In 1641 Northumberland, as Lord Admiral, took the business in hand, and issued stringent regulations which forbade the sailor to purchase more than fifty shillings’ worth of clothing a year, at fixed prices, and reduced the commission to sixpence in the pound, which was to be paid to the purser by the vendor.[1221] When, as rarely happened, a purser was honest, he seems to have been assaulted and persecuted by his captain, and his position on board rendered unbearable. Perhaps the key to the situation is to be found in their petition of 1639, when many of the pursers asked for increased pay, saying, ‘We know not how to subsist in our places without the continuance of what has ever been tolerated, or else the grant of a competent salary.’[1222] Corroborating this plea we have Holland’s opinion that wages were too low, ‘most of them being for want thereof necessitated ... either to live knaves or die beggars, and sometimes both.’ It was however a sign of the times that when in 1640, Thomas Smith, Northumberland’s secretary, took £40 for an appointment, he found himself exposed to the taunts of his equals and had to defend himself by asserting that he never bargained, but ‘what men voluntarily give me my conscience assures me that I may take as mere gratuities.’ It was still no crime but was reaching the stage which precedes legal condemnation. There is no trace of the sale of places during the Commonwealth, but the custom was reintroduced with the other fashions of the Restoration.
Captains.
Neither in their sense of honour nor in the extent of their professional knowledge did the Navy captains of this generation favourably impress their superiors. In August 1630 Mervyn, who was commanding in the Channel, wrote to Nicholas that he had captains who knew neither how to command nor how to obey; and a month later he requested that John Mennes should be given a ship, so that he might at least have one captain who had ‘passed his a b c.’ Men of such calibre usually owed their position to, and obtained other advantages from, court influence and family connections. Of one man who received £3000 as his 3 per cent. commission on carrying treasure to Dunkirk we read, ‘You may see what a brother or friend in the bedchamber doth.’ Another captain, his men said, was ‘fearful in oaths,’ plundered merchantmen, and threatened to kill any one who complained of him; his crew refused to sail, because ‘for his blasphemous swearing they feared the ship would sink under them.’ Others were questioned for beating officers and men, but in no case does any punishment appear to have followed. Another form of fraud which came into existence now, and lasted till the present century, was the forging and uttering of seamen’s tickets. The tickets were practically promises to pay wages due, and in the state of the royal treasury were only saleable at a heavy discount. Not only did the captains and pursers forge tickets in the names of men who had never existed, but civilians carried on a brisk trade in such articles, and, when Crowe was Navy Treasurer, they were ‘such good merchandise that a penniless wag made out a ticket for Ball, a dog ... and sold it with a letter of attorney to a man who lodged seamen.’[1223]
Changes during the Civil War.
When the civil war commenced most of the non-combatant servants of the Admiralty remained, like the officers and men, in the service of the Parliament, which took control by means of committees, whose members were constantly being changed. Subordinate to the Parliamentary Navy Committee was a board called the Commissioners of Navy and Customs, whose work was chiefly financial; and the functions of the Principal Officers, except the Treasurer’s, were performed by another body known as the Commissioners of the Navy. The Earl of Warwick was the parliamentary Lord Admiral, appointed in July 1642, in place of Northumberland; he resigned in April 1645, to be again appointed on 29th May 1648, when the news of the Rainsborow outbreak was received. The Navy Commissioners, during the earlier years of the war, were captains R. Cranley, John Norris, Roger Tweedy, Wm. Batten, and Phineas Pett. Batten is still styled Surveyor, but the old division of work was broken up, and the official papers do not show that a Commissioner was continuously confined to particular duties. In 1645 Batten was sent on active service, and, in 1646, Thomas Smith, probably Northumberland’s ex-secretary, and Peter Pett, were added to the other Commissioners. The two Petts were the Phineas Pett who built the Sovereign of the Seas and Peter Pett his nephew.
In one matter the Parliament found itself better off than the previous administration, for the question of timber had for years been a difficulty, the royal forests having deteriorated from various causes. Now, in spite of increased requirements, it was obtained more easily by the process of seizing the timber on delinquents’ estates. In 1632 a report was made on the condition of the forests, when that of Dean was said to be ‘wasted and ruined,’ the New Forest was ‘so decayed’ that there were not 2000 serviceable trees in it; there were not more in Waltham Forest and hardly 400 in East Bere.[1224] Much of this wreck was due to lavish grants made by James and Charles to private individuals; a further cause was the open theft which went on, sufficient wood to build ships being sometimes taken away without any attempt at concealment. Still, in 1633, there were 166,000 trees left in the Forest of Dean of an average value of twenty shillings a tree.[1225]
Ordnance Powder and Shot.
John Browne, who held the appointment of ‘King’s gunfounder’ under James I, continued in that office during the whole of this reign. The price of ordnance in 1625 was from £13 to £14 a ton, and did not afterwards materially vary. Many complaints were made about the excessive solidity and weight of naval guns, which caused much of the straining and rolling at sea, and they were so unnecessarily strong that when sold abroad the new owners rebored them for larger shot. In 1626 Browne was granted a reward of £200 for casting lighter guns which had withstood a double proof; but, notwithstanding this encouragement, he, like every one else dealing with the crown, suffered in his purse. By June 1628 upwards of £11,000 was due to him; and Evelyn, the powder contractor, had £2400 owing to him, and had refused to furnish anything more for three months past. Coke thereupon suggested to Buckingham that Evelyn should be compelled to resume his supplies, ‘but till the ceasing of Parliament holds it best not to urge him too much,’ which throws an interesting side light on general history.[1226] Notwithstanding these straits, and the requirements of his fleets, Charles did not neglect his glorious heritage in the crown jewels which were pawned to the Dutch, and Burlamacchi was directed to sell 4000 tons of ordnance abroad and redeem the treasures. As an appropriate part of the transaction Browne found himself obliged to export in Dutch vessels, as they were provided with convoy.
In 1632 there were in store 81 brass and 147 iron pieces, presumably the reserve behind those in the ships and forts, and 207,000 round and 3000 cross-bar shot.[1227] Stone shot are no longer mentioned. The allowance for a second-rate was three lasts of powder, six cwt. of match, 970 round, 100 cross-bar, 70 double cross-bar shot, and 2000 rounds for small arms.[1228] The musket trade had been gained from us by Holland since the preceding reign, and now Sweden was underselling English founders of big guns; in 1634 Browne, in petitioning the King for payment, said that he had paid £1200 for a license to export ordnance, but that the Swedes were now selling at half-price. This Swedish manufacture was really worked by Dutch capitalists, and within twenty years the price of English ordnance in the Low Countries had fallen from £36 to £14 a ton. For the proper equipment of the fleet, exclusive of castles and forts, 96 lasts of powder were required in 1635, but in that year only 94 were in store for all purposes; between 1628 and 1635 there had been no powder in Southsea Castle, and doubtless many less important positions were equally ill-furnished. Perhaps the crown could not supply the forts, because too busy in private trade, the sale of gunpowder to merchants and others being a royal monopoly. A handsome profit was made on it, the cost being 7½d per lb. and the selling price 1s 6d. In 1637 the year’s gains on this article came to £14,786.[1229]
The Ordnance Office still retained that evil pre-eminence in sloth and incapacity it had already earned and has never since lost, and its situation in 1638 was that of