The only consecutive accounts preserved for this reign are contained in two volumes kept in the Museum at Greenwich.[1058] They extend from 14th April 1637 to 23rd April 1644, and, in round figures, give the following results:—
| Owing to chest | Received | Expended | Received from land | No. of Pensioners[1059] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | £ | ||
| 1637-8 | 3768 | 1545 | 1361 | 248 | 62 |
| 1638-9 | 6215 | 1609 | 1215 | 59 | |
| 1639-40 | 5600 | 1849 | 1364 | 59 | |
| 1640-1 | 5200 | 2371 | 2019 | 35 | |
| 1641-2 | 4800 | 2761 | 2635 | 479 | 55 |
| 1642-3 | 4400 | 2108 | 1738 | 60 | |
| 1643-4[1060] | 4400 | 1238 | 958 | 61 | |
| 1644[1061] | 4400 | 845 | 483 | 321[1062] |
We do not know on what principle donations were allowed, but, besides being slow and uncertain, gratuities were frequently dispensed by favour rather than by merit. In 1637 a man hurt in 1628 received £2, and Apslyn, a shipwright, had £5, 3s 4d, being compensation for the loss of his apprentice’s services during 62 days, a sort of loss certainly never intended to be indemnified by the founders of the Chest. The majority of the men on the pension list, had £5 or £6 each, but most of the payments to injured men were of a donative character not involving any further responsibility. Medical charges relating to the dockyards were also met from the Chest, a Chatham surgeon being paid £43, 1s 4d in 1638 for attending to shipwrights injured while working on the Sovereign of the Seas. The next year has a somewhat belated entry of £3 to Wm. Adam, barber-surgeon, ‘for sundry hurts and bruises received in Queen Elizabeth’s service,’ and again we find £33, 11s 4d paid to a Woolwich medical man for care of shipwrights injured in rebuilding the Prince; in 1640 surgeons were attached to the dockyards whose salaries of £40 a year were paid from the Chest money. The compensation for a bruise ranged from £1 to £2. Sometimes widows were granted burial money and a further small sum for ‘present relief,’ but never, apparently, pensions. A normally recurring item is a gift of £4, 10s a year to the almshouse founded by Hawkyns at Chatham, and with equal regularity there is an annual outlay of some £5 for the governors’ dinners.
However open to criticism may have been the administration of the Chatham Chest at this time, it was undoubtedly in a condition of ideal purity compared with the depths of organised infamy to which it sank during the eighteenth century.
The Rainsborow Mutiny.
The reign of Charles I commenced with mutinies; it ended in 1648 with another which deserves examination, since upon it some writers have based an inference of general unfaithfulness to the Parliament, while in reality, whatever conclusions may be deduced, that, so far as the bulk of the men were concerned, is not one of them. From the days of Elizabeth, when they were accustomed to be led by captains who were seamen by vocation and sometimes by descent, often of their own class, and who understood them and their wants, the men had shown an intense dislike to the landsmen who by a change of system in later years had been placed over them, who obtained their posts mainly by rank or influence, were ignorant of maritime matters, and were associated with a succession of disasters and years of abject misery. Manwayring, writing in the reign of James I, says that volunteers usually returned knowing as little as when they sailed, since the professional seamen hated them, and gentlemen generally, and would give no instruction. Another seaman attributed the disasters of the early years of the reign to the appointment of landsmen as captains and officers.[1063] The experiences of more recent years were not likely to have lessened that feeling.
During the war, therefore, the fleet had been commanded chiefly by admirals and captains who were trained seamen of no exceptional social position, but, judging from subsequent events, there must have been a sufficient leaven of landsmen in places of trust to keep alive the old prejudices. When, therefore, Wm. Batten, an experienced officer of many years’ standing, who was vice-admiral and commanding in the Channel, and who had done good service to the state, was displaced in 1647, and his responsible charge given to Colonel Rainsborow, who began actual control in January 1648, there was doubtless some murmuring, although no evidence of it has survived. Nothing occurred during the winter, and in May 1648 there were forty-one ships in commission, of which only three were commanded by military officers; but the appointment of Rainsborow may have been regarded, as it actually proved to be, as the commencement of a return to the old system. Moreover the Navy, generally, was presbyterian in feeling, while Rainsborow was a fanatical Independent and, judging from one of the accusations brought against him, does not appear to have exercised his authority with tact or discretion. In addition to this a certain amount of ill-feeling existed between the army and the Navy, the latter not being inclined to coerce the Parliament to the extent desired by the army, and Batten, in the ‘Declaration’ which explained his reasons for desertion, dwelt on the efforts of the army leaders ‘to flood the ships with soldiers.’ If the accusation was true, it would be a certain way, in the state of feeling between the two services, to give fresh life to the latent antagonism existing. We have no details of the workings of discontent which led up to action any more than we have of the secret cabals which preceded the Spithead mutiny of 1797, but in each case the outbreak was equally sudden. Towards the end of May the crews in the Downs put Rainsborow ashore, giving as their reasons:—
1st. The parliament of late grant commissions to the sea commanders in their own names, leaving out the King. 2nd. Several land-men made sea commanders. 3rd. The insufferable pride, ignorance, and insolency of Col. Rainsborow, the late vice-admiral, alienated the hearts of the seamen.[1064]
Rainsborow had made his mark as a soldier, but he was not a stranger to the sea, for he had commanded a man-of-war in 1643. It is noticeable that no complaints are made about their treatment by the government, about their pay or victuals, and succeeding events showed how little the great majority of the fleet were in sympathy with the grandiloquent threats of the ringleaders on the King’s behalf. Warwick was at once sent to resume the command of the fleet and adjust the differences existing. Whitelocke says that the men ‘sent for the Earl of Warwick’ and that ‘the Derby House Committee, to follow the humour of the revolters,’ directed Warwick to go, so that at this stage it is evident that having rid themselves of Rainsborow, they looked to Warwick rather than to Charles. We do not know what measures the earl took, but, in the last days of June, the crews of nine ships,[1065] perhaps terrified at finding they received such slight support from the others and fearing punishment, possibly also influenced by Batten, went over with him to the Prince of Wales in Holland. That so long an interval elapsed between the commencement of the revolt and their desertion shows how little the latter was at first contemplated.
It has been recently said: ‘While the army was so formidable the navy scarcely existed. The sailors generally were for the King. Many had revolted and carried their ships across to Charles II in Holland, while in the crews that remained disaffection prevailed dangerously.’ It would be difficult to mass more inaccuracies in so many words. There were forty-one fighting-ships actually at sea, a larger number than had been collected since the days of Elizabeth, and immeasurably superior as a fighting machine to anything which had existed since 1588. The ‘many’ which had revolted were nine, and of these three were small pinnaces of an aggregate of 210 tons and 180 men; of the others, one was a second and the rest third and fourth-rates. If ‘disaffection prevailed dangerously,’ it is strange that not only did none of the remaining ships join the revolters, but they were known to be ready to fight them, and Batten on one occasion avoided an action on account of ‘the very notable resistance’ to be expected.[1066] Instead of being disaffected, Warwick found that on board his own ship they prepared for fighting ‘with the greatest alacrity that ever I saw ... which, as the captains informed me, was likewise the general temper of the rest of the fleet.’ Finally the sailors in the Downs, who ‘generally were for the King’ and were actuated by ‘inherent loyalty,’ concurred in December in the Army Remonstrance, requiring that Charles I, ‘the capital and grand author of our troubles,’ should be brought to justice for the ‘treason, blood, and mischief’ he had caused. The after story of the revolted ships is just as instructive on the point of their disaffection to the Parliament. No sooner had they reached Holland than the men commenced to desert. By November five vessels had been brought back to England, and the ill-will manifested on the others was so pronounced that it was necessary to place strong bodies of cavaliers on board to keep the seamen in subjection.[1067]