Two regiments of marine infantry had been formed so early as 1689, but they were disbanded nine years later. It was not until 1703 that the marines, all infantry, became a permanent branch of the service.
Uniforms had not even been thought of at this time, and the Roebuck's officers, from her commander downwards, ate and drank and clothed themselves in much the same fashion as their men. Dampier probably had a room right aft under the long poop, and the other officers at the same end of the ship in canvas-partitioned cabins, the fore part of her one living deck being occupied by the crew. There was probably a mess-room under the poop common to all the officers. What they had to eat and drink, as we have said, was the same for all ranks. Here is a scale of provisions for eighty-five men of a sixth-rate of 1688 for two months, taken from Charnock:—
| Tons | cwts. | qrs. | lbs. | ||
| Beer | (each man a wine gallon per day) | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Bread | ( " 1 lb. per day) | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Beef | ( " 4 " week) | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Pork | ( " 2 " " ) | 0 | 12 | 0 | 16 |
| Pease | ( " 2 pints per week) | 0 | 12 | 0 | 16 |
| Oatmeal | ( " 3 " " )[A] | 0 | 13 | 2 | 18 |
| Butter | ( " 6 oz. per week) | 0 | 2 | 3 | |
| Cheese | ( " 12 " " ) | 0 | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| Water | (in iron-bound casks) | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
[A] In lieu of three eighths of a fish.
In 1690 flour and raisins were added, and an effort made to condense water. Beer took the place of all forms of drink, and water was at that time carried in casks.
The dress, from contemporary prints, can be easily made out, and the allusions of Pepys and Evelyn supply the names and materials of the garments. Pepys' diary and letters inform us how the pursers of the time supplied the men with slops, and in The British Fleet considerable detail on this subject is given. Roughly it may be assumed that Dampier's sailors wore petticoats and breeches, grey kersey jackets, woollen stockings and low-heeled shoes, and worsted, canvas, or leather caps. Canvas, leather, and coarse cloth were the principal materials, and tin buttons and coloured thread the most ornamental part, of the costume. Charnock says that in 1663 "sailors began first to wear distinctive dress. A rule was that only red caps, yarn and Irish stockings, blue shirts, white shirts, cotton waistcoats, cotton drawers, neat leather flat-heeled shoes, blue neckcloths, canvas suits, and rugs were to be sold to them. Red breeches were worn."
Smollett's pictures of the service in Roderick Random, written forty years after Dampier's
time, give us some idea of life on board ship, for in the forty years between the two dates it differed in no essential particulars. Pepys describes a sailor who had lost his eye in action having the socket plugged with oakum, a fact which tells more than could a volume of how seamen were then cared for. It was the days of the press and of the advance-note system, which prevailed well into the present century, and those seamen who went with Dampier of their own free will on a voyage where nothing but the poorest pay and no prize money was to be got were probably the lowest and most ill-disciplined rascals, drawn from a class upon whose characters, save for their bulldog courage and reckless prodigality, the least written the better.
