How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves Part 9

On the 9th of September, 1665, he meets Sir William Doyly and Evelyn at supper: "And I with them full of discourse of the neglect of our masters, the great officers of state, about all business, and especially that of money, having now some thousands prisoners kept to no purpose, at a great charge, and no money provided almost for the doing of it."

"Captain c.o.c.ke reports as a certain truth that all the Dutch fleet, men-of-war and merchant East India ships, are got every one in from Bergen, the 3rd of this month, Sunday last, which will make us all ridiculous."

On the 14th, however, he says: "A letter from my Lord Sandwich at Solebay, of the fleet's meeting with about eighteen more of the Dutch fleet, and his taking of most of them; and the messenger says, that they had taken three after the letter was wrote and sealed, which being twenty-one, and the fourteen took the other day, is forty-five sail, some of which are good and others rich ships."

On the 18th he goes to Gravesend in the bezan yacht, and "by break of day we come to within sight of the fleet, which was a very fine thing to behold, being above 100 ships, great and small, with the flag-ships of each squadron distinguished by their several flags on their main, fore, or mizen-masts. Among others, the _Soveraigne, Charles_, and _Prince_, in the last of which my Lord Sandwich was. And so we come on board, and we find my Lord Sandwich newly up in his night-gown very well."

He attends a council of war on board, "When comes Sir W. Penn, Sir Christopher Mingo, Sir Edward Spragg, Sir Jos. Jordan, Sir Thomas Teddiman, and Sir Roger Omittance." Sir Christopher Mings was one of the bravest admirals of the day. He was the son of a shoemaker, and had worked his way up in the sea-service. He was killed the following year, June, 1666, in action with the Dutch. Pepys describes him as "a very witty, well-spoken fellow, and mighty free to tell his parentage, being a shoemaker's son."

On the 25th of January, 1666, he writes: "It is now certain that the King of France hath publickly declared war against us, and G.o.d knows how little fit we are for it."

As an example of the way affairs were managed, he tells us that, viewing the yard at Chatham, he observed, "among other things, a team of four horses coming close by us, drawing a piece of timber that I am confident one man could easily have carried upon his back. I made the horses be taken away, and a man or two to take the timber away with their hands."

Still more abominable was the way in which the wages of the unfortunate seamen were kept back. On the 7th of October, 1665, he writes: "Did business, though not much, at the office, because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money, which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon, when we were to go through them, for then above a whole hundred of them followed us, some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us." He continues: "Want of money in the navy puts everything out of order; men grown mutinous, and n.o.body here to mind the business of the navy but myself."

On the 19th of May, 1666: "Mr Deane and I did discourse about his ship _Rupert_, built by him, which succeeds so well as he hath got great honour by it, and I some by recommending him--the king, duke, and everybody saying it is the best ship that ever was built. And, then, he fell to explain to me his manner of casting the draught of water which a ship will draw beforehand, which is a secret the king and all admire in him; and he is the first that hath come to any certainty beforehand of foretelling the draught of water of a ship before she be launched."

On the 4th he describes the fight between the English and Dutch, the news brought by a Mr Daniel, "who was all m.u.f.fled up, and his face as black as the chimney, and covered with dirt, pitch, and tar, and powder, and m.u.f.fled with dirty clouts, and his right eye stopped with ok.u.m."

The English "found the Dutch fleet at anchor, between Dunkirke and Ostend, and made them let slip their anchors; they about ninety and we less than sixty. We fought them and put them to the run, till they met with about sixteen sail of fresh ships, and so bore up again. The fight continued till night, and then again the next morning from five till seven at night. And so, too, yesterday morning they began again, and continued till about four o'clock, they chasing us for the most part of Sat.u.r.day, and yesterday we flying from them." Prince Rupert's fleet, however, was seen coming, "upon which De Ruyter called a council, and thereupon their fleet divided into two squadrons--forty in one, and about thirty in the other; the bigger to follow the duke, the less to meet the prince. But the prince come up with the generall's fleet, and the Dutch come together again, and bore towards their own coast, and we with them. The duke was forced to come to anchor on Friday, having lost his sails and rigging."

Some days afterwards he continues the description of the fight: "The commanders, officers, and even the common seamen do condemn every part of the late conduct of the Duke of Albemarle; running among them in his retreat, and running the ships on ground; so as nothing can be worse spoken of. That Holmes, Spragg, and Smith do all the business, and the old and wiser commanders nothing."

"We lost more after the prince came than before. The _Prince_ was so maimed, as to be forced to be towed home." Among several commanders killed in the action was Sir Christopher Mings.

He describes the affection the seamen entertained for those commanders they esteemed: "About a dozen able, l.u.s.ty, proper men come to the coach-side with tears in their eyes, and one of them that spoke for the rest begun and said to Sir W. Coventry, `We are here a dozen of us, that have long known and loved and served our dead commander, Sir Christopher Mings, and have now done the last office of laying him in the ground.

We would be glad we had any other to offer after him, and in revenge of him. All we have is our lives; if you will please to get His Royal Highness to give us a fire-ship among us all, here are a dozen of us, out of all which choose you one of us to be commander, and the rest of us, whoever he is, will serve him; and, if possible, do that which shall show our memory of our dead commander, and our revenge.' Sir W.

Coventry was herewith much moved, as well as I, who could hardly abstain from weeping."

"Sir Christopher Mings was a very stout man, and a man of great parts, and most excellent tongue among ordinary men; and would have been a most useful man at such a time as this."

He gives a deplorable account of the state of the navy, the neglect of business by Charles and his brother, and the want of money. On the 8th of October, 1665, he writes: "I think of twenty-two ships, we shall make shift to get out seven. (G.o.d help us! men being sick, or provisions lacking.) There is nothing but discontent among the officers, and all the old experienced men are slighted."

Speaking of the action with the Dutch, he says: "They do mightily insult of their victory, and they have great reason. Sir William Barkeley was killed before his ship taken; and there he lies dead in a sugar-chest, for everybody to see, with his flag standing up by him. And Sir George Ascue is carried up and down the Hague for people to see."

The abominable system of the press-gang was then in full force, and was carried on with the same cruelty which existed till a much later period: "To the Tower several times, about the business of the pressed men, and late at it till twelve at night shipping of them. But, Lord! how some poor women did cry; and in my life I never did see such natural expression of pa.s.sion as I did here in some women bewailing themselves, and running to every parcel of men that were brought one after another to look for their husbands, and wept over every vessel that went off, thinking they might be there, and looking after the ship as far as ever they could by moone-light, that it grieved me to the heart to hear them.

Besides, to see poor, patient, labouring men and housekeepers leaving poor wives and families, taken up on a sudden by strangers, was very hard, and that without press-money, but forced against all law to be gone. It is a great tyranny."

The next morning he went "to Bridewell to see the pressed men, where there are about 300; but so unruly that I durst not go among them; and they have reason to be so, having been kept these three days prisoners, with little or no victuals, and pressed out and contrary to all course of law, without press-money, and men that are not liable to it."

"I found one of the vessels loaden with the Bridewell birds in a great mutiny; I think it is much if they do not run the vessel on ground."

He continues: "With regard to the building of ten great ships, none to be under third-rates; but it is impossible to do it, unless we have some money."

Sir W. Penn gives his advice as to the mode of fighting at sea: "We must fight in a line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter and demonstrable ruin; the Dutch fighting otherwise; and we, whenever we beat them. 2. We must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we did, for that makes a captain desperate, and he will fling away his ship when there are no hopes left him of succour. 3rd. That ships when they are a little shattered must not take the liberty to come in of themselves, but refit themselves the best they can, and stay out--many of our ships coming in with very small disableness. He told me that our very commanders, nay, our very flag-officers, do stand in need of exercising among themselves, and discoursing the business of commanding a fleet; he telling me that even one of our flagmen in the fleet did not know which tack lost the wind or kept it in the last engagement. Then in the business of forecastles, which he did oppose, all the world sees now the use of them for shelter of men."

He observes that "we see many women now-a-days in the streets, but no men; men being so afraid of the press." He speaks of purchasing "four or five tons of corke, to send this day to the fleet, being a new device to make barricados with, instead of junke." The importance of protecting men against shot was even then, it will be seen, thought of.

On the 10th he goes "to the office; the yard being very full of women coming to get money for their husbands and friends that are prisoners in Holland; and they lay clamouring and swearing and cursing us, that my wife and I were afraid to send a venison-pasty that we have for supper to-night, to the cook's to be baked."

On the 23rd July Sir W. Coventry talks to him of the "_Loyal London_ (which, by the way, he commends to be the best ship in the world, large and small) hath above eight hundred men. The first guns made for her all bursted, but others were made, which answered better."

Speaking of the late battle, he remarks that "the _Resolution_ had all bra.s.s guns, being the same that Sir John Lawson had in her in the Straights. It is to be observed that the two fleets were even in number to one ship."

Sir W. Coventry "spoke slightingly of the Duke of Albemarle, saying, when De Ruyter come to give him a broadside--`Now,' says he (chewing of tobacco the while), `will this fellow come and give me two broadsides, and then he shall run;' but it seems he held him to it two hours, till the duke himself was forced to retreat to refit, and was towed off, and De Ruyter staid for him till he come back again to fight. One in the ship saying to the duke, `Sir, methinks De Ruyter hath given us more than two broadsides.' `Well,' says the duke, `but you shall find him run by-and-by,' and so he did, but after the duke himself had been first made to fall of."

From the accounts he gives of the condition of the navy, it is surprising that our ships were not everywhere beaten. On the 20th of October he writes: "Commissioner Middleton says that the fleet was in such a condition as to discipline, as if the devil had commanded it; so much wickedness of all sorts. Enquiring how it came to pa.s.s that so many ships had miscarried this year, he tells me that the pilots do say that they dare not do nor go but as the captains will have them; and if they offer to do otherwise, the captains swear they will run them through. That he heard Captain Digby (my Lord of Bristoll's son, a young fellow that never was but one year, if that, in the fleet) say that he did hope he should not see a tarpawlin have the command of a ship within this twelve months"--tarpaulin being the common name applied to a sailor in those days.

On the 19th: "Nothing but distraction and confusion in the affairs of the navy."

On the 28th he adds: "Captain Guy to dine with me. He cries out of the discipline of the fleet, and confesses really that the true English valour we talk of is almost spent and worn out; few of the commanders doing what they should do, and he much fears we shall therefore be beaten the next year. He a.s.sures me we were beaten home the last June fight, and that the whole fleet was ashamed to hear of our bonfires.

The _Revenge_ having her forecastle blown up with powder to the killing of some men in the river, and the _Dyamond_ being overset in the careening at Sheerness, are further marks of the method all the king's work is now done in. The _Foresight_ also and another come to disasters in the same place this week in the cleaning."

On the 2nd of November he describes the _Ruby_, French prize, "the only ship of war we have taken from any of our enemies this year. It seems a very good ship, but with galleries quite round the sterne to walk in as a balcone, which will be taken down."

News of the Dutch having been seen off the mouth of the Thames alarms every one; and on the 24th of March, 1667, he writes: "By-and-by to the Duke of Yorke, where we all met, and there was the king also; and all our discourse was about fortifying of the Medway and Harwich; and here they advised with Sir G.o.dfrey Lloyd and Sir Bernard de Gunn, the two great engineers, and had the plates drawn before them; and indeed all their care they now take is to fortify themselves, and are not ashamed of it."

On the 9th of June he writes: "I find an order come for the getting some fire-ships presently to annoy the Dutch, who are in the king's channel, and expected up higher."

The next day: "News brought us that the Dutch are come up as high as the Nore; and more pressing orders for fire-ships. We all went down to Deptford, and pitched upon ships and set men at work, but, Lord! to see how backwardly things move at this pinch, notwithstanding that by the enemy being now come up as high as almost the Hope."

Anxiety and terror prevailed in the city, and people were removing their goods--the thoughtful Mr Pepys making a girdle to carry 300 pounds in gold about his body. The alarm is further increased when a neighbour comes up from Chatham, and tells him that that afternoon he "saw the _Royal James_, the _Oake_, and _London_ burnt by the enemy with their fire-ships; that two or three men-of-war come up with them, and made no more of Upnor Castle's shooting than of a fly; that the Dutch are fitting out the _Royal Charles_."

Ships were to be sunk in the river, about Woolwich, to prevent the Dutch coming up higher.

"The masters of the ships that are lately taken up, do keep from their ships all their stores, or as much as they can, so that we cannot despatch them, having not time to appraise them, nor secure their payment. Only some little money we have, which we are fain to pay the men we have with every night, or they will not work. And, indeed, the hearts as well as the affections of the seamen are turned away; and in the open streets in Wapping, and up and down, the wives have cried publickly, `This comes of not paying our husbands; and now your work is undone, or done by hands that understand it not.'"

Some of the men, "instead of being at work at Deptford, where they were intended, do come to the office this morning to demand the payment of their tickets; for otherwise they would, they said, do no more work; and are, as I understand from everybody that has to do with them, the most debauched, swearing rogues that ever were in the navy, just like their prophane commander."

"Nothing but carelessness lost the _Royal Charles_, for they might have saved her the very tide that the Dutch came up. The Dutch did take her with a boat of nine men, who found not a man on board her; and presently a man went up and struck her flag, and jacke, and a trumpeter sounded upon her, `Joan's placket is torn;' they did carry her down at a time, both for tides and wind, when the best pilot in Chatham would not have undertaken it, they heeling her on one side to make her draw little water, and so carried her away safe."

"It is a sad sight to see so many good ships there sunk in the river, while we would be thought to be masters of the sea."

He also examines the chain which had been carried across the river, "and caused the link to be measured, and it was six inches and one-fourth in circ.u.mference."

He commends the Dutch "for the care they do take to encourage their men to provide great stores of boats to save them; while we have not credit to find one boat for a ship." The English mode "of preparing of fire-ships," he observes, "do not do the work, for the fire not being strong and quick enough to flame up, so as to take the rigging and sails, lies smothering a great while, half-an-hour before it flames, in which time they can get the fire-ships off safely. But what a shame it is to consider how two of our ship's companies did desert their ships.

And one more company did set their ship on fire and leave her; which afterwards a Feversham fisherman came up to, and put out the fire, and carried safe into Feversham, where she now is. It was only want of courage, and a general dismay and abjectness of spirit upon all our men; G.o.d Almighty's curse upon all that we have in hand, for never such an opportunity was of destroying so many good ships of theirs as we now had."

To replace the _Royal Charles_ carried away, a new ship was launched on the 4th of March, 1668, called the _Charles_; "G.o.d send her better luck than the former."

At a Privy Council which he attended, "to discourse about the fitness of entering of men presently for the manning of the fleet, before one ship is in condition to receive them," the king observed, "`If ever you intend to man the fleet without being cheated by the captains and pursers, you may go to bed and resolve never to have it manned.'"

At another council he speaks of "a proposition made to the Duke of York by Captain Von Hemskirke, for 20,000 pounds to discover an art how to make a ship go two feet for one what any ship do now, which the king inclines to try, it costing him nothing to try; and it is referred to us to contract with the man." He afterwards says that the secret was only to make her sail a third faster than any other ship.

On the 25th of March, 1669, a court-martial was held about the loss of the _Defyance_. The sentence was, "That the gunner of the _Defyance_ should stand upon the _Charles_ three hours with his fault writ upon his breast, and with a halter about his neck, and so be made incapable of any service." The ship was burnt by the gunner allowing a girl to carry a fire into his cabin.

Whatever our shortcomings in regard to naval affairs, it is pleasant to believe that they cannot possibly be so great as in the days of Mr Samuel Pepys.