Ancient and Modern Ships Part 6

Of the merchant auxiliaries the two largest were the _Galleon Leicester_ and the _Merchant Royal_, each of 400 tons, and each carried a crew of 160 men. In the former of these the explorer Cavendish afterwards made his last voyage. Another of the merchant-ships, the _Edward Bonaventure_, belonged to the Levant Company, and in the years 1591 to 1593 was distinguished as the first English ship that made a successful voyage to India.

The size of a large number of the merchant-ships was under 100 tons. The total number of the crews of the entire English fleet was 15,551; of these 6,289 belonged to the queen's ships.

As a general rule, the English ships in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, both in the Royal Navy and in the Mercantile Marine, were much inferior in size to the vessels belonging to the great Maritime Republics of Italy and to Spain and Portugal. Hitherto the practice had been general of hiring Genoese and Venetian carracks for mercantile purposes. It is stated that about the year 1578, or twenty years after Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne, there were only 24 ships in the Royal Navy and 135 of above 100 tons burthen in the whole kingdom, and but 656 that exceeded 40 tons. Nevertheless, in this reign there was a great development of mercantile activity, in which the sovereign as well as her people partic.i.p.ated. Many trading expeditions were sent out to the West Indies and to North America, and warlike descents on the Spanish ports were frequently carried out, and were attended with great success.

In Elizabeth's time the first British colony, Virginia, was founded in North America, and Sir Francis Drake undertook his memorable and eventful voyage round the world in a squadron, which consisted, at the commencement, of five vessels, whereof the largest, the _Pelican_, was of only 100 tons burthen, and the smallest a pinnace of 15 tons. So great was the progress made about this time in English maritime trade that, only four years after the date above mentioned, there were said to have been no less than 135 English commercial vessels of above 500 tons in existence.

In the year 1587 Drake, in his famous marauding expedition in the Spanish seas, captured a great carrack called the _San Felipe_, which was returning home from the East Indies. The papers found in her revealed the enormous profits which the Spaniards made out of their trade with India, and afforded such valuable information that the English merchant adventurers were incited to cut in and try to secure some share of this trade for themselves. This led, ultimately, to the founding of the celebrated East India Company, and to the conquest of India by the British. In 1589 certain merchants pet.i.tioned the queen to grant them a licence to trade with the East Indies; but Elizabeth, fearing the resentment of the Spanish and Portuguese, would not grant their request for many years, and it was not till the last day of the year 1599 that she gave a charter of incorporation to the Earl of c.u.mberland and 215 knights and merchants for fifteen years, and thus founded the first East India Company. English adventurers, however, did not wait for a charter before commencing their trading operations with the East, for in 1591 an expedition consisting of three ships was sent out under the command of James Lancaster. Only one of the three--the _Edward Bonaventure_, which, as already mentioned, had been a merchant auxiliary in the English fleet that opposed the Armada--ever reached the East Indies in safety.

A few weeks after the charter had been granted Lancaster led another expedition to the East. His fleet consisted of five ships; the largest, the _Dragon_, was of 600 tons, and had a crew of 202. After an adventurous voyage the fleet returned to England in September, 1602, having been absent two years and eight months.

There is abundant evidence to show that foreign merchant ships in Elizabeth's reign were often much larger than any built in this country.

The following are examples. In 1592 a Portuguese carrack called the _Madre de Dios_ was captured and brought home. She was of 1,600 tons burthen, 165 feet long from stem to stern, and had seven decks, including the numerous half and quarter decks which formed the p.o.o.p. In 1594 a Spanish carrack was destroyed which had 1,100 men on board. When Cadiz was taken in 1596 two Spanish galleons of 1,200 tons were captured, and the flagship, the _San Felipe_, of 1,500 tons, was blown up. In 1602 a Portuguese carrack of 1,600 tons was captured at Cezimbra.

She was named the _San Valentino_, and was worth, with her cargo, a million ducats.

The system of striking topmasts appears to have been introduced into the English Navy in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is mentioned by Sir Walter Raleigh as a recent improvement and "a wonderful ease to great ships, both at sea and in the harbour." Amongst the other novelties mentioned by the same authority was the use of chain-pumps on board ship; they lifted twice the amount of water that the old-fashioned pumps could raise; studding, top-gallant, sprit and topsails were also introduced, and the weighing of anchors by means of the capstan. He also alludes to the recent use of long cables, and says that "by it we resist the malice of the greatest winds that can blow." The early men-of-war, pierced with portholes, carried their lower guns very near the water. In some cases there were only fourteen inches from the lower sill of the portholes to the water-line. This practice led to many accidents; amongst others may be mentioned the loss of the _Mary Rose_, one of the largest ships in the Royal Navy in the time of Henry VIII. Sir Walter Raleigh mentions that, in his time, the practice was introduced of raising the lower tier of ports. Nevertheless, this improvement did not become general till the time of the restoration of Charles II. Fig. 45 is a representation of an English ship of war of the time of Queen Elizabeth, supposed to be of the date 1588. It is copied from the tapestries of the old House of Lords. It shows clearly the recently introduced topmasts alluded to by Sir Walter Raleigh. It is certainly a much more ship-shaped and serviceable craft than the vessels of Henry VIII. There is also in existence a drawing of a smaller Elizabethan warship in the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library; in essential particulars, it confirms Fig. 45. Both of these show that the forecastles and p.o.o.ps had been considerably modified.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 45.--English man-of-war. About 1588.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 46.--Venetian gallea.s.s. 1571.]

Another great naval war was waged in the latter half of the sixteenth century, about sixteen years before the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

The scene was the Adriatic Sea, and the combatants were Venice, with her allies, Spain and the Papal States, on the one hand, and the Turks on the other. It culminated in the complete defeat of the latter at Lepanto in 1571. The site of the battle of Lepanto is very near to that of Actium, and it is a remarkable circ.u.mstance that twice in history a decisive naval battle between the West and East should have been decided at the same spot. The allies possessed a fleet consisting of 208 galleys and 6 gallea.s.ses. The Venetians introduced the latter type of vessel in order to meet the Turks on even terms. It was an improved form of galley with three masts, carrying several guns on the broadside, most of them mounted on the upper deck. Fig. 46 represents one of the Venetian gallea.s.ses as used at the battle of Lepanto, to the winning of which engagement they are said to have contributed materially. The gallea.s.s was essentially a Mediterranean warship. It was never generally adopted by the Western powers, but four Neapolitan vessels of this category, carrying each 50 guns, formed a part of the great Armada sent by Spain to effect the conquest of England. The gallea.s.s represented in Fig. 46 had a circular forecastle in which were mounted several guns, to be used in end-on attack.

It is impossible to read the accounts of the battle of Lepanto and of the defeat of the Spanish Armada without noticing the great contrast between the ships used in the two wars at about the same period. In the Mediterranean the single-banked galley was still the prevailing type, while in the Western and Northern seas the bulk of the Spanish and the whole of the British fleets were sailing-ships.

It does not appear that any further novelties, or improvements, worth alluding to were introduced into the practice of shipbuilding till the accession of the House of Stuart in 1603. All the monarchs of this family paid particular attention to the development of the Royal Navy.

King James I. had in his service an educated naval architect of the name of Phineas Pett, who was a Master of Arts of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a member of a famous family of shipbuilders who had been employed for two centuries previously, from father to son, as officers and architects in the Royal Navy. Some time after the accession of James, a Royal Commission inquired into the general state and management of the navy, and issued a report in 1618, which was in effect "a project for contracting the charge of His Majesty's Navy, keeping the coast of England and Ireland safely guarded, and his Majesty's ships in harbour as sufficiently guarded as now they are, provided that the old debts be paid, ... and certain a.s.signments settled for the further payment of the navy quarterly." At the time the report was issued there were only seventeen vessels in the navy which had been built during the reign of James. The most important of these was the _Prince Royal_, built in 1610, and, at the time, considered to be one of the finest men-of-war in the world. Fig. 47 is an ill.u.s.tration of a man-of-war of the period, which, there is strong evidence for believing, was this very vessel. It was designed and built under the superintendence of Phineas Pett at Woolwich Dockyard, and was given by the king to his son Henry, Prince of Wales, in honour of whom it was named the _Prince Royal_. It was in many respects a remarkable departure from the prevailing practice of the times, and, if stripped of its profuse carved work, was very similar in outline to the men-of-war built as recently as the commencement of the last century. The designer was bold enough to abandon some of the time-honoured features of ship construction, such as the beak, or prow, derived from the old galleys, and the square b.u.t.tock, or tuck. The latter feature, however, continued to appear in the ships of most other European countries for some time afterwards. The length of keel of this vessel was 114 ft., and the beam 44 ft. The reputed burthen was 1,400 tons, and the vessel was pierced for 64 guns, whereof she carried 55, the vacant portholes being filled in action from the opposite side, a custom which prevailed down to the last century and was adopted in order to lessen the dead weight carried aft. The great difference between the shape of the quarter galleries and forecastle in this ship and in the earlier types will be noted. The armament of the _Prince Royal_ consisted of the following guns: On the lower deck six 32-pounders, two 24-pounders, and twelve 18-pounders. The bow and aftermost ports were empty, and in case of necessity the former was filled by an 18-pounder from the opposite side, and the latter by a 24-pounder from the stern-ports. The upper deck was armed with 9-pounders, the aftermost port being vacant, and filled up when required. The quarter-deck and forecastle were provided with 5-pounders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 47.--The _Prince Royal_. 1610.]

The building of this ship aroused many apprehensions, and a Commission was appointed to report on the design while it was being constructed. It certainly seems that gross errors were made in the calculations. For instance, it was estimated that 775 loads of timber would be required for her construction, whereas 1,627 loads were actually used. The timber also was so unseasoned that the ship only lasted fifteen years, and had then to be rebuilt.

Many complaints were made about this time of the incapacity and ignorance of English shipbuilders. Sir Walter Raleigh laid down the following as the princ.i.p.al requirements of warships: strong build, speed, stout scantling, ability to fight the guns in all weathers, ability to lie to easily in a gale, and ability to stay well. He stated that in all these qualities the royal ships were deficient. He also called attention to the inferiority of our merchant-ships, and pointed out that, whereas an English ship of 100 tons required a crew of thirty hands, a Dutch vessel of the same size would sail with one-third of that number.

Another authority of the time complained that--

"he could never see two ships builded of the like proportion by the best and most skilful shipwrights ... because they trust rather to their judgment than their art, and to their eye than their scale and compa.s.s."

The merchant navy of England languished during the early years of the reign of James I. Owing, however, to the patronage and a.s.sistance extended by the king to the East India Company, and also in no small measure to the stimulus caused by the arrival of some large Dutch merchantmen in the Thames, the merchants of London abandond the practice of hiring ships from foreigners and took to building for themselves. In the year 1615 there were not more than ten ships belonging to the Port of London with a burthen in excess of 200 tons, but, owing to the sudden development of shipbuilding, the Port of Newcastle in the year 1622 owned more than 100 ships exceeding the above-mentioned tonnage.

In the year 1609 the king granted a new charter to the East India Company, and in the following year a vessel, called the _Trade's Increase_, was sent out. This ship was the largest merchantman built up to that time in England. Her career, however, was not fortunate. She was careened at Bantam, in order that some repairs to her hull might be effected, but she fell over on her side and was burnt by the Javanese.

Before the year 1613 British merchants had made altogether twelve voyages to the East Indies, for the most part in ships of less than 500 tons. In that year, however, all the merchants interested in the Oriental trade joined together to form the United East India Company.

The first fleet fitted out by the re-organised Company consisted of four ships, of 650, 500, 300, and 200 tons burthen respectively. It had to fight its way with the Portuguese before it could commence to trade. The Portuguese considered that they were ent.i.tled to a monopoly of the trade with the East, and jealously resented the intrusion of the English merchantmen, whom they attacked with a fleet of six galleons, three ships, two galleys, and sixty smaller vessels. They were, however, ignominiously defeated, and the English merchants were enabled to accomplish their purpose.

During the last five years of the reign of James I. the strength of the Royal Navy was increased twenty-five per cent. His son and successor, Charles I., through all the troubles of his eventful reign, never neglected this branch of the national defences, and during his reign the Mercantile Marine grew to such an extent that, at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, the port of London alone was able to furnish 100 ships of considerable size, all mounting cannon and fitted up in every respect for the operations of war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 48.--The _Sovereign of the Seas_. 1637.]

The _Sovereign of the Seas_, ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 48, may be taken as a sample of the largest type of warship built by Charles. Like the _Prince Royal_, she was designed by Pett, and was considered to be the most powerful man-of-war in Europe of her time. Her construction must have been a great improvement on that of the _Prince Royal_; for, whereas the latter ship was declared to be no longer fit for service fifteen years after her launch, the _Sovereign of the Seas_, though engaged in most of the naval battles of the seventeenth century, remained in good condition for a period of sixty years, and was then accidentally burnt at Chatham when about to be rebuilt. She was the first three-decker in the Royal Navy, but as she proved somewhat crank, she was cut down to a two-decker in the year 1652. At the Restoration she was renamed the _Royal Sovereign_.

This very remarkable vessel was of 1,683 tons burthen. Her length of keel was 128 ft.; length over all, 167 ft.; beam, 48 ft. 4 in.; and depth from top of lanthorn to bottom of keel, 76 ft. She was built with three closed decks, a forecastle, a half-deck, a quarter-deck, and a round-house. She carried in all 102 or 104 guns, and was pierced for thirty guns on the lower, thirty on the main, and twenty-six on the upper deck; the forecastle had twelve, and the half-deck fourteen ports.

She also carried ten chasers forward, and as many aft. She was provided with eleven anchors, of which one weighed two tons.

The _Royal Sovereign_ may fairly be taken as representing the commencement of a better school of ship construction. Her merits were due to the talents of Phineas Pett, who, though not uniformly successful in his earlier designs, was a great innovator, and is generally regarded as the father of the modern school of wooden shipbuilding.

Very little is known, unfortunately, of the character and rig of the smaller cla.s.ses of trading vessels of the end of the sixteenth and the commencement of the seventeenth centuries. It is, however, tolerably certain that cutter-rigged craft were used in the coasting and Irish trades as far back as 1567; for there is a map of Ireland of that date in existence on which are shown two vessels rigged in this manner.

With the description of the _Royal Sovereign_ we close the account of mediaeval naval architecture. Thanks to the fostering care of Charles I., to the genius of Pett, and to the great natural advantages conferred by the superiority of English oak to other European timbers, England at this period occupied a high place in the art of shipbuilding. The position thus gained was maintained and turned to the best advantage in the period of the Commonwealth, when successful naval wars were undertaken against the Dutch and other European States. These wars eventually resulted in establishing England, for a time, as the foremost maritime power in Europe.

CHAPTER V.

MODERN WOODEN SAILING-SHIPS.

The naval wars which followed the establishment of the Commonwealth contributed in a very large degree to the progress of shipbuilding. In 1652 war broke out with the United Provinces, headed by the Dutch, who were, prior to that period, the foremost naval and mercantile power in the world. The struggle lasted about two years, and during its continuance the British fleet increased from fifty-five first, second, and third rates, to eighty-eight vessels of corresponding cla.s.ses, while a proportionately larger increase was made in ships of smaller denominations, and, in addition, the vessels lost in the war were replaced. The war with the Dutch was an exceptionally severe struggle, and ended in the complete victory of this country, which then stepped into Holland's place as foremost naval power. In addition to this war, Cromwell undertook an expedition to the Mediterranean, to punish the piratical states of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. The fleet was commanded by Blake, and was completely successful in its operations, which resulted in a security for British commerce with the Levant that had never been known before. Admiral Penn was at the same time entrusted with the command of a powerful expedition to the Spanish West Indies.

The annexation of Jamaica followed, and British commerce in the West increased. In fact, with the progress of the national navy the commerce of the country also extended itself, and the increased experience thus obtained in shipbuilding, both for the war and trading fleets, necessarily resulted in great improvements in the art.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 49.--The _Royal Charles_. 1673.]

The expenditure on the navy in the time of the Commonwealth was enormous relatively to the total national revenue. In the year 1656-57 four-fifths of the income of the country was devoted to the sea service, in the following year two-thirds, and in 1658-59 nearly three-fifths.

These are figures which have never been approached at any other period.

The ships built during this time were of moderate dimensions. Only four were of 1,000 tons. These were the _Dunbar_, of 1,047 tons and 64 guns, built in 1656; the _London_, built in the same year, of the same tonnage and number of guns, though of different dimensions; the _Richard_, of 1,108 tons and 70 guns, built in 1658; and the _Naseby_, built in 1655, of 1,229 tons and 80 guns. All four were renamed at the Restoration.

Charles II. and his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., both possessed in an eminent degree the fondness for the navy which distinguished all the members of the Stuart dynasty, though, unfortunately, after the first naval war waged by Charles against Holland, the condition of the fleet was allowed to deteriorate very rapidly. As a sample of the type of warship of the first cla.s.s built in this reign, we give, in Fig. 49, the _Royal Charles_, which was constructed at Portsmouth dockyard in 1673, by Sir Anthony Deane, to carry 100 guns. This ill.u.s.tration and that of the _Sovereign of the Seas_ are after pictures by Vandevelde. This ship was the largest in the navy, excepting always the famous old _Sovereign of the Seas_ and the _Britannia_. The latter was built at Chatham, by Pett, in 1682, and carried 100 guns, and measured 1,739 tons. The _Royal Charles_ created as much sensation in its day as did the famous ship built for Charles I.

There is a beautiful model of the _Royal Charles_ in the Museum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 50.--The _Soleil Royal_. 1683.]

The following table gives the leading dimensions of the _Royal Charles_ and the _Britannia_:--

--------------+---------+----------+----------+----------+------------ Name of ship. Length. Breadth. Depth of Draught. Complement.

hold. --------------+---------+----------+----------+----------+------------ ft. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. Royal Charles 136 46 0 18 3 20 6 780 Britannia 146 47 4 19 7-1/2 20 0 780 --------------+---------+----------+----------+----------+------------

Fig. 50 is an ill.u.s.tration after Vandevelde of a famous French first-rate of the same period, named the _Soleil Royal_, of 106 guns.

She was destroyed in Cherbourg Bay the day after the battle of Cape La Hogue, in 1692. Fig. 51 is a Dutch first-rate, named the _Hollandia_, of 74 guns. She was built in 1683, and took part in the battle of Beachy Head as flagship of Admiral Cornelis Evertsen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 51.--The _Hollandia_. 1683.]

The chief difference between the British and foreign builds of warship of the latter half of the seventeenth century was that the English vessels were always constructed with the rounded tuck before mentioned, as introduced by Pett, while the Continental ships all had the old-fashioned square tuck, which is well ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 51. The Dutch ships in one respect excelled all others, in that they were the first in which the absurd practice of an exaggerated "tumble home," or contraction of the upper deck, was abandoned. This fashion was still carried out to a very great extent by the English, and to a less extent by the French and Spaniards. The chain-plates in the English vessels were also fixed extremely low, while the Dutch fixed them as high as the sills of the upper-deck ports would allow. In consequence of the shallowness of the Dutch harbours, the draught of their ships was also considerably less than that of the English vessels of corresponding force.

Most of the ships in a seventeenth-century fleet deemed fit to take their station in the line of battle were third-rates. The first and second rates were exceptional vessels, and were only employed in particular services. A comparative table of the dimensions and armament of the various rates, or cla.s.ses in the year 1688, is annexed:--

------------+------+---------+---------+---------+-------+---------+------- Guns Length Depth Draught on war Designation. of Breadth. of of Tons. service Crew.

keel. hold. water. at home. ------------+------+---------+---------+---------+-------+---------+------- Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. 1st Rate 128 to 40 to 17.9 to 20 to 1100 to 90 to 600 to 146 48 19.8 23.6 1740 100 815 2nd Rate 121 to 37 to 17 to 16 to 1000 to 82 to 540 to 143 45 19.8 21 1500 90 660 3rd Rate 115 to 34 to 14.2 to 16 to 750 to 60 to 350 to 140 40 18.3 18.8 1174 74 470 4th Rate 88 to 27 to 11.2 to 12.8 to 342 to 32 to 180 to 280 34 15.6 17.8 680 50 230 5th Rate 72 to 23.6 to 9.9 to 11.6 to 211 to 26 to 125 to 81 27 11 13.2 333 30 135 ------------+------+---------+---------+---------+-------+---------+-------