The Goverment Supresses The Buccaneers by C.H. Harring

The new Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, Sir ThomasLynch, brought with him instructions to publishand carefully observe the articles of 1670 withSpain, and at the same time to revoke all commissionsissued by his predecessor "to the prejudice of the King ofSpain or any of his subjects." When he proclaimed thepeace he was likewise to publish a general pardon toprivateers who came in and submitted within a reasonabletime, of all offences committed since June 1660, assuringto them the possession of their prize-goods (except thetenths and the fifteenths which were always reserved tothe crown as a condition of granting commissions), andoffering them inducements to take up planting, trade, orservice in the royal navy. But he was not to insist positivelyon the payment of the tenths and fifteenths if it discouragedtheir submission; and if this course failed tobring in the rovers, he was to use every means in hispower "by force or persuasion" to make them submit.³³²Lynch immediately set about to secure the good-will ofhis Spanish neighbours and to win back the privateers tomore peaceful pursuits. Major Beeston was sent to Cartagenawith the articles of peace, where he was given everysatisfaction and secured the release of thirty-two Englishprisoners.³³³ On the 15th August the proclamation ofpardon to privateers was issued at Port Royal;³³⁴ and those{201}who had railed against their commanders for cheatingthem at Panama, were given an opportunity of resortingto the law-courts.³³⁵ Similar proclamations were sent bythe governor "to all their haunts," intimating that he hadwritten to Bermuda, the Caribbees, New England, NewYork and Virginia for their apprehension, had sent noticesto all Spanish ports declaring them pirates, and intendedto send to Tortuga to prevent their reception there.³³⁶ However,although the governor wrote home in the latter partof the month that the privateers were entirely suppressed,he soon found that the task was by no means a simpleone. Two buccaneers with a commission from Modyford,an Englishman named Thurston and a mulatto namedDiego, flouted his offer of pardon, continued to prey uponSpanish shipping, and carried their prizes to Tortuga.³³⁷ ADutchman named Captain Yallahs (or Yellowes) fled toCampeache, sold his frigate for 7000 pieces of eight to theSpanish governor, and entered into Spanish service tocruise against the English logwood-cutters. The Governorof Jamaica sent Captain Wilgress in pursuit, but Wilgressdevoted his time to chasing a Spanish vessel ashore, stealinglogwood and burning Spanish houses on the coast.³³⁸A party of buccaneers, English and French, landed uponthe north side of Cuba and burnt two towns, carryingaway women and inflicting many cruelties on the inhabitants;and when the governors of Havana and St. Jagocomplained to Lynch, the latter could only disavow theEnglish in the marauding party as rebels and pirates, and{202}bid the Spanish governors hang all who fell into theirpower.³³⁹ The governor, in fact, was having his hands full,and wrote in January 1672 that "this cursed trade hasbeen so long followed, and there is so many of it, that likeweeds or hydras, they spring up as fast as we can cut themdown."³⁴⁰
Some of the recalcitrant freebooters, however, werecaptured and brought to justice. Major Beeston, sent bythe governor in January 1672, with a frigate and foursmaller vessels, to seize and burn some pirate ships careeningon the south cays of Cuba, fell in instead with twoother vessels, one English and one French, which hadtaken part in the raids upon Cuba, and carried them toJamaica. The French captain was offered to the Governorof St. Jago, but the latter refused to punish him for fear ofhis comrades in Tortuga and Hispaniola. Both captainswere therefore tried and condemned to death at PortRoyal. As the Spaniards, however, had refused to punishthem, and as there was no reason why the Jamaicansshould be the executioners, the captains of the port andsome of the council begged for a reprieve, and the Englishprisoner, Francis Witherborn, was sent to England.³⁴¹Captain Johnson, one of the pirates after whom Beestonhad originally been sent, was later in the year shipwreckedby a hurricane upon the coast of Jamaica. Johnson, immediatelyafter the publication of the peace by SirThomas Lynch, had fled from Port Royal with about tenfollowers, and falling in with a Spanish ship of eighteenguns, had seized it and killed the captain and twelve orfourteen of the crew. Then gathering about him a partyof a hundred or more, English and French, he had robbedSpanish vessels round Havana and the Cuban coast.{203}Finally, however, he grew weary of his French companions,and sailed for Jamaica to make terms with the governor,when on coming to anchor in Morant Bay he was blownashore by the hurricane. The governor had him arrested,and gave a commission to Colonel Modyford, the son ofSir Thomas, to assemble the justices and proceed to trialand immediate execution. He adjured him, moreover, tosee to it that the pirate was not acquitted. Colonel Modyford,nevertheless, sharing perhaps his father's sympathywith the sea-rovers, deferred the trial, acquainted none ofthe justices with his orders, and although Johnson andtwo of his men "confessed enough to hang a hundredhonester persons," told the jury they could not find againstthe prisoner. Half an hour after the dismissal of thecourt, Johnson "came to drink with his judges." Thebaffled governor thereupon placed Johnson a second timeunder arrest, called a meeting of the council, from whichhe dismissed Colonel Modyford, and "finding materialerrors," reversed the judgment. The pirate was againtried—Lynch himself this time presiding over the court—andupon making a full confession, was condemned andexecuted, though "as much regretted," writes Lynch, "asif he had been as pious and as innocent as one of theprimitive martyrs." The second trial was contrary to thefundamental principles of English law, howsoever guiltythe culprit may have been, and the king sent a letter toLynch reproving him for his rashness. He commandedthe governor to try all pirates thereafter by maritime law,and if a disagreement arose to remit the case to the kingfor re-judgment. Nevertheless he ordered Lynch to suspendfrom all public employments in the island, whethercivil or military, both Colonel Modyford and all othersguilty with him of designedly acquitting Johnson.³⁴²
The Spaniards in the West Indies, notwithstanding the{204}endeavours of Sir Thomas Lynch to clear their coasts ofpirates, made little effort to co-operate with him. Thegovernors of Cartagena and St. Jago de Cuba, pretendingthat they feared being punished for allowing trade, hadforbidden English frigates to come into their ports, andrefused them provisions and water; and the Governor ofCampeache had detained money, plate and negroes takenout of an English trading-vessel, to the value of 12,000pieces of eight. When Lynch sent to demand satisfaction,the governor referred him to Madrid for justice, "which tome that have been there," writes Lynch, "seems worsethan the taking it away."³⁴³ The news also of the imposingarmament, which the Spanish grandees made signs of preparingto send to the Indies on learning of the capture ofPanama, was in November 1671 just beginning to filterinto Jamaica; and the governor and council, fearing thatthe fleet was directed against them, made vigorous efforts,by repairing the forts, collecting stores and marshallingthe militia, to put the island in a state of defence. TheSpanish fleet never appeared, however, and life on theisland soon subsided into its customary channels.³⁴⁴ SirThomas Lynch, meanwhile, was all the more careful toobserve the peace with Spain and yet refrain from alienatingthe more troublesome elements of the population. Ithad been decided in England that Morgan, too, like Modyford,was to be sacrificed, formally at least, to the remonstrancesof the Spanish Government; yet Lynch, becauseMorgan himself was ill, and fearing perhaps that two such{205}arrests might create a disturbance among the friends ofthe culprits, or at least deter the buccaneers from comingin under the declaration of amnesty, did not send theadmiral to England until the following spring. On 6thApril 1672 Morgan sailed from Jamaica a prisoner in thefrigate "Welcome."³⁴⁵ He sailed, however, with theuniversal respect and sympathy of all parties in thecolony. Lynch himself calls him "an honest, bravefellow," and Major James Banister in a letter to theSecretary of State recommends him to the esteem ofArlington as "a very well deserving person, and one ofgreat courage and conduct, who may, with his Majesty'spleasure, perform good service at home, and be veryadvantageous to the island if war should break forth withthe Spaniard."³⁴⁶
Indeed Morgan, the buccaneer, was soon in high favourat the dissolute court of Charles II., and when in January1674 the Earl of Carlisle was chosen Governor of Jamaica,Morgan was selected as his deputy³⁴⁷—an act which musthave entirely neutralized in Spanish Councils the effect ofhis arrest a year and a half earlier. Lord Carlisle, however,did not go out to Jamaica until 1678, and meanwhilein April a commission to be governor was issued to LordVaughan,³⁴⁸ and several months later another to Morgan aslieutenant-governor.³⁴⁹ Vaughan arrived in Jamaica in themiddle of March 1675; but Morgan, whom the king inthe meantime had knighted, sailed ahead of Vaughan,apparently in defiance of the governor's orders, and althoughshipwrecked on the Isle la Vache, reached Jamaica a weekbefore his superior.³⁵⁰ It seems that Sir Thomas Modyford{206}sailed for Jamaica with Morgan, and the return of thesetwo arch-offenders to the West Indies filled the SpanishCourt with new alarms. The Spanish ambassador inLondon presented a memorial of protest to the Englishking,³⁵¹ and in Spain the Council of War blossomed intofresh activity to secure the defence of the West Indies andthe coasts of the South Sea.³⁵² Ever since 1672, indeed, theSpaniards moved by some strange infatuation, had persistedin a course of active hostility to the English in theWest Indies. Could the Spanish Government have realizedthe inherent weakness of its American possessions, couldit have been informed of the scantiness of the populationin proportion to the large extent of territory and coast-lineto be defended, could it have known how in the midst ofsuch rich, unpeopled countries abounding with cattle, hogsand other provisions, the buccaneers could be extirpatedonly by co-operation with its English and French neighbours,it would have soon fallen back upon a policy ofpeace and good understanding with England. But thenews of the sack of Panama, following so close upon theconclusion of the treaty of 1670, and the continued depredationsof the buccaneers of Tortuga and the declaredpirates of Jamaica, had shattered irrevocably the relianceof the Spaniards upon the good faith of the EnglishGovernment. And when Morgan was knighted and sentback to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor, their suspicionsseemed to be confirmed. A ketch, sent to Cartagena in1672 by Sir Thomas Lynch to trade in negroes, was seizedby the general of the galleons, the goods burnt in themarket-place, and the negroes sold for the Spanish King'saccount.³⁵³ An Irish papist, named Philip Fitzgerald, commanding{207}a Spanish man-of-war of twelve guns belongingto Havana, and a Spaniard called Don Francisco with acommission from the Governor of Campeache, roamed theWest Indian seas and captured English vessels sailingfrom Jamaica to London, Virginia and the WindwardIslands, barbarously ill-treating and sometimes massacringthe English mariners who fell into their hands.³⁵⁴ TheSpanish governors, in spite of the treaty and doubtless inconformity with orders from home,³⁵⁵ did nothing to restrainthe cruelties of these privateers. At one time eight Englishsailors who had been captured in a barque off Port Royaland carried to Havana, on attempting to escape from thecity were pursued by a party of soldiers, and all of themmurdered, the head of the master being set on a polebefore the governor's door.³⁵⁶ At another time Fitzgeraldsailed into the harbour of Havana with five Englishmentied ready to hang, two at the main-yard arms, two at thefore-yard arms, and one at the mizzen peak, and as heapproached the castle he had the wretches swung off,while he and his men shot at the dangling corpses fromthe decks of the vessel.³⁵⁷ The repeated complaints anddemands for reparation made to the Spanish ambassadorin London, and by Sir William Godolphin to the SpanishCourt, were answered by counter-complaints of outragescommitted by buccaneers who, though long ago disavowedand declared pirates by the Governor of Jamaica, werestill charged by the Spaniards to the account of the English.³⁵⁸Each return of the fleet from Porto Bello or Vera Cruzbrought with it English prisoners from Cartagena andother Spanish fortresses, who were lodged in the dungeonsof Seville and often condemned to the galleys or to the{208}quicksilver mines. The English ambassador sometimessecured their release, but his efforts to obtain redress forthe loss of ships and goods received no satisfaction. TheSpanish Government, believing that Parliament was solicitousof Spanish trade and would not supply Charles II.with the necessary funds for a war,³⁵⁹ would disburse nothingin damages. It merely granted to the injured partiesdespatches directed to the Governor of Havana, whichordered him to restore the property in dispute unless itwas contraband goods. Godolphin realized that thesedelays and excuses were only the prelude to an ultimatedenial of any reparation whatever, and wrote home to theSecretary of State that "England ought rather to provideagainst future injuries than to depend on satisfactionhere, till they have taught the Spaniards their own interestin the West Indies by more efficient means than friendship."³⁶⁰The aggrieved merchants and shipowners, often onlytoo well acquainted with the dilatory Spanish forms of procedure,saw that redress at Havana was hopeless, andpetitioned Charles II. for letters of reprisal.³⁶¹ Sir LeolineJenkins, Judge of the Admiralty, however, in a report tothe king gave his opinion that although he saw little hopeof real reparation, the granting of reprisals was not justifiedby law until the cases had been prosecuted at Havanaaccording to the queen-regent's orders.³⁶² This apparentlywas never done, and some of the cases dragged on foryears without the petitioners ever receiving satisfaction.
The excuse of the Spaniards for most of these seizureswas that the vessels contained logwood, a dyewood foundupon the coasts of Campeache, Honduras and Yucatan,the cutting and removal of which was forbidden to anybut Spanish subjects. The occupation of cutting logwoodhad sprung up among the English about ten years after{209}the seizure of Jamaica. In 1670 Modyford writes that adozen vessels belonging to Port Royal were concerned inthis trade alone, and six months later he furnished a listof thirty-two ships employed in logwood cutting, equippedwith seventy-four guns and 424 men.³⁶³ The men engagedin the business had most of them been privateers, and asthe regions in which they sought the precious wood wereentirely uninhabited by Spaniards, Modyford suggestedthat the trade be encouraged as an outlet for the energiesof the buccaneers. By such means, he thought, these"soldiery men" might be kept within peaceable bounds,and yet be always ready to serve His Majesty in event ofany new rupture. When Sir Thomas Lynch replacedModyford, he realized that this logwood-cutting wouldbe resented by the Spaniards and might neutralize allhis efforts to effect a peace. He begged repeatedly fordirections from the council in England. "For God's sake,"he writes, "give your commands about the logwood."³⁶⁴ Inthe meantime, after consulting with Modyford, he decidedto connive at the business, but he compelled all whobrought the wood into Port Royal to swear that theyhad not stolen it or done any violence to the Spaniards.³⁶⁵Secretary Arlington wrote to the governor, in November1671, to hold the matter over until he obtained the opinionof the English ambassador at Madrid, especially as somecolour was lent to the pretensions of the logwood cuttersby the article of the peace of 1670 which confirmed theEnglish King in the possession and sovereignty of allterritory in America occupied by his subjects at thatdate.³⁶⁶ In May 1672 Ambassador Godolphin returnedhis answer. "The wood," he writes, "is brought from{210}Yucatan, a large province of New Spain, about 100 leaguesin length, sufficiently peopled, having several great towns,as Merida, Valladolid, San Francisco de Campeache, etc.,and the government one of the most considerable next toPeru and Mexico.... So that Spain has as well toomuch right as advantage not to assert the propriety ofthese woods, for though not all inhabited, these peoplemay as justly pretend to make use of our rivers, mountainsand commons, as we can to enjoy any benefit to thosewoods." So much for the strict justice of the matter.But when the ambassador came to give his own opinionon the trade, he advised that if the English confinedthemselves to cutting wood alone, and in places remotefrom Spanish settlements, the king might connive at,although not authorize, their so doing.³⁶⁷ Here was thekernel of the whole matter. Spain was too weak andimpotent to take any serious revenge. So let us rob herquietly but decently, keeping the theft out of her sightand so sparing her feelings as much as possible. It wasthe same piratical motive which animated Drake andHawkins, which impelled Morgan to sack Maracaibo andPanama, and which, transferred to the dignified councilchambers of England, took on a more humane but lessromantic guise. On 8th October 1672, the Council forthe Plantations dispatched to Governor Lynch theirapproval of his connivance at the business, but theyurged him to observe every care and prudence, tocountenance the cutting only in desolate and uninhabitedplaces, and to use every endeavour to prevent any justcomplaints by the Spaniards of violence and depredation.³⁶⁸
The Spaniards nevertheless did, as we have seen,engage in active reprisal, especially as they knew thecutting of logwood to be but the preliminary step to the{211}growth of English settlements upon the coasts of Yucatanand Honduras, settlements, indeed, which later crystallizedinto a British colony. The Queen-Regent of Spain sentorders and instructions to her governors in the West Indiesto encourage privateers to take and punish as pirates allEnglish and French who robbed and carried away woodwithin their jurisdictions; and three small frigates fromBiscay were sent to clear out the intruders.³⁶⁹ Thebuccaneer Yallahs, we have seen, was employed by theGovernor of Campeache to seize the logwood-cutters; andalthough he surprised twelve or more vessels, the Governorof Jamaica, not daring openly to avow the business, couldenter no complaint. On 3rd November 1672, however,he was compelled to issue a proclamation ordering allvessels sailing from Port Royal for the purpose of cuttingdye-wood to go in fleets of at least four as security againstsurprise and capture. Under the governorship of LordVaughan, and after him of Lord Carlisle, matters continuedin this same uncertain course, the English settlementsin Honduras gradually increasing in numbers andvitality, and the Spaniards maintaining their right to takeall ships they found at sea laden with logwood, andindeed, all English and French ships found upon theircoasts. Each of the English governors in turn had urgedthat some equitable adjustment of the trade be made withthe Spanish Crown, if peace was to be preserved in theIndies and the buccaneers finally suppressed; but theSpaniards would agree to no accommodation, and in{212}March 1679 the king wrote to Lord Carlisle bidding himdiscourage, as far as possible, the logwood-cutting inCampeache or any other of the Spanish dominions, andto try and induce the buccaneers to apply themselves toplanting instead.³⁷⁰
The reprisals of the Spaniards on the score of logwood-cuttingwere not the only difficulties with which LordVaughan as governor had to contend. From the dayof his landing in Jamaica he seems to have conceived aviolent dislike of his lieutenant, Sir Henry Morgan, andthis antagonism was embittered by Morgan's open orsecret sympathy with the privateers, a race with whomVaughan had nothing in common. The ship on whichMorgan had sailed from England, and which was castaway upon the Isle la Vache, had contained the militarystores for Jamaica, most of which were lost in the wreck.Morgan, contrary to Lord Vaughan's positive and writtenorders, had sailed before him, and assumed the authorityin Jamaica a week before the arrival of the governor atPort Royal. This the governor seems to have been unableto forgive. He openly blamed Morgan for thewreck and the loss of the stores; and only two monthsafter his coming to Jamaica, in May 1675, he wrote toEngland that for the good of His Majesty's service hethought Morgan ought to be removed, and the charge ofso useless an officer saved.³⁷¹ In September he wrote thathe was "every day more convinced of (Morgan's) imprudenceand unfitness to have anything to do in the CivilGovernment, and of what hazards the island may run byso dangerous a succession." Sir Henry, he continued,had made himself and his authority so cheap at the Port,drinking and gaming in the taverns, that the governorintended to remove thither speedily himself for the reputation{213}of the island and the security of the place.³⁷² He recommendedthat his predecessor, Sir Thomas Lynch,whom he praises for "his prudent government andconduct of affairs," be appointed his deputy instead ofMorgan in the event of the governor's death or absence.³⁷³Lord Vaughan's chief grievance, however, was thelieutenant-governor's secret encouragement of thebuccaneers. "What I most resent," he writes again,"is ... that I find Sir Henry, contrary to his dutyand trust, endeavours to set up privateering, and hasobstructed all my designs and purposes for the reducingof those that do use this course of life."³⁷⁴ When he hadissued proclamations, the governor continued, declaringas pirates all the buccaneers who refused to submit, SirHenry had encouraged the English freebooters to takeFrench commissions, had himself fitted them out for sea,and had received authority from the French Governor ofTortuga to collect the tenths on prize goods brought intoJamaica under cover of these commissions. The quarrelcame to a head over the arrest and trial of a buccaneernamed John Deane, commander of the ship "St. David."Deane was accused of having stopped a ship called the"John Adventure," taken out several pipes of wine anda cable worth £100, and forcibly carried the vessel toJamaica. He was also reported to be wearing Dutch,French and Spanish colours without commission.³⁷⁵ Whenthe "John Adventure" entered Port Royal it was seizedby the governor for landing goods without entry, contrary{214}to the Acts of Navigation, and on complaint of themaster of the vessel that he had been robbed byDeane and other privateers, Sir Henry Morgan wasordered to imprison the offenders. The lieutenant-governor,however, seems rather to have encouraged themto escape,³⁷⁶ until Deane made so bold as to accuse thegovernor of illegal seizure. Deane was in consequencearrested by the governor, and on 27th April 1676, in aCourt of Admiralty presided over by Lord Vaughan asvice-admiral, was tried and condemned to suffer deathas a pirate.³⁷⁷ The proceedings, however, were not warrantedby legal practice, for according to statutes of the twenty-seventhand twenty-eighth years of Henry VIII., piratesmight not be tried in an Admiralty Court, but only underthe Common Law of England by a Commission of Oyerand Terminer under the great seal.³⁷⁸ After obtaining anopinion to this effect from the Judge of the Admiralty,the English Council wrote to Lord Vaughan staying theexecution of Deane, and ordering a new trial to be heldunder a proper commission about to be forwarded to him.³⁷⁹The Governor of Jamaica, however, upon receiving a confessionfrom Deane and frequent petitions for pardon,had reprieved the pirate a month before the letter fromthe council reached him.³⁸⁰ The incident had good effectin persuading the freebooters to come in, and that resultassured, the governor could afford to bend to popularclamour in favour of the culprit. In the latter part of1677 a standing commission of Oyer and Terminer for the{215}trial of pirates in Jamaica was prepared by the attorney-generaland sent to the colony.³⁸¹
After the trial of Deane, the lieutenant-governor,according to Lord Vaughan, had openly expressed himself,both in the taverns and in his own house, in vindication ofthe condemned man and in disparagement of Vaughanhimself.³⁸² The quarrel hung fire, however, until on 24thJuly when the governor, in obedience to orders fromEngland,³⁸³ cited Morgan and his brother-in-law, ColonelByndloss, to appear before the council. Against Morganhe brought formal charges of using the governor's nameand authority without his orders in letters written to thecaptains of the privateers, and Byndloss he accused ofunlawfully holding a commission from a foreign governorto collect the tenths on condemned prize goods.³⁸⁴ Morganin his defence to Secretary Coventry flatly denied thecharges, and denounced the letters written to the privateersas forgeries; and Byndloss declared his readiness "to go inthis frigate with a tender of six or eight guns and so todeal with the privateers at sea, and in their holes (sic)bring in the chief of them to His Majesty's obedience orbring in their heads and destroy their ships."³⁸⁵ Thereseems to be little doubt that letters were written byMorgan to certain privateers soon after his arrival inJamaica, offering them, in the name of the governor, favourand protection in Port Royal. Copies of these letters,indeed, still exist;³⁸⁶ but whether they were actually usedis not so certain. Charles Barre, secretary to Sir HenryMorgan, confessed that such letters had been written, butwith the understanding that the governor lent them hisapproval, and that when this was denied Sir Henry{216}refused to send them.³⁸⁷ It is natural to suppose thatMorgan should feel a bond of sympathy with his old companionsin the buccaneer trade, and it is probable that in1675, in the first enthusiasm of his return to Jamaica,having behind him the openly-expressed approbation ofthe English Court for what he had done in the past, andfeeling uncertain, perhaps, as to Lord Vaughan's realattitude toward the sea-rovers, Morgan should have donesome things inconsistent with the policy of stern suppressionpursued by the government. It is even likely that hewas indiscreet in some of his expressions regarding thegovernor and his actions. His bluff, unconventional, easygoingmanners, natural to men brought up in new countriesand intensified by his early association with the buccaneers,may have been distasteful to a courtier accustomed to theurbanities of Whitehall. It is also clear, however, thatLord Vaughan from the first conceived a violent prejudiceagainst his lieutenant, and allowed this prejudice to colourthe interpretation he put upon all of Sir Henry's actions.And it is rather significant that although the particulars ofthe dispute and of the examination before the Council ofJamaica were sent to the Privy Council in England, thelatter body did not see fit to remove Morgan from his postuntil six years later.
As in the case of Modyford and Lynch, so with LordVaughan, the thorn in his side was the French colony onHispaniola and Tortuga. The English buccaneers whowould not come in under the proclamation of pardonpublished at Port Royal, still continued to range the seaswith French commissions, and carried their prizes intoFrench ports. The governor protested to M. d'Ogeronand to his successor, M. de Pouançay, declaring that anyEnglish vessels or subjects caught with commissionsagainst the Spaniards would be treated as pirates and{217}rebels; and in December 1675, in compliance with theking's orders of the previous August, he issued a publicproclamation to that effect.³⁸⁸ In April 1677 an act waspassed by the assembly, declaring it felony for anyEnglish subject belonging to the island to serve under aforeign prince or state without licence under the hand andseal of the governor;³⁸⁹ and in the following July thecouncil ordered another proclamation to be issued, offeringample pardon to all men in foreign service who shouldcome in within twelve months to claim the benefit of theact.³⁹⁰ These measures seem to have been fairly successful,for on 1st August Peter Beckford, Clerk of the Council inJamaica, wrote to Secretary Williamson that since thepassing of the law at least 300 privateers had come in andsubmitted, and that few men would now venture theirlives to serve the French.³⁹¹
Even with the success of this act, however, the path ofthe governor was not all roses. Buccaneering had alwaysbeen so much a part of the life of the colony that it wasdifficult to stamp it out entirely. Runaway servants andothers from the island frequently recruited the ranks of thefreebooters; members of the assembly, and even of thecouncil, were interested in privateering ventures; and asthe governor was without a sufficient naval force to dealwith the offenders independently of the council andassembly, he often found his efforts fruitless. In theearly part of 1677 a Scotchman, named James Browne,with a commission from M. d'Ogeron and a mixed crew ofEnglish, Dutch and French, seized a Dutch ship trading innegroes off the coast of Cartagena, killed the Dutchcaptain and several of his men, and landed the negroes,{218}about 150 in number, in a remote bay of Jamaica. LordVaughan sent a frigate which seized about 100 of thenegroes, and when Browne and his crew fell into thegovernor's hands he had them all tried and condemned forpiracy. Browne was ordered to be executed, but his men,eight in number, were pardoned. The captain petitionedthe assembly to have the benefit of the Act of Privateers,and the House twice sent a committee to the governor toendeavour to obtain a reprieve. Lord Vaughan, however,refused to listen and gave orders for immediate execution.Half an hour after the hanging, the provost-marshalappeared with an order signed by the speaker to observethe Chief-Justice's writ of Habeas Corpus, whereuponVaughan, resenting the action, immediately dissolved theAssembly.³⁹²
The French colony on Hispaniola was an object ofconcern to the Jamaicans, not only because it served as arefuge for privateers from Port Royal, but also because itthreatened soon to overwhelm the old Spanish colony andabsorb the whole island. Under the conciliatory, opportunistregime of M. d'Ogeron, the French settlements inthe west of the island had grown steadily in number andsize;³⁹³ while the old Spanish towns seemed every year tobecome weaker and more open to attack. D'Ogeron, whodied in France in 1675, had kept always before him theproject of capturing the Spanish capital, San Domingo;but he was too weak to accomplish so great a designwithout aid from home, and this was never vouchsafedhim. His policy, however, was continued by his nephew{219}and successor, M. de Pouançay, and every defection fromJamaica seemed so much assistance to the French toaccomplish their ambition. Yet it was manifestly to theEnglish interest in the West Indies not to permit theFrench to obtain a pre-eminence there. The Spanishcolonies were large in area, thinly populated, and ill-supportedby the home government, so that they were notlikely to be a serious menace to the English islands.With their great wealth and resources, moreover, they hadfew manufactures and offered a tempting field for exploitationby English merchants. The French colonies, on theother hand, were easily supplied with merchandise fromFrance, and in event of a war would prove more dangerousas neighbours than the Spaniards. To allow the French tobecome lords of San Domingo would have been to givethem an undisputed predominance in the West Indies andmake them masters of the neighbouring seas.
In the second war of conquest waged by Louis XIV.against Holland, the French in the West Indies found thebuccaneers to be useful allies, but as usually happened atsuch times, the Spaniards paid the bill. In the spring of1677 five or six English privateers surprised the town ofSanta Marta on the Spanish Main. According to thereports brought to Jamaica, the governor and the bishop,in order to save the town from being burnt, agreed withthe marauders for a ransom; but the Governor ofCartagena, instead of contributing with pieces of eight,despatched a force of 500 men by land and three vessels bysea to drive out the invaders. The Spanish troops, however,were easily defeated, and the ships, seeing the Frenchcolours waving over the fort and the town, sailed back toCartagena. The privateers carried away the governor andthe bishop and came to Jamaica in July. The plunderamounted to only £20 per man. The English in theparty, about 100 in number and led by Captains Barnes{220}and Coxon, submitted at Port Royal under the terms ofthe Act against Privateers, and delivered up the Bishop ofSanta Marta to Lord Vaughan. Vaughan took care tolodge the bishop well, and hired a vessel to send him toCartagena, at which "the good old man was exceedinglypleased." He also endeavoured to obtain the custody ofthe Spanish governor and other prisoners, but withoutsuccess, "the French being obstinate and damnablyenraged the English had left them" and submitted toLord Vaughan.³⁹⁴
In the beginning of the following year, 1678, Countd'Estrées, Vice-Admiral of the French fleet in the WestIndies, was preparing a powerful armament to go againstthe Dutch on Curaçao, and sent two frigates to Hispaniolawith an order from the king to M. de Pouançay to join himwith 1200 buccaneers. De Pouançay assembled the men atCap François, and embarking on the frigates and on somefilibustering ships in the road, sailed for St. Kitts. Therehe was joined by a squadron of fifteen or more men-of-warfrom Martinique under command of Count d'Estrées. Theunited fleet of over thirty vessels sailed for Curaçao on 7thMay, but on the fourth day following, at about eighto'clock in the evening, was wrecked upon some coral reefsnear the Isle d'Aves.³⁹⁵ As the French pilots had been atodds among themselves as to the exact position of thefleet, the admiral had taken the precaution to send afire-ship and three buccaneering vessels several miles inadvance of the rest of the squadron. Unfortunately thesescouts drew too little water and passed over the reefswithout touching them. A buccaneer was the first tostrike and fired three shots to warn the admiral, who at{221}once lighted fires and discharged cannon to keep off therest of the ships. The latter, however, mistaking thesignals, crowded on sail, and soon most of the fleet were onthe reefs. Those of the left wing, warned in time by ashallop from the flag-ship, succeeded in veering off. Therescue of the crews was slow, for the seas were heavy andthe boats approached the doomed ships with difficulty.Many sailors and marines were drowned, and seven men-of-war,besides several buccaneering ships, were lost on therocks. Count d'Estrées himself escaped, and sailed withthe remnant of his squadron to Petit Goave and CapFrançois in Hispaniola, whence on 18th June he departedfor France.³⁹⁶
The buccaneers were accused in the reports whichreached Barbadoes of deserting the admiral after theaccident, and thus preventing the reduction of Curaçao,which d'Estrées would have undertaken in spite of theshipwreck.³⁹⁷ However this may be, one of the principalbuccaneer leaders, named de Grammont, was left by dePouançay at the Isle d'Aves to recover what he could fromthe wreck, and to repair some of the privateering vessels.³⁹⁸{222}When he had accomplished this, finding himself short ofprovisions, he sailed with about 700 men to make a descenton Maracaibo; and after spending six months in the lake,seizing the shipping and plundering all the settlements inthat region, he re-embarked in the middle of December.The booty is said to have been very small.³⁹⁹ Early in thesame year the Marquis de Maintenon, commanding thefrigate "La Sorcière," and aided by some Frenchfilibusters from Tortuga, was on the coast of Caracas,where he ravaged the islands of Margarita and Trinidad.He had arrived in the West Indies from France in thelatter part of 1676, and when he sailed from Tortugawas at the head of 700 or 800 men. His squadron metwith little success, however, and soon scattered.⁴⁰⁰ Otherbands of filibusters pillaged Campeache, Puerto Principe inCuba, Santo Tomas on the Orinoco, and Truxillo in theprovince of Honduras; and de Pouançay, to console thebuccaneers for their losses at the Isle d'Aves, sent 800 menunder the Sieur de Franquesnay to make a descent uponSt. Jago de Cuba, but the expedition seems to have been afailure.⁴⁰¹
On 1st March 1678 a commission was again issued tothe Earl of Carlisle, appointing him governor of Jamaica.⁴⁰²Carlisle arrived in his new government on 18th July,⁴⁰³ butLord Vaughan, apparently because of ill-health, hadalready sailed for England at the end of March, leavingSir Henry Morgan, who retained his place under the newgovernor, deputy in his absence.⁴⁰⁴ Lord Carlisle, immediatelyupon his arrival, invited the privateers to come inand encouraged them to stay, hoping, according to his own{223}account, to be able to wean them from their familiarcourses, and perhaps to use them in the threatened warwith France, for the island then had "not above 4000whites able to bear arms, a secret not fit to be madepublic."⁴⁰⁵ If the governor was sincere in his intentions,the results must have been a bitter disappointment.Some of the buccaneers came in, otherspersevered in the old trade, and even those who returnedabused the pardon they had received. In the autumnof 1679, several privateering vessels under command ofCaptains Coxon, Sharp and others who had come backto Jamaica, made a raid in the Gulf of Honduras,plundered the royal storehouses there, carried off 500chests of indigo,⁴⁰⁶ besides cocoa, cochineal, tortoiseshell,money and plate, and returned with their plunder toJamaica. Not knowing what their reception might be, oneof the vessels landed her cargo of indigo in an unfrequentedspot on the coast, and the rest sent word that unless theywere allowed to bring their booty to Port Royal and paythe customs duty, they would sail to Rhode Island or toone of the Dutch plantations. The governor had takensecurity for good behaviour from some of the captainsbefore they sailed from Jamaica; yet in spite of this theywere permitted to enter the indigo at the custom houseand divide it in broad daylight; and the frigate "Success"was ordered to coast round Jamaica in search of otherprivateers who failed to come in and pay duty on theirplunder at Port Royal. The glut of indigo in Jamaica disturbedtrade considerably, and for a time the importedproduct took the place of native sugar and indigo as amedium of exchange. Manufacture on the island was{224}hindered, prices were lowered, and only the king'scustoms received any actual benefit.⁴⁰⁷
These same privateers, however, were soon out upon amuch larger design. Six captains, Sharp, Coxon, Essex,Allison, Row, and Maggott, in four barques and twosloops, met at Point Morant in December 1679, and on7th January set sail for Porto Bello. They were scatteredby a terrible storm, but all eventually reached theirrendezvous in safety. There they picked up anotherbarque commanded by Captain Cooke, who had sailedfrom Jamaica on the same design, and likewise a Frenchprivateering vessel commanded by Captain Lessone. Theyset out for Porto Bello in canoes with over 300 men, andlanding twenty leagues from the town, marched for four daysalong the seaside toward the city. Coming to an Indianvillage about three miles from Porto Bello, they were discoveredby the natives, and one of the Indians ran to thecity, crying, "Ladrones! ladrones!" The buccaneers,although "many of them were weak, being three dayswithout any food, and their feet cut with the rocks forwant of shoes," made all speed for the town, which theyentered without difficulty on 17th February 1680. Mostof the inhabitants sought refuge in the castle, whence theymade a counter-attack without success upon the invaders.On the evening of the following day, the buccaneers retreatedwith their prisoners and booty down to a cay orsmall island about three and a half leagues from PortoBello, where they were joined by their ships. They hadjust left in time to avoid a force of some 700 Spanishtroops who were sent from Panama and arrived the dayafter the buccaneers departed. After capturing two{225}Spanish vessels bound for Porto Bello with provisions fromCartagena, they divided the plunder, of which each manreceived 100 pieces of eight, and departed for Boca delToro some fifty leagues to the north. There they careenedand provisioned, and being joined by two other Jamaicanprivateers commanded by Sawkins and Harris, sailed forGolden Island, whence on 5th April 1680, with 334 men,they began their march across the Isthmus of Darien to thecoasts of Panama and the South Seas.⁴⁰⁸
Lord Carlisle cannot escape the charge of culpablenegligence for having permitted these vessels in the firstplace to leave Jamaica. All the leaders in the expeditionwere notorious privateers, men who had repeatedly been{226}concerned in piratical outrages against the Dutch andSpaniards. Coxon and Harris had both come in aftertaking part in the expedition against Santa Marta;Sawkins had been caught with his vessel by the frigate"Success" and sent to Port Royal, where on 1st December1679 he seems to have been in prison awaiting trial;⁴¹⁰while Essex had been brought in by another frigate, the"Hunter," in November, and tried with twenty of his crewfor plundering on the Jamaican coast, two of his menbeing sentenced to death.⁴¹¹ The buccaneers themselvesdeclared that they had sailed with permission from LordCarlisle to cut logwood.⁴¹² This was very likely true; yetafter the exactly similar ruse of these men when theywent to Honduras, the governor could not have failed tosuspect their real intentions.
At the end of May 1680 Lord Carlisle suddenlydeparted for England in the frigate "Hunter," leavingMorgan again in charge as lieutenant-governor.⁴¹³ On hispassage home the governor met with Captain Coxon, who,having quarrelled with his companions in the Pacific, hadreturned across Darien to the West Indies and was againhanging about the shores of Jamaica. The "Hunter"gave chase for twenty-four hours, but being outsailed wascontent to take two small vessels in the company of Coxonwhich had been deserted by their crews.⁴¹⁴ In EnglandSamuel Long, whom the governor had suspended fromthe council and dismissed from his post as chief justiceof the colony for his opposition to the new Constitution,accused the governor before the Privy Council of collusionwith pirates and encouraging them to bring their plunderto Jamaica. The charges were doubtless conceived in aspirit of revenge; nevertheless the two years during{227}which Carlisle was in Jamaica were marked by an increasedactivity among the freebooters, and by a lukewarmnessand negligence on the part of the government, forwhich Carlisle alone must be held responsible. To accusehim of deliberately supporting and encouraging thebuccaneers, however, may be going too far. Sir HenryMorgan, during his tenure of the chief command of theisland, showed himself very zealous in the pursuit of thepirates, and sincerely anxious to bring them to justice;and as Carlisle and Morgan always worked together inperfect harmony, we may be justified in believing thatCarlisle's mistakes were those of negligence rather thanof connivance. The freebooters who brought goods intoJamaica increased the revenues of the island, and agovernor whose income was small and tastes extravagant,was not apt to be too inquisitive about the source of thearticles which entered through the customs. There isevidence, moreover, that French privateers, being unable toobtain from the merchants on the coast of San Domingothe cables, anchors, tar and other naval stores necessary fortheir armaments, were compelled to resort to other islandsto buy them, and that Jamaica came in for a share of thistrade. Provisions, too, were more plentiful at Port Royalthan in the cul-de-sac of Hispaniola, and the French governorscomplained to the king that the filibusters carriedmost of their money to foreign plantations to exchange forthese commodities. Such French vessels if they came toJamaica were not strictly within the scope of the lawsagainst piracy which had been passed by the assembly,and their visits were the more welcome as they paidfor their goods promptly and liberally in good Spanishdoubloons.⁴¹⁵
A general warrant for the apprehension of Coxon,{228}Sharp and the other men who had plundered Porto Bellohad been issued by Lord Carlisle in May 1680, just beforehis departure for England. On 1st July a similar warrantwas issued by Morgan, and five days later a proclamationwas published against all persons who should hold anycorrespondence whatever with the outlawed crews.⁴¹⁶ Threemen who had taken part in the expedition were capturedand clapped into prison until the next meeting of thecourt. The friends of Coxon, however, including, it seems,almost all the members of the council, offered to give£2000 security, if he was allowed to come to Port Royal,that he would never take another commission except fromthe King of England; and Morgan wrote to Carlisle seekinghis approbation.⁴¹⁷ At the end of the following JanuaryMorgan received word that a notorious Dutch privateer,named Jacob Everson, commanding an armed sloop, wasanchored on the coast with a brigantine which he hadlately captured. The lieutenant-governor manned a smallvessel with fifty picked men and sent it secretly at midnightto seize the pirate. Everson's sloop was boarded andcaptured with twenty-six prisoners, but Everson himselfand several others escaped by jumping overboard andswimming to the shore. The prisoners, most of whomwere English, were tried six weeks later, convicted ofpiracy and sentenced to death; but the lieutenant-governorsuspended the execution and wrote to the king for instructions.On 16th June 1681, the king in council orderedthe execution of the condemned men.⁴¹⁸
{229}The buccaneers who, after plundering Porto Bello,crossed the Isthmus of Darien to the South Seas, had aremarkable history. For eighteen months they cruised upand down the Pacific coast of South America, burning andplundering Spanish towns, giving and taking hard blowswith equal courage, keeping the Spanish provinces ofEquador, Peru and Chili in a fever of apprehension, finallysailing the difficult passage round Cape Horn, and returningto the Windward Islands in January of 1682. Touchingat the island of Barbadoes, they learned that the Englishfrigate "Richmond" was lying in the road, and fearingseizure they sailed on to Antigua. There the governor,Colonel Codrington, refused to give them leave to enterthe harbour. So the party, impatient of their dangeroussituation, determined to separate, some landing on Antigua,and Sharp and sixteen others going to Nevis where theyobtained passage to England. On their arrival in Englandseveral, including Sharp, were arrested at the instance ofthe Spanish ambassador, and tried for committing piracyin the South Seas; but from the defectiveness of theevidence produced they escaped conviction.⁴¹⁹ Four of theparty came to Jamaica, where they were apprehended,tried and condemned. One of the four, who had givenhimself up voluntarily, turned State's evidence; two wererepresented by the judges as fit objects of the king'smercy; and the other, "a bloody and notorious villein,"was recommended to be executed as an example to therest.⁴²⁰
The recrudescence of piratical activity between theyears 1679 and 1682 had, through its evil effects, beenstrongly felt in Jamaica; and public opinion was now{230}gradually changing from one of encouragement andwelcome to the privateers and of secret or open oppositionto the efforts of the governors who tried to suppress them,to one of distinct hostility to the old freebooters. Theinhabitants were beginning to realize that in the encouragementof planting, and not of buccaneering, lay the permanentwelfare of the island. Planting and buccaneering, side byside, were inconsistent and incompatible, and the colonistschose the better course of the two. In spite of the frequenttrials and executions at Port Royal, the marauders seemedto be as numerous as ever, and even more troublesome.Private trade with the Spaniards was hindered; runawayservants, debtors and other men of unfortunate or desperatecondition were still, by every new success of the buccaneers,drawn from the island to swell their ranks; and most ofall, men who were now outlawed in Jamaica, driven todesperation turned pirate altogether, and began to wagewar indiscriminately on the ships of all nationalities,including those of the English. Morgan repeatedly wrotehome urging the dispatch of small frigates of light draughtto coast round the island and surprise the freebooters, andhe begged for orders for himself to go on board and commandthem, for "then I shall not much question," heconcludes, "to reduce them or in some time to leave themshipless."⁴²¹ "The governor," wrote the Council of Jamaicato the Lords of Trade and Plantations in May 1680, "cando little from want of ships to reduce the privateers, and ofplain laws to punish them"; and they urged the ratificationof the Act passed by the assembly two years before,making it felony for any British subject in the WestIndies to serve under a foreign prince without leave fromthe governor.⁴²² This Act, and another for the more effectualpunishment of pirates, had been under consideration in the{231}Privy Council in February 1678, and both were returnedto Jamaica with certain slight amendments. They wereagain passed by the assembly as one Act in 1681, andwere finally incorporated into the Jamaica Act of 1683"for the restraining and punishing of privateers andpirates."⁴²³

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Pirates Action by John Masefield

In engaging an enemy's ship at sea the custom wasto display the colours from the poop, and to hangstreamers or pennons from the yardarms.[30] The spritsailwould then be furled, and the spritsail-yard broughtalongship. The lower yards were slung with chain,and the important ropes, sheets and braces,[31] etc., weredoubled. The bulkheads and wooden cabin walls wereknocked away, or fortified with hammocks or bedding,to minimise the risk of splinters. The guns were castloose and loaded. The powder or cartridge was broughtup in "budge barrels," covered with leather, from themagazine, and stowed well away from the guns, eitherin amidships, or on that side of the ship not directlyengaged. Tubs of water were placed between the gunswith blankets soaking in them for the smothering ofany fire that might be caused. Other tubs were filledwith "vinegar water or what we have" for the spongingof the guns. The hatches leading to the hold were takenup, so that no man should desert his post during theengagement. The light sails were furled, and in somecases sent down on deck. The magazines were opened,and hung about with wet blankets to prevent sparksfrom entering. Shot was sent to the shot-lockers ondeck. Sand was sprinkled on the planking to give agreater firmness to the foothold of the men at the guns.The gunner and his mates went round the batteries tomake sure that all was ready. The caps, or leaden plates,[335]were taken from the touch-holes, and the priming powderwas poured down upon the cartridge within the gun.The carpenter made ready sheets of lead, and plugs ofoakum, for the stopping of shot-holes.[32] The cook-roomfire was extinguished. The sails were splashed with asolution of alum. The people went to eat and drink attheir quarters. Extra tiller ropes, of raw hide, were roveabaft. The trumpeters put on their[33] tabards, "of theAdmiral's colours," and blew points of war as they sailedinto action. A writer of the early seventeenth century[34]has left the following spirited account of a sea-fight:—
"A sail, how bears she or stands shee, to winde-wardor lee-ward? set him by the Compasse; he stands rightahead, or on the weather-Bowe, or lee-Bowe, let fly yourcolours if you have a consort, else not. Out with all yoursails, a steady man to the helme, sit close to keep hersteady, give him chase or fetch him up; he holds hisown, no, we gather on him. Captain, out goes his flagand pendants, also his waste-clothes and top-armings,which is a long red cloth about three quarters of a yardbroad, edged on each side with Calico, or white linnencloth, that goeth round about the ship on the outsidesof all her upper works fore and aft, and before thecubbridge-heads, also about the fore and maine tops, aswell for the countenance and grace of the ship, as tocover the men for being seen, he furies and slinges hismaine yarde, in goes his spret-saile. Thus they use tostrip themselves into their short sailes, or fighting sailes,which is only the fore sail, the main and fore topsails,because the rest shouldnot befired nor spoiled; besidesthey would be troublesome to handle, hinder our fightsand the using our armes; he makes ready his closefights fore and aft.
"Master, how stands the chase? Right on head I say;[336]Well we shall reatch him by and by; what's all ready?Yea, yea, every man to his charge, dowse your topsaile tosalute him for the Sea, hale him with a noise of trumpets;Whence is your ship? Of Spaine; Whence is yours? OfEngland. Are you a Merchant, or a Man of War? Weare of the Sea. He waves us to Lee-ward with his drawneSword, cals amaine for the King of Spaine and springshis loufe. Give him a chase piece with your broadside,and run a good berth ahead of him; Done, done. Wehave the winde of him, and he tackes about, tacke youaboute also and keep your loufe [keep close to the wind]be yare at the helme, edge in with him, give him a volleyof small shot, also your prow and broadside as before, andkeep your loufe; He payes us shot for shot; Well, weshall requite him; What, are you ready again? Yea, yea.Try him once more, as before; Done, Done; Keep yourloufe and charge your ordnance again; Is all ready?Yea, yea, edge in with him again, begin with your bowepieces, proceed with your broadside, and let her fall offwith the winde, to give her also your full chase, yourweather broadside, and bring her round that the sternmay also discharge, and your tackes close aboord again;Done, done, the wind veeres, the Sea goes too high toboord her, and we are shot thorow and thorow, andbetwene winde and water. Try the pump, bear up thehelme; Master let us breathe and refresh a little, andsling a man overboard [i.e. lower a man over the side] tostop the leakes; that is, to trusse him up aboute themiddle in a piece of canvas, and a rope to keep him fromsinking, and his armes at liberty, with a malet in the onehand, and a plug lapped in Okum, and well tarred in atarpawling clowt in the other, which he will quickly beatinto the hole or holes the bullets made; What cheeremates? is all well? All well, all well, all well. Thenmake ready to bear up with him again, and with all your[337]great and small shot charge him, and in the smoke boordhim thwart the hawse, on the bowe, midships, or ratherthan faile, on the quarter [where the high poop made itdifficult to climb on board] or make fast your graplings[iron hooks] if you can to his close fights and shear off [soas to tear them to pieces]. Captain, we are fowl on eachother, and the Ship is on fire, cut anything to get clearand smother the fire with wet clothes. In such a casethey will presently be such friends, as to helpe one theother all they can to get clear, lest they should both burntogether and sink; and if they be generous, the firequenched, drink kindely one to another; heave theircans overboord, and then begin again as before.
"Well, Master, the day is spent, the night drawes on, letus consult. Chirurgion, look to the wounded, and windeup the slain, with each a weight or bullet at their headesand feet to make them sinke, and give them three Gunnesfor their funerals. Swabber, make clean the ship [sprinkleit with hot vinegar to avoid the smell of blood]; Purser,record their Names; Watch, be vigilant to keep yourberth to windeward that we lose him not in the night;Gunners, spunge your Ordnance; Sowldiers, scowre yourpieces; Carpenters about your leakes; Boatswaine and therest repair your sails and shrouds; and Cooke, you observeyour directions against the morning watch; Boy, Holla,Master, Holla, is the Kettle boiled? Yea, yea; Boatswaine,call up the men to prayer and breakfast [Wemay suppose the dawn has broken].
"Boy, fetch my cellar of bottels [case of spirits], a healthto you all fore and aft, courage my hearts for a freshcharge; Gunners beat open the ports, and out with yourlower tire [lower tier of guns] and bring me from theweather side to the lee, so many pieces as we have portsto bear upon him. Master lay him aboord loufe for loufe;mid Ships men, see the tops and yards well manned, with[338]stones, fire pots and brass bailes, to throw amongst thembefore we enter, or if we be put off, charge them with allyour great and small shot, in the smoke let us enter themin the shrouds, and every squadron at his best advantage;so sound Drums and Trumpets, and Saint George forEngland.
"They hang out a flag of truce, hale him a main, abase,or take in his flag [to hale one to amaine, a main or a-mayn,was to bid him surrender; to abase was to lower thecolours or the topsails], strike their sails, and come aboordwith their Captaine, Purser, and Gunner, with their commission,cocket, or bills of loading. Out goes the boat,they are launched from the ship's side, entertaine themwith a generall cry God save the Captain and all thecompany with the Trumpets sounding, examine them inparticular, and then conclude your conditions, with feasting,freedom or punishment as you find occasion; but alwayeshave as much care to their wounded as your own, and ifthere be either young women or aged men, use themnobly, which is ever the nature of a generous disposition.To conclude, if you surprise him, or enter perforce, youmay stow the men, rifle, pillage, or sack, and cry aprise."
Down below in the gun-decks during an action, thebatteries became so full of the smoke of black powderthat the men could hardly see what they were doing.The darkness prevented them from seeing the verydangerous recoiling of the guns, and many were killedby them. It was impossible to judge how a gun carriagewould recoil, for it never recoiled twice in the same manner,and though the men at the side tackles did their best toreduce the shock they could not prevent it altogether.It was the custom to close the gun-ports after eachdischarge, as the musketeers aboard the enemy couldotherwise fire through them as the men reloaded. The[339]guns were not fired in a volley, as no ship could havestood the tremendous shock occasioned by the simultaneousdischarge of all her guns. They were fired insuccession, beginning from the bows. In heavy weatherthe lower tiers of guns were not cast loose, for the rollingmade them difficult to control, and the sea came washingthrough the ports and into the muzzles of the guns, knockingdown the men and drenching the powder. It sometimeshappened that the shot, and cartridge, were rolled cleanout of the guns. In sponging and ramming the menwere bidden to keep the sponge or rammer on that sideof them opposite to the side exposed to the enemy sothat if a shot should strike it, it would not force it into thebody of the holder. A man was told off to bring cartridgesand shot to each gun or division of guns and he wasstrictly forbidden to supply any other gun or guns duringthe action. The wounded were to be helped below bymen told off especially for the purpose. Once below, inthe cockpit, they were laid on a sail, and the doctor or hismates attended to them in turn. In no case was a manattended out of his turn. This system seems equitable,and the sailors were insistent that it should be observed;but many poor fellows bled to death, from shatteredarteries, etc., while waiting till the doctor should be ready.The chaplain attended in the cockpit to comfort the dying,and administer the rites of the Church. When a vesselwas taken, her crew were stripped by those in want ofclothes. The prisoners were handcuffed, or chainedtogether, and placed in the hold, on the ballast. Theship's company then set to work to repair damages, cleanand secure the guns, return powder, etc., to the armoury,and magazines, and to give thanks for their preservationround the main-mast.

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The Choosing of Watches by John Masefield

The petty tally,Food,Work,Punishments

As soon as an ancient ship of war was fitted for the sea, with her guns on board, and mounted, her sails bent, her stores and powder in the hold, her water filled, her ballast trimmed, and the hands aboard, some "steep-tubs" were placed in the chains for the steeping of the salt provisions, "till the salt be out though not the saltness." The anchor was then weighed to a note of music. The "weeping Rachells and mournefull Niobes" were set packing ashore. The colours were run up and a gun fired. The foresail was loosed. The cable rubbed down as it came aboard (so that it might not be faked into the tiers wet or dirty). The boat was hoisted inboard. The master "took his departure," by observing the bearing of some particular point of land, as the Mew Stone, the Start, the Lizard, etc. Every man was bidden to "say his private prayer for a bonne voyage." The anchor was catted and fished. Sails were set and trimmed. Ropes were coiled down clear for running, and the course laid by the master.
THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS; CIRCA 1630 THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS
CIRCA 1630

The captain or master then ordered the boatswain "to call up the company," just as all hands are mustered on modern sailing ships at the beginning of a voyage. The master "being Chief of the Starboard Watch" would then look over the mariners for a likely man. Having made his choice he bade the man selected go over to the starboard side, while the commander of the port-watch[323] made his choice. When all the men had been chosen, and the crew "divided into two parts," then each man was bidden to choose "his Mate, Consort or Comrade." The bedding arrangements of these old ships were very primitive. The officers had their bunks or hammocks in their cabins, but the men seem to have slept wherever and however they could. Some, no doubt had hammocks, but the greater number lay in their cloaks between the guns, on mattresses if they had them. A man shared his bed and bedding (if he had any) with his "Mate, Consort, or Comrade," so that the one bed and bedding served for the pair. One of the two friends was always on deck while the other slept. In some ships at the present time the forecastles are fitted with bunks for only half the number of seamen carried, so that the practice is not yet dead. The boatswain, with all "the Younkers or Common Sailors" then went forward of the main-mast to take up their quarters between decks. The captain, master's mates, gunners, carpenters, quartermasters, etc., lodged abaft the main-mast "in their severall Cabbins." The next thing to be done was the arrangement of the ship's company into messes, "four to a mess," after which the custom was to "give every messe a quarter Can of beere and a bisket of bread to stay their stomacks till the kettle be boiled." In the first dog-watch, from 4 to 6 P.M., all hands went to prayers about the main-mast, and from their devotions to supper. At 6 P.M. the company met again to sing a psalm, and say their prayers, before the setting of the night watch; this psalm singing being the prototype of the modern sea-concert, or singsong. At 8 P.M. the first night watch began, lasting until midnight, during which four hours half the ship's company were free to sleep. At midnight the sleepers were called on deck, to relieve the watch. The watches were changed as soon as the muster had been called and a[324] psalm sung, and a prayer offered. They alternated thus throughout the twenty-four hours, each watch having four hours below, after four hours on deck, unless "some flaw of winde come, some storm or gust, or some accident that requires the help of all hands." In these cases the whole ship's company remained on deck until the work was done, or until the master discharged the watch below.[24] The decks were washed down by the swabbers every morning, before the company went to breakfast. After breakfast the men went about their ordinary duties, cleaning the ship, mending rigging, or working at the thousand odd jobs the sailing of a ship entails. The tops were always manned by lookouts, who received some small reward if they spied a prize. The guns were sometimes exercised, and all hands trained to general quarters.

A few captains made an effort to provide for the comfort of their men by laying in a supply of "bedding, linnen, arms[25] and apparel." In some cases they also provided what was called the petty tally, or store of medical comforts. "The Sea-man's Grammar" of Captain John Smith, from which we have been quoting, tells us that the petty tally contained:

"Fine wheat flower close and well-packed, Rice, Currants, Sugar, Prunes, Cynamon, Ginger, Pepper, Cloves, Green Ginger, Oil, Butter, Holland cheese or old Cheese, Wine-Vinegar, Canarie-Sack, Aqua-vitæ, the best Wines, the best Waters, the juyce of Limons for the scurvy, white Bisket, Oatmeal, Gammons of Bacons, dried Neats tongues, Beef packed up in Vineger, Legs of Mutton minced and stewed, and close packed up, with tried Sewet or Butter in earthen Pots. To entertain Strangers Marmalade, Suckets, Almonds, Comfits and such like."

"Some," says the author of this savoury list, "will say[325] I would have men rather to feast than to fight. But I say the want of those necessaries occasions the loss of more men than in any English Fleet hath been slain since 88. For when a man is ill, or at the point of death, I would know whether a dish of buttered Rice with a little Cynamon, Ginger and Sugar, a little minced meat, or rost Beef, a few stew'd Prunes, a race of green Ginger, a Flap-jack, a Kan of fresh water brewed with a little Cynamon and Sugar be not better than a little poor John, or salt fish, with Oil and Mustard, or Bisket, Butter, Cheese, or Oatmeal-pottage on Fish-dayes, or on Flesh-dayes, Salt, Beef, Pork and Pease, with six shillings beer, this is your ordinary ship's allowance, and good for them are well if well conditioned [not such bad diet for a healthy man if of good quality] which is not alwayes as Sea-men can [too well] witnesse. And after a storme, when poor men are all wet, and some have not so much as a cloth to shift them, shaking with cold, few of those but will tell you a little Sack or Aqua-vitæ is much better to keep them in health, than a little small Beer, or cold water although it be sweet. Now that every one should provide for himself, few of them have either that providence or means, and there is neither Ale-house, Tavern, nor Inne to burn a faggot in, neither Grocer, Poulterer, Apothecary nor Butcher's Shop, and therefore the use of this petty Tally is necessary, and thus to be employed as there is occasion."

The entertainment of strangers, with "Almonds, Comfits and such like," was the duty of a sea-captain, for "every Commander should shew himself as like himself as he can," and, "therefore I leave it to their own Discretion," to supply suckets for the casual guest. In those days, when sugar was a costly commodity, a sucket was more esteemed than now. At sea, when the food was mostly salt, it must certainly have been a great dainty.[326]

The "allowance" or ration to the men was as follows[26]:—

Each man and boy received one pound of bread or biscuit daily, with a gallon of beer. The beer was served out four times daily, a quart at a time, in the morning, at dinner, in the afternoon, and at supper. On Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which were flesh days, the allowance of meat was either one pound of salt beef, or one pound of salt pork with pease. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, a side of salt-fish, ling, haberdine, or cod, was divided between the members of each mess, while a seven-ounce ration of butter (or olive oil) and a fourteen-ounce ration of cheese, was served to each man. On Fridays, or fast days, this allowance was halved. At one time the sailors were fond of selling or playing away their rations, but this practice was stopped in the reign of Elizabeth, and the men forced to take their food "orderly and in due season" under penalties. Prisoners taken during the cruise were allowed two-thirds of the above allowance.

The allowance quoted above appears liberal, but it must be remembered that the sailors were messed "six upon four," and received only two-thirds of the full ration. The quality of the food was very bad. The beer was the very cheapest of small beer, and never kept good at sea, owing to the continual motion of the ship. It became acid, and induced dysentery in those who drank it, though it was sometimes possible to rebrew it after it had once gone sour. The water, which was carried in casks, was also far from wholesome. After storing, for a day or two, it generally became offensive, so that none could drink it. In a little while this offensiveness passed off, and it might then be used, though the casks bred growths of an unpleasant sliminess, if the water remained in them for more than a month. However water was not regarded as a[327] drink for human beings until the beer was spent. The salt meat was as bad as the beer, or worse. Often enough the casks were filled with lumps of bone and fat which were quite uneatable, and often the meat was so lean, old, dry and shrivelled that it was valueless as food. The victuallers often killed their animals in the heat of the summer, when the meat would not take salt, so that many casks must have been unfit for food after lying for a week in store. Anti-scorbutics were supplied, or not supplied, at the discretion of the captains. It appears that the sailors disliked innovations in their food, and rejected the substitution of beans, flour "and those white Meats as they are called" for the heavy, and innutritious pork and beef. Sailors were always great sticklers for their "Pound and Pint," and Boteler tells us that in the early seventeenth century "the common Sea-men with us, are so besotted on their Beef and Pork, as they had rather adventure on all the Calentures, and Scarbots [scurvy] in the World, than to be weaned from their Customary Diet, or so much as to lose the least Bit of it."

The salt-fish ration was probably rather better than the meat, but the cheese was nearly always very bad, and of an abominable odour. The butter was no better than the cheese. It was probably like so much train-oil. The bread or biscuit which was stowed in bags in the bread-room in the hold, soon lost its hardness at sea, becoming soft and wormy, so that the sailors had to eat it in the dark. The biscuits, or cakes of bread, seem to have been current coin with many of the West Indian natives. In those ships where flour was carried, in lieu of biscuit, as sometimes happened in cases of emergency, the men received a ration of doughboy, a sort of dumpling of wetted flour boiled with pork fat. This was esteemed a rare delicacy either eaten plain or with butter.[328]

This diet was too lacking in variety, and too destitute of anti-scorbutics to support the mariners in health. The ships in themselves were insanitary, and the crews suffered very much from what they called calentures, (or fevers such as typhus and typhoid), and the scurvy. The scurvy was perhaps the more common ailment, as indeed it is to-day. It is now little dreaded, for its nature is understood, and guarded against. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, it killed its thousands, owing to the ignorance and indifference of responsible parties, and to other causes such as the construction of the ships and the length of the voyages. A salt diet, without fresh vegetables, and without variety, is a predisposing cause of scurvy. Exposure to cold and wet, and living in dirty surroundings are also predisposing causes. The old wooden ships were seldom very clean, and never dry, and when once the scurvy took hold it generally raged until the ship reached port, where fresh provisions could be purchased. A wooden ship was never quite dry, in any weather, for the upper-deck planks, and the timbers of her topsides, could never be so strictly caulked that no water could leak in. The sea-water splashed in through the scuppers and through the ports, or leaked in, a little at a time, through the seams. In bad weather the lower gun-decks (or all decks below the spar-deck) were more or less awash, from seas that had washed down the hatchways. The upper-deck seams let in the rain, and when once the lower-decks were wet it was very difficult to dry them. It was impossible to close the gun-deck ports so as to make them watertight, for the water would find cracks to come in at, even though the edges of the lids were caulked with oakum, and the orifices further barred by deadlights or wooden shutters. Many of the sailors, as we have seen, were without a change of clothes, and with no proper sleeping-place, save[329] the wet deck and the wet jackets that they worked in. It often happened that the gun-ports would be closed for several weeks together, during which time the gun-decks became filthy and musty, while the sailors contracted all manner of cramps and catarrhs. In addition to the wet, and the discomfort of such a life, there was also the work, often extremely laborious, incidental to heavy weather at sea. What with the ceaseless handling of sails and ropes, in frost and snow and soaking sea-water; and the continual pumping out of the leaks the rotten seams admitted, the sailor had little leisure in which to sleep, or to dry himself. When he left the deck he had only the dark, wet berth-deck to retire to, a place of bleakness and misery, where he might share a sopping blanket, if he had one, with the corpse of a drowned rat and the flotsam from the different messes. There was no getting dry nor warm, though the berth-deck might be extremely close and stuffy from lack of ventilation. The cook-room, or galley fire would not be lighted, and there would be no comforting food or drink, nothing but raw meat and biscuit, and a sup of sour beer. It was not more unpleasant perhaps than life at sea is to-day, but it was certainly more dangerous.[27] When at last the storm abated and the sea went down, the ports were opened and the decks cleaned. The sailors held a general washing-day, scrubbing the mouldy clothes that had been soaked so long, and hanging them to dry about the rigging. Wind-sails or canvas ventilators were rigged, to admit air to the lowest recesses of the hold. The decks were scrubbed down with a mixture of vinegar and sand, and then sluiced with salt water, scraped with metal scrapers, and dried with swabs and small portable firepots. Vinegar was carried about the decks in large iron pots, and converted into vapour by the insertion of[330] red-hot metal bars. The swabbers brought pans of burning pitch or brimstone into every corner, so that the smoke might penetrate everywhere. But even then the decks were not wholesome. There were spaces under the guns which no art could dry, and subtle leaks in the topsides that none could stop. The hold accumulated filth, for in many ships the ship's refuse was swept on to the ballast, where it bred pestilence, typhus fever and the like. The bilge-water reeked and rotted in the bilges, filling the whole ship with its indescribable stench. Beetles, rats and cockroaches bred and multiplied in the crannies, until (as in Captain Cook's case two centuries later), they made life miserable for all on board. These wooden ships were very gloomy abodes, and would have been so no doubt even had they been dry and warm. They were dark, and the lower-deck, where most of the men messed, was worse lit than the decks above it, for being near to the water-line the ports could seldom be opened. Only in very fair weather could the sailors have light and sun below decks. As a rule they ate and slept in a murky, stuffy atmosphere, badly lighted by candles in heavy horn lanthorns. The gloom of the ships must have weighed heavily upon many of the men, and the depression no doubt predisposed them to scurvy, making them less attentive to bodily cleanliness, and less ready to combat the disease when it attacked them. Perhaps some early sea-captains tried to make the between decks less gloomy by whitewashing the beams, bulkheads and ship's sides. In the eighteenth century this seems to have been practised with success, though perhaps the captains who tried it were more careful of their hands in other ways, and the benefit may have been derived from other causes.

Discipline was maintained by some harsh punishments, designed to "tame the most rude and savage people in the world." Punishment was inflicted at the discretion[331] of the captain, directly after the hearing of the case, but the case was generally tried the day after the commission of the offence, so that no man should be condemned in hot blood. The most common punishment was that of flogging, the men being stripped to the waist, tied to the main-mast or to a capstan bar, and flogged upon the bare back with a whip or a "cherriliccum." The boatswain had power to beat the laggards and the ship's boys with a cane, or with a piece of knotted rope. A common punishment was to put the offender on half his allowance, or to stop his meat, or his allowance of wine or spirits. For more heinous offences there was the very barbarous punishment of keel-hauling, by which the victim was dragged from the main yardarm right under the keel of the ship, across the barnacles, to the yardarm on the farther side. Those who suffered this punishment were liable to be cut very shrewdly by the points of the encrusted shells. Ducking from the main yardarm was inflicted for stubbornness, laziness, going on shore without leave, or sleeping while on watch. The malefactor was brought to the gangway, and a rope fastened under his arms and about his middle. He was then hoisted rapidly up to the main yardarm, "from whence he is violently let fall into the Sea, some times twice, some times three severall times, one after another" (Boteler). This punishment, and keel-hauling, were made more terrible by the discharge of a great gun over the malefactor's head as he struck the water, "which proveth much offensive to him" (ibid.). If a man killed another he was fastened to the corpse and flung overboard (Laws of Oleron). For drawing a weapon in a quarrel, or in mutiny, the offender lost his right hand (ibid.). Theft was generally punished with flogging, but in serious cases the thief was forced to run the gauntlet, between two rows of sailors all armed with thin knotted cords. Duck[332]ing from the bowsprit end, towing in a rope astern, and marooning, were also practised as punishments for the pilferer. For sleeping on watch there was a graduated scale. First offenders were soused with a bucket of water. For the second offence they were tied up by the wrists, and water was poured down their sleeves. For the third offence they were tied to the mast, with bags of bullets, or gun-chambers tied about their arms and necks, until they were exhausted, or "till their back be ready to break" (Monson). If they still offended in this kind they were taken and tied to the bowsprit end, with rations of beer and bread, and left there with leave to starve or fall into the sea. Destruction or theft of ships' property was punished by death. Petty insurrections, such as complaints of the quality or quantity of the food, etc., were punished by the bilboes. The bilboes were iron bars fixed to the deck a little abaft the main-mast. The prisoner sat upon the deck under a sentry, and his legs and hands were shackled to the bars with irons of a weight proportioned to the crime. It was a rule that none should speak to a man in the bilboes. For blasphemy and swearing there was "an excellent good way"[28] of forcing the sinner to hold a marline-spike in his mouth, until his tongue was bloody (Teonge). Dirty speech was punished in a similar way, and sometimes the offending tongue was scrubbed with sand and canvas. We read of two sailors who stole a piece of beef aboard H.M.S. Assistance in the year 1676.[29] Their hands were tied behind them, and the beef was hung about their necks, "and the rest of the seamen cam one by one, and rubd them over the mouth with the raw beife; and in this posture they stood two howers." Other punishments were "shooting to death," and hanging at the yardarm.[333] "And the Knaveries of the Ship-boys are payd by the Boat-Swain with the Rod; and commonly this execution is done upon the Munday Mornings; and is so frequently in use, that some meer Seamen believe in earnest, that they shall not have a fair Wind, unless the poor Boys be duely brought to the Chest, that is, whipped, every Munday Morning" (Boteler).

Some of these punishments may appear unduly harsh; but on the whole they were no more cruel than the punishments usually inflicted ashore. Indeed, if anything they were rather more merciful.

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GUNS AND GUNNERS by John Masefield

Breech-loaders—Cartridges—Powder—The gunner's art

Cannon were in use in Europe, it is thought, in theeleventh century; for the art of making gunpowdercame westward, from China, much earlier than peoplehave supposed. It is certain that gunpowder was used"in missiles," before it was used to propel them. Theearliest cannon were generally of forged iron built instrips secured by iron rings. They were loaded by movablechambers which fitted into the breech, and they wereknown as "crakys of war." We find them on Englishships at the end of the fourteenth century, in two kinds,the one a cannon proper, the other an early version ofthe harquebus-a-croc. The cannon was a mere iron tube,of immense strength, bound with heavy iron rings. Therings were shrunken on to the tube in the ordinary way.The tube, when ready, was bolted down to a heavysquared beam of timber on the ship's deck. It was loadedby the insertion of the "gonne-chambre," an iron pan,containing the charge, which fitted into, and closed thebreech. This gonne-chambre was wedged in firmly bya chock of elm wood beaten in with a mallet. Anotherblock of wood, fixed in the deck behind it, kept it fromflying out with any violence when the shot was fired.Cannon of this sort formed the main armament of shipsuntil after the reign of Henry the Eighth. They firedstone cannon-balls, "pellettes of lead, and dyce of iron."Each gun had some half-dozen chambers, so that the[299]firing from them may have been rapid, perhaps threerounds a minute. The powder was not kept loose intubs, near the guns, but neatly folded in conical cartridges,made of canvas or paper (or flannel) which practice prevailedfor many years. All ships of war carried "pycksfor hewing stone-shott," though after 1490, "the iron shottcallyd bowletts," and their leaden brothers, came intogeneral use. The guns we have described, were generallytwo or four pounders, using from half-a-pound, to a poundand a quarter, of powder, at each discharge. The carriage,or bed, on which they lay, was usually fitted with wheelsat the rear end only.

The other early sea-cannon, which we have mentioned,were also breech-loading. They were mounted on a sortof iron wheel, at the summit of a stout wooden staff, fixedin the deck, or in the rails of the poop and forecastle.They were of small size, and revolved in strong iron pivotrings, so that the man firing them might turn them in anydirection he wished. They were of especial service insweeping the waist, the open spar-deck, between thebreaks of poop and forecastle, when boarders were onboard. They threw "base and bar-shot to murder nearat hand"; but their usual ball was of stone, and for thisreason they were called petrieroes, and petrieroes-a-braga.The harquebus-a-croc, a weapon almost exactlysimilar, threw small cross-bar shot "to cut Sails andRigging." In Elizabethan times it was carried in thetops of fighting ships, and on the rails and gunwales ofmerchantmen.

In the reign of Henry VIII., a ship called the MaryRose, of 500 tons, took part in the battle with the French,in St Helens Roads, off Brading. It was a sultrysummer day, almost windless, when the action began,and the Mary Rose suffered much (being unable to stir)from the gun-fire of the French galleys. At noon, when[300]a breeze sprang up, and the galleys drew off, the MaryRose sent her men to dinner. Her lower ports, whichwere cut too low down, were open, and the wind heeledher over, so that the sea rushed in to them. She sankin deep water, in a few moments, carrying with her hercaptain, and all the gay company on board. In 1836some divers recovered a few of her cannon, of the kindswe have described, some of brass, some of iron. Theiron guns had been painted red and black. Those ofbrass, in all probability, had been burnished, like so muchgold. These relics may be seen by the curious, at Woolwich,in the Museum of Ordnance, to which they werepresented by their salver.

In the reign of Elizabeth, cannon were much less primitive,for a great advance took place directly men learnedthe art of casting heavy guns. Until 1543, they hadforged them; a painful process, necessarily limited tosmall pieces. After that year they cast them round acore, and by 1588 they had evolved certain general typesof ordnance which remained in use, in the British Navy,almost unchanged, until after the Crimean War. TheElizabethan breech-loaders, and their methods, have nowbeen described, but a few words may be added withreference to the muzzle-loaders. The charge for thesewas contained in cartridges, covered with canvas, or"paper royall" (i.e. parchment), though the parchmentused to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scrapsof it remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, theweapon had to be "wormed," or scraped out, with aninstrument like an edged corkscrew. A tampion, or wad,of oakum or the like, was rammed down between thecartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ballin place. When the gun was loaded the gunner filledthe touch-hole with his priming powder, from a hornhe carried in his belt, after thrusting a sharp wire, called[301]the priming-iron, down the touch-hole, through the cartridge,so that the priming powder might have direct accessto the powder of the charge. He then sprinkled a littletrain of powder along the gun, from the touch-hole tothe base-ring, for if he applied the match directly to thetouch-hole the force of the explosion was liable to blowhis linstock from his hand. In any case the "huff" or"spit" of fire, from the touch-hole, burned little holes, likepock-marks, in the beams overhead. The match wasapplied smartly, with a sharp drawing back of the hand,the gunner stepping quickly aside to avoid the recoil.He stepped back, and stood, on the side of the gun oppositeto that on which the cartridges were stored, so thatthere might be no chance of a spark from his matchsetting fire to the ammunition. Spare match, newlysoaked in saltpetre water, lay coiled in a little tub besidethe gun. The cartridges, contained in latten buckets, wereplaced in a barrel by the gun and covered over with askin of leather. The heavy shot were arranged in shotracks, known as "gardens," and these were ready to thegunner's hand, with "cheeses" of tampions or wads. Thewads were made of soft wood, oakum, hay, straw, or"other such like." The sponges and rammers werehooked to the beams above the gun ready for use. Therammers were of hard wood, shod with brass, "to savethe Head from cleaving." The sponges were of soft fastwood, "As Aspe, Birch, Willow, or such like," and hadheads covered with "rough Sheepes skinne wooll," nailedto the staff with "Copper nayles." "Ladels," or powdershovels, for the loading of guns, were seldom used at sea.

The guns were elevated or depressed by means ofhandspikes and quoins. Quoins were blocks of wood,square, and wedge-shaped, with ring-hooks screwed inthem for the greater ease ofhandling.Two of the gun'screw raised the base of the cannon upon their handspikes,[302]using the "steps" of the gun carriage as their fulcra.A third slid a quoin along the "bed" of the carriage,under the gun, to support it at the required height. Therecoil of the gun on firing, was often very violent, butit was limited by the stout rope called the breeching,which ran round the base of the gun, from each side ofthe port-hole, and kept it from running back more thanits own length. When it had recoiled it was in theposition for sponging and loading, being kept fromrunning out again, with the roll of the ship, by a train,or preventer tackle, hooked to a ring-bolt in amidships.In action, particularly in violent action, the guns becamevery hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they recoiledwith such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching,or to leap up to strike the upper beams. Brass gunswere more skittish than iron, but all guns needed a restof two or three hours, if possible, after continual firingfor more than eight hours at a time. To cool a gun inaction, to keep it from bursting, or becoming red-hot,John Roberts advises sponging "with spunges wet inley and water, or water and vinegar, or with the coolestfresh or salt water, bathing and washing her both withinand without." This process "if the Service is hot, asit was with us at Bargen" should be repeated, "everyeighth or tenth shot." The powder in use for cannonwas called Ordnance or Corne-powder. It was madein the following proportion. To every five pounds ofrefined saltpetre, one pound of good willow, or alder,charcoal, and one pound of fine yellow sulphur. Theingredients were braised together in a mortar, moistenedwith water distilled of orange rinds, or aqua-vitæ, andfinally dried and sifted. It was a bright, "tawny blewishcolour" when well made. Fine powder, for muskets orpriming seems to have had a greater proportion ofsaltpetre.[303]

The Naval Tracts of Sir W. Monson, contain a list ofthe sorts of cannon mounted in ships of the time ofQueen Elizabeth. It is not exhaustive, but as RobertNorton and Sir Jonas Moore give similar lists, thecurious may check the one with the other.

	Bore	Weight of Cannon	Weight of Shot	Weight of Powder	Point Blank Range	Random		Length in Feet
	ins.	lb.	lb.	lb.	paces	paces
Cannon Royal or Double Cannon	8½	8000	66	30	800	1930	M.L.	12
Cannon or Whole Cannon	8	6000	60	27	770	2000	"	11
Cannon Serpentine	7	5500	53½	25	200	2000	"	10
Bastard Cannon	7	4500	41½	20	180	1800	"	10
Demi-Cannon	6½-7	4000	33½	18	170	1700	"	10
Cannon Petro or Cannon Perier	6	4000	24½	14	160	1600	"	4
Culverin	5-5½	4500	17½	12	200	2500	"	13
Basilisk	5	4000	15	10	230	3000	"	4
Demi-Culverin	4	3400	9½	8	200	2500	"	11
Bastard Culverin	4	3000	7	5¾	170	1700	"	11
Saker	3½	1400	5½	5½	170	1700	"	9 or 10
Minion	3½	1000	4	4	170	1700	"	8
Falcon	2½	660	3	3	150	1500	"	7
Falconet	2	500	1½	1¼	150	1500	"	6½
Serpentine	1½	400	¾	¾	140	1400	"	4½
Rabinet	1	300	½	½	120	1000	"	2½

To these may be added bases, port pieces, stock fowlers,slings, half slings, and three-quarter slings, breech-loadingguns ranging from five and a half to one-inch bore.

Other firearms in use in our ships at sea were thematchlock musket, firing a heavy double bullet, andthe harquabuse[21] or arquebus, which fired a single bullet.The musket was a heavy weapon, and needed a rest,a forked staff, to support the barrel while the soldieraimed. This staff the musketeer lashed to his wrist,with a cord, so that he might drag it after him fromplace to place. The musket was fired with a match,which the soldier lit from a cumbrous pocket fire-carrier.[304]The harquabuse was a lighter gun, which was fired withouta rest, either by a wheel-lock (in which a cog-wheel,running on pyrites, caused sparks to ignite the powder),or by the match and touch-hole. Hand firearms werethen common enough, and came to us from Italy, shortlyafter 1540. They were called Daggs. They were wheel-locks,wild in firing, short, heavy, and beautifully wrought.Sometimes they carried more than one barrel, and insome cases they were made revolving. They were mostuseful in a hand-to-hand encounter, as with footpads, orboarders; but they were useless at more than ten paces.A variation from them was the hand-cannon or blunderbuss,with a bell-muzzle, which threw rough slugs ornails. In Elizabethan ships the musketeers sometimesfired short, heavy, long-headed, pointed iron arrows fromtheir muskets, a missile which flew very straight, andpenetrated good steel armour. They had also an infinityof subtle fireworks, granadoes and the like, with whichto set their opponents on fire. These they fired from thebombard pieces, or threw from the tops, or cage-works.Crossbows and longbows went to sea, with good storeof Spanish bolts and arrows, until the end of Elizabeth'sreign, though they were, perhaps, little used after 1590.The gunner had charge of them, and as, in a way, thegunner was a sort of second captain, sometimes takingcommand of the ship, we cannot do better than to quotefrom certain old books concerning his duties on board.Mr W. Bourne, the son of an eminent mathematician, hasleft a curious little book on "The Arte of Shooting inGreat Ordnance," first published in London, in 1587,the year before the Armada. Its author, W. Bourne,was at one time a gunner of the bulwark at Gravesend.The art of shooting in great guns did not improve verymuch during the century following; nor did the gunschange materially. The breech-loading, quick-firing guns[305]fell out of use as the musket became more handy; butotherwise the province of the gunner changed hardly atall. It is not too much to say that gunners of Nelson'stime, might have studied some of Bourne's book with profit.

"As for gunners that do serve by the Sea, [they] mustobserve this order following. First that they do foreseethat all their great Ordnannce be fast breeched, andforesee that all their geare be handsome and in a readinesse.& Furthermore that they be very circumspect about theirPouder in the time of service, and especially beware oftheir lint stockes & candels for feare of their Pouder, &their fireworks, & their Ducum [or priming powder],which is very daungerous, and much to be feared. Thenfurthermore, that you do keep your peeces as neer asyou can, dry within, and also that you keep their tutch-holescleane, without any kind of drosse falling into them."

The gunners were also to know the "perfect dispart"of their pieces: that is they were to make a calculationwhich would enable them in sighting, to bring "thehollow of the peece," not the outer muzzle rim, "rightagainst the marke." In the case of a breech-loader thiscould not be done by art, with any great exactness,"but any reasonable man (when he doth see the peeceand the Chamber) may easily know what he must doe,as touching those matters." In fighting at sea, in anythinglike a storm, with green seas running, so that"the Shippes do both heave and set" the gunner wasto choose a gun abaft the main-mast, on the lower orlop,"if the shippe may keepe the porte open," as in that partof the vessel the motion would be least apparent.

"Then if you doe make a shotte at another Shippe,you must be sure to have a good helme-man, that canstirre [steer] steady, taking some marke of a Cloudethat is above by the Horizon, or by the shadowe of theSunne, or by your standing still, take some marke of[306]the other shippe through some hole, or any such otherlike. Then he that giveth levell [takes aim] must observethis: first consider what disparte his piece must have,then lay the peece directly with that parte of the Shippethat he doth meane to shoote at: then if the Shippe beeunder the lee side of your Shippe, shoote your peece inthe comming downe of the Gayle, and the beginning ofthe other Ship to rise upon the Sea, as near as you can,for this cause, for when the other shippe is aloft uponthe Sea, and shee under your Lee, the Gayle makethher for to head, and then it is likest to do much good."

The helmsman also was to have an eye to the enemy,to luff when she luffed, and "putte roomer," or sail large,when he saw her helmsman put the helm up. If theenemy made signs that she was about to lay the shipaboard, either by loosing more sail, or altering her course,the gunner had to remember certain things.

"If the one doe meane to lay the other aboorde, thenthey do call up their company either for to enter orto defend: and first, if that they doe meane for to enter... then marke where that you doe see anye Scottlesfor to come uppe at, as they will stande neere thereaboutes,to the intente for to be readie, for to come uppe underthe Scottles: there give levell with your Fowlers, orSlinges, or Bases, for there you shall be sure to do mostegood, then further more, if you doe meane for to enterhim, then give level with your fowlers and Port peeces,where you doe see his chiefest fight of his Shippe is,and especially be sure to have them charged, and toshoote them off at the first boording of the Shippes, forthen you shall be sure to speede. And furthermore,mark where his men have most recourse, then dischargeyour Fowlers and Bases. And furthermore for the annoyanceof your enemie, if that at the boording that theShippes lye therefore you may take away their steeradge[307]with one of your great peeces, that is to shoote at hisRother, and furthermore at his mayne maste and sofoorth."

The ordering of cannon on board a ship was a matterwhich demanded a nice care. The gunner had to seethat the carriages were so made as to allow the gunsto lie in the middle of the port. The carriage wheels,or trocks, were not to be too high, for if they were toohigh they hindered the mariners, when they ran thecannon out in action (Norton, Moore, Bourne, Monson).Moreover, if the wheels were very large, and the shipwere heeled over, the wheel rims would grind the ship'sside continually, unless large skids were fitted to them.And if the wheels were large they gave a greater fiercenessto the impetus of the recoil, when the piece wasfired. The ports were to be rather "deepe uppe anddowne" than broad in the traverse, and it was verynecessary that the lower port-sill should not be toofar from the deck, "for then the carriage muste beemade verye hygh, and that is verye evill" (Bourne). Theshort cannon were placed low down, at the ship's side,because short cannon were more easily run in, and secured,when the ports were closed, owing to the ship's heeling,or the rising of the sea. A short gun, projecting itsmuzzle through the port, was also less likely to catchthe outboard tackling of the sails, such as "Sheetes andTackes, or the Bolynes." And for these reasons any verylong guns were placed astern, or far forward, as bow, orstern chasers. It was very necessary that the gunsplaced at the stern should be long guns, for the tallpoops of the galleons overhung the sea considerably. Ifthe gun, fired below the overhang, did not project beyondthe woodwork, it was liable to "blowe up the Counterof the Shyppes Sterne," to the great detriment of giltand paint. Some ships cut their stern ports down to[308]the deck, and continued the deck outboard, by a projectingplatform. The guns were run out on to thisplatform, so that the muzzles cleared the overhang.These platforms were the originals of the quarter-galleries,in which, some centuries later, the gold-lacedadmirals took the air (Bourne).

Sir Jonas Moore, who published a translation ofMoretti's book on artillery, in 1683, added to his chapterssome matter relating to sea-gunners, from the Frenchof Denis Furnier.

"The Gunner, whom they call in the Straights Captain,Master-Canoneer, and in Bretagne and Spain, and inother places Connestable, is one of the principal Officersin the Ship; it is he alone with the Captain who cancommand the Gunners. He ought to be a man ofcourage, experience, and vigilant, who knows the goodnessof a Peece of Ordnance, the force of Powder, andwho also knows how to mount a Peece of Ordnanceupon its carriage, and to furnish it with Bolts, Plates,Hooks, Capsquares [to fit over the Trunnions on whichthe gun rested] Axletrees and Trucks, and that maynot reverse too much; to order well its Cordage asBreeching [which stopped the recoil] and Tackling [bywhich it was run out or in]; to plant the Cannon topurpose in the middle of its Port; to know how tounclow[22] it [cast it loose for action], make ready hisCartridges, and to have them ready to pass from handto hand through the Hatches, and to employ his mostcareful men in that affair; that he have care of all, that,he be ready everywhere to assist where necessity shallbe; and take care that all be made to purpose.

"He and his Companions [the gunner's mates] ought[309]with their dark Lanthornes continually to see if the Gunsplay, and if the Rings in Ships do not shake." (Thatis, a strict watch was to be kept, at night, when at seain stormy weather, to see that the cannon did not workor break loose, and that the ring-bolts remained firm intheir places.)

"If there be necessity of more Cordage, and to seethat the Beds and Coins be firm and in good order;when the Ship comes to Anker, he furnisheth Cordage,and takes care that all his Companions take their turn[stand their watch] and quarters, that continually everyevening they renew their priming Powder [a horn offine dry powder poured into the touch-holes of loadedcannon, to communicate the fire to the charge], and allare obliged to visit their Cannon Powder every eightdayes, to see if it hath not receiv'd wet, although theybe well stopped a top with Cork and Tallow; to seethat the Powder-Room be kept neat and clean, and theCartridges ranged in good order, each nature or Calibreby itself, and marked above in great Letters the weightof the Powder and nature of the Peece to which itbelongs, and to put the same mark over the Port-holeof the Peece; that the Linstocks [or forked staves of wood,about two and a half feet long, on which the match wascarried] be ready, and furnished with Match [or cottonthread, boiled in ashes-lye and powder, and kept smouldering,with a red end, when in use], and to have alwaies onelighted, and where the Cannoneer makes his Quarterto have two one above another below [this last passageis a little obscure, but we take it to mean that at night,when the gunner slept in his cabin, a lighted match wasto be beside him, but that in the gun-decks below and abovehis cabin (which was in the half-deck) lit matches wereto be kept ready for immediate use, by those who kept watch],that his Granadoes [black clay, or thick glass bottles,[310]filled with priming powder, and fired by a length of tow,well soaked in saltpetre water] and Firepots [balls ofhard tar, sulphur-meal and rosin, kneaded together andfired by a priming of bruised powder] be in readiness, and3 or 400 Cartridges ready fill'd, Extrees [?] and Trucks[wheels] to turn often over the Powder Barrels that thePowder do not spoil; to have a care of Rings [ring-bolts]and of the Ports [he here means port-lids] that they havetheir Pins and small Rings."

Sir William Monson adds that the gunner was toacquaint himself with the capacities of every known sortof firearm, likely to be used at sea. He also gives someprofessional hints for the guidance of gunners. He tellsus (and Sir Richard Hawkins confirms him) that no sea-cannonought to be more than seven or eight feet long;that they ought not to be taper-bored, nor honey-combedwithin the bore, and that English ordnance, the best inEurope, was sold in his day for twelve pounds a ton.

In Boteler's time the gunner commanded a gang, orcrew, who ate and slept in the gun-room, which seemsin those days to have been the magazine. He had tokeep a careful account of the expenditure of his munitions,and had orders "not to make any shot withoutthe Knowledge and order of the captain."

Authorities.—N. Boteler: "Six Dialogues." W. Bourne: "The Artof Shooting in Great Ordnance"; "Regiment for the Sea"; "Mariner'sGuide." Sir W. Monson: "Naval Tracts." Sir Jonas Moore. R. Norton:"The Gunner." John Roberts: "Complete Cannoneer."

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THE SHIP'S COMPANY

Captain—Master—Lieutenant—Warrant officers—Duties andprivileges

By comparing Sir Richard Hawkins' "Observations"and Sir W. Monson's "Tracts" with Nicolas Boteler's"Dialogical Discourses," we find that the duties of ship'sofficers changed hardly at all from the time of the Armadato the death of James I. Indeed they changed hardly atall until the coming of the steamship. In modern sailingships the duties of some of the supernumeraries are almostexactly as they were three centuries ago.

The captain was the supreme head of the ship, empoweredto displace any inferior officer except the master(Monson). He was not always competent to navigate(ibid.), but as a rule he had sufficient science to checkthe master's calculations. He was expected to choose hisown lieutenant (ibid.), to keep a muster-book, and acareful account of the petty officer's stores (Monson andSir Richard Hawkins), and to punish any offences committedby his subordinates.

A lieutenant seems to have been unknown in ships ofwar until the early seventeenth century. He rankedabove the master, and acted as the captain's proxy, orambassador, "upon any occasion of Service" (Monson).In battle he commanded on the forecastle, and in theforward half of the ship. He was restrained from meddlingwith the master's duties, lest "Mischiefs and factions"should ensue. Boteler adds that a lieutenant ought not[312]to be "too fierce in his Way at first ... but to carryhimself with Moderation and Respect to the MasterGunner, Boatswain, and the other Officers."

The master was the ship's navigator, responsible forthe performance of "the ordinary Labours in the ship."He took the height of the sun or stars "with his Astrolabe,Backstaff or Jacob's-staff" (Boteler). He saw that thewatches were kept at work, and had authority to punishmisdemeanants (Monson). Before he could hope foremployment he had to go before the authorities at TrinityHouse, to show his "sufficiency" in the sea arts (Monson).

The pilot, or coaster, was junior to the master; butwhen he was bringing the vessel into port, or over sands,or out of danger, the master had no authority to interferewith him (Monson). He was sometimes a permanentofficial, acting as junior navigator when the ship was outof soundings (Hawkins), but more generally he was employedtemporarily, as at present, to bring a ship into orout of port (Monson and Boteler).

The ship's company was drilled by a sort of juniorlieutenant (Boteler), known as the corporal, who was somethingbetween a master-at-arms and a captain of marines.He had charge of the small arms, and had to see to it thatthe bandoliers for the musketmen were always filled withdry cartridges, and that the muskets and "matches" werekept neat and ready for use in the armoury (Monson). Hedrilled the men in the use of their small arms, and alsoacted as muster master at the setting and relieving of thewatch.

The gunner, whose duties we have described at length,was privileged to alter the ship's course in action, and mayeven have taken command during a chase, or runningfight. He was assisted by his mates, who commanded thevarious batteries while in action, and aimed and firedaccording to his directions.[313]

The boatswain, the chief seaman of the crew, wasgenerally an old sailor who had been much at sea, andknew the whole art of seamanship. He had charge of allthe sea-stores, and "all the Ropes belonging to the Rigging[more especially the fore-rigging], all her Cables, andAnchors; all her Sayls, all her Flags, Colours, andPendants;[23] and so to stand answerable for them" (Boteler).He was captain of the long boat, which was stowed onthe booms or spare spars between the fore and mainmasts. He had to keep her guns clean, her oars, mast,sails, stores, and water ready for use, and was at all timesto command and steer her when she left the ship(Hawkins). He carried a silver whistle, or call, about hisneck, which he piped in various measures before repeatingthe master's orders (Monson). The whistle had a ball atone end, and was made curved, like a letter S laidsideways. The boatswain, when he had summoned allhands to their duty, was expected to see that they workedwell. He kept them quiet, and "at peace one withanother," probably by knocking together the heads ofthose disposed to quarrel. Lastly, he was the ship'sexecutioner, his mates acting as assistants, and at hishands, under the supervision of the marshal, the crewreceived their "red-checked shirts," and such bilboedsolitude as the captain might direct.

The coxswain was the commander of the captain'srow barge which he had to keep clean, freshly paintedand gilded, and fitted with the red and white flag—"andwhen either the Captain or any Person of Fashion is touse the Boat, or be carryed too and again from the Ship,he is to have the Boat trimmed with her Cushions andCarpet and himself is to be ready to steer her out ofher Stern [in the narrow space behind the back boardof the stern-sheets] and with his Whistle to chear up[314]and direct his Gang of Rowers, and to keep them togetherwhen they are to wait: and this is the lowest Officer in aShip, that is allowed to carry a Whistle" (Boteler). Thecoxswain had to stay in his barge when she towed asternat sea, and his office, therefore, was often very wretched,from the cold and wet. He had to see that his boat'screw were at all times clean in their persons, and dressedalike, in as fine a livery as could be managed (Monson).He was to choose them from the best men in the ship,from the "able and handsome men" (Monson). He hadto instruct them to row together, and to accustom theport oarsmen to pull starboard from time to time. Healso kept his command well caulked, and saw the chocksand skids secure when his boat was hoisted to the deck.

The quartermasters and their mates had charge ofthe hold (Monson), and kept a sort of check upon thesteward in his "delivery of the Victuals to the Cook,and in his pumping and drawing of the Beer" (Boteler).In far later times they seem to have been a rating ofelderly and sober seamen who took the helm, two andtwo together, in addition to their other duties. In theElizabethan ship they superintended the stowage of theballast, and were in charge below, over the ballast shifters,when the ships were laid on their sides to be scrapedand tallowed. They also had to keep a variety of fishhooks ready, in order to catch any fish, such as sharksor bonitos.

The purser was expected to be "an able Clerk"(Monson) for he had to keep an account of all provisionsreceived from the victualler. He kept the ship's muster-book,with some account of every man borne upon it.He made out passes, or pay-tickets for discharged men(ibid.), and, according to Boteler, he was able "to purseup roundly for himself" by dishonest dealing. The purser(Boteler says the cook) received 6d. a month from every[315]seaman, for "Wooden Dishes, Cans, Candles, Lanthorns,and Candlesticks for the Hold" (Monson). It was alsohis office to superintend the steward, in the serving outof the provisions and other necessaries to the crew.

The steward was the purser's deputy (Monson). Hehad to receive "the full Mass of Victual of all kinds,"and see it well stowed in the hold, the heavy thingsbelow, the light things up above (Boteler). He hadcharge of all the candles, of which those old dark shipsused a prodigious number. He kept the ship's biscuitsor bread, in the bread-room, a sort of dark cabin belowthe gun-deck. He lived a life of comparative retirement,for there was a "several part in the Hold, which is calledthe Steward's room, where also he Sleeps and Eats"(Boteler). He weighed out the provisions for the crew,"to the several Messes in the Ship," and was cursed, nodoubt, by every mariner, for a cheating rogue in leaguewith the purser. Though Hawkins tells us that it washis duty "with discretion and good tearmes to givesatisfaction to all."

The cook did his office in a cook-room, or galley, placedin the forecastle or "in the Hatchway upon the firstOrlope" (Boteler). The floor of the galley was not atthat time paved with brick or stone, as in later days, andnow. It was therefore very liable to take fire, especiallyin foul weather, when the red embers were shaken fromthe ash-box of the range. It was the cook's duty to takethe provisions from the steward, both flesh and fish, andto cook them, by boiling, until they were taken from him(Monson). It was the cook's duty to steep the salt meatin water for some days before using, as the meat wasthus rendered tender and fit for human food (Smith).He had the rich perquisite of the ship's fat, which wentinto his slush tubs, to bring him money from the candlemakers.The firewood he used was generally green, if[316]not wet, so that when he lit his fire of a morning, hefumigated the fo'c's'le with bitter smoke. It was his dutyto pour water on his fire as soon as the guns were castloose for battle. Every day, for the saving of firewood,and for safety, he had to extinguish his fire directly thedinner had been cooked, nor was he allowed to relight it,"but in case of necessity, as ... when the Cockswain'sGang came wet aboard" (Monson). He would allow hiscronies in the forenoons to dry their wet gear at his fire,and perhaps allow them, in exchange for a bite or sup,to cook any fish they caught, or heat a can of drink.

Another supernumerary was the joiner, a rating onlycarried in the seventeenth century on great ships withmuch fancy work about the poop. He it was whorepaired the gilt carvings in the stern-works, and madethe bulkheads for the admiral's cabin. He was adecorator and beautifier, not unlike the modern painter,but he was to be ready at all times to knock up lockersfor the crew, to make boxes and chests for the gunner, andbulkheads, of thin wood, to replace those broken by theseas. As a rule the work of the joiner was done by thecarpenter, a much more important person, who commandedsome ten or twelve junior workmen. Thecarpenter was trusted with the pumps, both hand andchain, and with the repairing of the woodwork throughoutthe vessel. He had to be super-excellent in his profession,for a wooden ship was certain to tax his powers. She wasalways out of repair, always leaking, always springing herspars. In the summer months, if she were not beingbattered by the sea, she was getting her timber splitby cannon-shot. In the winter months, when laid upand dismantled in the dockyard, she was certain to neednew planks, beams, inner fittings and spars (Hawkins).The carpenter had to do everything for her, often withgrossly insufficient means, and it was of paramount[317]importance that his work-room in the orlop should befitted with an excellent tool chest. He had to providethe "spare Pieces of Timber wherewith to make Fishes,for to strengthen and succour the Masts." He had tosuperintend the purchase of a number of spare yards,already tapered, and bound with iron, to replace thosethat "should chance to be broken." He was to see theselashed to the ship's sides, within board, or stopped in therigging (Monson and Boteler). He had to have all mannerof gudgeons for the rudder, every sort of nuts or washersfor the pumps, and an infinity of oakum, sheet lead, softwood, spare canvas, tallow, and the like, with which tostop leaks, or to caulk the seams. In his stores he tooklarge quantities of lime, horse hair, alum, and thin feltwith which to wash and sheathe the ship's bottom planking(Monson). The alum was often dissolved in water,and splashed over spars and sails, before a battle, as itwas supposed to render them non-inflammable. It washis duty, moreover, to locate leaks, either by observing theindraught (which was a tedious way), or by placing his earto a little earthen pot inverted against one of the planksin the hold. This little pot caused him to hear the wateras it gurgled in, and by moving it to and fro he couldlocate the hole with considerable certainty (Boteler). Hehad to rig the pumps for the sailors, and to report to thecaptain the depth of water the ship made daily. Thepumps were of two kinds, one exactly like that in use onshore, the other, of the same principle, though morepowerful. The second kind was called the chain-pump,because "these Pumps have a Chain of Burs going in aWheel." They were worked with long handles, calledbrakes (because they broke sailor's hearts), and some tenmen might pump at one spell. The water was dischargedon to the deck, which was slightly rounded, so that it ranto the ship's side, into a graved channel called the trough,[318]or scuppers, from which it fell overboard through thescupper-holes, bored through the ship's side. Thesescupper-holes were bored by the carpenter. They slantedobliquely downwards and were closed outside by a hingedflap of leather, which opened to allow water to escape, andclosed to prevent water from entering (Maynwaring).Each deck had a number of scupper-holes, but theywere all of small size. There was nothing to take theplace of the big swinging-ports fitted to modern ironsailing ships, to allow the green seas to run overboard.

The cooper was another important supernumerary. Hehad to oversee the stowing of all the casks, and to make,or repair, or rehoop, such casks as had to be made orrepaired. He had to have a special eye to the great watercasks, that they did not leak; binding them securely withiron hoops, and stowing them with dunnage, so that theymight not shift. He was put in charge of watering parties,to see the casks filled at the springs, to fit them, whenfull, with their bungs, and to superintend their embarkationand stowage (Monson and Boteler).

The trumpeter was an attendant upon the captain,and had to sound his silver trumpet when that great manentered or left the ship (Monson). "Also when you halea ship, when you charge, board, or enter her; and thePoop is his place to stand or sit upon." If the ship carrieda "noise," that is a band, "they are to attend him, if therebe not, every one he doth teach to bear a part, the Captainis to encourage him, by increasing his Shares, or pay, andgive the Master Trumpeter a reward." When a prince,or an admiral, came on board, the trumpeter put on atabard, of brilliant colours, and hung his silver instrumentwith a heavy cloth of the same. He was to blow a blastfrom the time the visitor was sighted until his barge camewithin 100 fathoms of the ship. "At what time theTrumpets are to cease, and all such as carry Whistles are[319]to Whistle his Welcome three several times." As the giltand gorgeous row boat drew alongside, the trumpetssounded a point of welcome, and had then to stand aboutthe cabin door, playing their best, while the great man atehis sweetmeats. As he rowed away again, the trumpeter,standing on the poop, blew out "A loath to depart," a sortof ancient "good-bye, fare you well," such as sailors singnowadays as they get their anchors for home. In battlethe trumpeter stood upon the poop, dressed in his glory,blowing brave blasts to hearten up the gunners. In hailinga friendly ship, in any meeting on the seas, it wascustomary to "salute with Whistles and Trumpets, andthe Ship's Company give a general shout on both sides."When the anchor was weighed, the trumpeter soundeda merry music, to cheer the workers. At dinner eachnight he played in the great cabin, while the captaindrank his wine. At the setting and discharging of thewatch he had to sound a solemn point, for which duty hereceived an extra can of beer (Monson and Boteler).

The crew, or mariners, were divided into able seamen,ordinary seamen, grummets, or cabin-boys, ship-boys andswabbers. Swabbers were the weakest men of the crew;men, who were useless aloft, or at the guns, and thereforeset to menial and dirty duties. They were the ship'sscavengers, and had much uncleanly business to see to.Linschoten, describing a Portuguese ship's company,dismisses them with three contemptuous words, "theswabers pump"; but alas, that was but the first duty ofyour true swabber. Boteler, writing in the reign of JamesI., gives him more than half-a-page, as follows:—

"The Office of the Swabber is to see the Ship Keptneat and clean, and that as well in the great Cabbin aseverywhere else betwixt the Decks; to which end he is,at the least once or twice a week, if not every day, tocause the Ship to be well washed within Board and[320]without above Water, and especially about the Gunwalls[Gunwales or gunnels, over which the guns oncepointed] and the Chains and for prevention of Infection,to burn sometimes Pitch, or the like wholsom perfumes,between the Decks: He is also to have a regard to everyprivate Man's Sleeping-place; (to clean the cabins of thepetty officers in the nether orlop), and to admonish themall in general [it being dangerous perhaps, in a poorswabber, to admonish in particular] to be cleanly andhandsom, and to complain to the Captain, of all suchas will be any way nastie and offensive that way. Surely,if this Swabber doth thoroughly take care to dischargethis his charge I easily believe that he may have hishands full, and especially if there chance to be any numberof Landmen aboard."

Under the swabber there was a temporary rate knownas the liar. He had to keep the ship clean "withoutboard," in the head, chains, and elsewhere. He held hisplace but for a week. "He that is first taken with a Lieupon a Monday morning, is proclaimed at the Main-Mastwith a general Crie, a Liar, a Liar, a Liar, and for thatweek he is under the Swabber" (Monson).

The able seamen, or oldest and most experienced hands,did duty about the decks and guns, in the setting up andpreservation of the rigging, and in the trimming of thebraces, sheets, and bowlines. The ordinary seamen,younkers, grummets, and ship-boys, did the work aloft,furled and loosed the sails, and did the ordinary, never-ceasingwork of sailors. They stood "watch and watch"unless the weather made it necessary for all to be ondeck, and frequently they passed four hours of each dayin pumping the leakage from the well. They wore nouniform, but perhaps some captains gave a certain uniformityto the clothes of their crews by taking slopchests to sea, and selling clothes of similar patterns to[321]the seamen. In the navy, where the crews were pressed,the clothes worn must have been of every known cutand fashion, though no doubt all the pressed men contrivedto get tarred canvas coats before they had beenmany days aboard.

The bodies and souls of the seamen were looked after;a chaplain being carried for the one, and a chirurgeon, ordoctor, for the other. The chaplain had to read prayerstwice or thrice daily, to the whole ship's company, whostood or knelt reverently as he read. He had to leadin the nightly psalms, to reprove all evil-doers, and toexhort the men to their duty. Especially was he torepress all blasphemy and swearing. He was to celebratethe Holy Communion whenever it was most convenient.He was to preach on Sunday, to visit the sick; and, inbattle, to console the wounded. Admirals, and peers incommand of ships, had the privilege of bringing to seatheir own private chaplains.

The chirurgeon had to bring on board his own instrumentsand medicines, and to keep them ready to handin his cabin beneath the gun-deck, out of all possiblereach of shot. He was expected to know his business,and to know the remedies for those ailments peculiar tothe lands for which the ship intended. He had to producea certificate from "able men of his profession," to showthat he was fit to be employed. An assistant, or servant,was allowed him, and neither he, nor his servant did anyduty outside the chirurgeon's province (Monson).

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Captain Henry Jennings

Henry Jennings hunted Spanish and French merchantmen during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713).

The governor of Havana sent a salvage crew to southeastern Florida to recover the cargo of silver being transported by a Spanish treasure fleet which perished in a hurricane in July 1715. Together with 3 small ships, Jennings and some 300 men left Jamaica came upon the salvagers. They drove off about 60 soldiers and their booty came to some 350,000 pesos. While returning to Jamaica, Jennings seized a Spanish ship ladened in rich cargo and another 60,000 pesos. The governor of Jamaica, who was worried about reprisals from the government, warned Jennings about his activities. Jennings left Jamaica and found a new base of operations at New Providence Island in the Bahamas. In 1717, the English government offered a pardon which Jennings accepted in Bermuda.

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