerchief knotted round the waist. The stockings were frequently of good white silk, for a sailor loved to have fine silk stockings. The shoes were not unlike our modern black dancing pumps, save that big silver buckles took the place of silk bows. The shirt was the least stereotyped article of dress. A shirt or jersey of blue and white horizontal stripes was popular. A white shirt with large red or blue spots had many admirers. Some wore plain red or plain blue, and some may even have worn white. The throat of the shirt had a loose, unstarched collar, which was worn open, in the Byronic manner. Round the throat, very loosely knotted, was a fine black silk handkerchief, the ends of which dangled over the lapels of the waistcoat. The waistcoat was generally of scarlet kerseymere, cut very low and very long. Canary-yellow waistcoats were common, and some wore spotted or striped ones. It depended mostly on the stock committed to the purser for his slop-room. The sailors were very fond of decorating both jacket and waistcoat with coloured ribbons, which they sewed down the seams, to give a more gay effect. For the ordinary work about decks they wore white duck or blue cloth trousers, and blue, green or red serge, duck, or flannel frocks. A jacket of a coarse yellow stuff appears in some pictures, in conjunction with striped trousers (blue and white). For hat, the usual wear ashore was a little low tarpaulin hat, kept black and glossy with tar and oil, and cut in a shape dimly resembling the top-hats worn by our bishops and busmen, but with a more knowing rake. This hat had often a broad black ribbon dangling from it, bearing the name of the ship in white letters. When at work aboard the sailor sometimes wore a painted straw hat, with black silk ribbons flung rakishly “over the left eye.” More often he wore a fur cap, or a battered, soft, shore beaver, or a low-crowned felt hat, with the brim curled up. Woollen tam-o’-shanters were sometimes worn, but the fur cap was the most popular headgear during working hours. The fur cap had flaps, which could be unbuttoned and let down so as to protect the ears. Some sailors wore a sort of turban, made of a red or yellow handkerchief, twisted about the head. Others wore a sort of woollen nightcap or jacobin cap. The headgear, whatever it was, was nearly always worn well to the back of the head, as though it balanced “on three hairs.” The narrow-minded have judged that this fashion sprang from the natural levity and savagery of the mariners. As a matter of fact, a sailor found it difficult to wear his hat in any other way. He was continually looking aloft or running aloft or working aloft, and it would have been impossible for him to wear his headgear in any other position. One cannot run up rigging with a hat jammed down over one’s eyes.
A FRIGATE IN CHASE, BEFORE THE WIND
It must be remembered that this outfit varied with the individual. Only those who bought from the slop chest wore “uniform.” Those who brought decent shore-going clothes aboard were generally free to wear them, though some captains insisted that their men should all wear frocks or shirts of the same colours. The shore-going dress we have indicated was certainly worn by the smartest of our sailors, for Captain Brenton describes some poor fellows coming up for trial, as “tall and athletic, well dressed, in blue jackets, red waistcoats, and trousers white as driven snow,” with “their hair like the tail of a lion,” hanging “in a cue down their back ... the distinguishing mark of a thoroughbred seaman.”
The days of which we write were the days of clean-shaving. Officers and men alike shaved their cheeks and upper lips. A hairy man was not to be tolerated. But though the men shaved themselves daily they liked to wear their hair long, either falling down the shoulders in a mass, or braided into a queue, with some grease and black silk ribbon. It is not known when the use of the pigtail became general, it seems to have been borrowed from the French. It may possibly have been borrowed from the marines, who wore pomatum-stiffened pigtails, or pigtails stiff with grease and flour, during this period. From 1800 to 1815 the pigtail seems to have been popular, after that time it gradually fell into disuse. The sailors dressed each other’s queues, turn and turn about. It took an hour “to dress and be dressed.” It is not known whether the sailors ever used flour to whiten the queues when plaited, but probably they wore them plain. Those who had but little hair made false queues of teased-out oakum, which was a sufficiently good imitation to pass muster. Many sailors, who did not care for pigtails, wore most ravishing curls or love-locks over their ears, like the ladies in a book of beauty. A number of them wore earrings, “of the most pure gold,” which they bought from the Jews at Portsmouth. They wore them less for decoration than for a belief they held that their use improved the sight. Some captains forbade the use of earrings on the ground that they were un-English.
The food issued to the sailors was nearly always bad, and sometimes villainous. The following table gives the scale of provisions generally issued:—
| Biscuit lbs. avoir. | Beer gallons | Beef lbs. | Pork lbs. | Pease pints | Oatmeal pints | Sugar oz. | Butter oz. | Cheese oz. | |
| Sunday | 1 | 1 | .. | 1 | ½ | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Monday | 1 | 1 | .. | ... | ... | ½ | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Tuesday | 1 | 1 | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Wednesday | 1 | 1 | .. | ... | ½ | ½ | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Thursday | 1 | 1 | .. | 1 | ½ | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Friday | 1 | 1 | .. | ... | ½ | ½ | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Saturday | 1 | 1 | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| 7 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1½ | 6 | 6 | 12 |
The provisions were nearly always issued on a reduced scale. It was the general custom to mess the men “six upon four,” an arrangement by which six men received, and lived upon, the allowance of four men. The sailors were allowed certain moneys for the food withheld from them; this allowance was called “savings money.” The food was of bad quality, and by no means liberally given. The sailor’s chief standby was the sea air, which somehow never fails, even aboard modern merchant-men. The biscuit was the most liberal ration, for few sailors ate the whole of the allowance, even on the reduced proportion. That which they could not eat they either returned to the purser, in exchange for savings money, or held as an asset, to exchange for fruit and the like when the ship arrived in a foreign port. The biscuit was cooked in the royal bakeries, attached to the dockyards—70 biscuits, weighing 4 oz. apiece, were made each minute in these works. They were round, thick, well-browned biscuits, stamped with a perforator in the centre, so that the centre was much more compressed, and therefore tougher, than the remainder. The centre was generally the last piece eaten. It was known as a “reefer’s nut.” Often enough it was hove overboard. Most biscuits were made of mixed wheat and pea-flour, with sometimes a base addition of bone-dust. The pea-flour generally worked itself into yellow lumps and veins, of an incredible hardness, which could not be bitten through until the biscuit had become soft through long keeping. When the biscuit did become soft, it took to itself an unpleasant, musty, sourish taste, and began to attract, or to breed, weevils. On a long passage, in a hot climate, the “bread” became unspeakably bad, and as full of maggots as it could hold. Re-baking, in the ship’s ovens, sometimes remedied the evil, but the most common custom was to leave the creatures to their quiet, and to eat the biscuit at night, when the eye saw not, and the tender heart was spared. Now and then the mess cooks made savoury dishes out of the ship’s biscuit, by soaking it in water, and frying it with little strips, or gobbets, of pork fat. Or they enclosed it in a canvas bag, and pounded it, with crows or marline-spikes, till it was as fine as coarse flour. They then mixed it with chopped-up meat, and bribed the cook to bake it. Sometimes they mixed the pounded biscuit with pork-fat and sugar, and made a delectable cake. The cook would always consent to bake these little delicacies, for some small consideration, such as a little grog from the mess he obliged, or a little piece of the dainty.
The badness of the meat may be guessed from the fact that the sailors spoke of it as junk, or old condemned hemp rope. It may not have been bad when cut up and put in cask, but there was an invariable rule in the navy that “the old meat should be eaten first.” A ship’s company had to start a cruise upon the old meat returned from various ships and routed out from the obscure cellars of the victualling yards. Frequently it had been several years in salt before it came to the cook, by which time it needed rather a magician than a cook to make it eatable. It was of a stony hardness, fibrous, shrunken, dark, gristly, and glistening with salt crystals. It was “believed to be salt horse, resembling very much a piece of mahogany, and often quite as sapless.” It looked as unwholesome as meat could look. Strange tales were told about it. Old pigtailed seamen would tell of horseshoes found in the meat casks; of curious barkings and neighings heard in the slaughterhouses; and of negroes who disappeared near the victualling yards, to be seen no more. Whatever meat it may have been, the salt beef was certainly abominable. It could, perhaps, have been made eatable by long soaking in the steep tub, but no meat for the messes was ever soaked for more than twenty-four hours. The salt pork was generally rather better than the beef, but the sailors could carve fancy articles, such as boxes, out of either meat. The flesh is said to have taken a good polish, like some close-grained wood. The beef was sometimes chopped up fine, and used for the flavouring in “sea pies,” or “dry hashes”—two dishes the sailors sometimes made for themselves, and persuaded the cook to dress. The meat ration was not only bad, but extremely small. The 4-lb. pieces with which the casks were filled were not by any means pure meat. They were mostly bone, fat, and gristle. The pound of flesh, as issued to the sailor, was often seven-tenths uneatable. The fat was dirty, and provocative of scurvy. The bone and the gristle could only be thrown overboard. At best, a sailor could but hope to find a few salt fibres of meat, hidden away snugly—like good deeds in a naughty world—under layers of evil-looking fat. They were not enough to give the poor mariner a feeling that he had had meat for dinner. But if he wished to have meat for supper, “to make him taste his wine well,” he had to save some from his midday meal. Some were even so provident as to remember the starvation breakfast, and to stint themselves at tea and dinner in order to have a feast the next morning. Those who did not care for grog were the lucky ones, for these had always half-a-pint of rum with which to buy the meat of the drinkers. Many were the little bargains made about the mess tables, at the blessed supper time, when the roll of the drum had sent aft the mess cooks to the tub. “Bill, I’ll swop my whack of beef to-morrow for half yours.” “Joe, I’ll give you my pea-soup for your grog.” “Tom, I’ll mix your duff for you if you’ll give me just a nip,” etc. etc.
The mess cook, who acted as carver and parter of the food, was at all times most equitable in his duty. While he cut up the meat, or divided the allowance, whatever it was, he ordered one of the mess to turn his back, and shut his eyes. When a whack or portion had been cut or placed on a plate he called out: “Who shall have this?” The blindfolded man then pronounced the name of one of the messmates, and the portion, whether too big or too small, was at once allotted to the man thus named. The system was as fair as any that could be devised.
The pea-soup, which was issued on salt pork days, was “somehow always good.” It was generally eaten hot, but some preferred to save it till the evening, when they took it cold, as a relish to the grog and biscuit. The “burgoo,” “skillagolee,” or oatmeal gruel, issued to the men for breakfast, was invariably bad. The greatest proportion of it went to the pigstys, as uneatable by mortal man. It was issued by the Government at the instance of some medical adviser, who thought that it would act as a “corrective” to “acid and costive humours.” The oatmeal was of a pretty bad quality to begin with, but by the time the cook had wreaked his wicked will upon it, by boiling it in his coppers with the unspeakable ship’s water, the mess had become disgusting beyond words. Few of the sailors could eat it in its penetrating, undisguised nastiness, and, according to a naval surgeon, it was “cruel to expect them to do so.” In later years, after Trafalgar, a small proportion of molasses, or butter, was issued with the oatmeal, to be eaten with it, to render it less nauseous. Without the butter and molasses it was fitter for the pigstys than for men. Many messes would not draw the ration, but preferred to have the money for it at the end of the cruise. Another favourite breakfast dish was Scotch coffee, or burnt ship’s biscuit boiled in water, to a thick blackish paste, and sweetened with sugar. There was also a ration of very villainous cocoa, with which the sailors received a little brown sugar. On one of these dishes the jolly sailor had to make his breakfast. He seldom received anything else at that meal, save the biscuit in the mess’s bread barge, unless he had deprived himself of dinner and supper the day before in order to have a bite of meat. At the beginning of each cruise in home waters he received a very small allowance of ship’s butter. This was kept in a mess tin, and equally shared. It was of poor quality, as butter, and grew a great deal worse as the days passed. After a month or two at sea it was at its very worst. It was then solemnly routed out and inspected, condemned as putrid, and given to the boatswain for the anointment of shrouds and running rigging. For dinner the men received their salt beef and pork, their pea-soup, and their occasional duffs. On two days a week (if not more frequently) they held a fast, receiving no meat. These days were known as “banyan” days—a “banyan” being a thin kind of duck frock, suitable for the tropics, but uncomfortable elsewhere. For supper they sometimes received a ration of strong ship’s cheese, the most abominable stuff imaginable. It would not keep at sea. It smelt very horribly, and, what was worse, it bred long, thin, red worms before it had been a month in the ship’s hold.
Though the solids were not very choice the liquids were sometimes really good. The water was bad—so bad that few could drink it without disgust—but one drank no water aboard ship so long as the beer held out. The water was generally river water. We note that the river water “about London” was reckoned especially good. It was carried to sea, not in iron tanks, as it is carried nowadays, but in wooden casks, not over clean. Sometimes the casks were found to be old oil casks. The water invariably became putrid after standing in cask for a few days. It then grew sweet again, and fit to drink, but after standing and working for several weeks in the hold it became thick and slimy, full of “green grassy things,” besides being stagnant and flat. At this stage in its development it was generally tapped for the ship’s company. At the beginning of a voyage the company drank beer—small beer, of poor quality, not at all the sort of stuff to put the souls of three butchers into one weaver. It was bad beer, but it was perhaps better than the water. At anyrate it gave a new taste to the mouths of the poor seamen, who got very tired of the perpetual salt food and biscuit. The beer generally lasted for a month, during which time no wine or spirits was issued. In port the sailors used to fortify the ship’s beer with rum or brandy, making a very potent drench called flip, which was popular among their lady friends, who used to smuggle aboard the necessary spirits. If the sailors wanted a drink at any time during the night-watch they used to go to a small cask called a scuttle butt, in which fresh water was kept. A tin cup was secured to the cask, so that the men might drink in comfort. No one was allowed to draw fresh water from this cask for the purpose of washing his clothes.
THE LEE ROLL
When all the beer had been expended, the captains allowed the issue of wines or spirits. A pint of wine, or half-a-pint of rum or brandy, was considered the just equivalent of a gallon of beer. The wine in use was of very ordinary vintage. It was often purchased abroad, and varied with the port of purchase. The sailors seem to have preferred white wine. They disliked the red wines issued to them in the Mediterranean. They called them “Black Strap.” To be stationed in the Mediterranean was “to be black-strapped.” Their favourite wines were two cheap Spanish wines: “rosolio” and “mistela,” the latter a fiery white wine, affectionately known as “Miss Taylor.” But when the beer had gone, and the wine had been drunken, there was yet “the sailor’s sheet anchor”—grog. At noon each day, when spirits were being served, “the fifer was called to play ‘Nancy Dawson,’ or some other lively tune,” to give notice that the tub was ready. The cook of each mess attended with a flagon, in which to fetch the precious fluid to his mates. The noon allowance was one gill of pure navy rum mixed with three gills of water, a little lemon acid, as an anti-scorbutic, and a dash of sugar. The supper allowance was issued in the same proportions, though without the sugar and lemon juice. Grog time was the pleasantest part of the day. With a gill of good spirits beside, or inside, him a sailor thought foul scorn of the boatswain’s mate, and looked upon the world with charity. He was not allowed to drink, or to receive, his beloved liquid in a dram (i.e. neat), but by the exercise of a little patience he was able to obtain a most decided feeling from its imbibition. A gill was not enough to turn an old seaman’s head, but by saving up the gill till supper, and adding to it the second gill, with any third gill purchased or acquired from a shipmate, the oldest sailor found it possible to believe himself an admiral. Often enough at this stage he found it difficult to lie on the deck without holding on. It is not wonderful that so many men got drunk aboard the King’s ships at this time. For about a month before Christmas day, which was always held as a general holiday and feast of Bacchus, the sailors saved up their grog, half-a-gill a day, till they had enough to paralyse every sentient thing below-decks. The officers kept clear on Christmas day, for “a wet Christmas” was a very lively experience. Nearly every man aboard got into “a state of beastly intoxication.” Drunken men lay in heaps under the hatches, where they had fallen. The lower-deck became a picture of hell. It was no unusual thing to find two or three men dead when the decks were cleared the next morning. The allowance of grog was certainly too large. The sailors were ashamed to allow any of the ration to remain undrunken. They preferred to be flogged at the gangway rather than to waste the good liquor. “In hot climates,” says Captain Hall, “I really do not think it an exaggeration to say that one-third of every ship’s company were more or less intoxicated, or at least muddled and half stupefied, every evening.” It seems curiously hard that men so eager to get drunk should have been so urgently encouraged to drink, and so brutally punished for drinking the drink allowed to them.
The sailors who did not care for grog were generally able to purchase tea or cocoa from those who were less squeamish. Tea and cocoa were not regular rations, but most ships carried them, to issue to the sailors in lieu of the bad cheese sometimes given for supper. A tea drinker could count on getting a quarter of a pound of tea a week when the cheese had become uneatable. All sailors received a weekly half-pint of vinegar, and the temperance man used to buy up the allowance of the mess, and brew a cool drink for himself by mixing the vinegar with water. This brew, tea, and cocoa, were the usual temperance drinks. Few men cared to drink the ship’s water undisguised.
It must be remembered that the scale of provisions was often modified by substitutes. Once a week, at least, the beef ration was reduced to one pound, and an equal weight of flour issued with it, to enable the men to make a duff, doughboy, or pudding. Sometimes raisins and currants were given with the flour, but more often the flour was merely mixed with fat, and boiled till it looked like pipeclay, when it was considered cooked. Beans were sometimes given instead of pease. Rice was often given instead of oatmeal, cheese, pease, or ship’s biscuit. Sugar was sometimes given instead of butter; barley instead of oatmeal, and oil instead of cheese. In port, fresh beef, mutton, and vegetables were always given to the company, if such articles were readily obtainable. A captain generally tried to vary the provisions issued, as far as he could, for the monotony of alternating pork and beef, both salt and dry, is very unpleasant. The sailors get to crave for a fresh taste, a violent taste, strong enough to clear the mouth of the unpleasant taste with which one wakes in one’s hammock. A landsman can hardly imagine the pleasure of sucking a lump of sugar after a month on salt victuals. It was, perhaps, as much the sameness of the ship’s provisions as the emptiness of the life which sent the sailors to the grog jack for solace. In port they turned at once to the most strongly-flavoured articles their money could buy. They bought red herrings and onions, good honest stuff, which one could really taste. They drank any villainous compound they could find, from Riga balsam and eau de Cologne to mixed vitriol and cider. Perhaps it was to obtain a fresh taste that they chewed so much strong plug tobacco. They would sometimes chew oakum when the supply of tobacco failed. Some of the sailors had a craving for slush, the melted salt fat from the beef and pork. When a ship’s copper was tallowed, or when the topmen were greasing down the rigging, the men had to be watched, and prevented from swallowing the stuff, which was very deleterious, and highly productive of scurvy.
The mess cooks, who did the cooking and carving, also did the washing-up. On Sundays they cleaned the mess tables, and laid out the crockery for inspection. If a mess cook spoiled the duff, or failed to keep the gear clean, he was tried by a jury of mess cooks, gathered “by hoisting a mess swab, or beating a tin dish between-decks forward.” The punishments these juries inflicted were of the usual brutal kind.
In addition to the complements of sailors, all ships of war carried a proportion of marines, under their proper officers. The sea regiment was founded at the end of the seventeenth century, not as a permanent force, but as a force in which the King’s seamen could be trained. In the first years of the marines they were really young sailors, who went aloft, did the musketry exercise, and joined in the working of the ship. Gradually they lost their sailor craft, and became more and more a military body. They came to be employed less as sailors than as ship’s police, a sort of armed guard, ready to repress any mutiny among the tarry-breeks. They were then messed and berthed apart from the sailors, who began to despise them, as an inferior and useless race. In the war years of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the marines were employed as checks upon the seamen. All ships of war carried them, the proportion varying from about 170 officers and men, in a first-rate, to 140 or 130, in a third-rate, and a dozen, in command of a sergeant, in a 10-gun brig. The proportion of marines was therefore about one to every four sailors and idlers. They were usually on friendly terms with the sailors, in spite of the sailors’ contempt for pipeclay. Many marines were so eager to learn the sailors’ duty that they were allowed to go aloft. In some ships they were allowed to furl the main-sail. When at sea they helped the after-guard in various light duties. They stood sentry-go outside the captain’s cabin, magazine hatchways, and in various other parts of the ship, such as the galley door while dinner was cooking. In action they fell in with their muskets on the poop, quarter-deck, and gangways, to gall the enemy’s sail-trimmers and topmen, and to give a hand at the braces, if occasion arose. A marine private was dressed in the scarlet tunic of a soldier, with white tight breeches and black Hessian boots. His hat was a sort of top-hat, made of black felt, with gold lace round the brim, a narrow gold band round the crown, and a smart cockade on the left side. A black japanned cartridge box was slung behind him, on two pipeclayed, crossed shoulder-straps. The marine officer wore a smart scarlet tail-coat, with elaborate cuffs and lapels, tight white breeches, low shoes, and silk stockings. In peace time, when not attached to a ship, the marines were not disbanded, but sent to barracks. They were a standing force. When a ship was commissioned they were usually the first part of the crew to come aboard. It was generally their fortune to do all the dirty work connected with the fitting out of the ship. They were at all times subject to the same discipline as the sailors. If they transgressed the rules of the service they were flogged at the gangway like the sailors. They stood no watch at sea, save the occasional sentry-go at the magazines and cabins. They were always berthed far aft on the berth-deck,[24] where they would not be disturbed by the changing watches. Their officers messed in the ward-room, and had little cabins on the lower or orlop deck.