There were many English sailors among the privateer crews, and the local knowledge of these men was invaluable in enabling the ships to lie off the mouths of the harbours or to chase close inshore. Duties of two and five shillings a chaldron were levied, from February 1628, on all coal laden at Newcastle or Sunderland, destined respectively for English or foreign ports, to pay for a guard on the eastern coast, which was an audacious mode of taxing a particular industry for general protection, seeing that the tunnage and poundage was especially allotted to naval purposes. The money thus obtained was probably not applied to naval preparation at all, or, if it were it had small result, since, exactly a year afterwards, the London fishmongers protested that nothing could pass between Yarmouth and the river, and that the city would soon be deprived of fish. Coincidently with this the Yarmouth people stated that they were accustomed to send 300 fishing boats to sea, but that the Dunkirkers were so numerous that they could not go out.[1177] Even when the first ship-money fleet was cruising in 1635, coasters and Dover packet boats were stopped and pillaged while the royal fleet was riding in the Downs. Again, in September 1636, while Northumberland’s vessels were mostly in the North Sea forcing the Dutch fishermen to take licences, the shipowners of the western ports petitioned that the Channel was so full of Turks that they dared not send anything to sea, that seamen refused to sail or fishermen to fish.[1178]
Then in 1637 there is a sudden change. In July Nicholas was told, ‘The coast has been free all this summer, and is from all Turks and pirates,’[1179] the explanation being that, in March, Rainsborow had sailed on the too long deferred punitive expedition and was still before Sallee. About this time a Protestant clergyman, who was four years a captive at Algiers, wrote, ‘During my abode there ... their armadoes kept an account of 1700 sail of Christian ships they had taken. The Lord stir up the hearts of Christian princes to root out that nest of pirates.’[1180] One Christian prince had at last been moved to an elementary sense of duty, and the expedition of 1637, whereby 300 or 400 Englishmen were rescued from hopeless slavery, was, in design and execution, the solitary success of Charles’s naval administration.[1181] But its effect was only temporary, and the last notice in 1640, before the Parliament took matters in hand, is a letter from the Mayor of Exeter to the Council, stating that sixty sail of Turks were on the coast, and that they had landed near Penzance and carried off men, women, and children.[1182]
CHARLES I
1625-1649
PART III—THE ADMINISTRATION
The Commissioners.
The system, inaugurated in 1618, of governing the Navy by Commissioners, acting under the Lord Admiral, remained in force until February 1628, when the four Principal Officers resumed control under Buckingham. Although the Commissioners’ direction was of course, both in ability and honesty, immeasurably superior to that of Mansell, they cannot be said to have risen to any great excellence of administration. In October 1627 Charles, in writing to the Duke, apologised for the slowness with which supplies were furnished, ‘the cause whereof is ... the slow proceedings of the Commissioners of the Navy (which all Commissions are liable to).’[1183] If King and minister were both of this opinion, it would account for the supersession which so soon followed. After Buckingham’s murder the post of Lord Admiral was put into commission, and the new Lords of the Admiralty[1184] were even more reliant on the capacity of the Principal Officers than had been their predecessors; but they appear to have been also suspicious and distrustful of them.
Buckingham.
Of Buckingham it may be said that, had he possessed less power, he would have made a better chief. In the ten years he held office[1185] he practically doubled the effective of the Navy, for the Commissioners could have done little without his aid. So far as the emptiness of the treasury would allow he enlarged and repaired docks and storehouses, and, if he did not discover, he was one of the first to appreciate the true naval importance of Portsmouth. He provided for the home manufacture of cordage by inducing Dutchmen to settle here and teach Englishmen their art; and he increased in number, and made permanent, the ropehouses attached to English dockyards. He reintroduced lieutenants and corporals on board ship, and was the first administrator who began systematic naval and gunnery instruction in the service. It is difficult to apportion the credit for the reforms which followed 1618 between the Commissioners and Buckingham. Nicholas[1186] gives it to Buckingham; but Nicholas was his private secretary, and we know that the Duke had no grasp of detail. On the other hand he wrote in praise of Buckingham after the Duke’s death, when he had nothing more to hope from him, and it is certain that the Commissioners could not have stood for twenty-four hours against the vested interests they attacked without Buckingham’s consistent support. Unfortunately for his memory he must be judged, not as head of the Navy, but as the all-powerful minister, and in that sense history has pronounced its verdict.
The Principal Officers.
Since 1618 the duties of the Treasurer of the Navy had become, and remained in the future, almost entirely financial. His salary was increased, from 1630, by the grant of the poundage of threepence on all payments made by him, including wages, instead of, as before, only on those to merchants supplying stores; as well as a house at Deptford and other advantages, and in 1634 his fixed fee was raised from £270, 13s 4d to £645, 13s 4d.[1187] He even received the poundage on the salaries of the other three Officers, and they were continually petitioning for an advance in their rate of pay, which had remained unaltered since their posts were created by Henry VIII. It is suggestive to find that, among their reasons for the requested increase, they mention that before the reforms of 1618 they had an allowance of £60 a year from the Treasurer and Victualler for passing their accounts;[1188] and the Surveyor and Comptroller estimated the total annual value of their perquisites before that date at £384 and £430 respectively. This included the allowance from the Treasurer and Victualler, commissions given by officers on appointment, and dividends divided among them from the sale of old stores.[1189]