Buckingham then drew up a plan of assault, as well as of defence, in order to lower the pride of the enemy. A company was, he proposed, to be incorporated for the West, as well as for the East Indies. A fleet, consisting of two ships of the line, eighteen ships and two pinnaces of the merchant-adventurers, was to be equipped, and to this force were to be added twenty Newcastle ships, for the nautical skill and gallant characteristics of the collier crews were wisely resorted to in this emergency by the Lord Admiral. To meet the expenses of the fleet, a general subscription of all estates of men was proposed. The nobility were each to contribute a hundred pounds; the gentlemen and yeomen were to be taxed to a certain amount; cities and corporate bodies were to give a sum of twenty-four thousand pounds. The merchants and the East India Company were not to escape the general infliction. Thus, to man and to furnish the first great fleet that England had sent forth, was the principle of arbitrary taxation commenced in this country.
At the same time, with the fear of Spanish Armadas, of conquest, torture, and slavery, acting upon the public mind, efforts to restore the national defences on shore were promptly carried on.
In those days, pirates infested the narrow seas; and all the seaport towns were taxed, in order to support a sort of coast-guard to keep off these troublesome visitors. But every usage which could ensure public safety had been neglected. Our national defences had fallen into decay simultaneously with our navy. The correspondence between Buckingham and his agents in different ports exists in the State Paper Office, and affords a mournful picture of forts neglected and in ruins. Shoals, and sands, and points, fatal even to the most experienced mariners, were the snare and gulf of many a vessel, and not a single light-house had been erected to warn the navigator of his danger. The office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, which, in part of the reign of James the First, devolved on Lord Zouch, had been conducted with scarcely more zeal and honesty than the post of Lord High Admiral by the Earl of Nottingham. Until the stirring exertions of the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham were directed both to the augmentation of the naval armaments and to their preservation from risks, the Goodwin Sands were without a light-house; and a project for erecting one upon that dangerous passage was first suggested to Buckingham by Sir Thomas Wildrake, and subsequently adopted by the Duke, whose efforts to guard the narrow seas, and to clear them of pirates, are beyond all praise, when we consider the supineness of his predecessors in office. It was not until 1619 that a light was placed upon the Lizard Point, which had already been fatal to the Dutch merchants, who had lost, in the course of one year, a hundred thousand pounds by shipwrecks.
Great offence was, of course, given by all these reformations; and Lord Zouch even, as is implied in a letter of Buckingham’s to him, had ventured to threaten the dreaded favourite with an attack. Whatever has been said of Buckingham’s arrogance, his letters are generally expressed with much courtesy, and his reply to Lord Zouch was forbearing, though explicit. He recommended that the disputed powers--those contested between the Lord High Admiral and the Warden of the Cinque Ports--should be defined, to the end, not of present controversy, but of an amicable and permanent arrangement.[[270]] Some years afterwards, Buckingham found it convenient, probably in order to have the repair and management of the forts in his own hands, to purchase of Lord Zouch his post; a consideration of one thousand pounds in ready money, and an annuity of five hundred pounds, were given for it. Such was the state of the Duke’s affairs that he was unable to pay down the stipulated one thousand pounds at once, but was constrained to “offer land or any other security.”
Not many months had elapsed, after his appointment to the office of Lord High Admiral, before Buckingham made use of his influence over James the First to induce him to augment his navy. Commissioners were chosen and selected to promote ship-building, and to regulate the expenses attendant thereon. James, attended by his Lord Admiral, visited Deptford in order to see two new ships, with which he was greatly delighted; and still more that from the yearly charge of sixty thousand pounds, in which his navy had stood him heretofore, it was reduced to thirty thousand pounds, for four years, during which time the Commissioners undertook to build two new ships every year, and to repair the old; and after that to discharge these claims for twenty thousand pounds a-year.[[271]]
The King, adds the narrator of this incident, “congratulated with the Lord Admiral that he had appointed so good officers to assist him in his beginnings, so that he named the one ship ‘Buckingham’s Entrance,’ and the other, in the memory of the Commissioners’ good service, ‘Reformation.’”[[272]] This timely encouragement produced, of course, the most salutary effect.[[273]] We have seen that during the reign of James the First the number of ships of war was nearly doubled; and it is due to Buckingham to state that almost the whole of this increase was the result of his exertions.
The young Lord High Admiral had declared, at his outset, that his inexperience almost disqualified him for that important position to which the partiality of his Sovereign had promoted him; but it was soon perceived that his very wilfulness and impetuosity, and his liberal notions of expense, were almost virtues under certain circumstances. The Dutch were our great maritime rivals; for France had no naval armament; and although the contemptuous assertion of Voltaire, that Louis the Thirteenth had not, at his accession, one ship of war, is false, yet he might be said almost to be destitute of naval force, so poor and ill-provided were his vessels, and so incompetent and miserable his seamen. It became Buckingham’s pride to outvie all continental nations in naval power. The design might have been ascribed to his animosity in the event of the treaty with Spain, against that kingdom; but it is clear that he cherished it whilst the British nation was at peace with all the world, and that his schemes of improvement were formed before.
Charles the First renewed his father’s commission to twelve commissioners of the navy. These were, at present, confined to three distinct branches; such as a comptroller, a surveyor, a clerk of the navy. They were subordinate, in Buckingham’s time, to the Lord High Admiral, and afterwards to the Admiralty Board, from whom they were to receive directions.[[274]] During the short period of Buckingham’s rule, after the accession of Charles, much was effected, more still was planned.
It was not merely with ambitious views that Buckingham had obtained the post of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. An active and liberal hand was required to restore our national defences, which had fallen to decay simultaneously with our navy. In all matters the Duke of Buckingham himself interfered; most of the letters on important affairs are addressed to him directly, not through his secretaries; and most of the epistles appear to have received immediate replies, which, it is to be regretted, are dispersed and extinct. On more than one occasion, tributes to the Duke’s impartiality and energy are proffered. “I am yet comforted,” writes a suitor, "that your grace is so wise and just as to ask account of every man’s part, and where you find most fault, there to lay most censure."[[275]] Sometimes “my lady of Buckingham,” as she is designated in one of the letters on naval affairs, is employed as a mediator, as in the case of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, who, wishing to pass the ship “Sea Horse,” obtained a warrant through her interest.
As Buckingham progressed in experience, and his views became more enlarged, his enthusiasm for naval affairs increased; and was, doubtless, heightened by the knowledge that Cardinal Richelieu, who, amongst his other titles, enjoyed that of High Admiral of France,[[276]] and who thought it no shame to wear the badge of office over his cardinal’s robes, and famous hair shirt beneath, supported commerce, the very channels of which are on the wide ocean. These considerations were, early in the reign of Charles the First, strengthened and brought into play by the certainty of a speedy war with Spain.