Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 Part 11

[3] The orders of 1654 have 'one frigate.'

[4] _I.e._ 'formation.'

[5] 1654, 'enemy's ships.'

[6] 1654, 'get.'

[7] 1654, 'or the commander-in-chief.'

[8] 1654, 'immediately.'

[9] 1654, 'so as she is in danger of being sunk or taken, then they.'

[10] 1654, 'to keep on close in a line.'

[11] 1654, 'mizen topmast-head.'

[12] 1654, 'or grain upon pain of severe punishment.' Nothing is more curious in naval phraseology than the loss of this excellent word 'grain,' or 'grayne,' to express the opposite of 'wake.' To come into a ship's grain meant to take station ahead of her. There is nothing now which exactly supplies its place, and yet it has long fallen into oblivion, so long, indeed, that its existence was unknown to the learned editors of the new _Oxford Dictionary_. This is to be the more regretted as its etymology is very obscure. It may, however, be traced with little doubt to the old Norse 'grein,' a branch or p.r.o.ng, surviving in the word 'grains,' a p.r.o.nged harpoon or fish spear. From its meaning, 'branch,'

it might seem to be akin to 'stem' and to 'bow,' which is only another spelling of'bough.' But this is not likely. The older meaning of 'bows'

was 'shoulders,' and this, it is agreed, is how it became applied to the head of a ship. There is, however, a secondary and more widely used sense of 'grain,' which means the s.p.a.ce between forking boughs, and so almost any angular s.p.a.ce, like a meadow where two rivers converge. Thus 'grain,' in the naval sense, might easily mean the s.p.a.ce enclosed by the planks of a ship where they spring from the stem, or if it is not actually the equivalent of 'bows,' it may mean the diverging waves thrown up by a ship advancing through the water, and thus be the exact a.n.a.logue of 'wake.'

[13] 1654, 'to make sail and endeavour.'

[14] 1654, 'Fore topmast.'

[15] 1654, 'jack.'

[16] 1654, 'wake or grain.'

[17] 1654, 'more than ordinarily careful of.'

[18] It should be remembered that 'frigate' at this time meant a 'frigate-built ship.' The larger ones were 'capital ships' and lay in the line, while the smaller ones were used as cruisers.

[19] Inserted from 1654 copy.

PART V

THE SECOND DUTCH WAR

I. THE EARL OF SANDWICH, 1665

II. THE DUKE OF YORK AND PRINCE RUPERT, 1665-6

I

ORDERS OF THE RESTORATION

INTRODUCTORY

Though several fleets were fitted out in the first years of the Restoration, the earliest orders of Charles II's reign that have come down to us are those which the Earl of Sandwich issued on the eve of the Second Dutch War. Early in the year 1665, when hostilities were known to be inevitable, he had sailed from Portsmouth with a squadron of fifteen sail for the North Sea. On January 27th he arrived in the Downs, and on February 9th sailed for the coast of Holland.[1] War was declared on March 4th following. The orders in question are only known by a copy given to one of his frigate captains, which has survived amongst the ma.n.u.scripts of the Duke of Somerset. So far as is known no fresh complete set of Fighting Instructions was issued before the outbreak of the war, and as Monck and Sandwich were still among the leading figures at the admiralty it is probable that those used in the last Dutch and Spanish Wars were continued. The four orders here given are supplementary to them, providing for the formation of line abreast, and for forming from that order a line ahead to port or starboard. It is possible however that no other orders had yet been officially issued, and that these simple directions were regarded by Sandwich as all that were necessary for so small a squadron.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _Domestic Calendar_, 1664-5, pp. 181, 183.

_THE EARL OF SANDWICH, Feb. 1, 1665_.

[+Duke of Somerset's MSS., printed by the Historical MSS. Commission.

Rep. XV. part vii. p. 100+.]

_Orders given by direction of the Earl of Sandwich to Captain Hugh Seymour,[1] of the Pearl frigate_.

1665, February 1. On board the London in the Downs.

If we shall bear up, putting abroad the standard on the ancient[2]

staff, every ship of this squadron is to draw up abreast with the flag, on either side, in such berth as opportunity shall present most convenient, but if there be time they are to sail in the foresaid posture.[3]

If the admiral put up a jack[4]-flag on the flagstaff on the mizen topmast-head and fire a gun, then the outwardmost ship on the starboard side is to clap upon a wind with his starboard tacks aboard, and all the squadron as they lie above or as they have ranked themselves are presently to clap upon a wind and stand after him in a line.

And if the admiral make a weft with his jack-flag upon the flagstaff on the mizen topmast-head and fire a gun, then the outwardmost ship on the larboard side is to clap upon a wind with his larboard tacks aboard, and all the squadrons as they have ranked themselves are presently to clap upon a wind and stand after him in a line.

All the fifth and sixth rates[5] are to lie on that broadside of the admiral which is away from the enemy, looking out well when any sign is made for them. Then they are to endeavour to come up under the admiral's stern for to receive orders.

If we shall give the signal of hanging a pennant under the flag at the main topmast-head, then all the ships of this squadron are, with what speed they can, to fall into this posture, every ship in the place and order here a.s.signed, and sail and anchor so that they may with the most readiness fall into the above said posture.[6]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Son of Colonel Sir Edward Seymour, 3rd baronet, Governor of Dartmouth.

[2] _I.e._ ensign.

[3] _I.e._ in the 'order of battle' already given.

[4] The earliest known use of the word 'jack' for a flag in an official doc.u.ment occurs in an order issued by Sir John Pennington to his pinnace captains in 1633. He was in command of the Channel guard in search of pirates, particularly 'The Seahorse lately commanded by Captain Quaile'

and 'Christopher Megges, who had lately committed some outrage upon the Isle of Lundy, and other places.' The pinnaces were to work insh.o.r.e of the admiral and to endeavour to entrap the piratical ships, and to this end he said, 'You are also for this present service to keep in your Jack at your boultsprit end and your pendant and your ordnance.' (_Sloane MSS._ 2682, f. 51.) The object of the order evidently was that they should conceal their character from the pirates, and at this time therefore the 'jack' carried at the end of the bowsprit and the pennant must have been the sign of a navy ship. Boteler however, who wrote his _Sea Dialogues_ about 1625, does not mention the jack in his remarks about flags (pp. 327-334). The etymology is uncertain. The new _Oxford Dictionary_ inclines to the simple explanation that 'jack' was used in this case in its common diminutive sense, and that 'jack-flag' was merely a small flag.

[5] _I.e._ his cruisers.

[6] In the Report of the Historical MSS. Commission it is stated that the position of the ships is shown in a diagram, but I have been unable to obtain access to the doc.u.ment.