There was more difficulty, so far as willingness was concerned, in manning the fleets during the war with Spain than during the Dutch war. The men feared tropical climates, and ‘are so afraid of being sent to the West Indies that they say they would as soon be hanged.’ Moreover as the years went by the Commonwealth did not pay more promptly. There is no sign, so far as their debates go, that Parliament, in improving the position of the men, had ever been moved by other than purely selfish motives, and it may have been felt that less now depended on the attitude of the Navy, or that there was less likelihood, under any provocation, of a serious outbreak. Slight ones frequently occurred and were invariably attributed, by the officers on the spot, to the non-payment of wages or prize-money, and were as invariably appeased when these claims were settled. Sometimes discontent was rather an excuse than a cause; when the crew of the Ruby refused to sail, alleging that they had no clothes and that the ship was defective, they were easily persuaded back to duty when withdrawn from the influence of their landladies, who ‘have been the greatest instruments to hinder their going on board.’ In the matter of prize money officers of high rank fared little better in dealing with the commissioners of prize goods. There are two letters on this subject addressed in August 1654 to the commissioners. The first is mild in tone; the second, signed by sixteen captains in the Downs, curtly points out that their prize money for the three last actions with the Dutch is still due and that unless it is immediately paid they will appeal to the Protector.[1303] If captains were compelled to combine and threaten we may imagine how the sailors raged vainly against official penury or inertia.[1304]
Poverty occasionally caused the prize money gained by one section of the naval force to be applied to the payment of wages due to another; in October 1655 Blake’s men were partly paid this way, and, vaguely, the deficiency thus made ‘to be supplied some other way.’ There are hints that the Admiralty Court itself was not above suspicion. Captain Kendal, of the Success, wrote, in April 1654, that sixteen months previously he had taken a Dutch ship, still uncondemned; ‘but I suppose the bribes do appear very large in the Admiralty Court,’ and, ‘I fear there hath been much corruption in the Admiralty Court.’
It is but fair, however, to the prize commissioners to notice that the difficulties of the position were not altogether due to themselves. In 1654 they wrote to the Admiralty Court stating that they had sold ships and goods to the value of £70,000, but could not keep the proceeds, because compelled to meet the sums charged upon them by the Council of State, notwithstanding the decrees of the Court ordering them to hold the money. Being uneasy about their position they desired security or indemnity.[1305] Another source of abuse was the custom by which crews were allowed to plunder a prize, on or above the gun deck, of all articles except arms, ammunition, and ship’s stores. English merchantmen recaptured from an enemy sometimes experienced more loss from the rescuer than from the original captor. The owners of the Sarah, recaptured by the Falmouth, found that while the enemy had done five pounds of damage the Englishmen had helped themselves to the value of £500, and five or six other ships were similarly treated.[1306]
The Protests.
While the majority of the men made protest against their wrongs in the useless and prejudicial form of riots, there seem to have been a thinking minority who were able to apply to their own situation the principles for which they had fought, and which had sent Charles to the block and Cromwell to Whitehall. These men drew up a petition to the Protector, which, before being forwarded, was considered, on 17th October 1654, by a council of two admirals and twenty-three commanding officers, held on board the Swiftsure in the Downs, at which it was decided that it was lawful for them to petition and that the grievances stated were real, except the one relating to foreign service.[1307] It was a sign of the times that admirals and captains should have acknowledged such a right in the ‘common sailor,’ and that they did not think themselves warranted in striking out the portion of which they disapproved; they decided that it should be ‘so far owned by us’ as to be presented to the Generals. The petition was as much a remonstrance as a prayer, and, after claiming that they had done the country good service and borne with hardship, sickness, and bad food for its sake, went on to remind the Protector that Parliament had declared its intention of enlarging the liberties of the people, ‘which we were in great hopes of.’ Their hopes have scarcely yet, so far as regards seamen, been realised, but it is expressive of the vast progress the events of a few years had caused in the political education and self-respect of a class hitherto proverbially debased and unreflecting, that constitutional declarations and logical applications of the principles their rulers suited to themselves should have begun to replace the hopeless, unhelpful turbulence of the last generation.
They seem to have objected to foreign service mainly because their families were left without support for a longer period than usual, and bitterly complained that, in accordance with a Council order of 6th Dec. 1652, they were not permitted to go on shore, nor visitors allowed to come on board, when in the Downs, and presumably other places, keeping them ‘under a degree of thraldom and bondage.’ This regulation was then new to them, but it remained in existence long enough to be one of the injustices the mutineers of 1797 desired to have redressed. The conclusion arrived at was a prayer that
they may be relieved in those grievances and may reap some fruits of all their bloodshed and hardships, and that they may not be imprested to serve, they humbly apprehending it to be inconsistent with the principles of Freedom and Liberty to force men to serve in military employments, either by sea or land; and that your petitioners may be as free as the Dutch seamen, against whom they have been such instruments in the Lord’s hands for the good of their country; but that if the Commonwealth have occasion to employ any of your petitioners they may be hired as the Dutch are, and that they, or their lawful attorney, may be paid every six months at the furthest, and that such other encouragement to their relations may be assured in case they are slain in the service as shall be agreeable to justice, etc., as their necessity calls for, and that all other liberties and privileges due to your petitioners as freemen of England may be granted and secured.
The Council of State must have felt that the world was indeed moving when English seamen called themselves freemen, demanded the rights of freemen, and no longer admitted prescription as sufficient reason for the continuance of their wrongs. The fact that there is no reference, printed or manuscript, to this petition does not, of course, prove that it was not considered and replied to, but it is certain that if any promises were made not the slightest practical result followed them. There is a paper assigned to this date which may have had an indirect connection with the affair.[1308] It is a report from the Admiralty to the Protector and Council dilating on the state of the naval administration and the difficulties with which they had to deal. Every sentence of their long narrative has reference to the want of money, and may be abstracted into the one particular that while £8000 a week was allowed to the Admiralty the victualling and stores absorbed more than this amount, leaving nothing for wages and other expenses.
Notwithstanding these embarrassments favourite captains and handy ships seem to have had no difficulty in obtaining crews. Referring to the Speaker and the Hind, an official writes: ‘Men have been on board seven or eight days in hopes of being entered, which I have refused to do, having had very much trouble to reduce them to their complement.’[1309] The Sapphire, when commanded by Heaton, was another vessel in which men were eager to serve, and to such purpose that out of 84 prizes brought into Plymouth between August 1652 and December 1655 twenty were taken by her.[1310]