In the very commencement of James’s reign the far-sighted Sir Walter Ralegh discerned the dangerous condition of a sea-girt country devoid of its proper defences; he perceived how ruinous this system of curtailment of what was essential, accompanied by the most lavish excesses in many things of trivial import, must prove; and he placed before his sovereign a manuscript essay, entitled, “Observations concerning the trade and commerce of England with the Dutch and other nations.” The design of this work was to show how supinely England suffered other nations to carry away the commerce of the world, by her neglect of maritime affairs. This was one of eight treatises that Ralegh wrote on maritime affairs; being, as he proudly announces, “the first author, either ancient or modern, that had ever treated this subject.”[[268]]
Although these works have long since been obsolete, and the practices recommended in them superseded by modern invention, they afford a curious view of the progress of navigation, and of those arts and sciences with which it is connected; to say nothing of the wonderful amount of knowledge which they display, and of the powerful intellect portrayed in every page written by this great man.
His eloquence, however, was powerless as far as James was concerned; but stimulated a far more comprehensive mind than that of the pedant king. Several of these essays were addressed to Prince Henry, whose awakened mind perceived his father’s blindness, and comprehended the value of that which James cast away. Whilst James, forgetting that Elizabeth had checked the Spanish Armada by her reliance, not on her own ten ships, but on the far better appointed merchant vessels--that she had rested, not on the size of her fleet, but on the material which composed it--he curtly dismissed his maritime auxiliaries, and, discharging the privateers from any bond to assist him for the future, slept soundly, it may be presumed, on his pillow at Westminster, congratulating himself on having set an example to all Christendom, whilst he had, in fact, almost invited another Armada to invade our shores.
Nevertheless, the progress of society was stronger that the royal will. “The seventeenth century,” thus writes Macpherson, in his History of Commerce, “may be said, from its commencement, to approach to modern times, whether considered in a political light, or in respect to riches, knowledge, or religion.”
In the celebrated treatise which Ralegh presented to his sovereign, he recommended that the “land should be made powerful by the increasing of ships and mariners;” and that such “order in commerce should be established, that the havens of England should be full of ships, the ships full of mariners.” It is singular to find the language of the seventeenth century so singularly according with that of the nineteenth.
His counsels failed to convince the self-opinionated James, but they incited the courage of a boy, who, amid his playthings, listened to the voice of Ralegh, and imbibed his sentiments; and the important measures which were disregarded by men in authority, were promoted by the fancy and favour of a precocious child. Henry, Prince of Wales, that short-lived “type and mould of an heir-apparent,” delighted in maritime pursuits; he brought again into vogue the fast-declining spirit of enterprize. The citizens of London, as they were rowed in their stately barges by Whitehall stairs, saw, with satisfaction, the royal embryo-hero disporting himself with the launch of a ship--twenty-eight feet long only, to be sure, and twelve feet broad, but built by Phineas Pett, one of the ablest shipwrights of his time. Ten years rolled away; the boy, who, at nine years of age, loved his miniature frigate as a toy, became sensible that the days of amusement were past, and that those of actual business were about to commence. He resolved to visit that then-neglected dock-yard at Woolwich, which has since become a wonder of the world. The Prince there honoured an entertainment, given by the ship’s company of the “Royal Anne,” with his presence. Phineas Pett attended his young patron, and the result of that day’s inspection was of great importance to the interests of the navy. Some years had then elapsed since a new ship had been built. In 1609, James actually ordered and completed the construction of the “Prince Royal,” a vessel far superior to any that had yet appeared in the Thames; it carried sixty-four cannon, and was of fourteen hundred tons burden. From this standard, we may infer how miserable had been the previous state of naval force, such a ship being, in our time, the smallest of those admitted into the line-of-battle. It was then regarded as one of the most extraordinary productions of native skill and of royal munificence, and was the theme of praise amid an astonished and adulatory court.
The young Prince next conceived an excellent project. He recommended his father to order the construction of ships to be carried on in Ireland, not only that the natives might be employed, but also because materials were cheaper in the sister island. The King’s shipwrights approved of this plan, and the Lord High Admiral, a doting old functionary, the most ancient servant of the crown then encumbering the service, actually countenanced the enlightened idea. It was not, however, matured; and another scheme, not so practical, but still of the utmost importance to the science of navigation, was frustrated, for the time, by the death of Henry. This was the discovery of the north-west passage, which was, nevertheless, attempted in 1612; but the ear of the gifted youth, whose patronage had fostered the design, was unhappily closed in death before the return of Captain Bretton, the first of the adventurous band of heroes who have attempted the gallant enterprize.
Still improvement was not wholly retarded. The incorporation of the East India Company (in 1613), gave a new impetus to navigation, and everything appeared favourable to the navy, except that branch of the government. Lord Nottingham seemed to consider his important office as a sinecure, except in regard to his privileges and perquisites. His dominion comprehended--to use the actual words which described it--"the government of all things done upon the sea-coast, in any part of the world; of all ports and havens, and over all rovers below the first bridge next below the sea." He was a sort of mortal Neptune; his privileges were thus defined:--"All penalties, of all transgressions, on sea or on shore, were his; the goods of pirates and of felons at sea were his; all stray wrecks were his; deodands, and the share of all lawful prizes not to be granted to lords of manors, were his." It may be easily conceived what ceaseless fighting and squabbling, what corruption, litigation, and oppression were the result of an authority which was so little controlled by the discussions of Parliament in those days, or by the honour and conscience of individuals in power. So long as the Earl of Nottingham slumbered over his duties, dreaming, doubtless, of delightful shipwrecks and desirable transgressions and piracies, the navy, of course, was not augmented. Sixty thousand pounds a-year had then been allotted to that shadow of a shade, the naval service; but the only time that the naval service was recalled to the memory of King James, was when the octogenarian, Lord Nottingham, appeared at Court in his full-dress uniform. Most people began to think that the Lord High Admiral was immortal; but, happily for the country, old age fairly captured him at last; he died, and made room for the Duke of Buckingham to step into all his beloved privileges and perquisites, which, in truth, the Duke also too well appreciated. It soon became a question what had become of all the sixty thousand pounds yearly which had been granted for the naval service, for there seemed to be scarcely any navy whatsoever. Buckingham, in his new office, however, displayed qualities for which the world had given him little credit. One of his first steps was to drag poor King James, aguish, peevish, and prejudiced as he was, to Deptford, to see how little there was there to be seen. His next, to get commissioners appointed to superintend the construction of new vessels, and the repairs of old ones, the sum allotted to them being cut down to thirty thousand pounds, for which consideration they were to build two new ships yearly. Cardinal Richelieu had also endeavoured to remedy the neglect of his predecessors in power, and to support a widely-extended commerce, the only channels of which are on the wide ocean. In his concern for maritime affairs, he set the first example of energy to Buckingham. From this era, therefore, may be traced the rise of our modern naval service in importance; the very vices of both these favourites of fortune, of Richelieu on the one hand, and of Buckingham on the other, had the effect of virtues under certain circumstances. To their lavish expenditure, to their fearlessness of responsibility, to their boundless ambition, France and England owe the maintenance of their maritime power, and the restoration of their national defences.
Numberless obstacles, of course, occurred at the very outset of the Duke of Buckingham’s undertakings in England; one of the great impediments was the ignorance which prevailed in those days of the proper mode of building ships of battle. The shipwrights were unaccustomed to construct any vessels but such as were intended to carry merchandise. There was a certain man, named Burwell, who had been employed by the East India Company, and who was so distinguished for his skill as a shipwright that he was entrusted to build for the British navy. He committed a grand error in the very first ship that he launched, because, to make use of the language of a contemporary historian,[[269]] "he did not observe the difference between the merchant ships and the King’s ships, the one made for stowage, the other only for strength and magnificence."
On his accession, Charles I. renewed his father’s warrant granted to twelve commissioners of the navy; and the exigencies of the times, and the probability of a speedy war with Spain, stimulated the exertions of the Lord Admiral and the generosity of the country. Spain was preparing the finest armament that had ever left her shores; and an invasion on the part of that power was openly threatened, and almost anticipated, even by the stout-hearted English.