Ships & Ways of Other Days

by E. Keble Chatterton

This contemporary design conveys an excellent idea of the interior of an ocean-going vessel. Notice the pilot’s place at the stern; the tiller and whip-staff; the capstan; the lower deck; the holds, etc.

In those days the custom of dividing a ship’s company into watches was already in vogue. “When you set sayle and put to sea, the Captaine is to call up the company; and the one halfe is to goe to the Starreboord, the other to the Larboord, as they are chosen: the Maister chusing first one, then his Mate another, and so forward till they bee diuided in two parts.” In those days the reckoning by tonnage was far from reliable as indicating the true size of a ship. Columbus, after his second voyage across the Atlantic, writes to Captain Antonio de Torres of the ship Marigalante, and refers to the freighting of ships by the ton “as the Flemish merchants do,” and this, he suggests, would be a better and less expensive method than any other mode. But when after the capture of a prize the division of shares was made, it was to the advantage of the crew to make the tonnage as big as possible. The custom was to allot the share in proportions. The ship took a third, the victualler took another third, and the remaining third was divided up among the crew. Of this latter third the captain received nine shares, the master seven, and so on down to the boys who had one share, and there was a reward given to the man who first descried the sails of the ship ultimately captured. A reward was also paid to the first man who rushed on board the enemy.

According to Monson, every man and boy was allowed 1 lb. of bread a day and a gallon of beer a day, viz. a quart in the morning, a quart at dinner, a quart in the afternoon, and a quart at supper. On flesh-days each man could have 1 lb. of beef or else 1 lb. of “pork with pease.” Flesh-days were Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. The other days were fish-days, and on these every mess of four men was allowed a side of salt fish, “either haberdine, ling, or cod,” 7 oz. of butter, and 14 oz. of cheese. Fridays were excepted, for on these days they had but half allowance. Monson was naturally prejudiced against the Spanish ships, which he accused of being badly kept—“like hog-sties and sheep-coats”—and of giving an allowance of diet far too small. Every man cooked for himself and there was no discipline, although they carried more officers than the English ships. In the latter the captain inspected his ship twice a day to see that she was kept sweet and clean “for avoiding sickness,” but the holds were so badly ventilated, dark, and smelly, the beer was so frequently bad, the food so often putrid, and the crew themselves so lacking in habits of cleanliness, that scurvy, dysentery, and other diseases frequently broke out and men died in large numbers. One has only to look through the logs of some of the Elizabethan voyages of discovery to see this for oneself.

A Sixteenth-Century Warship at Anchor.

By a Contemporary Artist. Showing method of embarkation and many fascinating details.

In addition to the officers already mentioned must be given two more. These were first the ship’s chaplain, who celebrated the Holy Communion on Sundays, read prayers two or three times on week-days, preached, and visited the sick and wounded. And secondly a trumpeter, who blew on his silver instrument when the ship went into action, at the changing of the watches, and at the coming and going of a distinguished guest. His place was on the poop, and it was customary for “himself and his noise to have banners of silk of the admiral’s colours.” The watch was set at eight, and so on through the night and day. When on these occasions the trumpeter sounded his blast he was to “have a can of beer allowed for the same.”

And now that we have got some idea in our minds of the details of the seaman’s life on board an Elizabethan ship, let us be rowed off from the shore in one of her three boats which is bringing water and wood and provisions. The good ship is lying to her anchor in the roadstead about to get underway. Transport yourself, then, in imagination to that epoch when England’s seamen made such wonderful history, and endeavour to believe that the cock-boat actually bumps up alongside the English galleon. You clamber up the ship’s side and find yourself on her deck, where the crew are standing about ready to hear the commands of the master. And now let us watch them get under way. I shall quote not from fiction of to-day, but from an account written by an Elizabethan, this same Captain John Smith, as he wrote it for the edification of young seamen.

“Bend your passerado to the mayne-sayle, git the sailes to the yeards, about your geare on all hands, hoyse your sayles halfe mast high, make ready to set sayle, crosse your yeards, bring your Cable to the Capsterne. Boatswaine, heave a head, men into the tops, men upon the yeards. Come, is the anchor a pike? Heave out your topsayles, hawle your sheates. What’s the Anchor away? Yea, yea. Let fall your fore sayle. Who’s at the helme there? Coyle your cable in small slakes. Hawle the cat, a bitter, belay, loufe (= luff), fast your Anchor with your shanke painter, stow the boate. Let falle your maine saile, on with your bonnets and drablers, steare study before the wind.

“The wind veares, git your star-boord tacks aboord, hawle off your ley sheats ouerhawle the ley bowlin, ease your mayne brases, out with your spret-saile, flat the fore sheat, pike up the misen or brade (= brail) it. The ship will not wayer, loure the maine top saile, veare a fadome of your sheat. A flown sheate, a faire winde and a boune voyage! The wind shrinks. Get your tacks close aboord, make ready your loufe howks (= luff hooks) and lay fagnes, to take off your bonnets and drablers, hawle close your maine bowline.