At the latter end of the last century lines of old war ships were formed into breakwaters, and each vessel was utilised as a barracks. Chimneys of brick were built on the hulks, and the lines of ships looked like floating streets. Under the shelter of these queer barriers the most extensive works were carried on in safety, and there is hardly a spot in the world where the victory of man over dumb obstacles is more triumphantly made apparent than in the monster basins where the war ships rest. A right instinct told our engineers that Sheerness protects the heart of the nation, and the energy displayed in building the stone wall, which runs for a quarter of a mile parallel with the pier, was worthy of Stephenson himself. After the great dock had been completed, which was to accommodate a dozen first-rates, it was found that, in order to make room for the huge structures, enough soil had been excavated to raise the level of the whole swamp more than fifteen feet. The history of other engineering achievements has been written at a mighty great length, but this—perhaps the most extraordinary feat on record—has met with scant notice.
SHEERNESS DOCKYARD, LOOKING UP THE MEDWAY.
The age of iron has come in, but memories of the old times hang round the town. Here is a burly hulk, moored in the swinging tide. Long ago she carried her two tiers of guns; those slovenly sides were polished like a violin, and there was not a reef-point out of place. She could not sail much better than a floating haystack, and her mode of getting through the water consisted of going three miles ahead and two to leeward. But she was good enough to fight anything that she met on blue water, and she took her share of hard knocks in her time. The remnants of the men-of-war meet us everywhere, and whispers of boyish romance come to the mind as we think of their clumsy majesty.
But there was not much romance in the life that went on in the ships that made our boast, and no glamour of poetry or rollicking fiction affects the minds of those who know the facts. When towering liners lay in this anchorage, and their strength was the wonder of the foreigner, it was too often true that the life of the men on board was one round of sordid slavery, starvation, and hopeless suffering. The men who fought our battles were fed worse than dogs, and flogged worse than convicts. Think of all that happened when the ships were running toward the sea, down this very brave river that we have traced so far. The water-casks were filled from the befouled flood, and in a few weeks the horrible stuff was so putrid that it had to be strained through linen before it could be used, and men turned sick at the smell of the nauseous draught, which was all that they had for drinking and cooking. This unspeakable nastiness was of a piece with the rest of the life on shipboard. The work of the fighting-machine went on smoothly under iron discipline, but in most cases each ship was an abode of vice and random tyranny. We hear ridiculous talk of the great days of the Navy. In those great days the men between decks lived in squalor to which paupers from the slums would object; many of them were stolen away from home and from love to go and dwell in that dim quarter among the odious hammocks; they endured shameful stripes, they drank poisonous water, they ate meat that a kennel of hounds would have refused, and they were regarded as having forfeited their manhood. Then in time of need they had to stand to their guns and run the chance of being smashed by a French round-shot. Truly the romance shines out but dimly when we insist on plain prose truth!
SHEERNESS DOCKYARD, FROM THE RIVER.
Only about ninety years ago Sheerness was covered by guns laid by angry mutineers, who had burst into rebellion after suffering wrong unspeakable. Had the sailors not held their hand and offered to hear reason, they might have laid the place in ruins, and opened the way to a foreign armada. They had reason enough for anger. Cheated of their pay, their food, their clothing, their liberty, imprisoned for years on pestilent foreign stations, crushed under savage discipline, they refused longer to endure a bondage that the very brute beasts would have rejected. Then Sheerness saw her direst danger, and then England was near a disaster from which she might never have recovered. The whole grim story of the mutiny starts out vividly as we see the very place where the Admiralty messengers came in terror, and where the discarded officers were put on shore. Here and there we meet with a smart, well-looking seaman, and the very look of him reminds us that the bad days are gone. Jack is not like the scarecrows who clamoured for food and justice in the terrible times when Sheerness was panic-struck, and Gravesend Reach barricaded; he looks like a free, independent man; his rights as a citizen are recognised, and no petty tyrant can lay the lash on him.