FOOTNOTES
[1] United Service Magazine, October 1880.
[2] But that the public have yet much to learn was shown by the ignorant complacency, ludicrous if it were not so dangerous, with which the mobilisation of six ships and six destroyers was received in January, after twelve days of official and some weeks of unofficial preparation.
[3] The history of the early navy till 1423, will be found treated minutely by Sir N. H. Nicolas in the History of the Royal Navy, Lond. 1847, a work of great research. Here, down to that date, points left somewhat obscure by Nicolas, or upon which more than one view is possible, are shortly touched upon.
[4] According to some writers, the organisation of the Cinque Ports dates from before the Conquest; it was not, however, until after that event that their services became of national importance.
[5] R. G. Marsden, Select pleas of the Court of Admiralty, Selden Soc. 1894.
[6] The mention of the word galley in the records is, taken by itself, often misleading. Frequently it meant a small, but fully rigged, sailing vessel, supplied with sweeps for occasional use. Sometimes it appears to have been applied to a sailing ship of particular build, and on one occasion the Mary Rose, a ‘capital ship’ of Henry VIII, is called ‘the great galley,’ showing how loosely the word was used.
‘For foure things our Noble sheweth to me
King, Ship, and Swerd, and power of the See.’
Libel of English Policie, supposed to be by De Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, and written in 1436 or 1437.
[8] That his subjects at one time called him the ‘King of the Sea,’ shows how the fact of his having been the first English king to command a naval battle impressed popular imagination; towards the end of the reign the phrase must have sounded bitter in the ears of the inhabitants of the coast towns.
[9] King and sword were not new on coins, and the ship was usual enough on the seals of the port towns; in them, as doubtless in the noble, it referred to mercantile traffic.
[10] ‘The shifty, untrustworthy statecraft of an unprincipled, light-hearted king, living for his own ends, and recking not of what came after him.’ (Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii, 510).
[11] Rot. Parl. ii, 311, 319.
[12] The expression ‘ton-tight’ is somewhat obscure, but probably meant complete or measured tons. (Cf. Holloway, Dict. of Provincialisms, s.v. tight, and Halliwell’s Dictionary s.v. thite.) In Latin papers it is rendered by such a form as ships ‘ponderis 80 doliorum;’ in 1430 it is described as ‘le tonage autrement appelle tounetight,’ (Exchequer Warrants for Issues, 9 Feb). It was not necessarily restricted to ship measurement since, in 1496, stone and gravel for dock building were being purchased by the ton-tight. It is therefore possible that it referred to weight as distinguished from the cubic space occupied by a tun of wine, the original standard of tonnage capacity.
[13] At various times, from the thirteenth to the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the phrases, ‘of Westminster,’ ‘of the Tower,’ and ‘of Greenwich,’ were successively equivalent to the later ‘H.M.S.’ The meaning, here, is that there were 150 vessels fit for use as men-of-war.
[14] Ancient Petitions, 5477 (R.O.) ‘A tsnobles et tssages seigneurs diceste present parlement supplient tres humblement toutz les possessoures des niefs dedens ceste roialme q come en le temps du noble Roi Edward et ces predecessours q a chescun fois qaunt ascun nief furent ordeigne de faire ascun viage q le possessour de tiel nief prendrent del ton-tight 40d en le quart par regard damender la nief a lappaill dicell et la quart part del prise par eux fait sur la mer par quelle regard la naveie diceste roialme alors fust bien mayntene et governe si q a icelle temps furent tondez prestz dens la roialme 150 niefs del Toure et puis la deces du noble roi Edward en le temps de Richard nadgaiez roi Dengleterre le dit regard eston demenise jesqs 11s le ton-tight et cci estee tsmalement paie si q les possessours des tielx niefs mount ils null volunte de sustener et mayntener lour niefs mais ils onct lesses giser desolat pur quel cause la navie diceste roialme est ency dimennise et empeire q ne soienct en tout la roialme outre 25 niefs del Tour.’
[15] Le Compte du Clos des Galées, 1382-4. Soc. de l’histoire de Normandie, Mèlanges, Ser. II, Rouen 1893.
[16] 5 Rich. II, c. 3.
[17] In view of the difficulty owners of impressed ships experienced in obtaining payment it may be suggested that it was possibly due to the influence of that class that it was bestowed for a specifically named purpose; if so, the hope of obtaining prompter settlement was not realised.
[18] For proofs that notwithstanding wars, taxation, feudal rights, and every other drawback, the towns, as a whole, were steadily growing in wealth, see Mrs J. R. Green’s, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century.
[19] There was a contemptuous Continental saying, ‘We buy the foxskins from the English for a groat, and resell them the foxes’ tails for a guilder,’ which is expressive enough.
[20] Exch. Accts. (Q.R.), Bdle. 49, No. 29, and Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. 8. The tonnage of the Grace Dieu is only mentioned twice, and, in one of those two mentions, is given as 1400. This must be a mistake on the part of the Treasury clerk. The 1000 tons of the Jesus of the Tower seems very suspicious, but as in nearly every instance, the tonnage is only once given there is no opportunity for collation.
[21] Rebuilt.
[22] With the exception of the Agase taken in Southampton water; a French fleet having visited the English coast in May, before the Duke was ready for sea.
[23] Spanish, ballenere, long low vessels for oars and sails introduced in the fourteenth century by the Biscayan builders (Fernandez Duro, La Marina de Castilla p. 158.)
[24] Rot. Pat.
[25] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. 8.
[26] Foremast. French, mât de misaine.
[27] Exch. Accts. (Q.R.), Bdle. 49, No. 29. ‘Turris ligni vocat Bulwerk ... super introitu portus de Hamell per salva custodia naves.’
[28] ‘Unius fabrice.’
[29] Binnacle.
[30] Somerhuche is derived from old English Somer, a bedstead, and old French huche; it was originally, therefore, a sleeping place.
[31] Acts of the Privy Council, 3rd Mar. 1423. Nicolas says (Introduction, vol. v, cxxxvi), that the whole of the navy was ordered to be sold, but the wording of the entry does not support this authoritative statement. The later records prove clearly that they were not all sold; but whether because no such wholesale clearance had been intended, or from want of purchasers, there is no conclusive evidence to show.
Where bene our shippes?
Where bene our swerdes become?
Our enemies bid for the shippe sette a shepe,
Allas oure reule halteth, hit is benome;
Who dare wel say that lordeshippe should take kepe?
I will asaye thoughe mine herte ginne to wepe,
To doe thys werke yf wee wole ever the (thrive)
For very shame to kepe aboute the see.’
If Adam de Moleyns was the author his death by violence at the hands of seamen, in 1450, had an especially tragic unfitness.
[33] ‘Per contrarotulacionem.’
[34] Exch. War. for Issues, 26th Jan. 1430.
[35] Rot. Parl. iv, 402.
[36] Ibid. iv, 489.
[37] Debate of Heralds, p. 49 Lond, 1870.
[38] 2 Henry V, c. 6.
[39] Rot. Franc. sub annos.
[40] Fœdera xi, 77.
[41] Fœdera xi, 258.
[42] Rot. Franc. 12 Mar. 1444-5.
[43] Rot. Parl. v, 59.
[44] Exch. Accts. (Q.R.), Bdle. 53, No. 23.
[45] ‘Tenggemouth.’
[46] Port of origin not given.
[47] Exch. Accts. (Q.R.), Bdle. 54, No. 14.
[48] The large ship is the Trinity; there was a Christopher of Dartmouth in 1440 also of 400 tons.
[49] Considering that the lists of Elizabeth’s reign are much more nearly complete.
[50] The Debate between the Heralds of France and England. Lond. 1870. Assigned to 1458-61, and supposed to have been written by Charles, Duke of Orléans, for twenty-five years a prisoner here and therefore qualified by opportunity to form an opinion.
[51] Bishop Stubbs (Const. Hist. iii, 268) says ‘The French administration of the Duke of Bedford was maintained in great measure by taxing the French, rather than by raising supplies from England.’ This may be true of the civil administration but there are innumerable warrants for the whole reign directed to the English Exchequer for the Payment of English and French captains who undertook to provide bands of men-at-arms or archers.
[52] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. xiv.
[53] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. x.
[54] Ibid.
[55] Ibid. No. x.
[56] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. x.
[57] Ibid. No. xi.
[58] ‘Cabanes,’ deck structures.
[59] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. xi.
[60] ‘Valecto de corone.’ In 1455 there were twenty-three attached to the household. The title implied the premiership of that class of society.
[61] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. xii.
[62] Ibid. No. xiii.
[63] Rot. Parl. iv, 439.
[64] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. xi.
[65] Rot. Parl. v, 59.
[66] Exch. War. for Issues, 27th June, 1442.
[67] Roll of Foreign Accounts, No. xiii.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Exch. War. for Issues, 28th May 1454. The Rolls of Parliament only name the first four Earls and Lord Stourton.
[70] Rot. Parl. v, 244.
[71] ‘And as men sayne ther was not so gret a batayle upon the sea this xl wyntyr.’ (Paston Letters, i, 429, Ed. Gairdner.)
[72] Genoa.
[73] Exch. Accts. (Q.R.), Bdle. 53, No. 5.
[74] ‘De novo.’
[75] ‘Sepis vocatæ hegge.’
[76] Mud.
[77] ‘Sede.’
[78] Blank in MS.
[79] Sic.
[81] Or 270 tons burden, and 276 ton and tonnage, that is 207 tons in cask, or 276 tons of dead weight cargo.
[82] Exch. War. for Issues.
[83] Ibid., 4th Aug. 1463.
[84] Ibid., 7th Feb. 1467.
[85] Ibid., 6th Apr. 1465.
[86] But the Duke of Burgundy had prepared a fleet to intercept Warwick; at the critical moment it was dispersed by a storm. (Grafton’s Chronicle, p. 686.)
[87] Thomas Nevill, illegitimate son of Lord Fauconberg.
[88] Iron or stone shot.
[89] Exch. War. for Issues, 20th July 1461.
[90] Ibid., 5th July 1463.
[91] Ibid., 14th Dec.
[92] Ibid., 18th July.
[93] Ibid., 27th Ap. 1473.
[94] Elsewhere she is called a King’s ship, Fœdera, xx, 139.
[95] Exch. War. for Issues, 16th Aug. 1480. The then largest ship of the French navy, burnt by accident at Havre 6th July 1545, was called the Carraquon.
[96] Exch. War. for Issues, 8th June 1468.
[97] Ibid., 17th July 1480, and Devon, Issues of Exchequer, p. 500.
[98] Ibid., 31st January.
[99] Chapter House Books, vol. 7.
[100] Aug. Office Bk., No. 316.
[101] Aug. Office Bk., No. 316, f. 147.
[102] Eu, on the Norman coast.
[103] Exch. War. for Issues, 2nd Dec. 1493.
[104] Smalhithe, the town for Reding creek, was then tidal and had long been a shipbuilding port. Men-of-war were built there as late as 1545.
[105] Sir Rich. Guldeford.
[106] Chapt. House Books, vol. vii, f. 35.
[107] 60,000 marvedis = 160 ducats of account, that is ducats of 375 maravedis each. The coined ducat was of 365 marvedis or ten reals twenty-five maravedis, estimated as equivalent to forty-five reals and forty-eight maravedis now (Shaw, Hist. of Currency). The real of 1492 contained 51.23 grains of silver (Del Mar, Money and Civilisation, p. 93). A century later the Spanish or Portuguese ducat passed for 5s 6d English (Arber, An English Garner, iii, 184).
[108] Fernandez Duro, Viajes Regios por Mar, pp. 36, 63. It is doubtful however whether any of these ships belonged to the crown or, in fact, whether there was any Spanish Royal Navy, exclusive of the galley service, before the commencement of the seventeenth century.
[109] Exch. War. for Issues, 29th Nov.
[110] Exch. War. for Issues.
[111] Ibid., 19th Jan. 1496.
[112] Ibid., 7th Apr.
[113] Exch. War. for Issues, 7th Mar.
[114] Aug. Office Bk., No. 316, ff. 49-64.
[115] Appendix A.
[116] Cf. Jal, Glossaire Nautique, s.v. Sabord and Porte.
[117] Aug. Office Bk., No. 317, f. 15.
[118] Blue and green.
[119] Ashen colour.
[120] Aug. Office Bk., No. 317, f. 24.
[121] A woollen cloth.
[122] Tellers’ Rolls, No. 63.
[123] Aug. Office Bk., No. 316, f. 72.
[124] Ibid., f. 70.
[125] 4 Hen. VII, cap. 10.
[126] H. Harrisse, John Cabot, the Discoverer of North America, and Sebastian his Son. Lond. 1896, p. 138.
[127] Herbert, Life of Henry VIII, p. 125, ed. 1870.
[128] When Charles V sailed from Flushing to Spain in 1517 we read that the operation of lowering a boat took two hours, (Fernandez Duro, Viajes Regios por Mar, p. 94). The fleet was made up of 52 vessels drawn from Holland, Zealand and Spain, but this can scarcely refer to the Dutch vessels.
[129] Royal MSS. 13, B ii, 56.
[130] Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII, i, 21.
[131] State Papers Ven., Oct. 1515, and Letters and Papers of the reign of Henry VIII, 6th Nov. 1515. Among his jewels was ‘a chayne of golde of threefolde with a whistell and a pece of a unycornes home at it inclosed in gold,’ (Cott. MSS. App. xxviii, f. 29). The whistle was the badge of the sea officer.
[132] Exch. War. for Issues, 29th Jan. 1510 and Letters and Papers, i, 3422, viii.
[133] Ibid. The pomegranate was a part of the arms of the city of Granada. The capture of Granada and the destruction of the Moorish kingdom had resounded through Christendom, and after Katherine of Aragon’s arrival in England the pomegranate was frequently used as a badge.
[134] Ibid. The name referred to Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII.
[135] Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A. Doubtless the ‘carrack of Jene called the Mary Loret,’ of Stowe MSS. 146, f. 29, and the ‘Gabriel Royal or Carrack of Genoa,’ of Letters and Papers, 15th Dec. 1512. In the absence of other evidence the authoritative dates given in the Royal MS. must be accepted, but there is no trace in other papers of the existence between 1509-12, of some of the vessels assigned by it to 1509, and some of the dates can be shown to be wrong.
[136] Roy. MSS. 14 B xxii A. Perhaps the James of Hull, for which £260 was paid in July 1512 (Kings Book of Payments). Rebuilt about 1524, (Chapter House Book, vol. vi).
[137] Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A. In March 1512 Sir Ed. Howard was paid £666, 13s 4d for the Mary Howard, bought of him (King’s Book of Payments), and probably the same vessel.
[138] Captured from Barton, the Scotch privateer.
[139] Ibid.
[140] Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A. The John Hopton, or ‘John Hopton’s Ship’ of 1512. In Jan. 1513 he received £1000 ‘for his great ship bought by the king’ (King’s Book of Payments).
[141] Bought from Wm. Gonson and others, (Letters and Papers, 24th Apr., 1513).
[142] Certainly a king’s ship, but whether bought or built only probable by collation.
[143] Ibid.
[144] Ibid. First called the Christ of Lynn.
[145] First mention of Lizard and Swallow, Letters and Papers, 15th Dec. 1512. Described as new ships, 22nd Mar. 1513 (Cott. MSS. Calig. D. vi, 101).
[146] Letters and Papers, 15th Dec. 1512. A Genoese carrack.
[147] First mentioned Letters and Papers, 15th Dec. 1512.
[148] Ibid.
[149] Ibid.
[150] Ibid.
[151] Ibid. The Kateryn, Rose, and Henry are described as new in Letters and Papers, 27th March 1513.
[152] Letters and Papers, 15th Dec., 1512, and July 1513, and Fœdera xiii, 326.
[153] ‘The Great Barbara, before called the Mawdelyn.’ First mentioned July, 1513.
[154] Elsewhere ‘the Marc Fflorentyne, otherwise called the Black Bark Christopher.’
[155] Probably ‘the carrack of Hampton’ bought in March 1513 for 6000 ducats from Fernando de la Sala (King’s Book of Payments).
[156] The Salvator of Lubeck, bought for £2333, 6s 8d, Letters and Papers, 8th Aug. and 25th Oct. 1514; Exch. Var. 244/6.
[157] Commenced 4th Dec. 1512; ‘hallowed’ at Erith 13th June 1514 (King’s Book of Payments).
[158] Probably the ‘new galley’ of Letters and Papers, 6th Nov. 1515, and replaced or rebuilt, Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A.
[159] Bought of John Hopton for £500 (King’s Book of Payments).
[160] Chapter House Book, vol. xi, f. 72.
[161] Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A.
[162] ‘The Great Mary and John, the Spaniard Ship,’ (Q.R. Anc. Misc. Navy 616c, 6), or ‘the great Spaniard that the emperor gave the king’ (Letters and Papers, iii, 3214). The earlier Mary and John had disappeared by this time.
[163] Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A.
[164] Ibid. Zabra was used both in Italian and Spanish for pinnace.
[165] Ibid.
[166] Ibid.
[167] Ibid.
[168] First mentioned Letters and Papers July 1524, also Aug. Office Book, No. 317, but probably the Mary of Homflete, a prize, and taken into the service.
[169] According to Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A, dating from 1511, but the name does not occur in the State Papers before 1522.
[170] Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A.
[171] Cott. MSS. Vesp. C. ii, and Letters and Papers, 12 Apr. 1523. Rebuilt as a 300 ton ship about 1536 (Letters and Papers, x, 1231).
[172] Letters and Papers, 3rd June 1523 and Q.R. Misc. Navy 867/5, 2nd Feb. 1524.
[173] Ibid.
[174] Occurs in several men-of-war lists from 1523; assigned by Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A to 1513, in all probability an error.
[175] Roy. MSS. 14, B xxii A. Doubtless named in compliment to the Guildford or Guldeford family, persons of importance during the first two Tudor reigns. Both the first and second wives of Sir Henry Guldeford, Comptroller of the Household to Henry VIII, were named Mary.
[176] First mentioned Letters and Papers, x, 1231.
[177] This vessel occurs in a list calendared under 1522 (Letters and Papers, iii, 2014), but the date assigned is wrong by at least twenty-five years. She was built in or before 1536, captured by the Scotch, and described as English in a Scotch fleet, (Ibid. xi, 631); recaptured by Lord Clynton in Sept. 1547, and resumed her place in the English navy (Holinshed, p. 989).
[178] First mentioned Letters and Papers, 31st Dec. 1539.
[179] Or Mathew Gonson; first mentioned 10th June 1539.
[180] First mentioned 10th June 1539; an entirely different vessel from the preceding of the same name.
[181] Or Less Bark and Great Bark. They were Hamburg ships (Letters and Papers, 15th Nov. 1544), and are first mentioned 10th June 1539.
[182] The Salamander and Unicorn were captured at Leith in May 1544, (Holinshed, p. 962). The Salamander (a Salamander was the badge of Francis I) had been presented to James V of Scotland by the French king when the former married Madeline of France.
[183] Or Pansy. First mentioned Letters and Papers, 18th Apr. 1544.
[184] First mentioned Letters and Papers, 15th Nov. 1544. A Hamburg ship.
[185] Ibid.
[186] Ibid. Of Dantzic.
[187] Ibid., or L’Artigo. Qy. from the French artichaut, in military terminology, a spiked fence.
[188] First mentioned Letters and Papers, 18th Apr. 1544.
[189] Ibid.
[190] First mentioned Letters and Papers, 15th Nov. 1544.
[191] Probably the true year as there is a payment (Pipe Office Declared Accounts, 2193), to five Venetians for fitting her, as being more experienced in galley work. According to Add. MSS. 22047, she was of 200 tons.
[192] Or Merlion; a prize of 1544 or 1545 (Letters and Papers, 19th Apr. 1545).
[193] Ibid.
[194] Ibid.
[195] Ibid.
[196] First mentioned Letters and Papers, 3rd Aug. 1545. Probably the ‘great shallop’ in building (Letters and Papers) 19th Apr. that year.
[197] Ibid. Probably the ‘great galleon’ building at Smalhithe on 19th April. There was a Grand Mistress in the French navy at this time.
[198] Ibid. Probably the ‘second galleon’ building at Smalhithe on 19th April.
[199] Ibid. Probably the ‘new gallyot’ building at Deptford 19th April.
[200] Ibid. Probably the ‘middle shallop’ building at Deptford 19th April. Saker was the name of a piece of ordnance or of the peregrine hawk.
[201] Ibid. Probably the ‘small shallop’ building at Dover on 19th April.
[202] Ibid. Probably the ‘less Spanish pinnace’ of 19th April.
[203] Ibid.
[204] Ibid. Captured by the French 2nd Sept. 1547 (Stow p. 594).
[205] Ibid. Of Dantzic.
[206] Captured from the French 18th May (Stow).
[207] First mentioned Letters and Papers, Mar. 1546. Of Bremen.
[208] The Phœnix and the George are first mentioned as royal ships in Anthony’s list of 1546; probably merchantmen of those names in the list of 10th Aug. 1545, and bought into the service.
[209] The Antelope, Tiger, Bull and Hart first occur in Anthony’s list of the navy in 1546; in that year (Letters and Papers, Mar. 1546, uncalendared) there were ‘the four new ships a making at Deptford 1000 tons,’ with which tonnage these correspond.
[210] Twenty tons each.
[211] As in the case of the Mary Rose, (King’s Book of Payments).
[212] State Papers, Spain, ii, 144.
[213] Fernandez Duro, Disquisiciones Nauticas, Lib. V, 11, 354. The Spanish ship ton, or ‘tonelada de arqueo,’ was rather smaller than the English; ‘esta tonelada de arqueo es un espacio de 8 codos cúbicos cada codo tiene 33 dedos ó pulgadas de 48 que tiene la vara de Castilla,’ (Ibid. p. 161, quoting Veitia). This works out at 53.44 cubic feet against the 60 cubic feet allowed in the fifteenth and sixteenth century English ships. The measurement by tonelada was Sevillean, or South Spanish; the Biscayan builders calculated by the tonel, ten of which equalled twelve toneladas (Fernandez de Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages II, 86).
[214] Lodge, Illustrations of British History, i, 14.
[215] See Appendix A.
[216] State Papers, (1830), 6th Aug. 1545.
[217] Chapter House Bks. vol. vi.
[218] Ibid. vol. xiii. It should be stated that these figures are from an inventory of stores and fittings remaining on board the ships in 1515, and do not necessarily represent the full equipment. They may, however, be taken to indicate its distribution.
[219] It has been mentioned that the weight of the serpentine was about 250 lbs.; double serpentines were presumably heavier. Serpentines and other small pieces were fitted with one or two removable chambers for loading.
[220] All that is known of slings is that they were ‘bigge peces of ship ordenance,’ (Letters and Papers, uncalendared, 1542). ‘Bigge’ must be understood relatively as they were fired with chambers.
[221] The French Pierrier, used for stone shot.
[222] Murderers, half a century later, were small swivel guns, but at this date perhaps larger. These two are described as ‘two grete murderers of brasse.’
[223] According to another paper (Letters and Papers, i, 5721) the upper forecastle deck carried eight serpentines and eight smaller guns.
[224] She also had six serpentines and a stone gun in the main and mizen tops. In the fifteenth century darts were flung from the tops; now most large vessels carried guns in them.
[225] Letters and Papers, i, 5721.
[226] Ibid. and Chapt. House Bks., vol. xiii. Eighty-four guns according to the latter.
[227] Low Latin petra, stone shot; the name subsequently defined a particular weight or shape, and remained in use although iron shot were fired from what was still called a stone cannon.
[228] Add. MSS. 22047, and State Papers of Henry VIII, (ed. 1830), xvii, 736, (old numbering).
[229] Letters and Papers i, 4379. The soldiers, sailors, and gunners are from Letters and Papers i, 3977, of April 1513. The soldiers were obtained and forwarded by various persons responsible, e.g., the 350 of the Gabriel Royal were made up of 100, being the retinue or immediate followers of Sir Thomas Courtenay and Sir William Cornwall, her captains, 100 from the Bishop of Exeter, 100 from Lord Arundel, and 50 from Lord Stourton.
[230] To defend archers in the field. This is the only instance, so far as is yet known, in which ships carried them as part of their equipment, and here probably it was only in connection with the invasion of France.
[231] Armour.
[232] It should be noticed that when these schedules were drawn up, the Henry was not yet launched, the figures therefore were purely conjectural and not requisites shown by experience to be necessary.
[233] Letters and Papers, i, 5276; the Peter Pomegranate. Quarrels or quarreaux were used with crossbows.
[234] Stone shot.
[235] Letters and Papers, i, 5721. The Sovereign, Great Nicholas and Kateryn Fortileza.
[236] Chapter House Bks., vol. ii, f. 102.
[237] Ibid., f. 72.
[238] Ibid., ff. 80, 88.
[239] Archæologia, vi, 218.
[240] Chapter House Bks., vol. xiii.
[241] Letters and Papers, i, 4376, f. 213.
[242] Chapter House Bks., vol. xii, f. 510.
[243] Ibid., f. 306.
[244] Quoted by Derrick, Memoirs of the Royal Navy, p. 303.
[245] Add MSS. 22047. The other vessels drawn he calls galleasses.
[246] Letters and Papers, 17th April 1523.
[247] State Papers, Spain, 16th July.
[248] State Papers, Venetian, Report of England. Also Soranzo’s Report of 1554, ‘They do not use galleys.’
[249] Add. MSS. 22047.
[250] Bed and table covers.
[251] Cott. MSS., Calig. D. vi, f. 107.
[252] Ibid. 101.
[253] Cott. MSS. Otho, E. ix. f. 64.
[254] Letters and Papers, 4th June.
[255] Heraldically in gold and silver.
[256] Letters and Papers, 28th July 1514. Banners were square or nearly square, somewhat resembling the Royal Standard of to-day. Standards were long, narrow, and split at the end. Streamers were still longer and narrower, now represented by pennants, (N. H. Nicolas, Excerpta Historica, p. 50).
[257] Letters and Papers, 10th April 1514.
[258] Ibid. i, 5721; Chapter House Bks., vol. xiii; and Stowe. MSS. 146, f. 114.
[259] Letters and Papers, ii, 3549.
[260] Harl. MSS. 309, f. 10.
[261] Coleccion de Viages, i, 412.
[262] Fernandez Duro, Viajes Regios por Mar, p. 128.
[263] Harl. MSS. 309. Audley, afterwards Lord Chancellor and Lord Audley of Walden was Speaker in 1529 and knighted. In this paper he is called simply Thos. Audley so that it may be presumed to be earlier than 1532, the year of knighthood.
[264] Cf. Le Fleming MSS. p. 8, 12th Report Hist. MSS. Com. App. Part vii.
[265] State Papers, (ed. 1830) 10th Aug. 1545.
[266] Cf. State Papers, (ed. 1830), letters of 15th, 16th, and 18th Aug. 1545. He seems to have been completely outmanœuvred.
[267] Ibid., 12th Aug., 1545.
[268] Ibid., 17th Sept. 1545.
[269] Cf. Duro, La Marina de Castilla, App. No. 26. Patent of Don Alonso Enriquez. For purposes of reference it may be well to append a list of the Admirals of England during the fifteenth century: John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, 23rd Dec. 1406; Edmund Holland, Earl of Kent, 8th May 1407; Thomas Beaufort, 1st Sept. 1408; John, Duke of Bedford, 26th July 1426; John Holland, Duke of Exeter, 2nd Oct. 1435; William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, 1447 (acting); Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, 29th July 1450; Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 1462; William Neville, Earl of Kent, 30th July 1462; Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 12th Oct. 1462; Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 2nd Jan. 1471 (defeated and killed at Barnet and his appointment not recognised by the Yorkists); John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, 25th July 1483; and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, 21st Sept. 1485.
[270] Chapter House Books, vol. v, f. 153.
[271] Stow, p. 497, and Chronicle of Calais, Cam. Soc. p. 16.
[274] Blocks.
[275] State Papers, (ed. 1830) 1 Aug. 1545, Brandon to Paget.
[276] Ibid., Lisle to Paget.
[277] Ibid., 7th Aug., Suffolk to Paget.
[278] Ibid., 9th Aug., Lisle to Paget.
[279] Pipe Office Declared Accounts, 2477.
[280] Ibid., 2587. But £559, 8s 7d, according to State Papers, Dom. Ed. VI, xv, 11.
[281] Pipe Office Decld. Accts., 2588, and Acts of the Privy Council, 17th May 1547.
[282] Acts of the Privy Council, 3rd Aug., 1549.
[283] Chapter House Bks., vol. i, ff. 23, 28.
[284] ‘Estland or parties of Spruse.’
[285] Chapter House Book, vol. 1, ff. 30, 33, 46. The character of jorgnet is doubtful; cf. Planché Cyclopædia of Costume, s.v. Jornet.
[286] Chapter House Book, vol. xi, f. 107.
[287] Letters and Papers, i, 4225 and Q.R. Anc. Misc. Navy, 616, c.
[288] Letters and Papers, i, 3445, ‘when divers of the French ships of war lay there.’
[289] Ibid., iii, 2296.
[290] Ibid., i, 3422—i.
[291] Exch. War. for Issues, 29th Jan., 1510.
[292] Leland, Itinerary.
[293] Letters and Papers, 18th Jan. 1525.
[294] Chapter House Books, vol. vi.
[295] Ibid., f. 40.
[296] Letters and Papers, 28th Feb., 1527, and Aug. Office Book, No. 317, (second part), f. 22.
[297] Chapter House Books, vol. v, f. 133.
[298] Rot. Claus. 10, Henry VIII, m. 6, and Lansd. MSS. 16, f. 120.
[299] Acts of the Privy Council, 15th Jan. and 14th Mar. 1546.
[300] Chapter House Books, vol. xi, f. 107.
[301] Ibid., f. 44. The principal men employed about dock construction are always called ‘marshmen,’ probably persons with special experience of work in swampy ground, and ‘inning,’ from the Romney Marsh district.
[302] Add. Charters (B.M.), 6289.
[303] Letters and Papers, i. 4387, (3rd Aug).
[304] Stakes and brushwood.
[305] Chapter House Books, vol. xi, ff. 9, 14.
[306] Pipe Office Accounts, 2588.
[307] Q.R. Misc. Navy, 867/5. According to a modern writer (C. J. Smith, Erith Lond. 1872, p. 61), the storehouse ‘stood a little eastward of the point where the road from the railway station meets West Street at right angles. A considerable portion remains.’
[308] Chapter House Books, vol. xii, f. 115.
[309] Roy. MSS., 14 B xii D.
[310] Chapter House Books, vol. xi, f. 3.
[311] Ibid., f. 65.
[312] Aug. Office Book, No. 317, (second part), ff. 27, 29.
[313] Chapter House Books, vol. xii, ff. 71, 365.
[314] Chapter House Books, vol. vi, ff. 53, 57.
[315] Ibid., ff. 61-3.
[316] Acts of the Privy Council, 22nd April 1548.
[317] Ibid., 21st August 1545.
[318] Tellers’ Rolls, No. 64.
[319] N. Dews, History of Deptford.
[320] Cott. MSS. Vesp. C. vi, 375.
[321] Letters and Papers, i, 3977.
[322] Ibid., i, 5112.
[323] Letters and Papers, 19th April 1545, (uncalendared).
[324] Fœdera, xiii, 326, 8th April 1512.
[325] Letters and Papers, i, 5017.
[326] Ibid., 25th April 1544, (uncalendared).
[327] Exch. Accts. (Q.R.), Bdle. 57, No. 2.
[328] The Spanish West Indian fleets were not ordered to have an apothecary and medicines on board till 1556, (Real Cedulas 29th July and 9th September 1556).
[329] Letters and Papers, 9th March, 1545-6, (uncalendared), and State papers, (ed. 1830) 12th August 1545.
[330] Letters and Papers, i, 3422—ii.
[331] Roy. MSS. 7 F xiv-75.
[332] Cott. MSS., Galba B iii-137.
[333] Chapter House Books, vol. ii, f. 3.
[334] Ibid., vol. iii, f. 4.
[335] Letters and Papers, 28th May 1545, (uncalendared).
[336] Ibid., i, 5762.
[337] Letters and Papers, i, 4475.
[338] State Papers, (ed. 1830), 2nd August 1545, Lisle to King. The summer of 1545 was unusually hot. Lisle then described symptoms which point to dysentery and scurvy, (Ibid., 1st August).
[339] Ibid., 15th September 1545, Lisle to Council. Only three men were killed in what little fighting there was at Treport.
[340] Aug. Office Book, No. 315, f. 1.
[341] Chapter House Books, vol. ii, f. 17.
[342] The least important.
[343] State Papers (ed. 1830), 7th Aug. 1545, Lisle to Paget.
[344] Old French, meien.
[345] Acts of the Privy Council, 14th April 1546.
[346] Spanish, forsado.
[347] State Papers (ed. 1830), 15th July 1546, Lisle to Paget.
[348] Roy. MSS. 14 B xxxiii.
[349] Letters and Papers, i, 5762, Council to Wyndham.
[350] Ibid., 14th Sept. 1539.
[351] Harl. MSS., 309. f. 10. These rules were based on the ordinances issued by Richard I, themselves grounded on customs reaching back to the dawn of Mediterranean navigation.
[352] Probably on ‘look out’ is meant, still the most serious offence of which a sailor can be guilty.
[353] State Papers (ed. 1830), March 1546.
[354] Exch. Accts. (Q.R.), Bdle. 57, No. 2.
[355] Trin from the old English tryndelle or trendelle, a wheel; dryngs are halliards. Both trin and dryngs were used in connection with the mainsail.
[356] Ropes.
[357] Capstan, Spanish, cabrestante.
[358] Great boat, cockboat, and jollyboat.
[359] Hooker’s Life of Sir Peter Carew, pp. 34-5.
[360] Tellers’ Rolls, No. 63.
[361] Exch. War. for Issues, 12th July, 1512, and Letters and Papers, i, 3445.
[362] Ellis, Original Letters, I, 147, Series III.
[363] Cott. MSS. Calig. D. vi, 104-7.
[364] Letters and Papers, 21st May, 1513. Fox and Dawtrey to Wolsey.
[365] Ibid., i, 4474.
[366] Ibid., iii, 2337. Surrey to King.
[367] State Papers (ed. 1830) 20th Aug., 1545.
[368] Letters and Papers, i, 3445, 5747, and 27th March, 1513. Chapter House Books, vol. vi. Pipe Office Declared Accounts, 2193. Prices varied a great deal, being much higher at Portsmouth for instance than at Yarmouth.
[369] Letters and Papers 19th April 1545 (uncalendared) and State Papers (ed. 1830) 12th Aug., 1545.
[370] Letters and Papers iii, 2362. Surrey to Wolsey.
[371] State Papers, Dom., Ed. VI, xv, 11.
[372] Letters and Papers, 9th March 1545-6 (uncalendared) and Q.R. Anc. Misc. Navy, 616 d., 2.
[373] Rot. Pat. 14th of Henry VIII, Pt. II, m. 26. ‘Embezzlement,’ in these pardons, had not the particular meaning attached to the word now. They were meant to protect the holder against accusations he might not, from lapse of time, have sufficient evidence to refute.
[374] Aug. Off. Bk. No. 315, f. 3.
[375] Letters and Papers, 26th May 1513.
[376] Cott. MSS., App. xviii, f. 10. Undated, but before 1529, when Spert was knighted.
[377] Letters and Papers, iv, 2362.
[378] Ibid., 25th Sept. 1524.
[379] Ibid., 2nd March 1526, and Aug. Office Book, No. 317 Part ii, f. 1.
[380] Letters and Papers, 14th July 1533.
[381] Arundel MSS., 97. On Spert’s monument in the chancel of St Dunstan’s Stepney, he is called ‘comptroller of the navy.’ The designation was not in use until long after his death, in September 1541, and the monument itself is a seventeenth century one.
[382] State Papers (ed. 1830), 8th Jan. 1544-5, and xvi, 441 (old numbering).
[383] Son of Wm. Gonson.
[384] Letters Patent, 24th April.
[385] Add. MSS. 9297, f. 13.
[386] Letters and Papers, i. 3977, 3978. Eight were from Topsham, and eight from Dartmouth.
[387] Ibid., i, 4533, 31st October 1513.
[388] Ibid., 15th May 1513. Dawtrey to Wolsey.
[389] Ibid., 18th July 1513.
[390] Letters and Papers, i, 5112.
[391] Ibid., 25th April 1544 (uncalendared).
[392] State Papers (ed. 1830), 18th April 1544.
[393] Ibid., xvii, 552 (old numbering).
[394] Stow, p. 588. War was declared on 3rd August, 1544.
[395] Exch. War. for Issues, 17th July 1522.
[396] Ibid., 7th Feb. 1544.
[397] Letters and Papers, 16th Jan. 1513.
[398] Letters and Papers, iv, 5101.
[399] Ibid., vi, 1380.
[400] Letters and Papers, 1540 (uncalendared).
[401] Ibid., 15th May 1544; March 1545; and 19th April 1545 (uncalendared).
[402] Somerset.
[403] State Papers, Venetian, Falier’s Report.
[404] Ibid., Barbaro’s Report.
[405] Ibid., Soranzo’s Report.
[406] Voyages, v, 256. (Ed. 1885).
[407] State Papers, Spain, 2nd January 1541.
[408] The facts relating to this doubtful voyage are fully discussed by H. Harrisse in John Cabot, the Discoverer of North America, and Sebastian his Son, London 1896, p. 157 et seq.
[409] Ibid., p. 340.
[410] Herbert, Life of Henry VIII., p. 651, ed. 1870.
[411] It is said £80,000.
[412] Letters and Papers 19th March, 1513.
[413] Ibid., xi, 943.
[414] Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, ii, 534-5.
[415] Letters and Papers, Preface to vol. ii, p. 194.
[416] Ibid., i, 4533.
[417] Chapter House Books, vol. i, f. 23.
[418] Chapter House Books, vol. iii, f. 68. Cf. Letters and Papers, xiii, (Pt. 1), 1777, where the dates and amounts differ somewhat.
[419] Pipe Office Declared Accounts, 2587.
[420] State Papers (ed. 1830), 6th April 1546.
[421] Ibid., xvii, 683 (old numbering), Wriothesley to Council.
[422] State Papers, Dom. Ed. VI, xv, 11.
[423] Any kind of movable fittings.
[424] State Papers, Spain, 30th January 1532. Chapuys to Emperor.
[425] Letters and Papers, ii, 235.
[426] Cott. MSS. Calig. D., viii, 150.
[427] Letters and Papers, 29th March 1532.
[428] Ibid., xii, 782.
[429] Ibid., xiii, 158.
[430] Acts of the Privy Council, 14th April 1546.
[431] Acts of the Privy Council, 8th August 1546.
[432] 27 Hen. viii, c. 4.
[433] Stowe MSS. 146, f. 41.
[434] Nomenclator Navalis.
[435] Chapter House Books, vol. xii, f. 91.
[436] Letters and Papers, 23rd Feb. and 25th Nov. 1514, and i, 5024. The last was 2400 lbs. The prices for serpentine and bombdyne powder are probably only for manufacture.
[437] Chapter House Books, vol. x, f. 32.
[438] Ibid., vol. v, f. 110.
[439] Ibid., vol. vi, f. 58.
[440] Arrows of inferior quality.
[441] Letters and Papers, x, 299.
[442] Chapter House Books, vol. vi, f. 41. The ton contained 40 cubic feet of dry, and 50 of green, timber.
[443] Probably Olonne (Vendée).
[444] 28 ells: the English ell is five—the French six-fourths of a yard; as the canvas was French, the ells are most likely French.
[445] Probably Vitré (Brittany).
[446] A bale.
[447] A Breton canvas. There was a ‘poll davye baye’ on the Breton coast (State Papers, ed. 1830, xiv, 325), and a small village named Poldavid is situated in Douarnenez Bay. At a later date it is frequently called ‘Dantzic Polldavy’ and then probably means a canvas of Breton type obtained from Dantzic.
[448] Printed in full in Archæologia, vi, 218.
[449] Lansd. MSS. 2, f. 66.
[450] Probably the Moon, Seven Stars, and Swift.
[451] Pipe Office Accounts, 2194.
[452] Harl. MSS., 354, f. 9. Printed in full in Derrick’s Memoirs of the Royal Navy, pp. 16, 17.
[453] Edward was present at the launch of the Primrose and Mary Willoby on the 4th July 1551 (Journal).
[454] Acts of the Privy Council, 7th February 1551.
[455] Acts of the Privy Council.
[456] Ibid.
[457] Pipe Office Accounts, 2355.
[458] Acts of the Privy Council.
[459] Pipe Office Accounts, 2194 and 2588. War with France and Scotland continued until 24th March 1550.
[460] Pipe Office Accounts, 2194.
[461] Hakluyt, Voyages, iii, 53 (ed. 1885) and Fernandez Duro Armada Espanola, p. 121.
[462] State Papers, Dom. Ed. VI, iv, 39.
[463] Acts of the Privy Council, 31st January 1552.
[464] Chronicle of King Henry VIII, edited by Major Martin Hume, Lond. 1889, pp. 161-3.
[465] Acts of the Privy Council, 20th November 1552.
[466] Ibid., 22nd September 1551.
[467] Ibid., 18th February 1550.
[468] State Papers, Dom. Ed. VI, 7th Sept. 1548.
[469] Journal of Edward VI, April 1550.
[470] Ibid., 2nd July 1551.
[471] Acts of the Privy Council, 17th May 1552.
[472] Pipe Office Accounts, 2194.
[473] 2 and 3 Ed. VI, c. 6.
[474] State Papers, Dom. Mary i, 23. Although calendared under the first year of Mary the return goes on with a list of those ‘decayed since the death of Edward VI to the present time,’ numbering sixty-two of 9170 tons. The date assigned to this document cannot therefore possibly be correct and it probably belongs to the reign of Elizabeth.
[475] Journal of Edward VI, 14th February 1552.
[476] 2 and 3 Ed. VI, c. 19.
[477] State Papers, Dom. Ed. VI, xv, 41.
[478] Ibid., xv, 11.
[480] Pipe Office Accounts, 2195. According to State Papers, Dom. Eliz., ii, 30, the Primrose had been sold for £1800, but only £1000 had ever been paid.
[481] Acts of the Privy Council, 4th October 1553.
[482] Machyn’s Diary, Camd. Soc.
[483] Cecil MSS. Cal. Pt. I, No. 846. The credit to be attached to this paper is discussed in the English Historical Review, ix, 711.
[484] Pipe Office Accounts, 2356.
[485] Ibid., 2357.
[486] State Papers, Dom. Mary, xii, 36, 65.
[487] Exch. War. for Issues, 23rd April, 2nd and 3rd of Philip and Mary.
[488] Ibid., Oct.
[489] Ibid., 30th March, 3rd and 4th of Philip and Mary.
[490] Rot. Pat.
[491] Acts of the Privy Council, 11th January 1556.
[492] Ibid., 3rd June 1557.
[493] Paulet, Marquis of Winchester.
[494] State Papers, Dom. Mary, x, 1, 2.
[496] Hakluyt, Voyages, iii, 20, ed. 1885.
[497] Pipe Office Accounts, 2591.
[498] State Papers Dom., Mary, xiii, 64.
[499] With the exception of the galley establishments at Seville and Barcelona there were no royal dockyards in Spain. There was no difference made, in building, between merchantmen and men-of-war, and in 1584 Martin de Recalde petitioned to be allowed to fly the royal standard because without it his fleet would be taken for merchantmen. In return for the large bounty given and the advances made to builders the crown seized their vessels on every occasion and for every purpose where, in England, the royal ships would have been employed. The system was the same as that by which Edward III had destroyed English shipping. In 1601 the Duke of Medina Sidonia wrote plainly that the remedy for the impoverishment fallen on Spanish shipowners was ‘that the King should build the vessels he required and not take them from private individuals, ruining them.’ In the fleet of the Marquis of Santa Cruz at Terceira in 1583 only three belonged to the crown, and in the Armada only twenty-five. Sometimes contracts were made with admirals who undertook to serve with a certain number of ships, and at other times with towns who engaged to supply them. There was no Admiralty as in England. There had been an Admiral of Castile from the beginning of the thirteenth century, but the civil portion of his duties was confined to the headship of the courts of law deputed to hear maritime causes. If a fleet or squadron was to be equipped officials, who may or may not have had previous experience, were temporarily entrusted with the duty at the various ports and their functions ceased with the completion of their work (Fernandez Duro, La Armada Invencible; Disquisiciones Nauticas, Lib. V.; Hist. de la Marina).
[500] Lives of the Devereux I, 375.
[501] No information available.
[502] The whole navy except the Popinjay in Ireland. And in this year, as in many others, the same vessel was sometimes in commission more than once. This was especially the case with the fourth- fifth- and sixth-rates and is an unavoidable source of error.
[503] State Papers, Dom. Eliz., 20th February 1558-9.
[504] Ibid., 24th March 1559.
[505] Add. MSS. 9294, f. 1.
[506] State Papers, Dom., iii, 44.
[507] Machyn’s Diary, 3rd July 1559; State Papers, Dom., iii, 44, and xcvi, p. 295.
[508] State Papers, Dom., xcvi, p. 295; Pipe Office Accounts, 2358, and Cecil MSS., Cal. No. 846.
[509] Exch. War. for Issues, 14th Mar. 1560; Pipe Office Accounts, 2358, and State Papers, Dom., xcvi, p. 295.
[510] Pipe Office Accounts, 2358.
[511] Ibid.
[512] Ibid. and Cecil MSS., Cal. No. 846.
[513] Ibid.
[514] Cecil MSS., Cal. No. 846, and Pipe Office Accounts, 2198.
[515] According to State Papers, Dom., xcvi, p. 295, built in 1560, but she is not mentioned in the accounts till 1563, and was first in commission in December 1562.
[516] First mentioned this year and noted as French, probably from Havre. There were also eleven small French ships taken in the port of Havre in 1562, and carried on the navy list till 1564, after which year they disappear. They may have been returned on the conclusion of peace in April; there was some discussion to that effect.
[517] Four small brigantines. Exch. War. for Issues, 4th July 1563, and Pipe Office Accounts, 2360.
[518] Pipe Office Accounts, 2200 and 2361.
[519] Ibid., 2364, and Exch. War. for Issues, 12th Aug. 1567.
[520] Pipe Office Accounts, 2206 and 2367.
[521] Ibid., 2206 and 2208.
[522] Ibid.
[523] Ibid., 2209 and 2370.
[524] Ibid.
[525] Ibid.
[526] Ibid.
[527] Ibid., 2213 and 2374.
[528] Ibid.
[529] Ibid., 2376. Or Marlion.
[530] Ibid., 2217.
[531] Ibid., 2218.
[532] Ibid., 2219.
[533] Ibid., 2220. The Philip and Mary, rebuilt and renamed.
[534] Ibid., 2381. The Galley Ellynor rebuilt and renamed. She had a ‘gondello’ as a boat.
[535] Ibid., 2221.
[536] Ibid.
[537] Ibid.
[538] Ibid., 2223 and 2383.
[539] Ibid.
[540] Ibid.
[541] Ibid.
[542] Ibid.
[543] Ibid.
[544] Pipe Office Accounts, 2223 and 2383.
[545] Ibid.
[546] Ibid.
[547] Ibid.
[548] Ibid.
[549] Ibid., 2224. Possibly bought of Ralegh, or originally built for him.
[550] Ibid., 2385.
[551] Flagship of Don Pedro de Valdes; carried on the effective till 1594.
[552] Pipe Office Accounts, 2226.
[553] Ibid., 2227.
[554] Ibid. Or Guardland.
[555] Ibid.
[556] Ibid.
[557] Ibid.
[558] Ibid.
[559] Ibid.
[560] Ibid., 2388. Lost at sea, 17th May 1591.
[561] Ibid.
[562] Ibid., 2503.
[563] Ibid., 2228.
[564] Ibid., 2390.
[565] Ibid., and 2229.
[566] Ibid., 2230 and 2390. The Eagle of Lubeck bought for £70, and ‘made into a hulk for taking ordnance out of ships.’
[567] Ibid., 2231.
[568] Ibid., 2393.
[569] Ibid., 2232 and 2394.
[570] Ibid. Or Dieu Repulse.
[571] Taken at Cadiz.
[572] Pipe Office Accounts, 2239. Bought of the Lord Admiral.
[573] Ibid., 2239. Two galleys.
[574] Ibid.
[575] Ibid., 2240. Two galleys.
[576] Add. MSS. 9294, f. 1.
[577] Egerton MSS. 2642, f. 150.
[578] Found by Mr E. Fraser in a Rawlinson MS. at Oxford.
[579] Harl. MSS. 167, f. 1. That in papers kept by different officials the time of the change of name should not exactly correspond is not strange.
[580] State Papers, Dom., clx, 60, and Pipe Office Accounts, 2211.
[581] State Papers, Dom., ccxlii, 21.
[582] Ibid., cclxxxvi, 36, and Add. MSS., 9336, f. 10.
[583] Hakluyt, Voyages, xi, 354, ed. 1885.
[585] J. Edye, Calculations relating to the displacement of ships of war, Lond. 1832.
[586] State Papers, Dom. ccix, 85.
[587] Rowing seat.
[588] State Papers, Dom., ccxxix, 77.
[589] By 39 Eliz. c. 4. (1597-8) ‘dangerous rogues’ were to be sent to the galleys, but it is the only statute so directing and does not seem to have been acted on (Turner, History of Vagrants and Vagrancy, p. 129). Nor am I aware of any allusion to an English galley service in the literature of the time.
[590] State Papers, Dom., ccxliii, 110.
[591] Works, II, 78, ed. 1751.
[592] Cecil MSS. Cal. ii, 222.
[593] W. Bourne, Inventions or Devises, Lond. 1578. Bourne’s book was possibly the origin of the fireships used at Calais in 1588; it must have been well known to the leading seamen of the fleet.
[594] State Papers, Dom., cxlvi, 97.
[595] Cecil MSS. Cal. No. 846.
[596] The Elizabethans called any ship comparatively low in the water a galleass, or said that she was built ‘galleas fashion,’ irrespective of oars.
[597] Pipe Office Accounts, 2218, 2220, and 2221.
[598] Ibid., 2223.
[599] State Papers, Dom. cclxxvi, 57.
[600] Ibid., ccxxiii, 45.
[601] Ralegh, Invention of Ships.
[602] Pipe Office Accounts, 2232. The distinction between overlop and deck is not always clear. Sometimes overlop appears to mean a deck running the whole length of the ship, as distinguished from a forecastle or poop deck, and at other times a slight lower deck not intended to carry guns. This last became its ultimate meaning, and it is used in this sense in relation to the Defiance and Warspite.
[603] Pipe Office Accounts, 2200.
[604] Ibid., 2204.
[605] Trailboard, a carved board reaching from the stem to the figure head.
[606] Pipe Office Accounts, 2238.
[607] Bulkheads.
[608] Poop.
[609] Pipe Office Accounts, 2236.
[610] Add. MSS., 20,043. Treatise concerning the Navy of England, f. 6. By James Montgomery.
[611] State Papers, Domestic, clii, 19.
[612] Compare the measurements of the two men-of-war, as given here, with those on [p. 124].
[613] ‘Esloria,’ i.e., the keel length added to the fore and aft rakes.
[614] Duro, Dis. Nauticas, Lib. V, p. 152. If this is tried with the above ships the feet must first be reduced to cubits; it will be found that the Spanish method makes the tonnage much heavier, the Elizabeth is 996 net and 1196 gross.
[615] State Papers, Venetian, Surian’s Report.
[616] Calendar of Letters and Papers relating to English affairs at Simancas, 10th May 1574.
[617] Ibid., 3rd Aug. 1566.
[618] Ibid., 8th Jan. 1569.
[619] Ibid., 1st June 1569.
[620] Ibid., 30th March 1586.
[621] State Papers, Dom., clii, 19. The Spaniards allowed one seaman to every five tons of net tonnage.
[622] Ibid., clxxxv, 33, ii.
[623] Pipe Office Accounts, 2233.
[624] State Papers, Dom., cclviii, f. 10.
[625] Lands. MSS., 166, f. 198.
[626] Ibid., 144, 53.
[627] Ibid., 73, f. 161.
[628] Pipe Office Accounts, 2225.
[629] Ibid., 2228 and 2231.
[630] Exch. War. for Issues, 25th Jan. 1579.
[631] Ibid., 28th Jan. 1580. The story is told in full in Hakluyt, Voyages, xi, 9, et seq. (ed. 1885).
[632] State Papers, Dom. ccxxxvii, ff. 169, 170.
[633] State Papers, Dom. Jas. I, xli, p. 119.
[634] See Appendix B.
[635] State Papers, Dom. Eliz., ccxv, 41.
[636] State Papers Dom., 26th Aug. 1588. Howard to Walsyngham.
[637] Lansd. MSS., 70, f. 183.
[638] Acts of the Privy Council, 14th Aug. 1580.
[639] Pipe Office Accounts, 2233.
[640] Harl. MSS., 167, f. 39.
[641] State Papers, Dom. Eliz. xvii, 43, and xxvi, 43.
[642] Ibid., xxxvii, 61.
[643] Pipe Office Accounts, 2205, 2206.
[644] Ibid., 2358 and Exch. War. for Issues, 15th Feb. 1560.
[645] Dried fish.
[646] Pipe Office Accounts, 2362.
[647] State Papers, Dom. cix, 37.
[648] State Papers, Dom. clxxxix, 8.
[649] 12,040 lbs.
[650] He was chief clerk of the kitchen, (Lansd. MSS., 62, f. 132).
[651] State Papers, Dom. ccix, 16.
[652] State Papers, Dom., ccxix, 23.
[653] Ibid., ccxxvi, 85, and ccxxxi, 80.
[654] State Papers Dom., ccxxxix, 109.
[655] Rot. Pat. 8th Nov. 1595.
[656] State Papers, Dom., clii, 19.
[657] Born in 1532 of a well-known Plymouth mercantile and seafaring family. He went to sea early, but his voyages of 1562-4-8, and the diplomatic difficulties to which they led with Spain, first brought him into prominence. He married Katherine Gonson about 1558.
[658] State Papers, Dom., cxi, 33.
[659] State Papers, Dom., cclxxvi, 57.
[660] Ibid., ccxxii, 48.
[661] Harl. MSS., ccliii, f. 6.
[662] Ibid.
[663] State Papers, Dom., ccii, 35, Hawkyns to Burghley.
[664] Some of these charges are examined in detail in Appendix C.
[665] State Papers, Dom., 28th Oct., 1579.
[666] State Papers, Dom., clxx, 57, April 1584.
[667] Ibid., ccxxxi, 83.
[668] This probably referred to Borough. Another writer, who was no lover of Hawkyns, said that Borough did all he could ‘to gett all the keyes to his owne girdle,’ (Harl. MSS. 253, f. 1).
[669] State Papers, Dom., ccxlii, 79 and ccxlvii, 27.
[670] Rot. Pat., 8th July 1585.
[671] State Papers, Dom., 30th May 1594.
[672] Rot Pat., 5th May 1596.
[673] Ibid., 22nd December 1598.
[674] Ibid., 11th July 1589.
[675] Ibid., 20th Dec. 1598.
[676] Ibid.
[677] Ibid., 10th Oct. 1560.
[678] Ibid., 24th Mar. 1580.
[679] Ibid., 6 Nov. 1588.
[680] Lansd. MSS., 116, f. 4.
[681] Pipe Office Accounts, 2204.
[682] Ibid., 2210.
[683] Ibid., 2215.
[684] State Papers, Dom., ccxl, 47.
[685] Hawkyns and Borough to Lord Admiral. Exch. War. for Issues, 6th July 1573.
[686] State Papers, Dom., clxxvii, 26.
[687] Add. MSS. 9294, f. 58.
[688] ‘Candles spente in nightlie watches of four shippes lying at Chatham for the better suertie and preservacon of the flete there at xiiiˢ iiiiᵈ every shippe,’ for the quarter.
[689] Harl. MSS. 253, f. 13.
[690] Ibid., f. 14.
[691] Seaman’s Secrets.
[692] Appendix B.
[693] State Papers, Dom., clii, 19.
[694] Ibid., clxxxvi, 43.
[695] Ibid., cclxxxvi, 36.
[696] Quoted by Duro, Disq. Nauticas, II, 189. Professor Laughton considers that the losses of the Armada, in the flight round the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland, were as much due to bad seamanship as to the summer gales with which they had to contend.
[697] State Papers, Dom., iii, 44.
[698] Slings do not again occur in ordnance papers; these were probably relics of the reign of Henry VIII.
[699] The ‘pace’ was 5 feet (Cott. MSS. Julius F. IV, f. 1, Arte of Gunnery).
[700] Lansd. MSS. 113, f. 177.
[701] State Papers, Dom., xcvi, p. 275 (1577).
[702] Ibid., p. 317.
[703] Ibid., clxxxvi, 34.
[704] State Papers, Dom., ccliv, 43.
[705] Royal MSS. 17 A xxxi.
[706] With two chambers.
[707] With three chambers.
[708] Although the Victory was not rebuilt until some years later she was not at this date upon the effective.
[709] Also two curtalls.
[710] The other three galleys had the same armament.
[711] State Papers, Dom., cvi, 58 (1575).
[712] Add. MSS. 9297, f. 212.
[713] La Armada Invencible, I, 76.
[714] State Papers, Dom., cvi, 14.
[715] Ibid., cclxxv, 40.
[716] Ibid., cclvii, 108.
[717] Lansd. MSS., 65, f. 94.
[718] State Papers, Dom., ccxliv, 116.
[719] Ibid., xcv, 22, 69.
[720] Acts of the Privy Council, 19th June 1574.
[721] State Papers, Dom., xxi, 56. Corn, or large grain, powder was used for small arms; serpentine for the heavy guns, but the latter was going out of use at sea.
[722] State Papers, Dom., ccxviii, 35.
[723] Ibid., lxxiv, 3.
[724] Ibid., cclxxxvii, 59.
[725] Exch. War. for Issues, 1st Mar. 1564.
[726] Ibid., 21st Feb. 1567.
[727] Until, and including, 1564 the money for victualling is paid by the Navy Treasurer and contained in his totals.
[728] Comprising wages and tonnage hire.
[729] Timber, ironwork, pitch, tar, etc., and sometimes included in the dockyard amounts.
[730] Ordinary, comprised wages of clerks and shipkeepers, moorings, and normal repairs of ships. Extraordinary, building and heavy repairs of ships, building and repair of wharves, storehouses, and docks, purchase of stores, and ordinary sea wages.
[731] Accounts wanting.
[732] In 1560 and 1563 some subsidiary charges at Harwich and other ports.
[733] The total spent is now exclusive of the victualling.
[734] Account keeping by dockyards ceases; divided into ordinary and extraordinary.
[735] From 1st Jan., 1595, to 24th April, 1596.
[736] From 6th May to 31st Dec. 1596.
[737] From 1st Jan. to 31st Dec. exclusive of the Cadiz Fleet.
[738] Of which Cadiz £14,415.
[739] Of which Channel £9945, and ocean service £27,263.
[740] Add. MSS. 9294, f. 30.
[741] State Papers, Dom., cxxxii, 41, 42.
[742] Pipe Office Accounts, 2221.
[743] State Papers, Dom., ccxviii, 16.
[744] Ibid., cclxx, 26.
[745] Burghley Papers, p. 620.
[746] State Papers, Dom., ccxxxiv, 72, 75.
[747] Cott. MSS. Otho. E IX, f. 192.
[748] State Papers, Dom., ccxvii, 71.
[749] Cott. MSS. Otho E IX, f. 192.
[750] Exch. War. for Issues, 10th May 1560.
[751] Ibid., 13th June 1569.
[752] State Papers, Dom., ccxxxiv, 72.
[753] Ibid., ccxl, 14.
[754] Ibid., cclvi, 107. But see supra [p. 160].
[755] Pipe Office Accounts 2233, but £70,000 according to State Papers, Dom., cclix, 61.
[756] State Papers, Dom., cclii, 107.
[757] State Papers, Dom., cciv, 46.
[758] Lansd. MSS., 70, f. 82. The Madre de Dios, the Bom Jesus, the Santa Cruz, and the St. Bartholomeu, all richly laden left Goa in company on 10th January 1592. The Bom Jesus was lost in the Mozambique Channel with all on board, the Bartholomeu parted company about the same time and was never heard of again, the Santa Cruz was run ashore and burnt to prevent capture. Nor was the total loss of a Portuguese or Spanish squadron, from various causes, at all remarkable. The captain of the Madre de Dios, Fernando de Mendoza, had been master of Medina Sidonia’s flagship in 1588; his maritime interviews with the English must have become a veritable nightmare to him. The Fuggers of Augsburg, to whom the cargo was hypothecated, are said to have been the real losers by the capture, as it was probably not insured. It was difficult to insure Spanish ships at this time. In 1587 a Spaniard wrote of a vessel in the West Indies, ‘I have not assured any part thereof and at this present I do not find any that will assure at any price’ (Lansd. MSS., 53, f. 21). The conditions had become much more unfavourable to Spanish seaborne commerce by 1592.
[759] Lansd. MSS., 73, f. 38.
[760] Harl. MSS., 598.
[761] Lansd. MSS. 73, f. 38. It suited Elizabeth to rate the Foresight as high as possible, so she now reached her maximum of 450 tons; she had been as low as 260.
[762] Lansd. MSS. 70, ff. 55, 187.
[763] Harl. MSS., 306, f. 233, 3rd May 1594.
[764] 5 Eliz. c. 5.
[765] State Papers, Dom., cvii, 68.
[766] Ibid., cxlvii, 21, 22.
[767] Ibid., ccl, 33. This paper bears a note by Burghley, ‘Engl. shippes allowed money for ther tonag sȳce 22 Eliz.’ It has been shown that the custom, as a mark of royal approbation, was much older than Elizabeth, but it may have been made a right from about 1580.
[768] Ibid., cl, 96.
[769] State Papers, Dom., ccliv, 33.
[770] Ibid., cclxii, 126.
[771] The Admiralty Court.
[772] State Papers, Dom., cxxxvi, 35. When the Pelican, or as she was afterwards called, the Golden Hind, returned from her famous voyage round the world she was placed in a dock, filled in with earth at Deptford, and remained there as one of the shows of London for nearly a century. There is an estimate for works to the amount of £370 for this purpose (Add. MSS. 9294, f. 68), but it does not appear that this plan, which included a brick wall, roof, etc., was ever fully carried out. In the Navy accounts only £67, 7s 10d for her repairs, £35, 8s 8d for a wall of earth round her, and £14, 13s 4d for preparing the ship for the Queen’s visit are entered.
[773] State Papers, Dom., ccxxxviii, 142.
[774] State Papers, Dom., cxxxi, 61.
[775] Ibid., cxlix, 58.
[776] Ibid., ccxxxiii, 13, and ccxxxix, 44.
[777] State Papers, Dom., lxxxiii, 37.
[778] State Papers, Dom., cxx, 54.
[779] Lansd. MSS. 142, f. 182.
[780] State Papers, Dom., cli, 6 (1581).
[781] Ibid., ccxlviii, 80.
[782] Malyne, Lex Mercatoria p. 200, (ed. 1622).
[783] State Papers, Dom., xi, 27.
[784] Ibid., viii, 36. Eventually £100 was remitted.
[785] Ibid., xxxviii, 8.
[786] Ibid., xxviii, 3.
[787] Harl. MSS., 168, f. 248.
[788] State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Add. xxii.
[789] State Papers, Dom., xcvi, p. 267. London is described as, ‘The river of Thames wherein is contained Maulden, Colchester, Bricklingsey, Lee, Feversham, Rochester, and the creekes belonging.’
[790] State Papers, Dom., cvii, 68.
[791] Ibid., clvi, 45.
[792] Harl. MSS. 4228, f., 45.
[793] Cott. MSS., Otho. E. IX, f., 162.
[794] State Papers, Dom., ccxxii, 57.
[795] Lansd. MSS. 81, f. 88.
[796] State Papers, Dom., cclxii, 21.
[797] Ibid., xi, 27. This is a return of ‘mariners and sailors’ only, and does not include fishermen. London is omitted, and from the numbers, e.g., Norfolk 178, Northumberland (with Newcastle) 37, is probably only of men at that time ashore.
[798] Ibid., xxxviii, 8, 9, 14, 23, 28; xxxix, 17. This is also incomplete but includes fishermen.
[799] Ibid., lxxi, 74 1; lxxiii, 15 1, 48.
[800] Ibid., clvi, 45. Includes seamen, fishermen, and masters of ships.
[801] And 311 at sea.
[802] Including Liverpool.
[803] Including 957 watermen.
[804] State Papers, Dom., cclxxiv, Feb.
[805] State Papers, Foreign, 29th Dec. 1568, and Ibid. 1573-1279.
[806] ‘Releasing them for bribes and billes of dette.’
[807] Acts of the Privy Council, 29th April 1576.
[808] State Papers, Dom., cxxxv, p. 240.
[809] State Papers, Dom. Add., xxix, 126.
[810] Lansd. MSS., 148, f. 13.
[811] Add. MSS., 11405, ff. 91, 103.
[812] Lansd. MSS. 148, f. 1 and State Papers, Dom., cv, 18.
[813] State Papers, Dom., cxxxix, 54. In 1603 these owners were still patiently petitioning James I.
[814] State Papers, Dom., cclxv, 13.
[815] Near Vigo.
[816] Ibid., cxci, 7.
[817] Lansd. MSS., 115, f. 196.
[818] Appendix D.
[819] State Papers, Dom., cxxxiii, 7.
[820] State Papers, Dom., cclxxxvi, 11.
[821] Harl. MSS., 253, f. 10.
[822] Ibid., 253, f. 18, and Exch. War. for Issues, 17th Dec. 1597.
[823] State Papers, Dom., ccxxviii, 1.
[824] Cott. MSS., Otho E., VIII, f. 169.
[825] Lansd. MSS., 61, f. 184.
[826] State Papers, Dom., ccxxvii, 1.
[827] Breton.
[828] The last was of 12 barrels of 31½ gallons (old measure).
[829] State Papers, Dom., ccxx. Stow says that Hawkyns introduced nettings. They went out of use for a time.
[830] Harl. MSS. 306, f. 68.
[831] Pipe Office Accounts, 2210, 2212.
[832] Ibid., 2232.
[833] The Jesus of Lubeck and the Revenge.
[834] Ralegh, Discourse of Ships; Monson, Naval Tracts; Duro, Disq. Nauticas.
[835] Monson says that in 1599 a fleet was prepared for sea in twelve days, and ‘the Queen was never more dreaded abroad for anything she ever did.’
[836] Add. MSS. 5752, f. 136.
[837] Add. MSS. 19889; The Jewell of Artes, 1604, f. 135 et seq.
[838] Harl. MSS. 309-51.
[839] Add. MSS. 9294, Nov. 1610.
[840] State Papers, Dom., Jas. I., cl, 83, 84.
[841] Whole or partial external double planking.
[842] Harl. MSS. 2301.
[843] Paul Hentzner.
[844] On 20th July 1613 a warrant was issued to pay wages owing since 1608.
[845] Add. MSS. 9302, f. 9.
[846] State Papers, Dom., cl, 20.
[847] Ibid., xl, f. 70.
[848] A Dialogical Discourse of Marine Affairs, by Nath. Boteler, Harl. MSS. 1341. Partly printed in 1685 but of this period.
[849] Ibid.
[850] State Papers, Dom., clxxxii, 29.
[851] Rot. Pat., 26th April.
[852] State Papers, Dom., xc, 98.
[853] Ibid., xxii, 15.
[854] Ibid., cxii, 101.
[855] Ibid.
[856] State Papers, Dom., cxvi, 86.
[857] Ibid., ciii, 104.
[858] Ibid., lxxxix, 33.
[859] State Papers, Dom., xli, f. 17.
[860] Ibid., xl, 87.
[861] Cott. MSS., Julius F. III, f, 15.
[862] State Papers, Dom., xli, f. 25. See also Bishop Goodman’s description of Mansell’s temper in Court of King James I, I, 56.
[863] State Papers, Dom., cxii, 101.
[864] Coke MSS., Cal. Hist. MSS., Com. Report, xii, App., pt. i, 41.
[865] Cott. MSS., Julius F., III, ff. 98, 249, 250, 252.
[866] The report of the commissioners will be found in State Papers, Dom. Jas. I, xli; the sworn depositions on which that report was based are preserved in Cott. MSS., Julius F., III. The evidence in question is of value for to-day, and may be instructively compared with the reports of the committee of investigation of 1803-5 on the again astonishing condition of naval administration. It is to be hoped that the Navy Records Society will print the Cottonian MS.
[867] Gardiner, History of England, II, 11.
[868] Gardiner, History of England, III, 200.
[869] State Papers, Dom., clxxxii, 28.
[870] Pipe Office Accounts, 2257, 2259, 2260.
[871] The Commissioners acted by Letters Patent of 12th February 1619. They were Sir Lionel Cranfield, Sir Thos. Weston, Sir John Wolstenholme, Sir Thos. Smith, Nicholas Fortescue, John Osborne, Francis Goston, Richard Sutton, Wm. Pitt, Sir John Coke, Thos. Norreys, and Wm. Burrell.
[872] State Papers, Dom., c and ci, 3.
[873] State Papers, Dom., cli, 35.
[874] Ibid., clx, 43.
[875] State Papers, Dom., clvi, 12.
[876] There are few separate dockyard amounts for these years.
[877] Includes £4734 for a naval pageant on the Thames at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth.
[878] Exclusive of Algiers fleet £6446.
[879] Exclusive of Algiers fleet £17,665.
[880] Inclusive of £9667 repairs to Algiers fleet.
[881] A fleet was sent to Spain for Charles, and £9100, owing from 1615, paid.
[882] State Papers, Dom., clxxv, 85, 3000 hammocks were to be supplied in this fleet.
[883] Cott. MSS., Otho E, VIII, f, 316.
[884] Ibid.
[885] State Papers, Dom., lxxxvi, 101.
[886] Ibid., xc, 24.
[887] R. Playfair, The Scourge of Christendom, p. 34.
[888] Monson, Naval Tracts.
[889] State Papers, Dom., cli, 21.
[890] State Papers, Colonial, March 1620.
[891] State Papers, Dom., civ, 65.
[892] England’s Way to Win Wealth, Lond. 1614, and The Trade’s Increase, Lond. 1615.
[893] The Dutch Company is said to have distributed in twenty-one years, ending with 1622, dividends of 30,000,000 florins on a capital of some 6,000,000 florins, (Irving, Commerce of India).
[894] Egerton MSS., 2100.
[895] State Papers, Dom., xxii, 22.
[896] Ibid., cxix, 118, 1 and 121.
[897] State Papers, Dom. Jas. I cxxxiii, 70; Ibid., clviii, 54; Ibid., Chas. I xiii, 56. Pipe Office Accounts; Add. MSS., 9294 p. 505; Ibid., 9295, Pett’s Autobiography; Ibid., 9297, p. 359. As usual all these dimensions, especially tonnage, differ somewhat in the various papers.
[898] The Nonpareil rebuilt and renamed.
[899] The Hope rebuilt and renamed. These ships were not completed till 1605.
[900] The Swiftsure rebuilt and renamed.
[901] The Ark Royal rebuilt and renamed.
[902] The Golden Lion rebuilt and renamed.
[903] For convenience the Merhonour, Dreadnought, and Defiance are placed under one date, but they were in hand from 1611 till 1614.
[904] Or Convertive. This was the Destiny built for Sir Walter Ralegh before his last voyage, and afterwards bought or confiscated into the Navy.
[905] The Rainbow and Antelope were in dry dock some three years (Pipe Office Accounts).
[906] State Papers, Dom., clxxiv, 56.
[907] Cott, MSS. Julius F. III, f. 293.
[908] Ibid., Otho E., VII, f. 155. Letter, Pett to Baker, 10th April 1603.
[909] Coke MSS., Cal. I, 114.
[910] In the literal but not later sense of ‘three decker.’ She had two full batteries besides an upper deck armed. In 1634 the authorities of the Trinity House, who, through a long series of years appear to have always chosen the wrong view, wrote, ‘The art or wit of man cannot build a ship fit for service, with three tier of ordnance.’ Three years later the first ‘three-decker’ was afloat.
[911] Add MSS., 9294, Nov. 1610.
[912] Pipe Office Accounts, 2249.
[913] State Papers, Dom., ci, 4.
[914] Pipe Office Accounts, 2248.
[915] State Papers, Dom., xli, f. 39.
[916] Ibid., clxi, 68. The classification is that of the State Paper.
[917] State Papers, Dom., clviii, 56.
[918] Ibid., and cviii, 58.
[919] Harl. MSS., 2301. About 1625 or earlier, and by Sir Hen. Manwayring. It was printed in 1644 under the title of The Sea-man’s Dictionary. There is another MS. copy among the State Papers (S. P. Dom., Chas. I, cxxvii), called A Brief Abstract ... of all Parts and Things belonging to a Ship. The three versions differ but little from each other.
[920] Add. MSS., 9299, f. 48.
[921] Pipe Office Accounts, 2248.
[922] Ibid., 2252.
[923] Pipe Office Accounts, 2261.
[924] Ibid., 2256.
[925] Ibid., 2257, 2258.
[926] Ibid., 2260.
[927] Ibid., 2258.
[928] Ibid., 2261, 2262.
[929] Pipe Office Accounts, 2262.
[930] Add. MSS., 9297, f. 25.
[931] Cott. MSS., Otho E. VII, ff. 219, 220.
[932] State Papers, Dom., cxxxvi.
[933] State Papers, Dom., cix, 139, 1.
[934] Ibid., cxxxiii, 70.
[935] State Papers, Dom., Eliz. ccxxxvii, f. 119. Although calendared under Elizabeth many of the papers in this volume are copies of documents relating to the reigns of James I and Charles I. See also M. A. Lower, Contributions to Literature, for an article on the Kent and Sussex gun foundries.
[936] Cott. MSS., Otho E, VII, f. 78.
[937] State Papers, Dom., Jas. I, cxxviii, 94.
[938] Yonge’s Diary, Camd. Soc.
[939] State Papers, Dom., xvii, 103.
[940] Ibid., cix, 139, I.
[941] Add. MSS., 9302. f. 9.
[942] Coke MSS., Cal. I, 105.
[943] Cott. MSS., Otho E. VII, f. 263.
[944] Cott. MSS., Otho E. VII, f. 263.
[945] Mr Del Mar (Hist. of the Precious Metals, p. 209), quoting Tooke and D’Avenant, estimates the stock of gold and silver coin in England and Wales in 1560 at £1,100,000 and in 1600 at £4,000,000.
[946] Martin, Hist. de la France, X, 446.
[947] Kolb, Condition of Nations, p. 209.
[948] Gardiner, Hist. of England, X, 222.
[949] Parl. Debates, 31st Aug. 1660.
[950] A writer of the reign of James I estimated that there were 37,000 Dutch seamen engaged in the North Sea fisheries alone; Ralegh put the number at 50,000 men.
[951] State Papers, Dom., Charles I, vi, 23. The original purpose had been to take 2000 English veterans in the service of the States-General, leaving the recruits in their place; but the men were sent before any arrangement had been come to with the Dutch, who finally refused to assent to it. The proceeding was characteristic of Buckingham’s hopeful belief in the immediate acceptance of his measures.
[952] ‘The number of lame, impotent, and unable men unfitt for actual service is very great.’ (Ogle to Conway, 18th June 1625.)
[953] Ibid., ix, 15, Blundell to Buckingham.
[954] There were twelve king’s ships in the fleet (Pipe Office Accounts, 2425).
[955] State Papers, Dom., ix, 39, Cecil to Conway.
[956] Ibid., xi, 49.
[957] Levet’s Relation of Cadiz Voyage, Coke MSS.
[958] State Papers, Dom., viii, 41, Coke to Buckingham.
[959] Voyage to Cadiz in 1625 (Camden Society).
[960] Sir Allen Apsley, also lieutenant of the Tower, remained victualler with Sir Sampson Darrell till 1630.
[961] State Papers, Dom., xviii, 63, 1.
[962] Ibid., 75.
[963] Ibid., xii, 81.
[964] Ibid., xx, 25. February 1626.
[965] State Papers, Dom., xxii. 33, and Coke MSS., 4th March 1626.
[966] Coke MSS., 27th February 1626.
[967] State Papers, Dom., xiii, 67 and 73.
[968] Ibid., xxiv, 9, and Coke MSS., 12th April 1626.
[969] State Papers, Dom., xxiv, 24.
[970] Ibid., xxv, 45.
[971] Ibid., xxiv, 33. Pennington to Buckingham.
[972] State Papers, Dom., xxiv, 65.
[973] Ibid., cxcvi, 32.
[974] Proc., April, 1626.
[975] State Papers, Dom., xxxv, 19, and Add. MSS., 9339, f. 24. Six rates of vessels are classified. All carry trumpeters, and the first four drummers and fifers. Both lieutenants and corporals were employed in 1588, but afterwards discontinued; the Lion had a lieutenant in 1587, and perhaps it was not uncommon for a large ship on war service to carry an officer of that rank.
[976] According to rate of ship.
[977] Only to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rates—‘a place not formerly allowed.’
[978] ‘Not formerly allowed’; his duties were akin to those of a musketry instructor of to-day.
[979] Egerton MSS., 2541, f. 13.
[980] State Papers, Dom., xxx, 48.
[981] Ibid., 75.
[982] Ibid., xxxiii, 27; July 1626.
[983] Ibid., xxxv, 44.
[984] State Papers, Dom., xxxv, 102 and 109, 1, Willoughby to Nicholas.
[985] Ibid., xxxvi, 60.
[986] Ibid., xxxvii, 57.
[987] Ibid., xxxix, 78.
[988] Ibid., xli, 56, (1626).
[989] State Papers, Dom., 8 and 77, Philpott to Nichols.
[990] Ibid., xlii, 100.
[991] 12th Dec. 1626.
[992] State Papers, Dom., xlii, 137.
[993] State Papers, Dom., xlix, 68; January 1627.
[994] Ibid., liii, 9 and 10; February 1627.
[995] Ibid., lxiv, 76, Mervyn to Buckingham.
[996] Ibid., lxxxviii, 62; 1627.
[997] State Papers, Dom., lxxxv, 61.
[998] Ibid., lxxxvi, 42.
[999] Ibid., lxxxvii, 37; December 1627.
[1000] Ibid., lxxx, 83 and 86.
[1001] Coke MSS., 17th September 1627.
[1002] State Papers, Dom., xc, 38.
[1003] Ibid., 75.
[1004] Ibid., xcii, 73; February 1628.
[1005] State Papers, Dom., xcviii, 26.
[1006] Ibid., 29, March 1628, Gorges to Buckingham.
[1007] Ibid., cv, 80; 1628.
[1008] State Papers, Dom., cv, 85.
[1009] Ibid., cviii, 18.
[1010] Add. MSS., 9297, f. 118.
[1011] Coke MSS., 3rd June 1628.
[1012] State Papers, Dom., cxiv, 48.
[1013] State Papers, Dom., cxx, 27; November 1628.
[1014] Ibid., cxviii, 78.
[1015] Ibid., cxlix, 90; September.
[1016] Ibid., 92.
[1017] State Papers, Dom., clxxii, 42; August 1630.
[1018] Ibid., clxxv, 75.
[1019] Ibid., ccxviii, 52.
[1020] Ibid., ccxlvi, 85.
[1021] State Papers, Dom., cclxxii, 58; July 1634.
[1022] Ibid., cclxxix, 106, Advice of a Seaman, &c., by Nath. Knott.
[1023] State Papers, Dom., ccxcviii, 5; September 1635.
[1024] Add. MSS., 9301, f. 54.
[1025] State Papers, Dom., cccxxvi, 10.
[1026] Ibid., cccxxxvii, 15.
[1027] Ibid., cccxxxviii, 39.
[1028] Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, s.v. ‘Navy.’
[1029] State Papers, Dom., cccliii, f. 95.
[1030] Ibid., ccclxv, 28.
[1031] The sale of gunpowder was at this time a crown monopoly (Fœdera, xx, 107). Charles’s sad and picturesque dignity of appearance did not imply such a delicate sense of honour as to prevent him turning a penny by forcing contraband of war through the fleet of a friendly power and supplying the privateers who were the scourge of English commerce.
[1032] In the eighteenth century he would have had a hole-and-corner trial, undefended and ignorant of the law, before the associates, and perhaps friends, of the man whom he had assaulted.
[1033] State Papers, Dom., lvi, 101, (1627), and ccccvii, 32, (1638).
[1034] State Papers, Dom., ccccxxxi, 30.
[1035] With the exception of the Amboyna affair, a case once more of the ‘prancing proconsul,’ the Dutch showed, throughout this century, exemplary patience and moderation under a long course of provocation, in affairs of salutes, right of search, and seizures of ships, several instances of which there will be occasion to mention. The rulers of the United Netherlands chose to consider wider aims and more urgent needs than revenge for insults to their flag, however flagrant, but when the Navigation Act of 1651 brought matters to a crisis the Dutch must have felt that they had a long score to settle.
[1036] State Papers, Dom., cccclxxxii, 13.
[1037] State Papers, Dom., ccccxciv, 2nd Jan. 1643.
[1038] Public Acts, 17th Charles I.
[1039] Preface to Calendar of State Papers, 1652-3, p. xii. In other prefaces Mrs Green refers to the same point.
[1040] The number eventually serving that year was nearer 20,000, but this included some thousands of soldiers.
[1042] State Papers, Dom., cii, 72.
[1043] Ibid., cclxiv, f. 33.
[1044] Ibid., cccvi, 87; 1635. In another copy of this paper (Add. MSS., 9301, f. 57), they suggest the sensible remedy of a register at each custom house, in which agreements might be entered.
[1045] State Papers, Dom., cccxcviii, 23 and 40.
[1046] Fœdera, xx, 278; 25th November 1638.
[1047] State Papers, Dom., cclxxi, 12.
[1048] Digby’s Voyage (Camden Society), p. 9.
[1049] State Papers, Dom., clv, 31 and cclxxxii, 135.
[1050] State Papers, Dom., xviii, 59.
[1051] But only applicable in port.
[1052] Add. MSS., 18772.
[1053] State Papers, Dom., ccclii, 78.
[1054] State Papers, Dom., cccxii, 90.
[1055] Ibid., ccclii, 78.
[1056] Ibid., 81.
[1057] Add. MSS., 9301, f. 156.
[1058] I am indebted to the courtesy of Admiral Sir R. Vesey Hamilton, K.C.B., President of the Royal Naval College, for permission to examine these books.
[1059] In receipt of yearly pensions.
[1060] For eight months ending 4th January 1644.
[1061] For three and a half months.
[1062] For a year.
[1063] State Papers, Dom., cclxxix, 106.
[1064] Reasons, &c., dated 17th June. The officers who sign threaten, unless terms are made with the King, to blockade the river.
[1065] Various authorities give 9, 10, and 11 ships; the discrepancies may most probably be explained by supposing that one or two of those which left the Downs turned back before reaching Holland.
[1066] Clarendon, IV, 574, ed. 1888.
[1067] Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert, III, 262.
[1068] Supra [p. 207]. The Speedwell was lost in November 1624, after this list was drawn up. There were also some worn out Elizabethan ships remaining, the Crane, Answer, Moon, and Merlin, which the compiler did not consider of sufficient importance to include.
[1069] Pipe Office Accounts, 2425.
[1070] State Papers, Dom., lxvii, 47.
[1071] Pipe Office Accounts, 2428.
[1072] E.g. the Sovereign of the Seas, which, until she was cut down, was the largest most ornate, and most useless ship afloat.
[1073] State Papers, Dom., lxxi, 65. These remarks must be read in conjunction with those relating to the lack of victuals and stores, and want of competent and willing service on the part of officers and men, made in Part I, and for which Buckingham’s incapacity was principally responsible. But his incapacity was, in this matter, not the only nor even the main factor, since, when in 1627 he applied to Gyffard, Sir Sackville Trevor, and Hervey for suggestions as to freeing the narrow seas from pirates, they agreed that the existing vessels were too slow to catch any but others of their own type (State Papers, Dom., liv, 9, 11-13). In October 1625, the Channel squadron consisted of ten English men-of-war and merchantmen and four Dutch ships, a larger force than had probably ever been employed before for merely protective duties. The conditions were as bad or worse, after his death.
[1074] State Papers, Dom., cclxxvii, 43.
[1075] Ibid., xi, 62, 63. Assuming in these instances the rake, fore and aft, to have been about three-eighths of the keel length.
[1076] Ibid., lvi, 56.
[1077] Ibid., lvii, 42.
[1078] Ibid., cccxxxviii, 39.
[1079] Other prizes, which were nominally King’s ships, but which only served during one of the big expeditions or for a few weeks in the Channel, were the Mary Roan, St George, St Peter, Pelican, Mackerel, Nightingale, St James, Little Seahorse, and Hope. Where special references are not given, the general authorities are State Papers, Dom., ccxv, 108; ccxxviii, f, 38; ccxliv, 23; ccclxviii, 121; Add. MSS., 9294, f, 505; 9300, f, 54; 9336, ff, 63, 64; 18,037 and 18,772. As in previous instances the measurements frequently differ in these lists, and can only be taken as approximately correct.
[1080] From greatest breadth to upper edge of keel.
[1081] State Papers, Dom., x, 25.
[1082] Ibid., xxiv, 4. The St Mary was given to Sir John Chudleigh in 1629.
[1083] State Papers, Dom., xxiv, 62.
[1084] Ibid., xxi, 72, and Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, 1699, 64.
[1085] Ibid., xxxvii, 95.
[1086] Called the 1st, 2nd-10th whelps. Two differed slightly in size from the others.
[1087] Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, 1699, 66.
[1088] A Dutch-built ship bought for Richelieu’s newly created fleet, but taken in the Texel (State Papers, Dom., lxxxiii, 20 and lxxxvi, 64).
[1089] Captured Dunkirkers. The measurements of the Nicodemus, Nonsuch, Phœnix, and Elizabeth, are from a paper in the Pepys MSS., quoted in Derrick’s Memoirs of the Royal Navy. The Swan was lost off Guernsey in October 1638.
[1090] Bought in 1642 (Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, 1706, 89).
[1091] Built in 1646 as a privateer, and employed as such by Warwick (half share), Pett, Swanley, and others; bought by the Parliament from 20th Jan. 1649, when she was appraised at £2081 (State Papers, Dom., Interreg., xxiii, 119). The dimensions are from Harl. MSS., 4161. She is popularly said to have been the first frigate built in an English yard, but it will be seen from the above list that four others, of a still more pronounced frigate type, were launched in the same year.
[1092] The first seven vessels were prizes captured during the civil war and taken into the Navy, in which they remained long enough to be included in the Commonwealth lists; the Globe, and Hector were merchantmen bought into the service. For the names of others see Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, 1812, 443 A.
[1093] State Papers, Dom., xxi, 72.
[1094] Supra, [p. 54]. Mr R. C. Leslie (Old Sea Wings, Ways, and Words, p. 49 et seq.) believes all the smaller craft of old, and some large ones, to have been clinker-built.
[1095] State Papers, Dom., lviii, 25.
[1096] Ibid., cxxi, 41.
[1097] Ibid., ccclxv, 17; 1637.
[1098] State Papers, Dom., ccclxiii, 29. It is difficult even in these days of mechanical appliances to keep the ports completely water-tight in heavy weather. Ports were fastened by a bar of wood passed through a ring on the inside; but this could not have been very effectual, and it was usual to drive oakum into the seams of the ports when bad weather was expected (Nomenclator Navalis).
[1099] The Dutchman was probably Cornelius Drebbel, who claimed to have solved the secret of perpetual motion, and to have invented a submarine boat. His name occurs several times in the State Papers as receiving rewards for various inventions and appliances, and in 1628 he was employed in the preparation of some especial fireships and ‘engines for fireworks.’
[1100] Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, 1703, 73.
[1101] The original waistcloths of the Prince were of silk; ordinary waistcloths, the precursors of the later boarding nettings, were still of red kersey listed with canvas.
[1102] State Papers, Dom., ccliv, 25.
[1103] Ibid., ccxliv, 77, 78.
[1104] State Papers, Dom., cclxvii, 55. Pennington said nothing about the crew; he was used to such crews. But Sir Hen. Manwayring remarked that he had never seen a ship so wretchedly manned; that, except the officers, there was scarcely a seaman on board, and that they were ‘men of poor and wretched person, without clothes or ability of body, tradesmen, some that never were at sea, a fletcher, glover, or the like,’ (Add. MSS., 9294, f. 489).
[1105] Ibid., cclxviii, 47.
[1106] Ibid., cclxxiii, 49, 1 and 50.
[1107] State Papers, Dom., ccxli, 16; 1633.
[1108] Ibid., ccxxviii, f. 63a.
[1109] Ibid., cclxxviii, 41, I.
[1110] A True Description of His Majesty’s Most Royal and Stately Ship, etc., 2nd edit., London, 1638.
[1111] State Papers, Dom., cclxxiii, 25.
[1112] Ibid., cclxiv, ff. 67 a and 87 a.
[1113] Storekeeper at Deptford; one would suppose a most unlikely person to be consulted on such a point.
[1114] State Papers, Dom., cclxxxvi, 44.
[1115] Ibid., cclxxxvii, 73.
[1116] Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, 1703-77.
[1117] State Papers, Dom., ccxcviii, 20.
[1118] Ibid., ccclxi, 73.
[1119] In the Leopard and Swallow he had himself ordered that the ports should be eight feet apart (State Papers, Dom., cclx, 86,) although Pennington and other practical seamen urged that nine feet was the minimum space that should be allowed.
[1120] State Papers, Dom., ccclxxiv, 30, and ccclxxxvii, 87.
[1121] Drakes were fired with full, periers with low, charges of powder.
[1122] State Papers, Dom., ccclxxxvii, 87.
[1123] Add. MSS., 9297, f. 345.
[1124] State Papers, Dom., cclxxix, 27.
[1125] State Papers, Dom., cccxix, 4, 15. When ships were in commission captains were in the habit of cutting windows and scuttles in a vessel’s side if it suited their convenience.
[1126] Ibid., cclxxxiii, 1.
[1127] Aud. Off. Dec. Accounts, 1703, 78.
[1128] State Papers, Dom., ccccxcviii, 48 and 51.
[1129] Ibid., xxxiii, 108; 1626.
[1130] Ibid., 78.
[1131] State Papers, Dom., Elizabeth, ccxxxvii, f. 60 (list of French and Spanish ships before Rochelle). There were thirty-six Spaniards, and eleven of them were of 1000 tons apiece, the others being nearly as large.
[1132] State Papers, Dom., Charles I, clxiv; 9th April 1630.
[1133] Ibid., cxcviii, 84.
[1134] Barbou, Hist. de la Marine Française.
[1135] State Papers, Dom., lv, 39; 1627. By John Wells. I cannot profess to explain how all the figures here given are obtained.
[1136] I.e., 63½ x 26⅙ x 11 ÷ 100 = 182 burden and 243 ton and tonnage (Cf. supra, [p. 30, note 2], and [p. 132].)
[1137] The planks on the inside of a ship’s frame on the floor.
[1138] This method was adopted during the Commonwealth.
[1139] State Papers, Dom., xxvii, 67.
[1140] State Papers, Dom., xxix, 7.
[1141] Floor, the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson.
[1142] State Papers, Dom., xxix, 10.
[1143] Other papers relating to this question will be found in State Papers, Dom., xxxii, 119-121; xxxviii, 30, 1; lv, 36; lvii, 92; and lix, 75.
[1144] State Papers, Dom., ccxxvi, 74. By the old rule the Sovereign was of 1367 net and 1823 gross tonnage (ibid., ccclxi, 71).
[1145] From outside to outside.
[1146] ‘Withinside the plank.’
[1147] Leaving out the false post, i.e., a piece bolted to the after edge of the main stern post.
[1148] State Papers, Dom., xvi, and xvii.
[1149] State Papers, Dom., xxxi, 56; xxxii, 29, 71, 72, 1; xxxiii, 3, 1, 70, 1, 120, 129; xxxiv, 31, 98-110; xxxix, 28, 50, 1. North Wales has nothing larger than thirty tons, and ‘not six persons who can take charge of a barque as far as Dublin or the Land’s End.’
[1150] State Papers, Dom., xcii, 45.
[1151] The East India Company possessed this year a fleet of twenty-seven ships, of 12,250 tons (ibid., cxviii, 76).
[1152] Ibid., cxxxvii, Feb. 1629.
[1153] Ibid., cxxxii, 19, 20; cxxxviii, 4; cclxxxii, 135, (1634).
[1154] State Papers, Dom., xlvii, 22.
[1155] State Papers, Dom., liii, 62.
[1156] Ibid., lxi, 79, 81.
[1157] Ibid., 85, 1.
[1158] Ibid., lxxx, 77, 1.
[1159] Harl. MSS., 1721, f. 642, and 7018, f. 24.
[1160] State Papers, Dom., cclvii, 29.
[1161] Ibid., cccliii, f. 116.
[1162] Add. MSS., 9302, f. 24.
[1163] State Papers, Dom., xciv, 1.
[1164] Meaning an order on the Treasurer of the Navy.
[1165] State Papers, Dom., iv, July 21.
[1166] Ibid., xxx, 53.
[1167] Specifications relating to Marine Propulsion. London, 1858.
[1168] Ibid.
[1169] Fœdera, xix, 257.
[1170] State Papers, Dom., cclxxii, 72. Perhaps the inventor was a Mr Philip White (S. P. D. Interreg. May 25, 1658), in which case it was patented for fourteen years from the 10th of Charles I.
[1171] State Papers, Dom., v, 6, 24, 36. As is well known, several Englishmen of good family joined the Algerines and other states. It must have been solely their guidance that brought the Mediterranean corsairs so far north.
[1172] Ibid., xxv, 71.
[1173] Ibid., xxx, 17, (1626).
[1174] Ibid., xliii, 46, (1626).
[1175] State Papers, Dom., xxxiv, 85, (1626); and lvi, 66, (1627). We have no figures which enable us to even guess at the financial loss caused by the Dunkirkers during the first half of the seventeenth century, but M. Vanderest (Hist. de Jean Bart. 1844), himself a native of the town and having access to its archives, estimates the pecuniary injury they caused to England during forty years of warfare, from 1656, at 350,000,000 livres. Nor does this computation appear to take into account the higher value of money during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
[1176] State Papers, Dom., lxx, 8 and 9.
[1177] Ibid., clxii, 41, 82.
[1178] Ibid., cccxxxi, 7.
[1179] State Papers, Dom., cccxxxiv, 16. Stradling to Nicholas.
[1180] Autobiography of the Rev. Devereux Spratt. London, 1886. It need hardly be said that the jealousies of Christian princes were a large factor in causing the immunity in which these barbarian states so long rejoiced. Spratt was captured while crossing from Cork to Bristol.
[1181] It does not come within the design of this work to describe the operations of fleets at sea, but, in this instance, I must venture to question Mr Gardiner’s depreciatory estimate of William Rainsborow as a commander. Mr Gardiner considers that such success as was obtained was due neither to Rainsborow’s skill nor to the efficiency of his men, but to the existence of civil strife, disorganising what might have been a united opposition, between the old and new towns of Sallee, situated opposite each other on the right and left banks of the river Regreb (Hist. of England, viii, 270). When Rainsborow arrived off Sallee on 24th March with four ships, he found that they drew too much water to close in effectually with the town. Instead of wandering off helplessly to Cadiz and spending his time in ‘shooting and ostentation,’ as Mansell did to Malaga under adverse circumstances, Rainsborow, while he sent to England for lighter vessels, organised a blockade with the boats of his squadron. So far as I know he was the first of our commanders to recognise—and almost invent—the possibilities of boat work on a large scale, in which English seamen afterwards became such adepts, and it appears rather that his readiness and resource under unexpected and unfavourable conditions should alone be sufficient to relieve his memory from the charge of want of skill. That this patrol duty was no child’s play is shown by the fact that in one night’s work thirty men were killed and wounded in the boats (John Dunton, A True Journal of the Sallee Fleet. London, 1637). In June he was joined by the Providence and Expedition, which made the task easier; but for the previous three months, riding on a dangerous lee shore, in a bad anchorage, and exposed to the heavy Atlantic swell, using the ships by day and the boats by night, he never relaxed his bulldog grip on the place, in itself a proof of fine seamanship. That the end came more quickly from the existence of civil war is very certain, but I think no one who reads Dunton’s account (he was an officer of the flagship), and Rainsborow’s own modestly written Journal (State Papers, Dom., ccclxix, 72), can doubt that the result would eventually have been the same, seeing that the blockade grew closer day by day until at last every vessel which attempted to pass in or out was captured or destroyed. In August, when the enemy were already crushed, two more ships joined him, and he was then quite strong enough to have dealt with both the old and new towns, had they been united, or to have gone on, as he desired to go on, to settle accounts with Algiers. It should also be remarked that Rainsborow anticipated Blake in attacking forts with ships, the Providence being sent in within musket range of the castle and coming out unscathed from the contest. Looked at from another point of view, and compared with the French attempts against Sallee, Rainsborow’s ability and success stand out just as clearly. In 1624 M. de Razilly was sent down with a squadron, but permitted himself to be driven off by weather; in 1629 he came again, and, after lying off the port for three months and negotiating on equal terms with these savages, had to depart without having obtained the release of a single French captive. A surely significant contrast!
That Charles was satisfied with Rainsborow does not, perhaps, prove much, although he offered him knighthood and did give him a gold medal and chain and make him captain of the Sovereign, a post then of high honour. But Northumberland, a very much better judge was equally well pleased, and in 1639, strongly recommended him to the burgesses of Aldborough as their member. Northumberland, not then Lord Admiral, but paramount in naval affairs, is also entitled to a measure of the credit of success; for had Rainsborow been dependent on the energy and intelligence of the Principal Officers of the Navy for the supplies which enabled him to keep his station he would probably have fared but badly. And doubtless many of the men who under him worked with such courage and devotion had formed part of the demoralised and useless crews who were such objects of scorn to Wimbledon and his officers before Cadiz in 1625. The only difference was in the commander.
[1182] State Papers, Dom., cccclix, 8, 60.
[1183] Halliwell’s Royal Letters, II, 277.
[1184] The first Commissioners of the Admiralty acted by Letters Patent of 20th September 1628. They were Richard, Lord Weston, Lord Treasurer; Robert, Earl of Lindsey, Great Chamberlain; William, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Steward; Edward, Earl of Dorset, Lord Chamberlain to the Queen; Dudley, Viscount Dorchester, Vice-Chamberlain of the Household; and Sir John Coke, Secretary of State. Powers were granted to them or any three of them. Although in modern phrase they are called Lords of the Admiralty, they were in reality a committee of the Privy Council, carrying out the instructions of the King and Council, who retained the power and exercised the control of an eighteenth century Admiralty Board. A fresh commission was issued on 20th November 1632, which omitted Lords Pembroke and Dorchester, and added Lord Cottington, Sir Francis Windebank, and Sir Henry Vane (the elder). The third and last commission was of 16th March 1636 to William Juxon, Bishop of London, Lord Treasurer, Lords Cottington, Lindsey, and Dorset; and Vane, Coke, and Windebank.
[1185] His patent as Lord Admiral was dated 28th Jan. 1619.
[1186] State Papers, Dom., Charles I, ccxli, 85, 86.
[1187] Add. MSS., 9301, f. 110.
[1188] State Papers, Dom., ccciv, 9.
[1189] State Papers, Dom., Elizabeth, ccxxxvii, f. 138.
[1190] State Papers, Dom., Charles I, ccclxxii, 21.
[1191] Rot. Pat., 5th April 1627.
[1192] It will be remembered that during his treasurership he helped himself to £3000 from the Chatham Chest, and that the money was still owing in 1644. After his dismissal from office Crowe was ambassador of the Levant Company at Constantinople, and, in 1646, nearly ruined that company by, on the one hand, quarrelling with the Porte, and on the other imprisoning the members and agents of the association. When he returned in 1648 he was sent to the Tower, but seems to have escaped scatheless.
[1193] Rot. Pat., 11th Feb. 1626 (a renewal of his patent of James I), and 21st Jan. 1630.
[1194] Rot. Pat., 12th Jan. 1639.
[1195] Ibid.
[1196] Ibid., 19th Dec. 1632.
[1197] Ibid., 26th Sept. 1638.
[1198] By an order of 13th Feb. 1637 no place in the Navy or Ordnance offices was henceforth to be granted for life, but only during pleasure. Edisbury’s real name was Wilkinson (see Hasted, Hist. of Kent, I, 20 note, ed. Drake, London, 1886).
[1199] State Papers, Dom., cxxxv, 37.
[1200] Ibid., clii, 51.
[1201] Add. MSS., 9301, ff. 121, 133.
[1202] Barlow lived to contest the place with Pepys in 1660. The date of his patent was 16th Feb. 1639.
[1203] State Papers, Dom., clxxiii, 6. Mervyn to Nicholas.
[1204] The Duke of York was ‘declared’ Lord Admiral at a meeting of the Council on 18th March 1638. There was no patent.
[1205] Rot. Pat., 13th April 1638.
[1206] Add. MSS., 9297, f. 178
[1207] The price of beer at this time was about £1, 10s a tun.
[1208] In 1634 Palmer, the Comptroller, Denis Fleming, Clerk of the Acts, Phineas Pett, another Principal Officer, and several storekeepers and masters attendant had all been suspended for selling government stores for their own profit.
[1209] State Papers, Dom., cccliii, f. 88.
[1210] State Papers, Dom., cccliii, f. 55.
[1211] State Papers, Dom., xiii, 70, (1625), i.e., by the system of servants and apprentices. It was not until 1647 that the shipkeepers in the Medway were ordered to strike the bell on board every half-hour through the night (Add. MSS., 9306, f. 103).
[1212] State Papers, Dom., cclviii, 30.
[1213] Discourse of the Navy, (Add. MSS., 9335).
[1214] Discourse of the Navy (Add. MSS., 9335).
[1215] State Papers, Dom., xxvii, 69.
[1216] Ibid., cli, 33.
[1217] Ibid., cclx, 29. Edisbury to Nicholas.
[1218] Ibid., cclxiii, 19.
[1219] Add. MSS., 9306, f. 119.
[1220] State Papers, Dom., xxiii, 120; 1626. Ten years later Northumberland still complained about this. There had been no reform.
[1221] State Papers, Dom., cccclxxx, 36.
[1222] Ibid., ccccxxix, 33.
[1223] It must not, however, be supposed that naval morality was worse during the reigns of James and Charles than subsequently. Leaving the eighteenth century out of consideration it was said that at the beginning of this one the annual public loss from fraud and embezzlement ran into millions, a sum which may well have almost drawn the shades of Mansell and hundreds of other pettifogging seventeenth century navy thieves back to earth. The great difference was that at the later date, whether from higher principle or stricter discipline, the combatant branches of the service were honest, the theft and jobbery being confined to the Admiralty, Navy and Victualling Boards, and dockyard establishments. Lord St Vincent said of the Navy Board that it was ‘the curse of the Navy,’ and the methods of the dockyards may be gauged from the fact that while the (present) Victory cost £97,400 to build, £143,600 were in fifteen years expended on her repairs. Of the Admiralty there will be much to be said.
[1224] State Papers, Dom., ccxxix, 114.
[1225] Ibid., ccxlv, 19.
[1226] State Papers, Dom., cviii, 18.
[1227] Ibid., ccxxvii, 1.
[1228] Ibid., cclxix, 67.
[1229] Ibid., ccclxxvi, 160 and ccccxlii, 12. Cf. supra, [p. 239].
[1230] Ibid., cccxcvii, 37.
[1231] State Papers, Dom., cccclxxvi, 115.
[1232] Butler’s Dialogical Discourse, &c. Of course the guns would be going all the time; this form of reception appears to have been that given also to the King or to a general commanding an expedition.
[1233] State Papers, Dom., liii, 40. Heydon to Nicholas.
[1234] State Papers, Dom., lxxxviii, 27.
[1235] Ibid., ccxx, 25. Professor Laughton was the first to suggest (Fortnightly Review, July 1866), that the real origin of the English claim to the lordship of the narrow seas is to be found in the possession by our early kings of both shores of the Channel.
[1236] Ibid., 2nd May 1635.
[1237] State Papers, Dom., cccxvii, 102.
[1238] Ibid., cccxxxvi, 13 and cccxxxviii, 39.
[1239] Aud. Off. Decl. Accounts, 1699, 65.
[1240] Ibid., 1812, 443 A.
[1241] The last of tonnage measurement varied in different places, but was of about two tons.
[1242] State Papers, Dom., ccccxxxviii, 102.
[1243] Pennington and his men were paid double wages ‘out of the French king’s moneys’ (Aud. Off. Decl. Accounts, 1698, 63), which throws their intense abhorrence of their work into still stronger relief.
[1244] In this year the Navy and Ordnance offices were £251,000 in arrears (State Papers, lxxxvii, 35).
[1245] Add. MSS., 17,503.
[1246] Includes ‘all incident expenses,’ such as repairs, shipkeepers, administration, etc.; the difference between the totals of the third and fourth columns, together, and the fifth is in great part covered by the cost of the winter fleets.
[1247] And eight pinnaces.
[1248] Summer ‘guard,’ or fleet.
[1249] Winter guard.
[1250] Includes allowance of twenty shillings a month per man to the crews of 48 privateers.
[1251] Includes cost of new ships building.
[1252] Few historical students admire Charles I, but even such a king as he is entitled to the justice of posterity beyond that which he obtained from his contemporaries. Professor Hosmer (Life of Sir H. Vane the Younger, p. 497) says that Vane, ‘had created the fleet out of nothing, had given it guns and men.’ He appears to think that a naval force, with its subsidiary manufactures and establishments, could be created in a few years, but, as a matter of fact, Parliament commenced the struggle infinitely better equipped at sea than on land, and it was so powerful afloat that it did not find it necessary to begin building again till 1646, when the result of the struggle was assured. If Mr Hosmer is referring to a later period, the statement is still more questionable, since the number of men-of-war had been increased and Vane had ceased to have any special connexion, except in conjunction with others, with naval affairs. Allowing for his narrow intelligence and vacillating temperament Charles showed more persistence and continuity of design in the government of the Navy than in any other of his regal duties; for, although relatively weaker as regards other powers, England, as far as ships and dockyards were concerned, was stronger absolutely in 1642 than in 1625. The use made of the ship-money showed that under no circumstances could Charles have been a great naval organiser; but he has at least a right to have it said that he improved the matériel of the Navy so far as his limited views and disastrous domestic policy permitted.
Returning to Vane, Mr Hosmer says in one place (p. 148), that the post of Treasurer was worth £30,000, and in another (p. 376), £20,000 a year. What Mr Hosmer’s authority (G. Sikes, The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane), really writes is, ‘The bare poundage, which in time of peace came to about £3000, would have amounted to about £20,000 by the year during the war with Holland.’ The poundage in peace years never approached £3000, and, as Vane ceased to be Treasurer in 1650, and, from the date of his resignation, a lower scale of payment was adopted, the second part of the calculation is obviously nothing to the purpose. Whether the reduction in the Treasurer’s commission was due to Vane, or whether he resigned on account of it, we have no evidence to show, nor do vague generalities help to clear the doubt. As bearing testimony to Vane’s disinterestedness Mr Hosmer quotes Sikes to the effect that he returned half his receipts, from the date of his appointment as sole Treasurer, at the time of the self-denying ordinance. Unfortunately the accounts previous to 1645 are wanting and the question must remain open, but if the probability may be judged by general tendency it must be said to be extremely unlikely, since he was Treasurer from 8th Aug. 1642 till 31st Dec. 1650, and during that time received in poundage and salary for the five-and-a-half years for which the accounts remain the sum of £19,620, 1s 10d. There is no sign in the audit office papers that he returned one penny of his legal dues, and, whoever else had to wait, he seems to have paid himself liberally and punctually. Mr Hosmer has only indirectly noticed that Parliament, when Vane resigned, settled a retiring pension on him. Sikes says, ‘some inconsiderable matter without his seeking, was allotted to him by the Parliament in lieu thereof’ (i.e., of his place). The ‘inconsiderable matter,’ was landed estate producing £1200 a year. Seeing that he held his post for only seven and a half years, that during that time he must have received at least £25,000, and that all previous Treasurers had been, on occasion, dismissed without any suggestion of compensation, his disinterestedness may be questioned. When Parliament voted Ireton an estate of £2000 a year he refused it on account of the poverty of the country. And Sikes’s version that it was ‘without his seeking’ is not absolutely beyond doubt. On June 27th, 1650, a petition of Vane’s was referred to a committee to discuss how the treasurership was to be managed from Dec. 31st following, and ‘also to consider what compensation is fit to be given to the petitioner out of that office or otherwise in consideration of his right in the said office.’ It is no unjustifiable assumption to infer from this the possibility that the petition at any rate included a claim for compensation. Sikes, again, tells us that he caused his subordinate Hutchinson to succeed him, but when, on 10th Oct. 1650, the motion was before the House that the ‘question be now put’ whether Hutchinson’s appointment should be made, Vane was one of the tellers for the ‘Noes’ and was beaten by 27 to 18. This was immediately followed by Hutchinson’s nomination without a division. The incidents of Hutchinson’s official career imply a much stronger and more lasting influence than that of Vane, but the only importance of the question is as affecting the trustworthiness of the latter’s seventeenth century biographer. Mr Hosmer, like all other writers on Vane, appears to quote Sikes with implicit faith, but the man evidently wrote only loosely and generally, making up in enthusiasm what he lacked in exactness; e.g., ‘In the beginning of that expensive war he resigned the treasurership of the Navy.’ Hutchinson succeeded him from 1st Jan. 1650-1, and war with Holland did not occur till June 1652. There is nothing to show that Vane was not an honest administrator, but his party, fortunately, produced many others equally trustworthy.
[1253] Add. MSS., 9302, f. 42.
[1254] State Papers, Dom., ccxxxix, 43.
[1255] Add. MSS., 9297, f. 75.
[1256] State Papers, Dom., clxxiii, 32.
[1258] State Papers, Dom., ccxlv, 49; January 1627.
[1259] Ibid., l, 45.
[1260] Ibid., cxxxviii, 66.
[1261] Ibid., cxliii, 37.
[1262] J. Holland, Discourse of the Navy.
[1263] Add. MSS., 9301, f. 135.
[1264] Egerton MSS., 2541, f. 123, Deptford was chiefly used for building, and Chatham for repairing.
[1265] State Papers, Dom., cccii, 27.
[1266] Ibid., cccliii, f. 67.
[1267] State Papers, Dom., cccxlvii, 85.
[1268] Ibid., xlviii, January 20. This, must, however, refer to some improvements as ring-bolts for the purpose are mentioned earlier.
[1269] Fœdera, xix, 549.
[1270] It is possible, too, that the present navy button and cap badge may be traced back, in inception, to the parliamentary régime. Northumberland’s seal consisted merely of his arms (reverse), with (obverse) a figure on horseback with a background of sea and ships; and although earlier Lords Admirals—Southampton, Lincoln, and Buckingham—had used the anchor, none of them had combined the coronet, anchor, and wreath. Warwick’s was one which differs only in the relative proportions of the details from the button and badge now in use, except that the anchor is now fouled. If it is only a coincidence it is a curious one. Popham, Blake, and Deane employed a modification of Warwick’s seal, omitting the crown; and the Navy Office adopted another, consisting of three anchors, a large centre one with a smaller on each side, and ‘The Seale of the Navye Office’ round the edge, so that the device selected by Warwick seems, in one form or another, to have been soon widely used and continued. A reproduction of this Navy Office Seal is used on the binding, and at the foot of the Preface, of the present volume.
[1271] These prices were paid by the government; the cost to the sailor depended on the honesty of many intermediaries.
[1272] State Papers, Dom., Interreg., 22nd June 1649; Council to Generals of fleet.
[1273] Captain John Stevens, Royal Treasury of England, 1725. He gives no authorities and his figures are very doubtful, but Mr Dowell (Hist. of Taxes) appears to quote him as trustworthy. In any case the revenues of the republic enormously exceeded those of the monarchy. The anonymous writer of a Restoration pamphlet (The Mystery of the Good Old Cause, 1660) estimates that the Commonwealth raised £3,000,000 a year.
[1274] The value, in 1894, of the English merchant navy was £122,000,000, Admiralty expenditure £18,500,000; of the French merchant navy £10,100,000, Admiralty expenditure £10,500,000.
[1275] Add. MSS., 5500, f. 25.
[1276] De Witt, The True Interest of Holland, p. 227. De Witt notices the preference given to land operations during the thirty years’ war.
[1277] Ibid., p. 218, et seq.
[1278] In the Dutch service each captain contracted to provision his own ship, and the men had meat only once a week.
[1279] Relatively, that is, judged by a standard of comparison with what they had endured under the Stewarts.
[1280] Burton’s Diary, III, 57, 3rd February 1658-9. There are several other references in Burton to the care the Long Parliament bestowed on the Navy.
[1281] Gumble, Life of Monk, p. 75. Eleven hundred according to a Dutch life of Tromp.
[1282] This is, perhaps, not literally correct; a contemporary seaman, Gibson, tells us that the aim of the English captains was to lie on the bow or quarter of their antagonists (Add. MSS., 11,602, f. 77), but that was very different from the game of long bowls Englishmen had learnt to be the best medicine for Spaniards, and had never till now discarded. Our fleets went into action en masse, the only rule being that each captain should keep as close as possible to the flag of his divisional commander. The result at times was that while some ships were being overwhelmed by superior force others hardly fired a gun, and an officer who had closely obeyed the letter of his instructions might afterwards find himself charged with cowardice and neglect of duty.
[1283] State Papers, Dom., 19th March 1649. There was theological bitterness involved as well, since the Navy Commissioners directed that any man refusing meat in Lent was to be dismissed as refractory, (Add. MSS., 9304, f. 54).
[1284] State Papers, Dom., 12th March 1649, Council to Generals of the fleet. John Sparrow, Rich. Blackwell, and Humphrey Blake were appointed on 17th April 1649 to be treasurers and collectors of prize goods; Rich. Hill, Sam. Wilson, and Robt. Turpin were added from 8th March 1653.
[1285] Commons Journals, 21st Dec. 1652. The ‘medium’ cost of each man at sea was reckoned at £4 a month, including wages, victuals, wear and tear of ships, stores, provision for sick and wounded, and other incidental expenses. Rawlinson MSS. (Bodleian Library), A 9, p. 176.
[1286] State Papers, Dom., 12th May 1649, Council to Generals at sea.
[1287] It is advisable to dwell on this point because the late Mrs Everett Green (Preface to Calendar of State Papers, 1649-50, p. 24), said, speaking of the Commonwealth seamen generally, that ‘disaffection and mutiny were frequent among them,’ and writers of less weight have echoed this opinion. The instances of mutiny were in reality very few—seven between 1649 and 1660—were not serious, and were, in every case but one attributable to drunkenness or to wages and prize money remaining unpaid, the single exception being due to the refusal of a crew to proceed to sea in what they held to be an unseaworthy ship. This is a very trifling number compared with the series of such events occurring during nearly every year of the reign of Charles I. Of disaffection in the sense of a leaning towards the Stewarts there is not a trace among the men, and but two or three examples among officers. The exiles in France and Holland, with that optimism peculiar to the unfortunate, were continually anticipating that ships and men were coming over to the royal cause, an anticipation never once verified in the event. The analogue of the seventeenth century seaman, if he exists to-day at all, is to be found, not in the man-of-war’s man, who now has literary preferences and an account in the ship’s savings bank, but in the rough milieu of a trader’s forecastle, and among men of this type violence, or even an outbreak of savage ruffianism, by no means necessarily implies serious ground of discontent, but may be owing to one of many apparently inadequate causes. There were no such outbreaks among the Commonwealth seamen, and the punishments for drunkenness and insubordination were not disproportionate to the number of men employed, but if that is made an argument it should also be applied to the army; nearly every page of Whitelocke furnishes us with instances of officers and men being broken, sentenced, or dismissed for theft, insubordination, and sometimes disaffection, but no one has yet suggested that the army yearned to restore the Stewarts. The two most striking examples of these mutinies usually quoted are those of the Hart in 1650 and the riotous assemblies in London in 1653. In the case of the Hart what actually happened was that, the captain and officers being on shore, 28 out of the 68 men on board seized the ship when the others were below, with the intention, according to one contemporary writer, of taking her over to Charles, according to another, of turning pirates, and according to a third, because they were drunk. Perhaps all three causes were at work, seeing that the mutineers soon quarrelled among themselves, and the loyal majority of the crew regained possession of the ship and brought her back to Harwich. Yet I have seen a serious writer quote the Hart as an example of desertion to the royalists, an error probably due to the fact that she was afterwards captured by the Dutch, and eventually sailed under a Stewart commission until she blew up at the Canaries. In October 1653 there were tumults in London, due entirely to the non-payment of prize money, and these, it is true, required to be suppressed by military force. But this riot, extending over two days, was the only instance in which the government found difficulty in dealing with the men, and does not warrant a general charge of disloyalty during eleven years. If a detailed examination of the remaining instances were worth the space, they could be shown to be equally due to causes remote from politics. Historically, a mutiny among English seamen has never necessarily signified disloyalty to the de facto sovereign or government; the mutineers at Spithead and the Nore in 1797 were especially careful to declare their loyalty to the crown, and their failure at the Nore was probably due to the extent to which they carried this feeling. If the character of the service rendered to the republic is compared with that given to Charles I, it is difficult to understand how the charge of disaffection can be maintained.
[1288] State Papers, Dom., 24th May 1652, Council to vice-admirals of counties. The subject of impressment belongs more fitly to the eighteenth century. Here it will be sufficient to remark that while in many cases the government officials reported that the men were coming in willingly of their own accord, in others the press masters found great difficulty in executing their warrants, and writers of newsletters in London describe the seizure of landsmen and forcible entry of houses, in which seamen were supposed to be hiding, in a fashion which reminds the reader of the beginning of the present century. The two versions are not irreconcilable; at all times there has been a remainder, after the best men had been obtained, difficult to reach and willing to make any sacrifice to escape a man-of-war.
[1289] Add. MSS., 9306, f. 85.
[1290] Thomason Pamphlets, 684/9 The regulations of 1649 were only adaptations of the rules made, independently, long before by each Lord Admiral when in command of a fleet. Mr Gardiner has suggested to me that the formal enactment of the articles at that particular moment was possibly directly connected with the defeat off Dungeness in November. This view is supported by the fact that they were obviously not aimed at the men, with whose conduct no fault had been found and whose position was, if anything, improved by them, by the definition of crime and punishment and the institution of a court of eight officers; while, on the other hand, the severest clauses are those affecting officers whose conduct, both in action and when cruising, had in many cases caused great dissatisfaction.
[1291] State Papers, Dom., 31st Dec. 1653.
[1292] State Papers, Dom., 4th Feb. 1652.
[1293] Ibid., 15th Dec. 1652.
[1294] State Papers, Dom., lx, 135, October 1653; Bourne to Navy Commissioners.
[1295] State Papers, Dom., xxix, 57; October 1652.
[1296] Ibid., 6th Jan. 1653.
[1297] Ibid., xxx, 84, and xlv, 66.
[1298] From the Dutch Grom, or Low Latin Gromettus, one occupied in a servile office. Gromet is at least as old as the thirteenth century and then meant a ship’s boy. Later it came to mean ordinary seamen; here it is applied to a class between ordinary seamen and boys, but probably nearer, in qualifications, to the former than the latter.
[1299] The earliest mention of midshipmen yet noticed is in a letter of 7th Feb. 1642-3, in which a Mr Cook writes that he will not undervalue himself by allowing his son to accept such a place.
[1300] The pay of the privates was 18s per month; no officer of higher rank than serjeant was in charge.
[1301] State Papers, Dom., 19th April 1655. Hatsell to Col. John Clerke (an Admiralty Commissioner).
[1302] State Papers, Dom., ccv, 54. Disborowe lent £5000, which he had succeeded in getting back; seven aldermen £19,500, of which £11,700 still remained.
[1303] Add. MSS., 22,546, f. 185, and 18,986, f. 176.
[1304] The methods of these gentlemen were sometimes directly ancestral to those of their successors in the prize courts of the beginning of this century. In one case a ship was condemned and its cargo sold, apparently on their own sole authority; the Admiralty Court ordered restitution, and then the Commissioners presented a bill of £2000 for expenses (State Papers, Dom., 26th Feb. 1655). A contemporary wrote, ‘It was nothing for ordinary proctors in the Admiralty to get £4000 or £5000 a year by cozening the state in their prizes till your petitioner by his discovery to the Council of State spoiled their trade for a great part of it,’ (T. Violet, A True Narrative, etc., Lond. 1659, p. 8).
[1305] State Papers, Dom., xc, 2.
[1306] Ibid., 18th March 1654.
[1307] Resolutions at a Council of War on board the Swiftsure: The humble Petition of the Seamen belonging to the Ships of the Commonwealth. These two broadsides are in the British Museum under the press mark 669 f. 19, Nos. 32 and 33, ‘Great Britain and Ireland—Navy.’
[1308] State Papers, Dom., lxxvi, 81; 1645 (? Oct.).
[1309] State Papers, Dom., clxxiii, 26th Oct. 1657; Morris to Navy Commissioners.
[1310] Add. MSS., 9304, f. 129. The Sapphire seems to have been the crack cruiser of her time. The contrast between that which, with all its faults, was a strong administration, morally stimulating to officers and men, and the enervating Stewart régime is illustrated in the life and death—if the expression be permitted—of this ship, and exemplified in the grim entry in the burial register of St Nicholas, Deptford, under date of 26th Aug. 1670, ‘Capt. John Pearse and Lieut. Logan shot to death for loosing ye Saphier cowardly.’
[1311] State Papers, Dom., clxxxii, 8; 6th July 1658.
[1312] State Papers, Dom., 15th Sept., and 16th Nov. 1658.
[1313] I have only noticed one instance of direct interference by Cromwell in minor details. The widow of a seaman, killed by an accident on the Fagons, had petitioned the Commissioners of sick and wounded for help, and had been refused by them. She then appealed to the Protector, and her memorial bears his holograph direction to the Commissioners to reconsider their decision, the case being the same ‘in equity’ as though the man had lost his life in action (State Papers, cxxx, 98; 10th Nov. 1656). If this is the only surviving illustration of the character of his intervention in questions connected with the well-being of the men it is gratifying that it should be of such a nature.
[1314] State Papers, Dom., ccxii, 109. The revenue of England for 1659 was estimated at £1,517,000 (Commons Journals).
[1315] Allowance for short victuals.
[1316] State Papers, Dom., ccxxii, 28.
[1317] State Papers, Dom., 20th Dec. 1652.
[1318] Ibid., 21st and 26th March 1653.
[1319] Ibid., 14th April 1654.
[1320] State Papers, Dom., 5th April 1653.
[1321] Ibid., 31st March 1654.
[1322] Ibid., cxl, 43.
[1323] State Papers, Dom., 17th Dec., 1657.
[1324] Add. MSS., 9304, ff. 133,135. It would not be just to pass from the subject of the aid afforded to the men in disease and suffering without some notice of Elizabeth Alkin, otherwise ‘Parliament Joan,’ who wore out health and life in their service. This woman appears to have nursed wounded soldiers during the civil war, for which she was in receipt of a pension, and, in February 1653, volunteered similar help for the sailors. She was then ordered to Portsmouth, and, in view of the before noticed condition of the town, must have found very real work to which to put her hand. If £325 went in one item to nurses there must have been plenty of a kind to be had; but she gave her heart to her helpless patients, and in June had spent not only all the government allowance but also her own money, as ‘I cannot see them want if I have it.’ She was then sent to Harwich, and on 22nd Feb. 1654 returned, weak and ill, to London, with only 3s remaining. Of the last £10 given to her she had spent £6 on the Dutch prisoners at Harwich: ‘Seeing their wants and miseries so great, I could not but have pity on them though our enemies.’ A week later she again appeals for at least an instalment of her pension, or to be sent to a hospital in which ‘to end my days less miserably,’ having been forced to sell even her bed. In May and September 1654, two warrants, each for £10, were made out, and her name does not occur again. Even these few data are sufficient to suggest the outline of a life of self-sacrifice, illumined by a native kindliness of heart and unsoured by religious fanaticism, of which there is not a trace in her letters.
[1325] State Papers, Dom., c, 139.
[1326] From seamen’s wages.
[1327] By estimation.
[1328] Average for three years, less taxes.
[1329] By estimation.
[1330] Add. MSS., 9305, 13th Jan. 1657.
[1331] State Papers, Dom., cxxv, 39, 11. Under Charles I, widows obtained donations from it, but no pensions.
[1332] Add. MSS., 9317, f. 1 et seq. We have not Pett’s reply, and the full force of the accusations, as they stand, is vitiated by the fact that they were made by royalist servants inquiring into the conduct of a Commonwealth official. The committee of inquiry in 1662 consisted of Sir J. Mennes, Sir W. Coventry, Sir W. Penn, W. Rider, S. Pepys, and R. Ford.
[1333] State Papers, Dom., 30th Nov. 1650. There were five partners joined with Pride—John Limbrey, Wm. Beak, Thos. Alderne, Dennis Gauden, and Rich. Pierce (Audit Office Dec. Accounts, 1708-96). The rates, in 1645, had been eightpence three farthings and sevenpence; the Victualling was then under the supervision of the Treasurer (Ibid., 1706-90).
[1334] State Papers, Dom., 12th Jan. 1653, and Add. MSS., 9306, f. 2.
[1335] State Papers, Dom., xxx, 10.
[1336] State Papers, Dom., 17th Oct. 1654, 1st, 7th, 14th Aug., and 8th Sept. 1655.
[1337] It is said that Alderne’s executors could produce neither vouchers nor assets for £200,000 imprested to him. But the story rests only on the authority of a royalist Comptroller of the Navy, Sir R. Slingsby (Discourse of the Navy, f. 58).
[1338] Add. MSS., 9300, f. 330; 19th Nov. 1656.
[1339] State Papers, Dom., 31st Jan. 1660.
[1340] State Papers, Dom., 6th March 1660.
[1341] Ibid., 16th Aug. 1650. This is the medal shown on the title page.
[1342] State Papers, Dom., cxliv, 66, 68, and Add. MSS., 9305, f. 155. The Triumph medal was ‘For eminent service in saving ye Triumph fired in fight w ye Dutch in July 1653.’
[1343] S. P. D., cxvii, 64; 11th Dec. 1655.
[1344] Ibid., cxxxiv, 64.
[1345] Ibid., cxlv, 47; Sep. 1656.
[1346] This list is based on that of Dering (Archæologia, xlviii), but corrected where collation with the State Papers and other authorities points in some cases to the certainty, in others to the probability, of Dering’s being in error, completed by the insertion of omitted dates, and enlarged by the addition of all such vessels as were wrecked, captured, destroyed, or sold out of the service, between 1649 and 1660 and which the Archæologia list, being only one of ships effective in 1660, does not profess to supply. Prizes, originally privateers and taken into the service, are indicated by an asterisk. Being the first attempt at a complete Commonwealth Navy list, it must almost necessarily contain some errors, but it is certain that every ship here mentioned was carried on the Navy list of the state. A few others omitted as doubtful or more than doubtful may really be entitled to a place in it; some of the prizes assigned to 1653 may belong to 1652, and, in some instances, continuity or similarity of name renders the exact date of purchase or capture a little problematical. It has not been thought necessary to overload this list with the innumerable references that could be given, especially as the details seldom exactly agree in the various papers, but no name has been inserted except on what appears to be sufficient authority. Dering’s Dolphin, Minion and Pearl Brigantine, I have been unable to place; the Pearl is only once mentioned, in 1658, as being ‘for use as occasion requires.’ The Diver which is also given by him, was not a man-of-war at all, but a hoy temporarily hired for use in recovering the guns of wrecked ships, and the Princess, of his list, was not launched till August 1660. Some of the Dutch prizes were converted into fire ships before being sold. The use of fire ships was not new in either the English or foreign services, but they now appear to have been systematically attached to fleets and, on one or two occasions, to have been used with effect.
It may be well to remark that the document of April 1660 (State Papers, ccxx, 33), which purports to be a list of ships then existing, is altogether untrustworthy.
[1347] The Guinea, Amity, Concord, Discovery, Gilliflower, Mayflower, Hopewell, Accada, Nonsuch Ketch, and Marmaduke, were bought into the service in the respective years under which they are placed, and are marked (B).
[1348] Or Great President.
[1349] The Gilliflower, then called the Archangel, and the Marmaduke, were two prizes taken by Rupert, recaptured at sea by their own crews, brought back to England, and taken into the service.
[1350] Usually said to have been lost in action of July 1653, but can be traced as the Dunkirk after 1660.
[1351] There is a model of the Bristol in the museum of the Royal Naval College of Greenwich. No confirmatory evidence is added to the bare statements of names and dates on the labels attached to these models, and the dates assigned to some of them do not inspire a heedless confidence. However, from the character of the decoration, etc., the model ticketed Bristol is probably, at any rate, of this period.
[1352] Rebuilt.
[1353] Rebuilt.
[1354] Most of the Commonwealth ships were named after some event of the civil war. This is probably a derivative of St Fagans, near Llandaff, where there was a fight in 1647.
[1355] The Royal James, a Stewart privateer, commanded by captain Beach, afterwards admiral Sir Richard Beach, of the Royal Navy, who during the exile gave the state’s ships much trouble. Renamed from the French Les Sorlinges, near which she was taken.
[1356] The Blackmoor and Chestnut were especially designed for service on the coast of Virginia (State Papers, Dom., cxli, 127).
[1357] A Spanish prize; the earlier Elias was Dutch, and remained in the effective as a cruiser.
[1358] For use in the Medway, and carrying one bow gun.
[1359] Add. MSS., 11,602, f, 49.
[1360] State Papers, Dom., ccxiii, 81.
[1361] Dering’s list.
[1362] Ed. Hayward, The Sizes and Lengths of Rigging for all His Majesty’s Ships, 1660. Although not printed till 1660 this was written in 1655.
[1363] The absence of all allusion to davits is stranger from the fact that they are found referred to, evidently as well known and in common use, in navy papers of 1496. They were then used for the anchors. It seems singular that in the intervening century and a half the principle had not been applied to hoisting in the boats. In the Nomenclator Navalis of 1625 (really Manwayring’s Dictionary) he speaks of boat tackles ‘wch stand one on the main mast shrowds the other on the fore mast shrowds to hoise the boat,’ and this plan was identical with that in use in 1514 (see Appendix A).
[1364] Audit Office Accounts, 1707-94.
[1365] Add. MSS., 9306, f. 68.
[1366] State Papers, Dom., lxxxv, 73.
[1367] Ibid., lxxxii, 13. The Admiralty was paying shipwrights 2s 2d a day.
[1368] Add. MSS., 9306, f. 132. When the Prince was rebuilt in 1640-1, £2571 was spent on gilding and £756 on carving (Add. MSS., 9297, f. 351).
[1369] State Papers, Dom., ciii, 94.
[1370] The Sovereign, was however of 100, and the Resolution and Naseby were of 80 guns. The armament of the London, a second-rate of 1656, was: lower tier, 12 demi-cannon and 12 culverins; middle tier, 12 culverins and 12 demi-culverins; forecastle 6, waist 4, and quarter-deck 6 demi-culverins (State Papers, Dom., cl, 170).
[1371] Add. MSS., 22546, f. 42.
[1372] State Papers, Dom., ccxii, 115.
[1373] Add. MSS., 9302, f. 81.
[1374] State Papers, Dom., xxx, 77. But possibly there were others at sea, although the contracts for hired ships do not show any large tonnage.
[1375] Sir R. Slingsby, Discourse of the Navy.
[1376] Add. MSS., 9306, ff. 130, 160; 1655-7. Until about this period ‘the Straits’ was the general term for the whole of the Mediterranean; ‘the Straits’ mouth,’ and ‘the bottom of the Straits’ respectively describing the western and eastern portions. The increase of commerce now necessitated more specific descriptions of locality.
[1377] State Papers, Dom., 10th July 1652.
[1378] Add. MSS., 11,684, f. 3.
[1379] State Papers, Dom., 9th Dec. 1653.
[1380] Add. MSS., 9299, f. 171.
[1381] State Papers, Colonial, 19th Oct. 1654.
[1382] State Papers, Dom., 26th Feb. 1656; Elton to Admiralty Commissioners. It is very likely that the message did reach Cromwell.
[1383] The Parliamentary Navy Committee, which had managed matters throughout the civil war, existed for some time contemporaneously with the Admiralty Committee. But it soon lost all authority.
[1384] State Papers, Dom., 12th March 1649.
[1385] The first Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy were Generals, Robert Blake, George Monk, John Disborowe, and Wm. Penn; Colonels, Philip Jones, John Clerk, and Thos. Kilsey; Major Wm. Burton, and John Stone, Edward Horseman and Vincent Gookin, Esquires. They acted from 3rd Dec. 1653.
[1386] Commons Journals, 1st June 1659.
[1387] Holland, Smith, Pett, and Willoughby, were appointed by order of the House on 16th Feb. 1649; Thompson was added later in place of captain Roger Tweedy, who had been a Commissioner during the civil war, and who was again proposed but rejected on 16th February. On 21st of February the House ordered that Holland, like Batten called Surveyor, was to have £300 a year; the others £250 a year.
[1388] State Papers, Dom., 9th May 1649. This letter is signed by Holland, Smith, and Thompson. The tone of Holland’s Discourse of the Navy (1638), is one of fulsome adulation of the Monarchy and the principles it represented; but the Discourse was not in print and he had had time to realise the new tendency. Holland was the least active of the Commissioners, but if he helped to carry out some of the reforms he recommended in 1638 he did his share of service.
[1389] State Papers, Dom., 20th July 1653, Monk to Admiralty Committee.
[1390] Substitutes for pursers; see infra, [p. 356].
[1391] State Papers, Dom., 27th July 1653.
[1392] Ibid., 11th April 1654.
[1393] State Papers, Dom., ciii, 72, 73; 1655.
[1394] Naval Speculations and Maritime Politicks, Lond. 1691.
[1395] State Papers, Dom., cxxxii, 115; 1656.
[1396] State Papers, Dom., cxxi, 16, Navy Commissioners to Admiralty Committee.
[1397] State Papers, Dom., clxxxii, 8, 111.
[1398] State Papers, Dom., 30th June 1653.
[1399] Ibid., 31st Dec. 1653.
[1400] State Papers, Dom., cxxvi, 99.
[1401] Ibid., 2nd Sept. 1653.
[1402] Add. MSS., 9304, f. 60.
[1403] State Papers, Dom., xlviii, 81.
[1404] Soon afterwards Taylor and Young were placed in command of armed merchantmen; Blake subsequently had a man-of-war. John Saltonstall and John Wadsworth were involved with the four others. Wadsworth certainly commanded a hired merchantman; Saltonstall’s ship is doubtful.
[1405] Accused by his crew (Adventure), who were prepared ‘to spend our lives and limbs in this service for the good of our native country of England and this government.’ He was in trouble again in 1656.
[1406] Allowed two colliers to be captured, and would not chase because they were ‘only colliers.’
[1407] ‘The prize office commissioners said they thought the devil must be in that captain to sell all and bring nothing but bare hulls of ships.’
[1408] ‘The court did not think it meet to expel him, being an active and stout-fighting man.’
[1409] No result appears to have been arrived at about the captain, but the court-martial found that the boatswain, he was charged with maiming had struck him, but they ‘possessed no power to sentence him’—a very strange conclusion to come to.
[1410] Second offence. He petitioned that £80 might be accepted in settlement of the £150 he was fined, as he was very poor and had a large family. His petition was granted.
[1411] Second offences of Best and Nixon.
[1412] According to Montagu, who was dissatisfied with the result, undue pressure was brought to bear on members of the crew to induce them to retract.
[1413] Foote refused to allow the customs officers to search his ship, saying ‘it would be a dishonour to the state.’ The commissioners of customs called attention to this as a ‘great and growing evil.’
[1414] State Papers, Dom., cxiv, 82.
[1415] Add. MSS., 9302, ff. 188, 192.
[1416] Ibid., 9306, f. 36.
[1417] State Papers, Dom., cxiv, 116. From 1st Oct. 1655. Five rates carried pursers; the captains of sixth-rates also did pursers’ duties.
[1418] Ibid., lxii, 55, 56; 1653.
[1419] State Papers, Dom., cv, 50, 51.
[1420] Ibid., cix, 69 and cx, 73.
[1421] State Papers, Dom., 27th August 1653, Navy Commissioners to Admiralty Committee.
[1422] Ibid., 9th Jan. 1655. Thirty-one persons were implicated, including four colonels.
[1423] Add. MSS., 9305, f. 208; 1657.
[1424] Commons Journals, 21st March 1652-3.
[1425] ‘The captain the master.’ The captain’s pay remained the same as in 1647.
[1426] Trumpeters were no unimportant members of a ship’s company. In 1650 Popham and Blake desired the Navy Commissioners to press trumpeters, and ‘particularly a complete noise’ for their own vessel. It is to be hoped they got it.
[1427] Thos. Foley is mentioned with Browne, but he seems to have been either a partner or subordinate (see Commons Journals, 30th Dec. 1645). A Rich. Pitt is once named as a founder of brass ordnance.
[1428] Commons Journals, 16th April 1652; ‘if of brass £67,200, if of iron £13,520.’
[1429] State Papers, Dom., 25th March 1652.
[1430] State Papers, Dom., xxx, 12, 102.
[1431] Ibid.
[1432] Ibid., xl, 14.
[1433] Ibid., xlix, 168.
[1434] State Papers, Dom., 15th April 1656.
[1435] Add. MSS., 9305, f. 112.
[1436] State Papers, Dom., 6th Dec. 1659.
[1437] Ibid., ccix, 49, 67, 68, 71-5, and ccxii, 49, 51, 64.
[1438] Oak, elm, ash, and beech.
[1439] Very little timber, but large stores of iron fittings.
[1440] Two-thirds meridian and one-third ordinary.
[1441] Thirty-two yards to a bolt, of 27 inches breadth, (Add. MSS., 9306, f. 37).
[1442] State Papers, Dom., clxvii, 62, and Add. MSS., 9306, ff. 151, 197.
[1443] State Papers, Dom., lviii, 108.
[1444] Add. MSS., 9305, f. 114.
[1445] State Papers, Dom., lx, 12.
[1446] Add. MSS., 9306, f. 175.
[1447] State Papers, Dom., 12th Sept. 1653.
[1448] Ibid., lxxxi, 194.
[1449] Ibid., cxxxv, 17.
[1450] Ibid., clxxx, 170, and Add. MSS., 9306, f. 197.
[1451] ‘New making’ may have only meant repairs.
[1452] State Papers, Dom., xlvi, 36.
[1453] State Papers, Dom., l, 101, April 1653. The reading is doubtful whether the land and water fronts, or the land front alone, were meant to be walled in. The nature of the foreshore renders the latter view the most likely; if the former, the enclosed area must have been very small.
[1454] Ibid., lxii, 24 and lxxix, 57.
[1455] Add. MSS., 9305, f. 119.
[1456] Ibid., f. 155.
[1457] Ibid., 9306, f. 153. I am informed that there is no trace in the corporation records or in the narratives of local historians of this agreement. Whether Poirson ever obtained this £500 may be uncertain, but it is quite certain that the town volunteered the money and that the government carefully guarded itself from being called upon to pay it.
[1458] State Papers, Dom., 9th Aug. 1652.
[1459] Add. MSS., 9302, f. 99.
[1460] State Papers, Dom., 9th Oct. 1658.
[1461] State Papers, Dom., clxiii, 41; 27th May 1658; and cxcii, 98.
[1462] Add. MSS., 9306, f. 176.
[1463] Ibid., 9305, f. 176, and State Papers, Dom., 10th Sept. 1653, and lxxxi, 4.
[1464] State Papers, Dom., cxxx, 102.
[1465] State Papers, Dom., 8th April 1659, and ccxxiv, 38.
[1466] The dockyard expenses include the rope yards.
[1467] Covering the period from 13th May 1649 to 31st Dec. 1650.
[1468] From 1st Jan. 1649 at Deptford, 24th Aug. at Woolwich, 24th June at Chatham, and 12th June at Portsmouth.
[1469] ‘Oliver, in the year when he spent £1,400,000 in the navy, did spend in the whole expense of the kingdom £2,600,000.’ (Pepys, Diary, iv, 52, ed. Wheatley).
[1470] Includes many arrears.
[1471] Amount owing for wages in September (Add. MSS., 9300, f. 343).
[1472] Covering the period from 1st Jan. 1658 to 7th July 1660.
[1473] Owing on 7th July.
[1474] Add. MSS., 32, 471, ff. 2, 15.
[1475] Ibid., f. 6.
[1476] Commons Journals, 20th May 1659.
[1477] State Papers, Dom., 1st Sept. 1653.
[1478] Department for the sale of delinquents’ lands. In 1653 £136,000 was received, by the Navy Treasurer, from this office.
[1479] Governor of the Tower.
[1480] State Papers, Dom., 2nd April 1655.
[1481] Ibid., cxliv, 140.
[1482] Ibid., 15th March 1659.
[1483] Ibid., ccxii, 24.
[1484] According to Commons Journals (3rd March 1660) it was £694,000 to 1st Feb.; the State Papers (ccxxiii, 165) make it £788,000 to March. But the figures in the Audit Office Accounts are circumstantial and minute, and the bureaucracy is frequently better informed than Parliament.
[1485] Add. MSS., 9302, f. 66.
[1486] I.e., the old Union Jack with the harp at the centre.
[1487] There were three qualities of Noyals canvas. A bale contained 282 yards.
[1488] Prussia.
[1489] 1514.
[1490] Deadeyes.
[1491] Pulleys, or blocks.
[1492] The wheel of a pulley or block.
[1493] Later the bushing of the wheel-pin; here apparently the pin itself. Cf. ‘colkes of brasse grete and small ... xxviii’—Inventory of the Grace Dieu in 1486.
[1494] Pulleys, or blocks.
[1495] Halliards.
[1496] Perhaps the main beam or head piece across it (Cf. breast-summer, Halliwell, Dictionary).
[1497] Some sort of rope gear, but the exact use is unknown.
[1498] Grappling-irons, or hooks.
[1499] Piece of timber carrying blocks and used with various ropes.
[1500] See [p. 374], where it is written ‘power.’ Probably used in the sense of ‘bowline bridle’ (See [p. 375]), and from the old English powe, a claw, or something which holds.
[1501] Braces.
[1502] The davit was a movable beam of wood fitted with blocks, and used to raise the fluke of the anchor.
[1503] The main mast was a ‘made’ mast, e.g. ‘a grete mast to be the spyndell of the mayne mast to the Henry Grace à Dieu.’
[1504] The Sovereign had ‘bote tacles of both syds the mast x.’ It appears therefore to have been customary to hoist one or two out of the three boats.
[1505] Timber.
[1506] Now known as a ‘burton tackle.’
[1507] Wooden blocks for the sheets.
[1508] Used in connection with the main sail.
[1509] Wood.
[1510] Tyes.
[1511] Blocks of a particular kind; from French palan, palanc, a combination of pullies, or palanquer, to hoist or haul.
[1512] Leathern.
[1513] Luff.
[1514] Or Leche hooks, probably broad hooks, from old French, leeche, lecsche.
[1515] 300 lbs.
[1516] Six and a half inches.
[1517] Laniards.
[1518] Flag staves.
[1519] The body or main portion of the sail.
[1520] Perhaps from the Catalan destre, to bridle.
[1521] Sheet anchors.
[1522] Kedge anchors.
[1523] Wooden.
[1524] Lanterns.
[1525] Five hundredweight.
[1526] Half a hawser.
[1527] Linstocks.
[1528] Herbert.
[1529] Another document (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, i-4968) gives the distribution of these guns:—Forecastle—33 iron serpentines, 1 brass serpentine, 4 stone guns. Waist—29 iron serpentines, 4 great guns of iron, 2 great Spanish pieces. By the rudder—7 iron serpentines. Lower deck—20 iron serpentines. Second deck—33 iron serpentines, 3 brass serpentines, 18 stone guns, 4 vice pieces of brass, 6 brass fawcons, 2 great stone guns of iron, 1 sling of iron, 2 brass culverins, 1 curtow of brass, 1 ‘fryre’ piece; and 9 brass serpentines and 2 fawcons in the great boat.
[1530] Armour composed of overlapping plates working on rivets.
[1531] Headpieces.
[1532] Printed in full in Barrow’s Life of Drake, p. 242.
[1533] Lansd. MSS., 115, f. 22.
[1534] State Papers, Dom., Eliz. cciii, 1.
[1535] Ibid., ccviii, 77.
[1536] A volume of the Cæsar papers. Modern punctuation has been added, and contractions are extended.
[1538] Cascaes, near Lisbon.
[1539] Any abnormally diluted drink, as beer and water, or cider and water.
[1540] Peaked or slanted.
[1541] Immediately.
[1542] Plot.
[1543] Regarded the action.
[1544] Borough.
[1545] Luff.
[1546] Sheets.
[1547] H. Hall, Society in the Elizabethan Age.
[1548] As is admitted by the writer in the Dictionary.
[1549] Cf. Lansd. MSS., 113 f. 45.
[1550] Lansd. MSS., 52 f. 117.
[1551] State Papers, Dom., Eliz., clxx, 57, and clxxviii, 12.
[1552] Add. MSS., 9294 f. 60.
[1553] State Papers, Dom., Eliz., ccvi, 15. Wynter and Borough to Burghley.
[1554] Of 1585, see supra, [p. 162].
[1555] Lansd. MSS., 52 f. 117.
[1556] Hawkyns was more generous to Borough. In 1582 he wrote on his behalf to Walsyngham, ‘Mr Borough is a man of great virtew and judgment.’ (State Papers, clvi, 34). In fact he very seldom indulged in recriminations even in the thick of the attacks on himself, usually contenting himself with defending his procedure.
[1557] State Papers, Dom. Eliz., cciv, 18. Burghley’s usual way of writing Allen—the name only occurs in one other instance in his writing—was Ally, with a contraction mark over the last letter. In this case he omitted the contraction dash but, from internal evidence, there is no doubt of the identity.
[1558] Lansd. MSS., 52 f. 117.
[1559] State Papers, Dom. Eliz., cciv, 17.
[1560] Cott. MSS., Otho E VIII, f. 169.
[1561] State Papers, Dom. Eliz., ccviii, 18.
[1563] State Papers, Dom. Eliz., clxxviii, 12.
[1564] Naval Tracts: Churchill’s Voyages, III, 371, ed. 1704.
[1565] Lansd. MSS., 70, f. 231.
[1566] The quintal varied from 101½ to 155 lbs; ordinarily it was the former.
[1567] A traveller to the Spanish colonies had to produce satisfactory evidence that he was a native of the peninsula, a good Catholic, not only in present belief but by descent, and that he was sailing with the knowledge and consent of his wife. There was a flourishing trade, at Seville, in forged certificates to meet these requirements; there was also a trade in smuggled passengers outwards as well as in smuggled goods homewards.
[1568] Lex Mercatoria.
[1569] About the latitude of the Straits of Gibraltar.
[1570] Spanish, Amainar las velas, to lower the sails; the summons to strike.
[1571] Harquebus à croc, a musket fired from a rest.
[1572] Biscayan; the St Francisco.
[1573] Silenced their fire or drove them off the deck.
[1574] Going large from the wind; to leeward.
[1575] Came up close to the wind.