The Choosing of Watches by John Masefield

The petty tally,Food,Work,PunishmentsAs 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...

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GUNS AND GUNNERS by John Masefield

Breech-loaders—Cartridges—Powder—The gunner's artCannon 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....

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THE SHIP'S COMPANY

Captain—Master—Lieutenant—Warrant officers—Duties andprivilegesBy 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.),...

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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...

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The Conquest of Jamaica by C.H. Haring

The capture of Jamaica by the expedition sent outby Cromwell in 1655 was the blundering beginningof a new era in West Indian history. It wasthe first permanent annexation by another Europeanpower of an integral part of Spanish America. Before1655 the island had already been twice visited by Englishforces. The first occasion was in January 1597, whenSir Anthony Shirley, with little opposition, took andplundered St. Jago de la Vega. The second was in 1643,when William Jackson repeated the same exploit with500 men from the Windward Islands. Cromwell's expedition,consisting of 2500 men and a considerable fleet, setsail from England in December 1654,...

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