Seamen’s Clothing.
It will have been noticed that in his letter of 10th August Howard says that the men have no money wherewith to buy clothes; in another he suggests that a thousand marks’ worth of apparel should be sent down. But the custom of providing crews with coats or jackets at the expense of the crown had quite ceased, and even if necessaries were supplied to the men they had to pay for them. The supply was usually a private speculation on the part of some Admiralty official. In 1586 Roger Langford, afterwards paymaster of the Navy furnished men with canvas caps, shirts, shoes, etc., a piece of business by which he lost £140. In 1580 the government sent over clothes for the men on the Irish station, the cost of which was to be deducted from their wages. The articles included, ‘canvas for breches and dublettes’—‘coutten for lyninges, and petticoates,’ stockings, caps, shoes, and shirts.[638] Hawkyns with the forethought always characterising his action as an admiral, took out with him in 1595 ‘calico for 200 suits of apparel,’ 400 shirts, woollen and worsted hose, linen breeches and Monmouth caps.[639] There is a sketch in a contemporary treatise on navigation of a seaman, apparently an officer. He wears a Monmouth, or small Tam o’ Shanter, cap, a small ruff round the neck, a close-fitting vest, and long bell-mouthed trousers.[640] In 1602 there is a payment in the Navy accounts of £54, 19s 8d for clothing for Spanish prisoners. Canvas shirts, cotton waistcoats, caps, hose, and ‘rugge’ for gowns were provided and the articles were doubtless of the same kind and quality as those worn by the men.
Royal Ships Lent.
During the earlier years of her reign the Queen, like her predecessors, frequently allowed her ships to be hired for trading voyages. In 1561 the Minion, Primrose, Brigandine and Fleur de Lys, were delivered to Sir William Chester and others for a voyage to Africa. In this case Elizabeth shared the risk. For her ships, and for provisions to the value of £500, she was to receive one-third of the profits. The hirers undertook to ship at least £5000 of goods, pay wages and all other expenses, and each enter into a bond of 1000 marks to carry out the conditions.[641] In 1563 the Jesus of Lubeck was lent to Dudley and others, to trade to Guinea and the West Indies, for which they paid £500.[642] She was then, after having been in the Royal Navy nearly twenty years, valued at £2000 for which amounts the hirers had to give their bonds. She returned in 1565, was at Padstow in October, and ‘cannot be brought to Gillingham till spring of next year.’ The adventurers could not have procured a 600 ton vessel, for two years, for £500 from any owner but the State. And as she had to remain at Padstow during the whole winter it may be inferred that she returned in a very unseaworthy condition, for Elizabethan seamanship was certainly equal to taking a ship up Channel during the winter months. She was hired by Hawkyns in 1568 and was then the first of the only two men-of-war lost to Spain during the entire reign. When a convoy was furnished a full charge was levied for the protection; £558 was received in 1569 from the Merchant Adventurers’ Company for men-of-war serving on this duty, and again £586 in 1570.[643] As private owners built more and bigger ships the demand for men-of-war for trading voyages grew less, but the Queen often lent them for privateering ventures in which she was pecuniarily interested, assessing their estimated value as a portion of the money advanced by her and on which she would receive a dividend. Under these circumstances her representatives did not err on the side of moderation when valuing the ships thus temporarily lent. When Drake took the Bonaventure and the Aid in 1585 they were appraised at £10,000, an obviously extravagant estimate. Nominally Elizabeth advanced £20,000, of which these two ships stood for half; she got her ships back, £2000 for the use of them, and the same dividend on £20,000 as the other persons who had taken shares. Those others lost five shillings in the pound; she must have made a profit.
The Victualling Department.
In consequence of the greater activity of the Royal Navy the victualling department experienced a corresponding enlargement. In 1560 the buildings at Tower Hill, formerly the Abbey of Grace, and granted in 1542 to Sir Arthur Darcy, were purchased from him for £1200, and £700 expended in repairing them.[644] Other storehouses were hired at Ratcliff and St Katherines, the latter from Anthony Anthony, Surveyor of the Ordnance, who seems to have taken great interest in naval matters, and to whom we are indebted for the coloured drawings of ships previously referred to. For his storehouse he was paid £16 a year; another at Rochester cost £5, 6s 8d a year. By a patent of 24th December 1560, William Holstock was joined with Baeshe as Surveyor of the Victuals; this was surrendered and replaced by another of 30th October, 1563 in which John Elliott took Holstock’s place. Neither Holstock nor Elliott had any actual position, the new patents only giving them the chance of succeeding Baeshe. An agreement with him of 13th April 1565, but which did not cancel the title and fees granted to him by his Letters Patent, instituted a considerable reform inasmuch as it did away with purveyance, or forced purchase, at rates fixed by the officers of the crown. Henceforth Baeshe was to be paid fourpence halfpenny a day for each man in harbour and fivepence a day at sea. For this he was to provide, per head, on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1 lb of biscuit and 1 gallon of beer, and 2 lbs of salt beef, and on the other three days, besides the biscuit and beer, a quarter of a stockfish,[645] one-eighth of a pound of butter, and one quarter of a pound of cheese. Fourpence a man per month at sea, and eightpence in harbour he was to allow for purser’s necessaries, such as wood, candles, etc., and he was to pay the rent of all hired storehouses and the wages of his clerks. He undertook not to use the right of purveyance unless ordered to victual more than 2000 men suddenly, and agreed to always keep in hand one months provisions for 1000 men. The agreement could be terminated by six months’ notice on either side, and until it ceased the crown advanced him £500 without interest to be repaid within six months of the cessation of his contract. He was given the use of all the crown buildings belonging to his department, subject to his keeping them in repair, and was permitted to export 1000 hides in peace time and as many as he should slaughter oxen during war.[646] The weight of purveyance was felt chiefly in the home counties, and Elizabeth may have felt it good policy to do away with a ceaseless source of popular irritation which was really of very little advantage to the crown. From this date payments were made to Baeshe direct from the Exchequer and no longer through the Navy Treasurer. Isolated payments relating to storehouses, of no general interest, recur in the accounts, but the growing importance of Chatham is shown by the removal, in 1570, of buildings at Dover, and their re-erection at Rochester, at a cost of £300.
In 1569 an additional £1000 was advanced to Baeshe without interest, and in 1573, the harbour rate was raised to fivepence halfpenny per man, and the sea rate to sixpence. All this assistance, for probably further sums were lent to him without interest, does not seem to have enabled him to carry on his work without loss. In 1576 he petitioned the Queen to be forgiven the first £500 advanced to him and to be permitted to pay off the balance at £1000 a year. He based his claim to consideration on the fact that he had saved her 1000 marks a year by his contract and had acted without recourse to purveyance, ‘no small benefit to the hole realme.’ He had lost £500 a year, for four years, by the embargo on trade with the Low Countries, which prevented his exportation of hides, and £ 240 by the fire at Portsmouth. And:—
‘finally what my service hath bin from tyme to tyme as well to her most noble ffather, brother, and sister, as to her Maiestie I do referre the same to the report of my Lord Tresorer and my Lord Admirall and yet hitherto I never receyved from her Maiestie any reward for service but only her Maiesties gracious good countenance to my comfort.’[647]
The petition does not appear to have obtained anything beyond a continuance of these unsubstantial favours, but Baeshe struggled on till 6th May 1586 when he gave six months’ notice to determine his contract. He then anticipated a loss of £534 on victualling eight or ten ships, ‘which I am not able to beare.’[648] He must have been a very old man and anxiety perhaps hastened his death, which occurred in April 1587. In the interval, however, the rate had been raised, from 1st November 1586 to 31st March 1587 to sixpence a day per man in harbour, and sixpence halfpenny at sea, and from 1st April 1587 to 31st October to sixpence halfpenny in harbour and sevenpence at sea, ‘on account of the great dearth.’ The Armada was already expected, but on 30th June 1587, when the stores were handed over to Baeshe’s successor there were only 6020 pieces[649] of beef, and 2300 stockfish in hand.
By Letters Patent of 27th November 1582 James Quarles ‘one of the officers of our household’[650] had been granted survivorship to Baeshe, and he now took his place from 1st July 1587, at the same fees and allowances as had been originally given by the patent of 18th June 1550. The rate was maintained at sixpence halfpenny and sevenpence ‘untill it shall please Almightie God to send such plentie as the heigh prises and rates of victuall shalbe diminished’. The quantity and quality of the food provided for the men in 1588 has long been a source of disgrace to Elizabeth and her ministers. An apology for them has been attempted on the ground that the mechanism at work was new and not capable of dealing with large numbers of men, and that the failure was mainly due to the suddenness of the demand. So far as the first statement is concerned it is sufficient to answer that the victualling branch had been organised for nearly forty years, and found no difficulty in arranging for 13,000 men in 1596, and 9200 men in 1597 after timely notice. The last reason may excuse the victualling department but will not relieve the statesman in responsible direction. The government had had long notice of the coming of the Armada, but even as late as March Burghley was occupied with niggling attempts at making 26 days’ victuals last for 28 days.[651] In 1565 Baeshe had undertaken to keep always one month’s victuals for 1000 men in store, but in June 1587 there was not even so much. The point therefore is that if the ministry had thus early recognised the necessity for a reserve, and that two or three months were requisite for the collection and preparation of provisions for a large force, and if with the knowledge that such provisions were certain to be required, and in spite of the warnings of those best able to judge, they neglected the preparations and continued a supply which was merely from hand to mouth, they must be held guilty of the sufferings inflicted on the men by their miserable policy. When the moment of trial came Quarles and his superiors did their best, but the accusation against the latter is that had they exercised the foresight supposed to be one of the qualifications for their dignified posts no such sudden and almost ineffective efforts would have been necessary. The spirit in which they or the Queen dealt with the matter is shown by the necessity Howard was under of paying out of his own pocket for the extra comforts obtained for the dying seamen at Plymouth.[652]