Improvements and Inventions.
Many improvements however were introduced. A method of striking topmasts, ‘a wonderful ease to great ships,’ and a system of sheathing by double planks, having a layer of tar and hair between them, were two of the most important. Both were due to Hawkyns, and the sheathing process remained in use for more than a century after his death. The finest Elizabethan men-of-war, the fastest sailers and best seaboats then afloat were built from his plans; and from the time of his appointment as Treasurer of the Navy dates the change to the relatively low and long type that made the English ships so much more handy than their Spanish antagonists. On Ralegh’s testimony the chain pump, the use of the capstan for weighing the anchor, bonnets and drablers, sprit, studding, top, and top-gallant sails were all new.[591] Ralegh is usually accepted as an authority, but some of these statements are surprisingly inaccurate, considering that he was a shipowner, and had himself been to sea. The bonnet, which laced on to the foot of the ordinary sail, was in use at least as early as the fourteenth century: the drabler laced on to the bonnet, and if the name was new the thing itself was doubtless old. Top, top-gallant, and sprit sails, can be traced back to the close of the preceding century, and there is no reference to studding sails in the inventories. In view also of the ‘main,’ ‘forecastle,’ and ‘lift’ capstans found on a ship like the Sovereign in 1496 it seems incredible that they should not have been earlier applied to weighing the anchor.
The chain pump was brought into use by Hawkyns; a patent log was invented by Humphrey Cole but it does not appear to have superseded the ordinary log line. The lower ports were now some four feet above the water line, and there was a tendency to decrease the deck superstructures. Ralegh is emphatic in his disapproval of deck cabins: ‘they are but sluttish dens that breed sickness in peace, serving to cover stealths, and in fight are dangerous to tear men with their splinters.’ Nevertheless others thought differently, and in view of the large crew of a man-of-war and crowded narrow quarters some deck accommodation was perhaps absolutely essential. Both poop and forecastle were barricaded and the bulkheads pierced for arrow and musketry fire. In ships ‘built loftie’ there was a second, and perhaps even a third tier over the poop and forecastle of similarly defended cabins. The waist was partly open on the upper deck, while on the lower deck were again loop-holed bulkheads running transversely, so that if a ship were boarded her assailants found themselves exposed to a galling cross-fire from the defenders.
Gravel ballast only was used and for such crank vessels a large quantity was necessary. It was seldom changed and becoming soaked with bilgewater, drainings from beer casks, and the general waste of a ship, was a source of injury to the vessel and of danger to the health of the men. The ‘cook-room,’ a solid structure of bricks and mortar, was built in the hold on this ballast, and in that position, besides making the ship hot and spoiling the stores, was a frequent cause of fire. Moreover ballast and cook-room being practically immovable nothing could be known of the condition of the timber and ironwork below. Sir William Wynter advocated, in 1578, the use of stone ballast and the removal of the cooking galley to the forecastle, but neither proposal was generally adopted.[592] In the squadron commanded by Hawkyns and Frobisher in 1590 the Mary Rose, however, Hawkyns’ flagship, had her cook-room especially removed from the hold to the forecastle, ‘as well for the better stowinge of her victualles as also for better preserving her whole companie in health during that voyadge beinge bounde to the southwardes.’ We may therefore take it that the opinion of Hawkyns coincided with that of Wynter on this point. But the alteration in the Mary Rose was an isolated occurrence, and even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century the galley was still sometimes in the hold. The large amount of space occupied by the ballast, cables, ammunition, and other necessaries left but little room for other things, and a ship had only provisions on board for three or four weeks, although theoretically she was expected to carry more. The presence of a fleet of transports was therefore necessary with all naval expeditions.
The attention given to maritime matters bore fruit in other inventions, many of them far in advance of their time. Centre board boats, paddlewheels, a diving dress, and fireships, were all recommended and perhaps used.[593] Gawen Smith proposed to erect a beacon and refuge, capable of holding twenty or thirty persons, on the Goodwin sands such as was actually tried, unsuccessfully, in the first half of this century.[594]
Cost and Construction of Ships.
There is no detailed statement of the whole cost of a ship complete. Most were built by contract, and payment to the master shipwright responsible appears to be only for the hull, masts and spars. For an early vessel, probably the Triumph, there is a fuller account[595] and here the total is £3788, of which the timber cost £1200, spars and ironwork £700, and wages £1888; this does not include sails, fittings, etc. Building by contract seems to have commenced with the accession to office of Hawkyns in 1578. The Lion was rebuilt in this manner in 1582 for £1440, the Nonpareil for £1600, the Hope ‘brought into the fourme of a galease’ £250,[596] and the Cygnet, and Greyhound built for £93, 18s 1d and £66, 13s 4d each.[597] The Victory was ‘altered into the forme of a galleon’ for £500, and the Vanguard and Rainbow built for £2600, apiece.[598] The Merhonour, Garland, and Defiance, cost £5, 2s, £5, 19s 5d, and £6, 7s 4d a ton,[599] and the price was based on the net tonnage. These rates do not however correspond with the amounts in the naval accounts which are £3600 for the Merhonour, £3200 for the Garland, and £3000 for the Defiance.
The earliest details we have of construction are in connection with these three vessels. A committee consisting of Howard, Drake, Hawkyns, Wynter, Borough, Ed. Fenton, Rich. Chapman, and Mathew and Christopher Baker, settled the plans.[600] The three were very similar, and it was decided that the one to be built by Peter Pett (the Defiance) should have a keel length of 92 feet, a beam of 32 feet, and be 15 feet deep ‘under the beame of the maine overloppe.’ Eight feet above the keel ten beams were to be placed on which ‘to lay a false overloppe so far as neede shall require,’ and under the ten beams ten riders were to be set; the riders at the footwales were to have two ‘sleepers on every side fore and afte,’ and pillars to be sufficiently bolted to them. The pillars supporting the lower deck had been newly adopted,[601] and as riders were put into the White Bear twenty years after she was built they also were possibly a recent improvement. The main, or lower deck, of the Defiance was to have twelve beams, with side knees and standards, every knee having four bolts and the deck itself was of three-inch plank. The upper deck was of two-and-a-half inch plank, but three inches in the waist; on this deck were the poop and forecastle. From the keel to the second wale four-inch plank was to be used, thence to the ‘quickside or waist,’ three-inch, and above that two-inch ‘rabbated to the railles to be inbowed to goe to the shippes side,’ On the orlop deck there were to be cabins for the boatswain, surgeon, gunner, and carpenter; the ship’s company were berthed on the main deck.
The Merhonour, and Garland, differed only in details, therefore these vessels, one of which was the third largest in the Royal Navy, were not even two-deckers in the modern sense. Three-deckers were unknown in the English service and, beyond the existence of a print, diagrammatic in character, in the British Museum, which is said, on insufficient authority, to represent the Ark Royal, there is no ground for supposing that two-deckers were in use. The Warspite, of 648 tons, had possibly only one ordnance deck but certainly not more than one-and-a-half; ‘having an overloppe and deck before and after, and a half deck abaft the main mast.’[602] She was ‘planked between the two lower walles and from the lower walle down to the keele with four-inch plank, and from the second walle upwards to the cheyne walle with three-inch plank, and from the cheyne walles to the railes upwards on the waste with two-inch plank.’ The Warspite was one of the few shipbuilding failures of the reign. In 1598, although a nearly new ship, she cost £712 for repairs and further sums were spent on her in the succeeding years.
The illustration of an Elizabethan man-of-war, reproduced from a drawing in a Bodleian MS., shows some marked differences from the Tiger of Henry VIII. She is probably a vessel of the earlier portion of the reign; perhaps the Bull or Tiger of 1570. So far as the hull is concerned, there is distinct retrogression in that the keel is relatively shorter to the extreme length, and that the poop is built up to a disproportionate and unseaworthy extent. This last may be explained by the fact that the earlier Tiger was not expected to be called upon to serve outside the four seas, while the later ship had a wider cruising scope. The extended field of service called for larger crews, and as the orlop deck was not introduced till late in the reign, the increased accommodation necessary was obtained by the provision of more deck structures. In the matter of heavier masts and spars, possibly finer under water lines, larger sail area, and the multiplication of appliances for more rapid handling, there was an undoubted advance on the earlier ship.