Jane Austen and Her Times

by G. E. Mitton

The officers fared a little better than the men in regard to comfort, but it speaks well for young Charles Austen that he followed in his brother’s steps when he must have known by word of mouth of all the discomforts, to speak of nothing worse, which must be his lot on board ship.

For the sons of gentlemen, the first entrance into the navy was a most precarious venture, and the system, if system it can be called, so haphazard, that one marvels men should have been found to let their sons attempt it. A boy first obtained interest of some sort from an admiral or captain on board a ship, and was taken by him in any odd capacity for a voyage. He might go as “boy” or even as servant, and though nominally a midshipman, was in reality without a position or standing save what his patron allowed to him. He could not go in for an examination until he had served on board for six years, then he might do so to qualify for a lieutenancy. Once a lieutenant his position was secured, and he had authority and consequently a very different life. Captain Edward Thompson, writing in the middle of the eighteenth century to a young relative who thought of following the sea for a trade, says, “Besides, the disagreeable circumstances and situations attending a subaltern officer in the navy, are so many and so hard, that, had not the first men in the service passed the dirty road to preferment, to encourage the rest, they would renounce it to a man. It is a most mistaken notion that a youth will not be a good officer unless he stoops to the most menial offices, to be bedded worse than hogs, and to eat less delicacies. In short, from having experienced such scenes of filth and infamy, such fatigues and hardships, that are sufficient to disgust the stoutest and bravest, for alas there is only a little hope of promotion sprinkled in the cup to make a man swallow more than he digests the rest of his life.”

The wonder is that such boys as went to sea picked up enough seamanship to pass any but the most practical examination. Navigation was in those days even more difficult than at present, owing to the dependence on the wind and the necessity for understanding the exact management of sails. There were no engineers who could make the vessel go in any direction the captain thought best at a moment’s notice; and the man on the bridge had a heavy responsibility.

That matters in regard to the service were improving is evident, for the same writer quoted above continues—

“The last war, a chaw of tobacco, a ratan, and a rope of oaths were sufficient qualities to constitute a lieutenant, but now education and good manners are the study of all.”

Yet the surroundings on board ship were enough to prevent any but the most earnest and determined youth from studying; food and accommodation were alike revolting. “At once you resign a good table for no table, and a good bed for your length and breadth. Nay, it will be thought an indulgence too to let you sleep where day ne’er enters; and where fresh air only comes when forced. You must get up every four hours, and they never forget to call you, though you may forget to rise.

“Your light for day and night is a small candle which is often stuck on the side of your platter at meals for want of a better convenience. Your victuals are salt and often bad; and if you vary the mode of dressing them you must cook yourself ... in a man-of-war you have the collected filth of jails; condemned criminals have the alternative of hanging or entering on board. There is not a vice committed on shore but is practised here, the scenes of horror and infamy on board a man-of-war are so many and so great, that I think they must rather disgust a good mind than allure it.”

Smollet’s pictures of life on board are too well known to quote.

The between decks, where the men slept, had not been ventilated at all up to the middle of the eighteenth century, when a hand-pump was invented to expel the foul air, the fresh air being left to find its own way in. The noisome smells, the cramped space, the continual darkness and disorder, must have bred sickness and debility in many, which all the open-air life on deck could not counteract.

As for the food served for the men, it seems to have been loathsome. In Tracts relating to the Victualling of the Navy, we read of “sour tainted pickled meat. If such can be called food—human food—when dogs that I have offered it to have flaged their tails, ran away, and would not even smell to it;” of “rotten, musty, weevily flour,” and “as for the butter, cheese, oil, raisins, they might have been expended, the cheese into ammunition, cast into cannon balls, the raisins as wadding, the butter and oil to grease their tackle with, for which it may be thought very fit—stinking slush. It is no longer a wonder at the pursers being tormented with execrations and bitter wrath from remediless, aggrieved, and tortured men on board.”