Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 Part 8

12. That no man should presume or attempt to board any ship of the enemy without special order and direction from the admiral, or at leastwise the admiral of his squadron.

13. That if any of our fleet happened to be [to] leeward of the enemy, every of our ships should labour and endeavour what they might to take all opportunity to get to windward of them, and to hold that advantage having once obtained it.

14. That the captains and officers of every ship should have an especial care as much as in them lay to keep the enemies in continual fight without any respite or intermission to be offered them; which, with the advantage of the wind if it might be had, was thought the likeliest way to enforce them to bear up and entangle themselves, or fall foul one of another in disorder and confusion.

15. That an especial care should be had in every ship that the gunners should load some of their pieces with case shot, handspikes, nails, bars of iron, or with what else might do most mischief to the enemy's men, upon every fit opportunity, and to come near and lay the ordnance well to pa.s.s for that purpose, which would be apt to do great spoil to the enemy.

16. That the cabins in every ship should be broken down so far as was requisite to clear the way of the ordnance.

17. That all beds and sacks in every ship should be disposed and used as bulwarks for defence against the shot of the enemy.

18. That there should be ten, eight, six, or four men to attend every piece of ordnance as the master gunner should choose out and a.s.sign them to their several places of service, that every one of them might know what belonged properly to him to do. And that this choice and a.s.signation should be made with speed so as we might not be taken unprovided.

19. That there should be one, two, or three men of good understanding and diligence, according to the burden of every ship, forthwith appointed to fill cartouches[3] of powder, and to carry them in cases or barrels covered to their places a.s.signed.

20. That the hold in every ship should be rummaged and made predy,[4]

especially by the ship's sides, and a carpenter with some man of trust appointed to go fore and after in hold to seek for shot that may come in under water; and that there should be provided in readiness plugs, pieces of sheet lead, and pieces of elm board to stop all leaks that might be found within board or without.

21. That in every ship where any soldiers were aboard the men should be divided into two or three parts, whereof only one part should fight at once and the rest should be in hold, to be drawn up upon occasion to relieve and rescue the former.

22. That the men in every ship should be kept as close as reasonably might be till the enemy's first volley of small shot should be past.

23. That the mariners in every ship should be divided and separated into three or four parts or divisions, so as every one might know the place where he was to perform his duty for the avoiding of confusion.

24. That the master or boatswain of every ship, by command of the captain, should appoint a sufficient and select number of seamen to stand by and attend the sails.

25. That more especially they should by like command appoint sufficient helmsmen to steer the ship.

26. That the sailors and helmsmen should in no sort presume to depart or stir from their charge.

27. That the mainyard, foreyard, and topsail sheets in every ship should be slung, and the topsail yards if the wind were not too high; hereby to avoid the shooting down of sails.

28. That there should be b.u.t.ts or hogsheads sawn into two parts filled with salt water, set upon the upper and lower decks in several places convenient in every ship, with buckets, gowns, and blankets to quench and put out wild-fire or other fire if need be.

29. That if a fight began by day and continued till night, every ship should be careful to observe the admiral of her squadron; that if the admiral fell off and forbore the fight for the present every other ship might do the like, repairing under her own squadron to amend anything amiss, and be ready to charge again when the admiral should begin.

30. That if any of the ships belonging to any squadron or division happened to be absent or not ready in convenient time and place to keep and make good the order herein prescribed, then every squadron and division should maintain these directions as near as they could, although the number of ships in every division were the less, without attending the coming in of all the ships of every division.

31. And that these ten ships, in regard of the munition and materials for the army and the horses which were carried in them, should attend the rear-admiral and not engage themselves without order, but should remain and expect such directions as might come from our admiral or rear-admiral.

Peter Bonaventure Captain Johnson Sarah Bonaventure Captain Carew Christian Captain Wharey Susan and Ellen Captain Levett William of London Captain Amadas Hope Sir Thomas Pigott, Knt.

Chestnut Fortune Fox Truelove

There was no difference between the articles for the admiral's squadron and those for the vice-admiral's and rear-admiral's, save in the names of the ships of every division, and that their squadrons had not any particular reserve, nor above five or six ships apiece in the third division, for want of ships to make up the number of nine; the munition and horse ships which belonged to their squadrons being unapt to fight, and therefore disposed into a special division of ten ships by themselves to attend the general reserve.

At the rising of the council a motion was made to have some of the best sailers of our fleet chosen out and a.s.signed to lie off from the main body of the fleet, some to sea and some to sh.o.r.eward, the better to discover, chase, and take some ships or boats of the enemy's; which might give us intelligence touching the Plate Fleet, whether it were come home or no, or when it would be expected and in what place, and touching such other matters whereof we might make our best advantage.

But nothing herein was now resolved, it being conceived, as it seemed, that we might soon enough and more opportunely consider of this proposition and settle an order therein when we came nearer to the enemy's coasts; so the council was dissolved.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _A Relation Touching the Fleet and Army of the King's most excellent majesty King Charles, set forth in the first year of his highness's reign, and touching the order, proceedings, and actions of the same fleet and army_, by Sir John Glanville, the younger, serjeant-at-law, and secretary to the council of war. [Printed for the Camden Society, 1883, N.S. vol. x.x.xii.]

[2] Elsewhere in the MS. spelt 'Boteler.' Probably Nathaniel Boteler, author of the _Dialogues about Sea Services_.

[3] MS. 'carthouses.'

[4] MS. 'pridie'=Boteler's 'predy.' 'To make the ship predy,' he says, is to clear for action. 'And likewise to make the hold predy is to bestow everything handsomely there and to remove anything that may be troublesome.'--_Dialogues_, 283.

THE SHIP-MONEY FLEETS, _circa_ 1635

INTRODUCTORY

That Cecil's unconfirmed orders produced some impression beyond the circle of the military flag-officers is clear. Captain Nathaniel Boteler, in the work already cited,[1] quotes the system they enjoined as the one he would himself adopt if he were to command a large fleet in action. In his sixth dialogue on the 'Ordering of Fleets,' after recommending the division of all fleets of eighty sail and upwards into five squadrons, an organisation that was subsequently adopted by the Dutch, he proceeds to explain his system of signals, and the advantages of scout vessels being attached to every squadron, especially, he says, the 'van and wings,' which looks as though the ideas of De Chaves were still alive. Boteler's work is cast in the form of a conversation between a landsman admiral and an experienced sea captain, who is supposed to be instructing him. In reply to the admiral's query about battle formations, the captain says that 'neither the whole present age [_i.e._ century] with the half of the last have afforded any one thorough example of this kind.' In the few actions between sailing fleets that had taken place in the previous seventy-five years he says 'we find little or nothing as touching the form of these fights.' Being pressed for his own ideas on the subject, he consents to give them as follows: 'I say, then, that wheresoever a fleet is either to give or take a battle with another every way equal with it, every squadron of such fleet, whether they be three in number as generally they are, or five (as we prescribed in the beginning of the dialogue) shall do well to order and subdivide itself into three equal divisions, with a reserve of certain ships out of every squadron to bring up their rears, the which may amount in number to the third part of every one of those divisions. And every one of these (observing a due berth and distance) are in the fight to second one another, and (the better to avoid confusion, and the falling foul one upon another) to charge, discharge and fall off by threes or fives, more or less, as the fleet in gross is greater or smaller; the ships of reserve being to be instructed either to succour and relieve any that shall be anyway engaged and in danger, or to supply and put themselves in the place of those that shall be made unserviceable; and this order and course to be constantly kept and observed during the whole time of the battle.

Asked if there are no other forms he says: 'Some forms besides, and different from this (I know well), have been found prescribed and practised; as for a fleet which consisteth but of a few ships and being in fight in an open sea, that it should be brought up to the battle in one only front, with the chief admiral in the midst of them, and on each side of him the strongest and best provided ships of the fleet, who, keeping themselves in as convenient a distance as they shall be able, are to have a eye and regard in the fight to all the weaker and worser ships of the party, and to relieve and succour them upon all occasions, and withal being near the admiral may both guard him and aptly receive his instructions. And for a numerous fleet they propound that it should be ordered also (when there is sea-room sufficient) into one only front, but that the ablest and most warlike ships should be so stationed as that the agility of the smaller ships and the strength of the other may be communicated[2] to a mutual relief, and for the better serving in all occasions either of chase or charge; to which end they order that all the files of the front that are to the windwards should be made up of the strongest and best ships, that so they may the surer and speedier relieve all such of the weaker ships, being to leewards of them, as shall be endangered or anyway oppressed by any of the enemy.' All this is a clear echo of De Chaves and the system which still obtained in all continental navies. For a large fleet at least Boteler evidently disapproved all tactics based on the line abreast, and preferred a system of small groups attacking in line ahead, on Cecil's proposed system. Asked about the campaign of 1588, he has nothing to tell of any English formation. Of the crescent order of the Armada he says--and modern research has fully confirmed his statement--that it was not a battle order at all, but only a defensive sailing formation 'to keep themselves together and in company until they might get up to be athwart Gravelines, which was the rendezvous for their meeting with the Prince of Parma; and in this regard this their order was commendable.'

How far these ideas really represented current naval opinion we cannot precisely tell, but we know that Boteler was an officer held in high enough esteem to receive the command of the landing flotilla at Cadiz, and to be described as 'an able and experienced sea captain.' But whatever tendency there may have been to tactical progress under Buckingham's inspiring personality, it must have been smothered by the lamentable conduct of his war. Later on in the reign, in the period of the 'Ship-money' fleets, when Charles was endeavouring to establish a real standing navy on modern lines, we find in the Earl of Lindsey's orders of 1635, which Monson selected for publication in his _Tracts_, no sign of anything but tactical stagnation. The early Tudor tradition seems to have completely re-established itself, and Monson, who represents that tradition better than anyone, though he approved the threefold subdivision of squadrons, thought all battle formations for sailing ships a mistake. Writing not long after Boteler, he says: 'Ships which must be carried by wind and sails, and the sea affording no firm or steadfast footing, cannot be commanded to take their ranks like soldiers in a battle by land. The weather at sea is never certain, the winds variable, ships unequal in sailing; and when they strictly keep their order, commonly they fall foul one of another, and in such cases they are more careful to observe their directions than to offend the enemy, whereby they will be brought into disorder amongst themselves.'

Of Lindsey's orders only Article 18 is given here out of the thirty-four which Monson prints in full. It is the only one relating to tactics. The rest, which follow the old pattern, are the usual medley of articles of war, sailing instructions, and general directions for the conduct of the fleet at sea. We cannot therefore safely a.s.sume that Article 18 fairly represents the tactical thought of the time. It may be that Lindsey's orders were merely in the nature of 'General Instructions,' to be supplemented by more particular 'Fighting Instructions,' as was the practice later.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Ante_, p. 27.

[2] The obsolete meaning of 'communicate' is to 'share' or 'partic.i.p.ate,' to 'enjoy in common.'

_THE EARL OF LINDSEY_, 1635.

_Such instructions as were given in the Voyage in 1635 by the Right Honourable Robert, Earl of Lindsey_.[1]

[+Monson's Naval Tracts, Book III. Extract+.]

Art. 18. If we happen to descry any fleet at sea which we may probably know or conjecture designs to oppose, encounter or affront us, I will first strive to get the wind (if I be to leeward), and so shall the whole fleet in due order do the like. And when we shall join battle no ship shall presume to a.s.sault the admiral, vice-admiral or rear-admiral, but only myself, my vice-admiral or rear-admiral, if we be able to reach them; and the other ships are to match themselves accordingly as they can, and to secure one another as cause shall require, not wasting their powder at small vessels or victuallers, nor firing till they come side to side.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This was a fleet of forty sail, designed, under colour of securing the sovereignty of the Seas and protecting commerce against pirates, to a.s.sist Spain as far as possible against the French and Dutch. It never fought.