And so this leaky, crank, badly built ship came fighting her way along over the trackless ocean, a continuous source of anxiety to her commander. Troubles often enough come not singly, and the Peppercorn was another unlucky ship. By sheer carelessness she and all hands barely escaped ending all things by fire at sea. “At noon,” says Downton, “our ship came afire by the cook his negligence, o’erguzzled with drink, digged a hole through the brick back of the furnace and gave the fire passage to the ship’s side, which led to much trouble besides spoil to our ship.” The punctuation of this sentence needs no modification to show the short, sharp impressions jotted down by a choleric captain. The name of this “o’erguzzled” cook was Richard Hancock, and no doubt he had so undermined his health with drink, or had been so severely punished by his commander that he could not long survive, for he died shortly after one day at noon and was buried at sea.
But he was not the only careless member of the ship’s company. At least one of the watch-keeping officers was just as bad in his own sphere. “The 27th at 2 after noon we were suddenly taken short with a gust from the SE, which by neglect of the principal of the watch not setting in time, not only put us to much present trouble but also split us two topsails at once, and blew a third clean away.” The following month on the eleventh the Peppercorn was at midnight overwhelmed by heavy squalls which “split our main bonnet and fore course, whereby we were forced to lie a try with mainsail, the sea very violent, we mending our sail.”
The meaning of this may not be quite apparent to those unfamiliar with the ships of those days. The “bonnet” was an additional piece of canvas laced on to the foot of these square-sails. It had been long in use by the ships of the Vikings and the English craft of the Middle Ages, and continued to be used during the Tudor period and the seventeenth century. Even in the twentieth century it is not quite obsolete, and is still used on the Norfolk wherries and on some of the North Sea fishing vessels. It was such a canvas as certainly ought to have been taken in quickly if the Peppercorn was likely to be struck by a heavy squall, being essentially a fine-weather addition. And whenever it was unlaced the equivalent was obtained of putting a reef in the sail. To “lie a try” was a well-known expression used by the Elizabethan seamen and their successors: it meant simply what we mean to-day when we speak of heaving-to. The ship would just forge ahead very slowly under her mainsail only, being under command but making good weather of the violent sea of which Downton speaks, and allowing most of the hands to get busy with the sails, which had to be sent down and repaired.
They had barely begun to resume their voyage when, on the thirteenth of the month, the Peppercorn broke her main truss—that is to say, the rope which kept the yard of the mainsail at its centre to the mast. The main halyards also carried away and again the main bonnet was split, but this time the mainsail as well. The “main course,” says Downton, “rent out of the bolt rope”—that is to say, blew right away from the rope to which it is sewn—and so they were, owing to “want of fit sail to carry, forced to lie a hull,” which means that they had to heave-to again. Meanwhile the Peppercorn was still leaking away merrily. “This day again,” reads an entry in the journal a little later on, “by the labouring of the ship and beating of her bows in a head sea, whereby we found in the powder room in the fore part on the lower orlop, 20 or 24 inches water, which have so spoiled, wet and stained divers barrels, so that of 20 barrels of powder I do not now expect to find serviceable 2 barrels, besides all our match and divers other things.” It would therefore have gone ill with the Peppercorn if she had fallen in with a big, powerful Spanish ship on the high seas ready to blaze away at her.
It took thirty-six hours to get these sails repaired and new ropes spliced. This mending became in fact the rule rather than the exception. “Our daily employment either mending of our poor old sails daily broken, or making new with such poor stuff as we have.” There can be no doubt whatever that these ships were sent to sea with all too few stores to allow of accident. We have already seen that additional canvas could not be obtained in the East, except with the indulgence of some Dutch captain, who would naturally charge the English the full value of a new sail, and a bit more. One wonders, indeed, how often those London merchants realised how dearly these big percentages had been bought—how only the dogged determination of the captains and masters, the sufferings of the crews in the leaky, ill-found ships could provide fortunes and luxuries for those who stayed at home in ease. However, little though they knew it at the time, it was these ill-faring mariners who were really building up the foundations of England’s Eastern wealth and her Eastern Empire. Human lives in those harsh days were rated low enough, and a poor, common sailor was not slobbered over. He was merely one of the meshes of the big net cast into the sea to bring in large spoil to the financiers of that time. But it has always been thus, and the more long-suffering the seaman has shown himself, the more courageous and patient he has been, the more he has been treated with contumely by those very persons who have obtained all that they possess through his achievements.
It cannot be supposed that these seventeenth-century Indiamen were on the whole happy ships. The captains feared mutiny all the time, and the men were compelled to live and work under trying conditions which were enough to break the spirit of any landsman. Downton’s journal shows this all too well. Take the following entries, which are sufficiently expressive:—
“July 2. Mr Abraham Lawes conceives he is poisoned for that his stomach falls away, and he hath often inclination to vomit, for he saith he was so at Venice, when he was formerly poisoned.”
Three days later Thomas Browning died, and on 27th July comes this entry:
“This day Mr Lawes died and is opened by the surgeon who took good note of his inward parts which was set down by the surgeon and divers witnesses to that note.” Similarly on 21st August: “Men daily fall down into great weakness”; and, again, four days later: “Edw. Watts, carpenter, died at midnight.” Under the twenty-ninth of the same month we find the following entry:—“Stormy weather, dry, the night past Thomas Dickorie died. Most of my people in a weak estate.” The last day of the month we read that “John Ashbe died by an imposthume at 7 o’clock after noon,” and other members of the ship’s company continued to die almost daily. An “imposthume,” by the way, is an abscess.
But the Peppercorn, though she had long since crossed the line, and was even now beyond the Bay of Biscay, was destined to suffer ill luck right to the end of her voyage. She ought, of course, to have rounded Ushant and then squared away up the English Channel. But as a fact Downton got right out of his reckoning. He rather imagined that his reckoning was wrong and suspected “all the instruments by which we observed the variation by.” The result was that he got farther to the north than he expected. He therefore ran right across the western mouth of the English Channel without sighting anything, so that eventually he found himself between Wales and Ireland—miles and miles out of his course. All too late he realised the mistake, so determined to put in to the nearest port. He thought of Milford, but as the Peppercorn would not fetch thither, he decided to run for Waterford in Ireland. He ran down to the coast, but when off the entrance a thick fog enshrouded the land, so he had to put out to sea once more, being able eventually to run into Waterford river when a more favourable opportunity presented itself. He had got his ship safe back into the Narrow Seas, but he had arrived a long way short of the River Thames and the port of London, and it would mean the wasting of further delay before the Peppercorn’s rich cargo could be sold in the metropolis. But with what success this voyage concluded to the stock-holders we have already seen.