Ships & Ways of Other Days

by E. Keble Chatterton

It is undeniable that the Stuart seamanship was inferior to that of the Elizabethans. They could not handle their vessels with such dexterity as the contemporaries of Drake. The sailors who had not become pirates were not the equals of those who had fought against the Spaniards; and this for two reasons: firstly, the fisheries had become so bad as to discourage putting to sea; and, secondly, the voyages of discovery were now far fewer. As already stated, one of the happy results of the Anglo-Dutch wars was that they gave experience to inexperienced men. Often enough, too, as in the fleet that was sent in 1625 to Cadiz, the ships were leaky, cranky, and fitted with defective gear and the scantiest supply of victuals. Add to these drawbacks the incapacity of the officers and the diseases of the men, and you may rightly pity the lot of the sailor in those times. They were even put ashore at Cadiz fasting, so that they promptly filled their poor bellies with the wine of the country and became drunk.

Can you wonder, therefore, that during the Civil War, after there had been a series of mutinies during the reign of Charles I, the whole of the Navy, with the exception of one ship, deserted the royal cause as a protest against the bad food, the irregular pay, and the incapable officers? After that the victuals were improved, their wages were paid at a fair scale and with punctuality, and their affairs better regulated. But not even then were matters entirely satisfactory. As one reads through the correspondence of this period one can see that discipline was woefully lacking. Even Blake, keen disciplinarian that he was, found it necessary to write on the 1st of December, 1652, to the Admiralty Commissioners to the following effect soon after the encounter with the Dutch fleet off Dungeness: “I am bound to let your Honours know in general that there was much baseness of spirit, not among the merchantmen only, but many of the State’s ships, and therefore I make it my humble request that your Honours would be pleased to send down some gentlemen to take an impartial and strict examination of the deportment of several commanders, that you may know who are to be confined and who are not.” Captain Thomas Thorowgood—is not the surname suggestive of the Puritan period?—also wrote to complain that his crew had actually refused to accept their six months’ pay as being inadequate. “On Saturday night they were singing and roaring, and I sent my servant to bid the boatswain to be quiet and go to their cabins; but they told me they would not be under my command, so I struck one of them, and the rest put out the candle and took hold of me as though they would have torn me to pieces, so that I am almost beside myself, not knowing what to do.”

Fitting Out an Early Seventeenth-Century Dutch West Indian Merchantman.

By a Contemporary Artist. Observe the elaborate stern gallery.

When Blake wrote to Cromwell in August, 1655, from on board the George, he complained of various matters. When he had wished to blaze away at the Spanish fleet there was a little wind “and a great sea,” so that he could not make use of the lower tier of guns. This arose from the old mistake of having the gun-ports too near the water’s edge. Furthermore, “some of the ships had not beverage for above four days, and the whole not able to make above eight, and that a short allowance; and no small part both of our beverage and water was stinking.” ... “Our ships are extreme foul, winter drawing on, our victuals expiring, all stores failing, and our men falling sick through the badness of drink and through eating their victuals boiled in salt water for two months’ space. Even now the coming of the supply is uncertain (we received not one word from the Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy by the last); and, though it come timely, yet if beer come not with it, we shall be undone that way.” Again he writes from the George, “at sea, off Lagos,” in 1657: “The Swiftsure, in which I was, is so foul and unwieldy through the defects of her sheathing laid on for the voyage of Jamaica, that I thought it needful to remove into the George.”

The importance of the Anglo-Dutch wars consists, inter alia, in the display of tactics that must now be mentioned, for this, if you please, represents the period of transition. We dealt some time back with the lack of tactics of the Elizabethan period, and saw that at least there was in existence a yearning after the line-ahead formation. The object of this is, of course, to enable each ship to fire into the enemy her very utmost, and give her opponent the benefit of a broadside. But it was not till the seventeenth century that this theory got a real foothold. Between 1648 and 1652 certain fighting instructions were issued for the English Navy, and may be summed up as follows: The fleet was not to engage the enemy if the latter should seem more numerous. On sighting the enemy, the vice-admiral and rear-admiral respectively were to form wings with their ships, to come up on either side of the admiral and to keep close to him. When the admiral gave the signal, each ship was to engage the hostile ship nearest to him, the admiral tackling the admiral of the enemy. Care must be taken not to leave any of their own ships in distress, and commanders of all small craft were to keep to windward of the fleet and to look out for fire-ships.

There was no instruction enjoining line-ahead as a battle formation, but it was understood, and when Blake had his first encounter with Marten Tromp the English ships formed into single-line ahead. So much for the moment with regard to tactics. What was the strategy displayed at the commencement of the Anglo-Dutch wars? Consider a moment what would most probably be that strategy employed by the British Navy to-day at the beginning of hostilities between ourselves and Germany. We should assuredly do three things: (1) We should close up the Straits of Dover and intercept German liners homeward bound. (2) That being so, the only possible chance of the enemy’s ships reaching their Fatherland would be to go round the north of Scotland: so we should have a squadron off the north-east coast of Scotland to thwart that intention. (3) And, lastly, we should send some of our warships across the North Sea to blockade German ports.

Now except for a comparatively slight coast erosion and the shifting of minor shoals, Great Britain in the twentieth century is geographically the same as in the seventeenth. Instead of a German enemy, imagine that Holland is the foe; instead of the German liners, substitute the Dutch Plate ships; instead of the modern steel steam warriors, substitute sail-propelled warships. Otherwise you have exactly similar conditions. The strategy is the same: only the century and the type of ships are different. For what happened? Ayscue with his squadron remained in the Downs to catch the Dutch Plate ships bound home to Holland. Blake was sent with sixty or seventy ships to the north-east of Scotland and captured a hundred of the Dutch fishing fleet, and then proceeded further north to intercept the Dutch merchantmen between the Orkneys and Shetlands. He then came in contact with the Dutch fleet and prepared for war, but a gale sprang up and dispersed Tromp’s ships. It was only the lack of good charts that made the English sea general reluctant to cross the North Sea into the shoal-strewn Dutch waters, though in fact they did cross later and blockade. Thus we may say that at any rate by the beginning of the first of these Anglo-Dutch wars there is the surest evidence that naval strategy was appreciated at its full value, and that it was modern and not medieval strategy.

And now let us pass to the year 1653, after the English fleet had come in from the English Channel to Stokes Bay for a refit. Important new orders were now issued which insisted that ships were to endeavour to keep in line with their chief so as to engage the enemy to the best advantage. When the windward line had been engaged, the English ships were to form in line-ahead “upon severest punishment.” Now please note two points: that this line-ahead tactic was not of foreign but English origin, and that following this order a general improvement in tactics followed. The second Dutch war showed the progress which had been made since the new type of Fighting Instructions had been issued. Earl Sandwich, the Lord High Admiral, had issued orders just a month before war was declared, to provide for the formation of line-abreast, and for forming from that order a line-ahead to port and starboard. The principle, too, of sailing close-hauled in single-line ahead is conspicuous after the Commonwealth period. During the first year of the third Dutch war still further progress was observed by the officers being instructed as to how they should keep the enemy to leeward and how to divide the enemy’s fleet if the latter were to windward; and the regulations once more insisted on the commanders maintaining their line-ahead and avoiding firing over their own ships. Two distinct schools of tactics arose: one purely formal, the other allowing room for personal initiative as occasion suggested. In the end the former won, and this continued till the end of the eighteenth century.