A year later a further alteration followed, which took the form of allowing a fixed yearly sum for ordinary naval expenses, a rule which remained long in force. There may also have been other reasons for some additional changes made. Clynton may not have been entirely trusted, or some suspicion, perhaps, was taking shape concerning the provident or honest conduct of the Officers. The order ran:—
‘Wheare heretofore the Quenes Maiestie hath ben sundrie tymes troubled with thoften signing of warrantes for money to be defraied about the necessarie chardges of her Highnesses navie and being desierouse to have some other order taken for the easyer conducting of this matter heareaftyr: Dyd this daie upon consultacion had with certayn of my lords of the Counsell for this purpose desyere the Lord Treasurer[493] with thadvise of the Lord Admyrall to take this matter upon hym who agreinge thareunto was content to take the chardge thereof with theis conditions ffollowinge; ffirst, he requyred to have the some of £14,000 by yere to be advaunced half yerely to Benjamyn Gonson Threasarer of Thadmyraltie to be by hym defrayed in such sort as shalbe prescribed by hym the sayed Lord Threasowrer with thadvise of the Lorde Admyrall.’
For which sum the Lord Treasurer will
‘cause such of her Maiesties shippes as may be made servicable with calkeinge and newe trymmynge to be sufficiently renewed and repaired Item to cause such of her Highnes saied shippes as must of necessitie be made of newe to be gone in hand withall and newe made with convenyent speede Item he to see also all her Highnes saied shippes furnysshed with sailles, anchors, cables, and other tackell and apparell sufficientlye Item he to cause the wagis and victuallinge of the shipp keepers and woorkmen in harborough to be paied and dischardged Item he to cause a masse of victual to be alwayes in redynes to serve for 1000 men for a moneth to be sette to the sea upon eny sodeyne Item he to cause the saied shippes from tyme to tyme to be repaired and renewed as occasion shall requiere Item whenn the saied shippes that ar to be renewed shalbe newe made and sufficientlie repaired and the hole navie furnyshed of saylles, anckers, cables, and other tackell then is the saied Lord Treasowrer content to contynue this servis in fourme aforesaied for the some of £10,000 yerely to be advaunced as is aforesaied Item the saied Benjamyn Gonson and Edward Bashe Surveyor of the Victuells of the shippes shall make theare severall accomptes of the defrayment of the saied money and of theare hole doinges herein once in the yere at the least and as often besydes as shall be thowght convenyent by my Lordes of the Counsell.’
Any surplusage was to be carried forward towards the next year’s expenses; the division of the money was, by estimation, £2000 for stores, £1000 for rigging, £6000 for harbour wages and victualling, and £5000 for the building and repair of ships.[494] By 1558 the allowance was reduced to £12,000 a year, but even the proposed minimum of £10,000 was much above anything allowed by Elizabeth during the greater part of her reign. Moreover, the large scheme of rebuilding outlined in this paper indirectly confirms the statement of the writer in the Cecil MSS.[495] in assigning numerous new, i.e. rebuilt, ships to 1558. Obviously the circumstance of the Queen being overworked was not by itself any reason why the real control should be taken from the Lord Admiral and other Officers and given to the Lord Treasurer. The fact that payment was now to be made in gross to Gonson of so many thousands a year instead of, as formerly, by warrant for each separate matter, will explain the necessity for some new check on the Navy Treasurer, but will not explain the practical supersession of the Lord Admiral. As long as Burleigh was Lord Treasurer he also remained the final authority on naval matters, practically exercising the authority of a First Lord of the Admiralty of the present day. The system of accounts now adopted endured, with some modifications, for nearly a century, and to the order which prescribed the rendering of a full statement once a year we owe the series of Audit, or Pipe Office Accounts, an invaluable source of information for naval history.
Expenditure and Establishments.
The average of wages all round had risen to 9s 4d a month ‘dead shares and rewards included;’ this, judging from the early years of the next reign, meant 6s 8d a month for the seamen. The custom of providing the men with coats and jackets was dying out. There are no references to these articles in the naval papers of the reign, but in a semi-official expedition, that of Willoughby and Chancellor in 1553, the instructions direct that the ‘liveries in apparel’ were only to be worn by the sailors on state occasions. At other times they were to be kept in the care of the supercargoes and ordinary clothes were to be sold to the crews at cost price.[496]
The one return of expenses remaining shows an extremely heavy naval expenditure.[497] Between 1st January 1557 and 31st December 1558 £157,638 was spent, of which victualling took £73,503, Deptford £22,120, Woolwich £4048, Gillingham £408, Portsmouth £7521, and wages of men at sea £43,492. Stores, such as timber, pitch, tar, cordage, etc., absorbed nearly £20,000, included under the dockyard headings. From this account it also appears that Legge when Treasurer, probably therefore in the reign of Henry VIII, had advanced £100 to two Lincolnshire men for seven years in order to assist the creation of another centre of the cordage industry. The experiment was not successful and the item is carried over formally in each successive account until dropped as a bad debt. Victualling storehouses for the government had been built or bought at Ratcliff, Rochester, Gillingham and Portsmouth; ordnance wharves at Woolwich, Portsmouth and Porchester. Portsmouth was momentarily regaining favour, and the Council recommended that ships should be laid up there because the harbour afforded better opportunity for rapid action in the Channel than did the Thames. The chief shipwright was now Peter Pett who was receiving a fee of one shilling a day from the Exchequer in addition to the ordinary payments made to him by the Admiralty.
Disease on Shipboard.
War was declared with France on 7th June 1557, but the operations of 1558 were nullified by an outbreak of disease in the fleet as severe as that of 1545. In 1557 Howard informed the Council that he could not obtain at Dover ‘in a weke so moche victulls as wold victull ii pynnesses,’ and although the complaint is a year earlier the character of the supplies and the hardships it connotes, are very likely the key to the visitation of the following summer. From the 5th to 17th August Clynton lay at St Helens with the fleet, having returned from the capture and destruction of Conquet. On the 18th he put to sea, and on the 20th was near the Channel Islands, when so sudden an outburst occurred ‘that I thinke the lieke was never syne ffor ther wer many ships that halfe the men wer throwen downe sick at once.’[498] After holding a council with his captains, which the masters of his ships also attended, he returned to Portsmouth.