A Short History of the Royal Navy, 1217-1815. Volume II, 1689-1815

by David Hannay

The preliminary to cleaning out the dockyards was the bringing of the navy’s combatant branches up to the due level. It was a matter of life and death for England that this should be done. The great weakness of France at sea and the decadence of Spain, allowed us to escape disaster in the War of the Austrian Succession. The same conditions were repeated in the war which began in 1755. But if we had met the great American War in 1778 with the navy in the condition in which it was in 1739, and then had been called upon to face the revived naval power of France, the somewhat improved navy of Spain and the Dutch, irreparable disaster must have followed. We could not have endured that strain with Mathews, Lestock, Vernon, Knowles, Griffin, Peyton, Cornelius Mitchell, Watson, and Elton.

In 1746 the Government took steps to regulate promotion to flag rank. It had hitherto been the custom to select the officers for the higher commands from any place in the list of captains, though they were naturally taken from towards the top. The captains passed over were left in the same rank and on their scanty half pay of ten or eight shillings a day. Though the state was undoubtedly entitled to take competent men where it could find them, it was felt that this practice of passing over old officers who might have to serve under juniors, or were left in poverty, inflicted a hardship. It also had the obvious drawback that it left the list of captains crowded with men who were beyond work. An Order in Council, issued on the 3rd June 1747, decided that when old officers in the rank of captain were passed over by the promotion of the younger men to flag rank, they were to “be appointed by commissions from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to be rear-admirals in general terms.” The effect of the order was this. The active list of admirals consisted of those who belonged to one of the squadrons—Red, White, or Blue. When then a captain was meant to serve at sea he was promoted Rear-Admiral of the Blue. The captains senior to him were named merely rear-admirals. This gave them no right to command. They were superannuated with a rear-admiral’s pension, in order that they might “retire with honour and have a competent subsistence in their old age.” It was the introduction of the modern system of allowing men to retire with a rank above that which they hold when their active service ends. The benefits of the order were limited to old officers who had served at sea since the beginning of the war with Spain in 1739, but the hardship inflicted on those not so qualified was confined to one generation. In future the old officer who was passed over because of his “great age and other infirmities” knew that he would “retire with honour.” The disadvantage of the system was that when the state wished to reach some capable officer well down on the list it had to make a great addition to what is now called the non-effective vote, that is to the pensioned men who are doing no work. But the advantages of putting a stop to an old grievance, of giving security and content to the officers, and of enabling the Admiralty to bring on younger men, were cheaply bought at this price.

Another piece of work taken in hand was the improvement of the quality of the ships. The inferiority of our vessels was seen so soon as they came to be compared with the Spanish and French. Inquiry showed that though schemes had been drawn up in 1706 and 1719, and attempts had been made to improve the ships later, they had all been habitually neglected. Our vessels had been built, not only on bad principles, but not on any regular scale, so that vessels of the same rate were of different sizes, and the fittings of one could not be used for another. Here as elsewhere there was waste. A new scheme was made in 1746 and modified in 1751 without bringing complete amendment.

The scandals of the navy had also shown the necessity for a revision of the laws regulating the discipline of the service. Hitherto the Navy Discipline Act had been that passed in the thirteenth year of Charles II. (1661). It conferred the right of holding courts martial, but under inconvenient limitations. The jurisdiction of the court was confined to offences committed on the high seas, and in the main rivers of His Majesty’s possessions below bridges. There was thus no power to punish offences committed ashore or in foreign countries. This was conferred in 1720, and some further amendments were made in 1745 and 1748. The worst defects of the old system remained and they were serious. The power to hold a court martial was given only to the commander-in-chief, that is the admiral or captain acting as commodore, with a separate command. If he died, or was compelled to come home by bad health, another commission had to be sent out to his successor. When Vernon came home from the West Indies, his successor, Sir Chaloner Ogle, was left for a whole year without power to hold a court martial, as the first vessel sent out with his commission was captured. Neither could the power be delegated by the commander-in-chief to any officer whom he detached. It was alleged in the course of the debates in Parliament in 1749 that, during the late war, a captain serving on the coast of Portugal had put his first lieutenant in irons. He went into Lisbon where there were several other warships, and the imprisoned officer applied for a court martial, but as the commander-in-chief was not present none could be held. The vessel left for England with the first lieutenant still in irons. On her way a French man-of-war was met. The captain then gave such visible proofs of derangement of mind, that the other officers shut him in his cabin and released the first lieutenant who took command of the ship. When she reached home an inquiry was made, and it was found that the captain was insane.

In another respect there was room for amendment. The commander-in-chief was himself president of the court, which consisted of all the post-captains in sight when the court-martial flag was hoisted. The want of a limitation in the number made the tribunal often of a most unwieldy size. It was also obviously in the power of a commander-in-chief to pack a court, by sending away all the captains whom he could not trust to acquit or condemn “by order.” As he was the only authorised president he was there to give the order himself. When it is remembered that every admiral had then, and afterwards, a number of “followers,” officers who had served under him, and whom he always made interest to have with him, and who for their part looked to him to push their fortunes, when too we remember the brutal temper of such men as Mathews, Lestock, and Griffin, it will be seen that this was no imaginary danger, indeed bitter complaints were made of the partiality of the courts martial.

The new act of 1749—the 22nd George II.—corrected these defects. It provided that the right to hold courts martial should go with the command, thereby removing the risk of such a break as occurred in the case of Vernon and Ogle, and that it could be delegated to officers commanding detachments. Further, it took away the right to act as president from the commander-in-chief and gave it to the second in command. It limited the number of officers sitting in the court to not less than five, or more than thirteen. It also limited the court’s power of inflicting imprisonment for any offence to two years, and for contempt to a month. The cases of the master of the Northumberland and of Lieutenant Frye of the Marines had no doubt their share in bringing about this change.

The most famous of the alterations made in 1749 was that inserted in the 12th and 13th articles of the Articles of War which were incorporated in the Act. The 12th article provides the punishment to be inflicted “on Every Person in the Fleet who through Cowardice, Negligence, or Disaffection, shall in Time of Action withdraw or hold back, or not come into the fight or Engagement, or shall not do his utmost to take or destroy every ship which it shall be his Duty to engage, and to assist and relieve all and every of his Majesty’s Ships or those of his Allies which it shall be his duty to assist and relieve.” The 13th Article deals with him who hangs back in chase or does not “relieve or assist a known Friend in View to the utmost of his Power.” Originally the court had a discretion, but by the terms of the new Act the only punishment a court martial could inflict was death. At a later period the severity of this penalty was considered excessive, and in 1779 the power to inflict a lesser penalty was restored to the court martial, but in 1749 Parliament had just heard from the mouth of Vernon that the savage punishment of poor young Baker Philipps was just, and it knew how austere the court had been with humble James Dixon, the master of the Northumberland. It also knew what bowels of compassion had been found for the captains of Toulon and for Lestock and Mitchell. If Parliament was resolved that what was law for obscure and friendless men should also be law for the chiefs of the navy, it may have been stern but it was not unjust. The Bill was introduced by ministers who had the advice of Anson, and we may fairly conclude that he did not disapprove of the change.

From 1748 to 1756 the country remained at peace, but it was of the kind compatible with continuous “military operations.” Both in the East Indies and on the continent of North America and among the islands of the West Indies, the British Government of that time had to deal with a more violent version of what we have seen happen in our day in the valleys of the Nile and the Congo. The main outlines of the struggle were given at the beginning of the last chapter. On the frontier of Nova Scotia the two states were in peculiar contact of irritation. The frontier had never been clearly marked, and the French strove to delimit it in their own favour by a characteristic mixture of pertinacious diplomatic pettifogging and violence. In the East the intrigues of Dupleix with the native princes of the Carnatic aimed at ruining the commerce of the English company by cutting off the establishments on the coast of Coromandel from access to the interior. On the continent of America the seventy thousand or so French in Canada and Louisiana were incessantly endeavouring, not only to recover the greater part of Nova Scotia, but to bar the million and a half of English settlers from access to the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Resolute action on the part of the British Government would probably have averted war, but the Duke of Newcastle, who was the prevailing politician of the day, was intent on Parliamentary management. The king too was rendered nervous by fears for his hereditary dominions in Hanover. From sheer want of vigorous direction on our own part we drifted, through a succession of small conflicts, into open though unavowed war in 1755, and into formally declared war in 1756. The situation was that of 1739, with differences. Then we had begun with the Spaniards, and had only come into collision with the French later on. Spain, in this case, did not intervene till the very close, and in an hour of folly. Once again, too, France became entangled in a great European land war, and was unable to devote her whole attention to the sea. We engaged in the land war as allies of Frederick of Prussia and in defence of Hanover, but our main attention was devoted to the sea and to our colonies.

The first serious hostile movement made by the British Government was directed towards the East. The India Company had soon occasion to regret that it had parted so easily with Boscawen’s squadron. In 1753 it was calling on the Government for naval help, and in February 1755 a squadron was despatched under the command of Rear-Admiral Charles Watson. It was delayed at Kinsale by a storm, and two vessels were seriously damaged. They were replaced, and Watson reached Bombay in November with four sail of the line, and two small vessels. He brought a reinforcement of troops and Colonel Clive. His first piece of service was not against the French. The Royal Navy was now beginning to take permanent hold on the Eastern seas. No more pressing duty awaited it than to put a stop to piracy. This had always flourished on the western or Malabar coast of India, and had never been effectually checked by the Portuguese, the Dutch, or by ourselves. By far the most formidable of these pirates belonged to a branch of the Mahrattas, which had gained possession of the island of Geriah, had become independent, and had transferred its native practice of robbery from the land to the sea. These pirate Mahrattas infested the coast in vessels called “grabs” and “gallivats”—the first a species of magnified lighter armed with guns, the second light rowing and sailing galleys. Sporadic attacks had been made on them by the company, and by occasional ships of the Royal Navy. Mathews had served against them. But hitherto nothing effectual had been done. In 1755 the presence of a well-appointed squadron and of a disposable body of troops encouraged the company’s agents at Bombay to make an effort to root out the pirates of Geriah. On the 7th of February 1756 Watson sailed from Bombay, carrying the soldiers under command of Clive with him, and in co-operation with a body of Mahratta troops supplied by one of the princes of that nation, who wished to reduce Angria, the chief of the pirate state, to obedience. They proved to be of little value, for they were chiefly intent on plunder, and had secretly more sympathy with their piratical kinsmen than with their allies. Angria showed little spirit. The vigour of Admiral Watson who battered down the fortifications of Geriah on the 12th February, and the firmness of Clive who took possession of the place, disappointed the Mahrattas. Our squadron and the troops divided £150,000 of prize money.