Merchantmen-at-arms : the British merchants' service in the war Part 4

Little detail has come down to us of the means adopted to enforce these just acts. Of the difficulties of their enforcement we may judge a little from the character of the seamen as presented by contemporary chronicles. . . .

"_Full many a draught of wyn had he drawe From Burdeux-ward, whil that the chapman sleep.

Of nyce conscience took he no keep.

If that he foughte, and hadde the heigher hand, By water he sent hem hoom to every land._"

. . . Thus Chaucer; but Chaucer was a Collector of Customs, and would possibly a.s.sess the stolen draught of Bordeaux as a greater crime than throwing prisoners overboard! From evidence of the date, Richard's shipping laws seem to have been but lightly regarded by the lords of the foresh.o.r.e. In the reign of King John, wrecking had become a practice so common that prescriptive rights to the litter of the beaches was included in manorial charters, despite the Role that . . . "the pieces of the ship still to belong to the original owners, notwithstanding any custom to the contrary . . . and any partic.i.p.ators of the said wrecks, whether they be bishops, prelates, or clerks, shall be deposed and deprived of their benefices, and if lay people they are to incur the penalties previously recited."

It was surely by more than mere chance the churchmen were thus specially indicted! Perhaps it was by a temporal as well as a spiritual measure that Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, strove to remove a reproach to the Church. He founded a Guild of sea-samaritans, a Corporation

"of G.o.dly disposed men, who, for the actual suppression of evil disposed persons bringing ships to destruction by the shewing forth of false beacons, do bind themselves together in the Love of our Lord Christ, in the name of the Masters and Fellows of Trinity Guild to succour from the dangers of the sea all who are beset upon the coasts of England, to feed them when ahungered and athirst, to bind up their wounds, and to build and light proper beacons for the guidance of mariners."

An earnest and compa.s.sionate Charter: a merciful and honourable Commission.

In this wise was formed our Alma Mater, the ancient guild of shipmen and mariners of England. Subsequent charters advanced their t.i.tles as they enlarged their duties and charges. In 1514, Henry VIII confirmed their foundation under style of . . . "Master, Wardens, and Accistants of the Guild or Fraternity of the Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity, and of St. Clement, in the Parish of Deptford Strond, in the County of Kent."

Some years later, the 'accistants' were subdivided as Elder and Younger Brethren, the Foundation being familiarly referred to as the Corporation of Trinity House.

In early days, their efforts were directed in charity to stricken seafarers, in humane dispensation, in erection and maintenance of sea-marks, in training and provision of competent sea and coast pilots--a line of endeavour directed by the G.o.dly Primate, in his Commission. Beacons were built on dangerous points of the coast, keepers appointed to serve them, watchers detailed to observe the vessels as they pa.s.sed and restrain the activities of the wrecker. The magnitude of the task, the difficulties of their office, the powerful counter-influences arrayed against their beneficent role, may be judged by an incident that occurred as late as little over a hundred and twenty years ago. . . . "When Ramsgate Harbour, as a port of refuge from storm and stress, was intended, and the business was before Parliament, a pet.i.tion from the Lord of the Manor tended to accelerate matters. He represented to the House, while the Bill was depending, that, _as the wrecks on the coast belonged to him and formed a considerable part of his property, he prayed that the Bill would not pa.s.s_!"

Established in charity for the guardianship of the coasts, the Brethren of Trinity pa.s.sed to a supervision of the ships and the seamen. Although a closely guarded Corporation, qualifications for entry were simply those of sea-knowledge. The business of shipping, if more hazardous and difficult on the sea, was less complicated in its landward connections than is its modern conduct. The merchants were well content to be guided in their affairs by their sea-partners, the men who actually commanded and sailed the ships. The voyages, ship construction, refitment and victualling were matters that could only be advised by the skilled seamen. Jealous for professional advancement, the Brethren of Trinity held their ranks open only to skilled master seamen and to kindred sea-tradesmen--the shipwrights and rope-makers. While attracting leaders and statesmen to the higher and more ornamental offices, control was largely vested in the Elder and Younger Brethren--technical advisers, competent to understand sea-matters.

In no small measure, the rise and supremacy of our shipping is due to their wise direction and control. They were the sole machinery of the State for control of the ships and the seaman. Survey and inspection of sea-stores, planning and supervision of ship construction, registry and measurement of vessels, had their beginning in the orderly efforts of the Brethren. Examination of the competence of masters was part of their duties--as was their arbitration in crew disputes. They licensed and supplied seafarers of all cla.s.ses to the 'King's Ships,' tested their ordnance and examined the ammunition. Their reading of the ancient charter of their foundation was wide and liberal in its scope--"_to build, and light proper beacons for the guidance of mariners_" was their understanding. In construction and equipment and maintenance of sea-marks, in licence and efficient service of their coastal pilots, they carried out to the letter the text of their covenant; in spirit, they understood a guidance that was less material if equally important.

Their beacons were not alone standing structures of stone and lime, but world-marks in precept and ordinance, in study and research. They held bright cressets aloft to illuminate the difficult seaways in the paths of navigation and science of the seafarer. They placed facilities for the study of seamanship before the mariners and sought to advance the science of navigation in line with the efforts of our sea-compet.i.tors.

The charts and maps of the day--most of them being rude Dutch draft sheets--were improved and corrected, and new surveys of the coastal waters were undertaken at charge and patronage of the Brethren. Captain Greenville Collins, Hydrographer to Charles II, bears witness to their high ideals in presenting to the Corporation the fruits of his seven years' labour in survey and charting of the coast. The preface to his work is made noteworthy by his reference to the practice of the day--the haphazard alterations on the charts that brought many a fine ship to grief.

". . . I then, as in Duty bound (being a Younger Brother) did acquaint you with it, and most humbly laid the Proposals before you; whereupon you were pleased not only to approve of them, but did most bountifully advance towards the charge of the work.

. . . I could heartily wish that it might be so ordered by your Corporation, that all Masters of Ships, both using Foreign and Home Voyages, might be encouraged to bring you in their Journals, and a Person appointed to inspect them; which would be a great Improvement of Navigation, by imparting their Observations and Discoveries of the true Form and Prospect of the Sea Coast . . . and other dangerous Places. . . . And that those Persons who make and sell Sea Charts and Maps, were not allowed to alter them upon the single Report of Mariners, but with your approbation; by which means our Sea Charts would be more correct and the common Scandal of their Badness removed."

In all her enactments and activities, our Alma Mater ever preserved a worthy pride in her sons. Enthusiasm for a gallant profession, patronage for advancement in sea-skill and learning, a keen and studied interest in whatever tended to elevate and enn.o.ble the calling of the sea, were her inspiring sentiment. Even in wise reproof and cautionary advice, her words were tempered by a brave note of pride--as though, under so many difficulties and serious dangers, she gloried in our work being worthily undertaken. In charge to the seaman, Captain Collins continues his kindly preface:

"It sometimes happens, and that too frequently, that when Ships which have made long and dangerous Voyages, and are come Home richly laden, have been shipwrecked on their native Coast, whereby both Merchants, Owners, and Mariners have been impoverished. All our neighbours will acknowledge, that no Nation abounds more with skilful and experienced Seamen than our own; none meeting a Danger with more Courage and Bravery . . . so a Master of a ship has a very great Charge, and ought to be a sober Man, as well as a skilful Mariner: All Helps of Art, Care, and Circ.u.mspection are to be used by him, that the Lives of Mariners (the most useful of their Majesties' Subjects at this juncture) and the Fortunes of honest Merchants under his Care may be preserved."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT GRAVESEND: PILOTS AWAITING AN INWARD-BOUND CONVOY]

For over three hundred years, our Alma Mater flourished as the spring of our seafaring--a n.o.ble and venerable Corporation, concerned solely and alone with the sea and the ships and the seamen. The Brethren saw only one aim for their endeavours--the supremacy of the sea-trade, the business by which the nation stood or fell. Nor was theirs an inactive part in all the long sea-wars and crises that reacted on our commerce.

Before a navy existed, the stout old master-seamen of Deptford Strond were charged with the sea-defences of the capital. The new naval forces came under their control at a later date, and we have the record of an efficiency in administration that showed prevision and thought well in advance of that of their landward contemporaries. Piracy, privateering, the restraints of rulers and princes, were dealt with in their day. At critical turns in the courses of our naval conduct, it was to the steersmen of Trinity that the Ministers of the State relied for prompt and seamanlike action. The 'sea to the seamen' was the rule.

Adapting their resources to the needs of the day, the Brethren were held fast by no conventional restraint. They a.s.sisted peaceful developments in trade in the quieter years, but could as readily mobilize for war service under threat of invasion, or turn their skilled activities to removal of the sea-marks to prevent the sailing of a mutinous fleet. In the long and stormy history of Trinity House there were many precedents to guide the action of the Brethren on the outbreak of war. As guardians of the sea-channels and the approaches to our coasts, they manned these misty sea-trenches on the outbreak of war in 1914. Weaponless, by exercise of a skill in pilotage and a resolution worthy of great traditions, the Trinity men have held that menaced line intact. That little has been said about their great work is perhaps a tradition of their service.

We are parted now. The Merchants' Service is no longer a studied and valued interest of the ancient corporation. In an a.s.sured position as arbiters between the State and the shipping industry, the Trinity Brethren could combine a just regard for the merchants' interest with a generous and understanding appreciation of the seamen's trials and difficulties. If for no other reason than the record of past endeavours, they should still control the personnel of the Merchants' Service, in regulating the scheme of our education, the scope of our qualification for office, the grades of our service, the essence of our sea-conduct.

But in the fickle doldrums of the period when steam superseded sail as our motive power, we drifted apart. Shipping interests have become complicated with land ventures, as widely different from them as the marine engine is from our former sail plan. In 1850 the Merchants'

Service was placed under control of the Board of Trade; we were handed over to a Board that is no Board--a department of the State with little, if any, sea-sentiment, and that is sternly resolved to repress all our efforts to regain a voice in the control of our own affairs.

THE BOARD OF TRADE

IF we may claim the ancient Corporation of Trinity House as the Alma Mater of the Merchants' Service, we may liken our comparatively new directorate, the Board of Trade, to our Alma step-Mater--an austere, bureaucratic dame, hard-working and earnest, perhaps, but lacking the kindly spirit of a sea-tradition. She is utterly out of touch and sympathy with a sea-sense--her arms, overstrained perhaps by the tremendous burden of charge upon charge that comes to her for settlement, are never open to the seamen. Sullenly, we resent her dictation as that of a usurper--a lay impropriator of our professional heritage. Under her coldly formal direction, we may attend our affairs in diligence and prudence, but for us there is no motherly licence; she has no pride in our doings (if one counts not the vicious insistence of her statistics)--we are only the stepchildren of her adoption, odd men of the huge and hybrid family over whom she has been set to cast a suspicious, if guardian, eye. While Trinity House was concerned alone with the conduct of shipping and sea-affairs, our new controllers of the Board of Trade have interests in charge as widely apart as the feeding of draught-horses and the examination of a bankrupt cheesemonger. We are but a Department. The sea-service of the nation, the key industry of our island commerce, is governed by a subdivision in a Ministry that has long outgrown the limits of a central and answerable control. Instead of settlement by a contained and competent Ministry of Marine, our highly technical sea-conduct is ruled for us in queue with longsh.o.r.e affairs, sandwiched, perhaps, between horse-racing and the period of the dinner table.

"_The President of the Board of Trade has intimated to the Stewards of the National Hunt Committee that . . . it is not possible to sanction a list of fixtures for the season._"

"Mr. Peto asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the decision of Mr. Justice Rowlatt . . . in which judgment was given for the plaintiff company, owners of the steamship X----, sunk in collision, due to steaming without lights."

"_The President of the Board of Trade announces modifications of the Lighting Order during the present week, one effect being that the prohibition of the serving of meals in hotels after 9.30 p.m. is temporarily suspended._"

Perhaps we were rather spoilt by the pride that was in us when our seafaring was ruled by the appreciative Brethren of Trinity, and it may be as a repressive measure of discipline the Board of Trade extends no particular favour to our sea-trade, and has indeed gone further in being at pains to belittle our sea-deeds, and disparage a recognition of our status. Our controllers are anxious that their ruling of award and reward should suffer no comparison. For gallantry at sea, the grades of their recognition may vary from the Silver Medal (delivered, perhaps, as in a recent case, with the morning's milk) to a s.e.xtant or a pair of binoculars.

In 1905 a very gallant rescue was effected by the men of the Liverpool steamer _Augustine_. The crew of a Greek vessel were taken from their foundering ship in mid-Atlantic under circ.u.mstances of great peril. Not only was boat service performed in tempestuous weather, but the officers of _Augustine_ themselves jumped overboard to try to save the Greek seamen, who were too far exhausted to hold on to the life-lines and buoys thrown to them. The King of Greece, in recognition of the gallantry and humanity displayed, signed a decree conferring on the British master and his officers the Gold Decoration of the Redeemer.

A general view would be that this was an award quite appropriate to the services rendered, an expression by the Greek Government that they wished to place the names of the gallant savers of their seamen on the Roll of their Honour. Our Board of Trade objected. Through the Foreign Office, they appear to have informed the Greek Government that such distinguished awards were unusual and might prove a source of dissatisfaction in future cases. Possibly they viewed the appearance of a ribbon on the breast of a merchant seaman as an encroachment on the rights of their own permanent officials. The awards were not made; silver medals were subst.i.tuted, which Captain Forbes and his officers, learning of the Board's action, did not accept. On a later occasion the same unsympathetic influence was exercised; the Russian Order of St.

Stanislaus was withdrawn and replaced by a gold watch and chain!

In supervision of our qualifications as masters and mates, the Board of Trade has followed the lines of least resistance. It is true that they have established certain standards in navigation and seamanship that we must attain in order to hold certificates, but the training to these standards has never been an interest of their Department. While our shipmate, the marine engineer, has opportunity in his apprenticeship on sh.o.r.e to complete his education, we are debarred from the same facility.

Apprenticed to the sea at from fourteen to sixteen years of age, our youth bid good-bye to their school books and enter on a life of freedom from scholarly restraint--a 'kindergarten' in which their toys are hand-implements of the sea. There is no need to worry; there is no study required for four years; a week or two at the crammer's will suffice to satisfy the Board of Trade when apprenticeship days were over. And the fault does not lie with the 'crammer.' Scholarly and able and competent, as most of them are, to impart a better and more thorough instruction, the system of leaving all to the voyage's end offers to them no alternative but to present the candidate for examination as rapidly as possible.

Sea-apprentices of late years did not often share in a scheme of instruction afloat. Rarely were they carried as complements to a full crew; for the most part they were workmen in a scant manning--'greenhorns'--drudges to the whim of any grown man. In a rough measure, the standard of such seamanship as they _gathered_ was good--else we had been in ill case to-day--but it was without method or apprehension--a smattering--the only saving grace of which lay in the ready resource that only seafaring engenders. The exactions of a busy working sea-life left little leisure for self-advancement in study; the short, and ever shortening, intervals of a stay in port provided small opportunity for exercise of a helping hand from the sh.o.r.e. By deceptive short cuts that gave small enlightenment, by rules--largely mnemonic--we pa.s.sed our tests and obtained our certificates. On sh.o.r.e, the landward youth fared better.

The spirit of the times provided a free and growing opportunity for the study of technics and advance of scientific craftsmanship. The Navy took full advantage of this tide. The Board of Admiralty saw the futility of the old system of sea-training, having regard to the complete alteration of the methods in seamanship and navigation. Naval education could no longer be compensated by a schedule of bugle-calls and the exact.i.tude of a hammock-lashing. Concurrent with a sound sea-training, general education was insisted upon. Zealously Admiralty guided their youth on a path that led to a culture and appreciation of values, wide in scope, to serve their profession. If it was essential, in the national interest, that the general education and sea-training of naval officers should be so closely supervised, it was surely little less important that that of the merchants' officers should receive some measure of attention. But for the private efforts of some few shipowners, nothing on the lines of a considered scheme was done. No a.s.sistance or advice or grant in aid was made by the Board of Trade. While drawing to their coffers huge sums, acc.u.mulations of fines and forfeitures, deserters' wages, fees, the unclaimed earnings of deceased seamen, they could afford no a.s.sistance to guide the youthful seaman through a course of right instruction to a better sea-knowledge; they made no advances to place our education on a less haphazard basis. It may be cited as an evidence of _their_ indifference that a large proportion of unsuccessful candidates for the junior certificates fail in a test of _dictation_.

With our entry to the war at sea in 1914, the same indifference was manifest. There was no mobilization or registration of merchant seamen to aid a scheme of manning and to control the chaos that was very soon evident. Despite their intimate knowledge of the gap in our ranks made by the calling-up of the Naval Reserve--accentuated by the enlistment of merchant seamen in the Navy--the Board of Trade could see no menace to the sea-transport service in the military recruitment of our men. It was apparently no concern of theirs that we sailed on our difficult voyages short-handed, or with weak crews of inefficient landsmen, while so many of our skilled seamen and numbers of our sea-officers were marking time in the ranks of the infantry. Under pressure of events, it was not until November 1915 they took a somewhat hesitating step. This was their proclamation; it may be contrasted with Captain Greenville Collins's preface.

"MAINTENANCE OF BRITISH SHIPPING

"At the present time the efficient maintenance of our Mercantile Marine is of vital national interest, and captains, officers, engineers, and their crews will be doing as good service for their country by continuing to man British ships as by joining the army.

"THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE."

"AT the present time"! Possibly our Board was writing in antic.i.p.ation of the completion of the Channel tunnel, or of a date when our men-at-arms and their colossal equipment, the food and furnishings of the nation, the material aid to our Allies, could be transported by air. "As good service"! An equality! An option! Was it a matter of simple balance that a seaman on military service was using his hardily acquired sea-experience as wisely as in the conduct of his own skilled trade, as efficiently as in maintaining the lines of our oversea communications?

Events at this date were proving that we had no need to go ash.o.r.e for fighting service.

In the first violence of unrestricted submarine warfare, the Board advanced little, if any, a.s.sistance to the victims of German savagery.

Their machinery existed only to repatriate torpedoed crews under warrant as "distressed British seamen"; they were content to leave dest.i.tution, hunger--the rags and tatters of a body covering--to be relieved and refitted by the charitable efforts of philanthropic Seamen's Societies.

To them--to the kindly souls who met us at the tide-mark--we give all honour and grat.i.tude, but it was surely a shirking of responsibility on part of our Board that placed the burden of our maintenance on the committee of a Seaman's Bethel. As a tentative measure, our controllers advanced a scheme of insurance of effects--a business proposition, of which many took advantage. Later, this was altered to a gratuitous compensation. Cases occurred in which distressed seamen had a claim under both schemes: their foresight was not accounted to them. Although proof might be forthcoming of the loss of an outfit that the small compensation could not cover, they could claim only on one or the other, the insurance or the gratuitous compensation. It was evident that the Board derived some measure of a.s.sistance from the examiners in bankruptcy on their staff.

In certain seaports--notably at Southampton--Sailors' Homes (built and endowed for the comfort and accommodation of the merchant seamen) were permitted, without protest, to be requisitioned by Admiralty for the sole use of their naval ratings. The merchantmen, on service of equal importance and equal danger, were turned out to the streets, and our Board took no action, registered no complaint.

To await popular clamour was evidently a guiding principle with our controllers. Their view was probably that we were private employees in trading ventures, that their concern was only to see the sea-law carried out. Sea-law, however, was not in question in the case of the master and officers of _Augustine_, and, if they could a.s.sume the right to interfere in that personal matter, they accepted a position as curators of the personnel of the Merchants' Service. They cannot complain if our understanding of their duties does not agree with theirs. Deliberately, they have a.s.serted that our sea-conduct is within their province.

An extraordinary matter is the character and calibre of the Board's marine officials. Unquestionably able and personally sympathetic as they are, it remains the more incomprehensible that our governance is so stupidly controlled. Perhaps their submissions fail of acceptance in the councils of a higher control--that has also to decide on horse-racing and bankruptcy. Under a less heavily enc.u.mbered Ministry, our affairs should receive the consideration that is their due. It required but little experience of the new sea-warfare to establish our claim to be considered a national service with a mission and employment no less vital and combatant than that of the enlisted arms. Master and man, we have earned the right to no small voice in the control of our own affairs. Our sea-interests are large enough to require a separate Department of the State, a Ministry of Marine, in which we should have a part.

The Board of Trade has failed us, they have proved unworthy of our confidence. Quite lately they began to mobilize and register the mercantile seamen of the country. _Three years and nine months after the outbreak of war, they sounded the 'a.s.sembly' of the Merchants' Service._ Let that be their epitaph!

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRANSPORTS LEAVING SOUTHAMPTON ON THE NIGHT Pa.s.sAGE TO FRANCE]

V

MANNING