CHAPTER VII
From Elizabeth to Victoria
"Hearts of oak are our ships,
Gallant tars are our men,
We always are ready,
Steady, boys, steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again."
Garrick.
We have now followed the story of our navy, its ships, and its men up to the time when the three-masted, many-gunned man-of-war with two or three decks, and relying entirely on sail-power for propulsion, made its appearance. This class of vessel, with, of course, gradual improvements, remained the principal fighting-unit, not only in our own, but in all other navies right up to the time of the introduction of steam power, and indeed we may almost say later; as, though provided with engines of no very great horse power, the sails, rigging, and hulls of our line-of-battle ships at the time of the introduction of the ironclad were practically the same as those of the ships which fought at Trafalgar. We are, in fact, entering on the period beginning with the time—
"When that great fleet Invincible, against us bore in vain
The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain",
and ending with the imposing but indecisive operations of the combined British and French fleets in the Crimean War.
Now this portion of our naval history is as near as possible all plain sailing, and its course as well known as that from the Mersey Bar to Sandy Hook to transatlantic travellers. I do not therefore propose to conduct my readers through the glorious, though, if I may be allowed to say it, somewhat hackneyed stories of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Drake's exploits on the Spanish Main, and the series of wars with the Dutch, in which we met the toughest opponents we have ever fought with for the supremacy of the seas. Neither do I intend recounting for the hundredth time the magnificent record of the Royal Navy in its almost continuous campaign against those of the French kings, the French Republic, and the Emperor Napoleon, which, beginning early in the eighteenth century, was only finally terminated by the downfall of the great Corsican general at Waterloo. As far as all these are concerned I have only to say: "Now the rest of the acts of the Royal Navy, and all that it did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of James the Naval Historian", and of many other historians for that matter, good, bad, and indifferent. No, so far I have endeavoured to keep a little off the beaten track of naval history as generally presented in books of this class, and until we arrive at our navy of to-day I propose to keep this principle in view; and it is in accordance with this that, before finally quitting the Tudor period, I propose to make a brief reference to our experiences with the Hanseatic League.
DESTROYING A STRAGGLER FROM THE ARMADA
From the painting by C. M. Padday