The new date for completion, March, 1764, came in its turn, but again the Victory was not ready. Upwards of £50,000 had by now been spent on her, and the ship was four-fifths finished, her sides planked to the upper works and the decks laid. They had slackened off considerably in regard to new construction at Chatham after the war ended. The dockyard establishment had been reduced by two-thirds and overtime stopped. General repairs were the order of the day, to make good the wear-and-tear of war service at all the dockyards, and practically a third part of the whole sea-going navy fell to Chatham’s share of mending.
Another six months was then officially granted for the finishing of the Victory; but this time the Admiralty themselves, and the French incidentally, caused fresh delay. My Lords did their share by coming down to Chatham at the end of May, 1764, on a visit of inspection, walking over the Victory and leaving suggestions for alterations to be made which would take at least four additional months to carry out. The French hindered the intended progress by a display of aggressiveness towards England over the Newfoundland fisheries question, as left arranged by the recent Treaty of Paris. That trouble at the outset looked so serious that the workmen at the dockyards were drawn off all ships building and repairing in order to get part of the Ordinary, the ships in reserve, into sea-going state at once. So the Victory had her completion again put off.
In the midst of this French “disturbance”—as our ancestors of that time termed international unpleasantnesses of the kind—we may conveniently take our leave of the Victory on the stocks at Chatham, in the midst of a series of strange scenes the like of which, happily, have not often been witnessed in an English dockyard.
The Newfoundland difficulty was still unsettled, when, at the end of October, 1764, secret information of a startling nature suddenly reached the Admiralty from abroad. It was to the effect that a plot was on foot, with the connivance of the French Government, to destroy the English dockyards by incendiarism and fire the ships of war under construction. There proved to be reason to consider the news in a most serious light, and extraordinary measures of precaution were forthwith ordered at all the yards.
At Chatham, the nightly guard-boats patrolling the line of ships laid up at moorings in the Medway Ordinary, were doubled. Strict orders were issued to those in charge of the ships in Ordinary to keep their gun-room ports close shut all night, to send adrift before dark all shore boats lying astern, to hoist in all the ship’s boats, to haul up on board at night all the Jacob’s ladders over the stern used by the ship-keepers for getting on board. All fishing boats and hoys passing up and down the Medway were kept under observation. All doubtful or strange boats of any kind on the river were to be challenged and reported. Special dockyard guard-boats were told off to patrol from sunset to sunrise along the river front of the yard. All persons landing at the yard from the guardships after dark were to come alongside and disembark only at certain specified points. Strangers visiting the yard on business during the day were to be accompanied throughout their stay; no foreigner of whatever quality or rank was to be allowed to pass the gates without a written permit from the Commissioner. The yard-warders posted ashore on look-out round the walls of the yard were doubled, and marines were drafted into the yard to keep watch at night, “conformable to the strictest rules of Garrison duty.” A captain’s guard was posted at the dockyard gates, and a subaltern’s guard at the North-East Tower. A special parole with countersign was given out by the Commissioner every twenty-four hours. Constant patrols of marines were kept on the move round and about the yard all night. Armed sentries were posted on the river front, by the workshops and storehouses, the hemp and rope houses, and the timber berths. No fewer than twenty-two of these sentry-posts were appointed in and about Chatham dockyard, and each man going on duty was supplied with three rounds of ball.
To safeguard the Victory, the pride of Chatham, “the finest man-of-war ever built for the Royal Navy,” as they already spoke of her, a cocked-hatted, high-gaitered marine sentry, loaded firelock on shoulder, was kept pacing up and down with steady tramp alongside the dock where the ship lay, all the night long. His orders were to challenge all suspicious persons and loiterers, and all persons approaching the ship, twice—“Halt, who comes there!” If not answered after that, he was to fire. To prove himself on the alert, at every quarter of an hour, when the warders on the wall look-out towers struck their bells, the sentry had to call out the number of his post, passing it on to the next sentry, and echoing back the hail “All’s well!” A fresh man came on duty every two hours. To further ensure the safety of the Victory, once at least during every night a “visiting rounds” patrol, comprising an officer from the main guard and a corporal and file of marines with lantern and jingling keys, boarded the ship to explore between-decks and below for lurking evil-doers or any combustibles that might be secreted.
But Jack the Painter’s time had not yet come. Nothing in the way of incendiarism happened at Chatham, or at any of the other dockyards in 1764, and after two or three months of unrest, things resumed their normal state of tranquillity.
Nothing more happened after that to hinder or delay the completion of the Victory, and by the following March her bulkheads and magazines were fitted, the port-lids and the rudder hung, and the poop lanterns in place, and the caulkers and painters were getting through with their finishing touches.
On St. George’s day, April 23rd, 1765, the Commissioner at Chatham reported the Victory to the Admiralty as ready to be launched. The requisite order in reply, dispatched through the Navy Board, arrived on the 30th of April. It directed the launch to take place at the next spring tides These were due on the 7th of May.