The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 2
by Frederick Whymper · English · Gutenberg #39342 · 994,868 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 2
Author: Frederick Whymper
Release date: April 1, 2012 [eBook #39342]
Most recently updated: June 17, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39342
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA: ITS STIRRING STORY OF ADVENTURE, PERIL, & HEROISM. VOLUME 2 ***
[Illustration: THE NAVAL FLAGS OF THE WORLD.]
THE SEA
_Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism._
BY
F. WHYMPER,
AUTHOR OF “TRAVELS IN ALASKA,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED._
* *
CASSELL PETTER & GALPIN:
_LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK_.
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_). PAGE
Extent of the Subject—The First American Colony—Hostilities with 1
the Indians—117 Settlers Missing—Raleigh’s Search for El
Dorado—Little or no Gold discovered—2,000 Spaniards engage in
another Search—Disastrous Results—Dutch Rivalry with the
English—Establishment of two American Trading Companies—Of the
East India Company—Their first Great Ship—Enormous Profits of the
Venture—A Digression—Officers of the Company in Modern
Times—Their Grand Perquisites—Another Naval Hero—Monson a Captain
at Eighteen—His appreciation of Stratagem—An Eleven Hours’
hand-to-hand Contest—Out of Water at Sea—Monson two years a
Galley Slave—Treachery of the Earl of Cumberland—The Cadiz
Expedition—Cutting out a Treasure Ship—Prize worth £200,000—James
I. and his Great Ship—Monson as Guardian of the Narrow Seas—After
the British Pirates—One of their Haunts—A Novel Scheme—Monson as
a Pirate himself—Meeting of the sham and real Pirates—Capture of
a Number—Frightened into Penitence—Another caught by a _ruse_
CHAPTER II.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
Charles I. and Ship Money—Improvements made by him in the 28
Navy—His great Ship, the _Royal Sovereign_—The Navigation Laws of
Cromwell—Consequent War with the Dutch—Capture of Grand Spanish
Prizes—Charles II. seizes 130 Dutch Ships—Van Tromp and the
Action at Harwich—De Ruyter in the Medway and Thames—Peace—War
with France—La Hogue—Peter the Great and his Naval Studies—Visit
to Sardam—Difficulty of remaining _incognito_—Cooks his own
Food—His Assiduity and Earnestness—A kind-hearted Barbarian—Gives
a Grand Banquet and _Fête_—Conveyed to England—His stay at
Evelyn’s Place—Studies at Deptford—Visits Palaces and
Public-houses—His Intemperance—Presents the King with a £10,000
Ruby—Engages numbers of English Mechanics—Return to Russia—Rapid
increase in his Navy—Determines to Build St. Petersburg—Arrivals
of the First Merchantmen—Splendid Treatment of their
Captains—Law’s Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea Bubble—Two
Nations gone Mad—The “Bubble” to pay the National Debt—Its one
Solitary Ship—Noble and Plebeian Stockbrokers—Rise and Fall of
the Bubble—Directors made to Disgorge
CHAPTER III.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
A Grand Epoch of Discovery—Anson’s Voyage—Difficulties of manning 45
the Fleet—Five Hundred Invalided Pensioners drafted—The Spanish
Squadron under Pizarro—Its Disastrous Voyage—One Vessel run
ashore—Rats at Four Dollars each—A Man-of-war held by eleven
Indians—Anson at the Horn—Fearful Outbreak of Scurvy—Ashore at
Robinson Crusoe’s Island—Death of two-thirds of the Crews—Beauty
of Juan Fernandez—Loss of the _Wager_—Drunken and Insubordinate
Crew—Attempt to blow up the Captain—A Midshipman shot—Desertion
of the Ship’s Company—Prizes taken by Anson—His Humanity to
Prisoners—The _Gloucester_ abandoned at Sea—Delightful Stay at
Tinian—The _Centurion_ blown out to Sea—Despair of those on
Shore—Its safe Return—Capture of the Manilla Galleon—A hot
Fight—Prize worth a Million and a half Dollars—Return to England
CHAPTER IV.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
Progress of the American Colonies—Great Prevalence of 62
Piracy—Numerous Captures and Executions—A Proclamation of
Pardon—John Theach, or “Black Beard”—A Desperate
Pirate—Hand-and-glove with the Governor of North
Carolina—Pretends to accept the King’s Pardon—A Blind—His Defeat
and Death—Unwise Legislation and consequent Irritation—The Stamp
Act—The Tea Tax—Enormous Excitement—Tea-chests thrown into Boston
Harbour—Determined Attitude of the American Colonists—The Boston
Port Bill—Its Effects—Sympathy of all America—The final
Rupture—England’s Wars to the end of the Century—Nelson and the
Nile—Battle of Copenhagen
CHAPTER V.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
Early Paddle-boats—Worked by Animal Power—Blasco de Garay’s 77
Experiment—Solomon de Caus—David Ramsey’s Engines—The Marquis of
Worcester—A Horse-boat—Boats worked by Water—By Springs—By
Gunpowder—Patrick Miller’s Triple Vessel—Double Vessels worked by
Capstans—The First Practical Steam-boat—Symington’s Engines—The
Second Steamer—The _Charlotte Dundas_—American Enterprise—James
Rumsey’s Oar-boats worked by Steam—Poor Fitch—Before his
Age—Robert Fulton—His Torpedo Experiments—Wonderful Submarine
Boat—Experiments at Brest and Deal—His first Steam-boat—Breaks in
Pieces—Trip of the _Clermont_, the first American
Steamer—Opposition to his Vessels—A Pendulum Boat—The first Steam
War-ship—Henry Bell’s _Comet_
CHAPTER VI.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
The Clyde and its Ship-building Interests—From Henry Bell to 97
Modern Ship-builders—The First Royal Naval Steamer—The First
regular Sea-going Steamer—The Revolution in Ship-building—The
Iron Age—“Will Iron Float?”—The Invention of the
Screw-propeller—Ericsson, Smith, and Woodcroft—American
’Cuteness—Captain Stockton and his Boat—The First Steamer to
Cross the Atlantic—Voyages of the _Sirius_ and _Great
Western_—The International Struggle—The Collins and Cunard
Lines—Fate of the _Arctic_—The _Pacific_ never heard of more—Why
the Cunard Company has been Successful—Splendid Discipline on
board their Vessels—The Fleets that leave the Mersey
CHAPTER VII.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
A Contrast—Floating Palaces and “Coffin-ships”—Mr. Plimsoll’s 112
Appeal—His Philanthropic Efforts—Use of Old
Charts—Badly-constructed Ships—A Doomed Ship—Owner’s Gains by her
Loss—A Sensible Deserter—Overloading—The Widows and
Fatherless—Other Risks of the Sailor’s Life—Scurvy—Improper
Cargoes—“Unclassed Vessels”—“Lloyd’s” and its History
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_.)
The Largest Ship in the World—History of the _Great Eastern_—Why 129
she was Built—Brunel and Scott Russell—Story of the
Launch—Powerful Machinery Employed—Christened by Miss
Hope—Failure to move her more than a few feet—A Sad
Accident—Launching by Inches—Afloat at
last—Dimensions—Accommodations—The Grand Saloon—The Paddle-wheel
and Screw Engines—First Sea Trip—Speed—In her first Gale—Serious
Explosion on Board off Hastings—Proves a fine Sea-boat—Drowning
of her Captain and others—First Transatlantic Voyage—Defects in
Boilers and Machinery—Behaves splendidly in mid-ocean—Grand
Reception in New York—Subsequent Trips—Used as a Troop-ship to
Canada—Carried out 2,600 Soldiers—An eventful Passenger
Trip—Caught in a Cyclone Hurricane—Her Paddles almost wrenched
away—Rudder Disabled—Boats carried away—Shifting of Heavy
Cargo—The Leviathan a Gigantic Waif on the Ocean—Return to Cork
CHAPTER IX.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
The Ironclad Question—One of the Topics of the Day—What is to be 138
their Value in Warfare?—Story of the Dummy Ironclad—Two real
Ironclads vanquished by it—Experience on board an American
Monitor—Visit of the _Miantonoma_ to St. John’s—Her Tour round
the World—Her Turrets and interior Arrangements—Firing off the
Big Guns—Inside the Turret—“Prepare!”—Effects of the Firing—A
Boatswain’s-mate’s Opinion—The _Monitor_ goes round the World
safely—Few of the Original American Ironclads left—English
Ironclads—The _Warrior_—Various
Types—Iron-built—Wood-built—Wood-covered—The Greatest Result yet
attained, the _Inflexible_—Circular Ironclads—The “_Garde
Côtes_”—Cost of Ironclads—The Torpedo Question—The Marquis of
Worcester’s Inventions—Bishop Wilkins’ Subaqueous Ark—Fulton’s
Experiments—A Frightened Audience—A Hulk Blown Up—Government Aid
to Fulton—The _Argus_ and her “Crinoline”—Torpedoes successfully
foiled—Their use during the American War—Brave Lieut. Cushing—The
_Albemarle_ Destroyed—Modern Torpedoes: the “Lay;” the
“Whitehead”—Probable Manner of using in an Engagement—The Ram and
its Power
CHAPTER X.
THE LIGHTHOUSE AND ITS HISTORY.
The Lighthouse—Our most noted one in Danger—The Eddystone 156
Undermined—The Ancient History of Lighthouses—The Pharos of
Alexandria—Roman Light Towers at Boulogne and Dover—Fire-beacons
and Pitch-pots—The Tower of Cordouan—The First Eddystone
Lighthouse—Winstanley and his Eccentricities—Difficulties of
Building his Wooden Structure—Resembles a Pagoda—The Structure
Swept away with its Inventor—Another Silk Mercer in the
Field—Rudyerd’s Lighthouse—Built of Wood—Stood for Fifty
Years—Creditable Action of Louis XIV.—Lighthouse Keeper alone
with a Corpse—The Horrors of a Month—Rudyerd’s Tower destroyed by
Fire—Smeaton’s Early History—Employed to Build the present
Eddystone—Resolves on a Stone Tower—Employment of “Dove-tailing”
in Masonry—Difficulties of Landing on the Rock—Peril incurred by
the Workmen—The First Season’s Work—Smeaton always in the Post of
Danger—Watching the Rock from Plymouth Hoe—The Last
Season—Vibrations of the Tower in a Storm—Has stood for 120
years—Joy of the Mariner when “The Eddystone’s in Sight!”—Lights
in the English Channel
CHAPTER XI.
THE LIGHTHOUSE (_continued_).
The Bell Rock—The good Abbot of Arberbrothok—Ralph the 172
Rover—Rennie’s grand Lighthouse—Perils of the Work—Thirty-two Men
apparently doomed to Destruction—A New Form of outward
Construction—Its successful Completion—The Skerryvore Lighthouse
and Alan Stevenson—Novel Barracks on the Rock—Swept Away in a
Storm—The unshapely Seal and unfortunate Cod—Half-starved
Workmen—Out of Tobacco—Difficulties of Landing the Stones—Visit
of M. de Quatrefages to Héhaux—Description of the Lighthouse
Exterior—How it rocks—Practice _versus_ Theory—The Interior—A
Parisian Apartment at Sea
CHAPTER XII.
THE LIGHTHOUSE (_concluded_).
Lighthouses on Sand—Literally screwed down—The Light on Maplin 182
Sands—That of Port Fleetwood—Iron Lighthouses—The Lanterns
themselves—Eddystone long illuminated with Tallow Candles—Coal
Fires—Revolution caused by the invention of the Argand
Burner—Improvements in Reflectors—The Electric Light at
Sea—Flashing and Revolving Lights—Coloured Lights—Their
Advantages and Disadvantages—Lanterns obscured by Moths, Bees,
and Birds
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BREAKWATER.
Breakwaters, Ancient and Modern—Origin and History of that at 188
Cherbourg—Stones Sunk in Wooden Cones—Partial Failure of the
Plan—Millions of Tons dropped to the Bottom—The Breakwater
temporarily abandoned—Completed by Napoleon III.—A Port Bristling
with Guns—Rennie’s Plymouth Breakwater—Ingenious Mode of
Depositing the Stones—Lessons of the Sea—The Waves the best
Workmen—Completion of the Work—Grand Double Breakwater at
Portland—The English Cherbourg—A Magnificent Piece of
Engineering—Utilisation of Otherwise worthless Stone—900 Convicts
at Work—The Great Fortifications—The Verne—Gibraltar at Home—A
Gigantic Fosse—Portland almost Impregnable—Breakwaters Elsewhere
CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREATEST STORM IN ENGLISH HISTORY.
The Dangers of the Seas—England’s Interest in the Matter—The 197
Shipping and Docks of London and Liverpool—The Goodwin Sands and
their History—The “Hovellers”—The Great Gale of 1703—Defoe’s
Graphic Account—Thirteen Vessels of the Royal Navy Lost—Accounts
of Eye-witnesses—The Storm Universal over England—Great Damage
and Loss of Life at Bristol—Plymouth—Portsmouth—Vessels Driven to
Holland—At the Spurn Light—Inhumanity of Deal Townsmen—A worthy
Mayor saves 200 Lives—The Damage in the Thames—Vessels Drifting
in all Directions—800 Boats Lost—Loss of Life on the River—On
Shore—Remarkable Escapes and Casualties—London in a Condition of
Wreck—Great Damage to Churches—A Bishop and his Lady Killed—A
Remarkable Water-Spout—Total Losses Fearful
CHAPTER XV.
“MAN THE LIFE-BOAT!”
The Englishman’s direct interest in the Sea—The History of the 209
Life-boat and its Work—Its Origin—A Coach-builder the First
Inventor—Lionel Lukin’s Boat—Royal Encouragement—Wreck of the
_Adventure_—The Poor Crew Drowned in sight of Thousands—Good out
of Evil—The South Shields Committee and their Prize
Boat—Wouldhave and Greathead—The latter rewarded by Government,
&c.—Slow Progress of the Life-boat Movement—The Old Boat at
Redcar—Organisation of the National Life-boat Institution—Sir
William Hillary’s Brave Deeds—Terrible Losses at the Isle of
Man—Loss of Three Life-boats—Reorganisation of the
Society—Immense Competition for a Prize—Beeching’s
“Self-righting” Boats—Buoyancy and Ballast—Dangers of the
Service—A Year’s Wrecks
CHAPTER XVI.
“MAN THE LIFE-BOAT!” (_continued_).
A “Dirty” Night on the Sands—Wreck of the _Samaritano_—The Vessel 215
boarded by Margate and Whitstable Men—A Gale in its Fury—The
Vessel breaking up—Nineteen Men in the Fore-rigging—Two Margate
Life-boats Wrecked—Fate of a Lugger—The Scene at Ramsgate—“Man
the Life-boat!”—The good Steamer _Aid_—The Life-boat Towed out—A
terrible Trip—A grand Struggle with the Elements—The Flag of
Distress made out—How to reach it—The Life-boat cast off—On
through the Breakers—The Wreck reached at last—Difficulties of
Rescuing the Men—The poor little Cabin-boy—The Life-boat
crowded—A moment of great Peril—The Steamer reached at last—Back
to Ramsgate—The Reward of Merit—Loss of a Passenger Steamer—The
Three Lost Corpses—The Emigrant Ship on the Sands—A Splendid
Night’s Work
CHAPTER XVII.
“MAN THE LIFE-BOAT!” (_continued_).
A Portuguese Brig on the Sands—Futile Attempts to get her 225
off—Sudden Break-up—Great Danger to the Life-boat—Great
Probability of being Crushed—An Old Boatman’s Feelings—The
Life-boat herself on the Goodwin—Safe at Last—Gratitude of the
Portuguese Crew—A Blaze of Light seen from Deal—Fatal
Delay—Twenty-eight Lives Lost—A dark December Night—The
almost-deserted Wreck of the _Providentia_—A Plucky Captain—An
awful Episode—The Mate beaten to Death—Hardly saved—The poor
little Cabin-boy’s Rescue—Another Wreck on the Sands—Many
Attempts to rescue the Crew—Determination of the Boatmen—Victory
or Death!—The _Aid_ Steamer nearly wrecked—A novel and successful
Experiment—Anchoring on Board—The Crew Saved
CHAPTER XVIII.
“WRECKING” AS A PROFESSION.
Probable Fate of a rich Vessel in the Middle Ages—Maritime Laws 235
of the Period—The King’s Privileges—Cœur de Lion and his
Enactments—The Rôles d’Oleron—False Pilots and Wicked
Lords—Stringent Laws of George II.—The Homeward-bound
Vessel—Plotting Wreckers—Lured Ashore—“Dead Men Tell no Tales”—A
Series of Facts—Brutality to a Captain and his Wife—Fate of a
Plunderer—Defence of a Ship against Hundreds of Wreckers—Another
Example—Ship Boarded by Peasantry—Police Attacked by
Thousands—Cavalry Charge the Wreckers—Hundreds of Drunken
Plunderers—A Curious Tract of the Last Century—A Professional
Wrecker’s Arguments—A Candid Bahama Pilot
CHAPTER XIX.
“HOVELLING” _v._ WRECKING.
The Contrast—The “Hovellers” defended—Their Services—The Case of 245
the _Albion_—Anchors and Cables wanted by a disabled
Vessel—Lugger wrecked on the Beach—Dangers of the Hoveller’s
Life—Nearly swamped by the heavy Seas—Loss of a baling Bowl, and
what it means—Saved on an American Ship—The Lost Found—A
brilliant example of Life-saving at Bideford—The Small Rewards of
the Hoveller’s Life—The case of _La Marguerite_—Nearly wrecked in
Port—Hovellers _v._ Wreckers—“Let’s all start fair!”—Praying for
Wrecks
CHAPTER XX.
SHIPS THAT “PASS BY ON THE OTHER SIDE.”
Captains and Owners—Reasons for apparent Inhumanity—A Case in 261
Point—The Wreck of the _Northfleet_—Run down by the _Murillo_—A
Noble Captain—The Vessel Lost, with a Hundred Ships near her—One
within Three Hundred Yards—Official Inquiry—Loss of the
_Schiller_—Two Hundred Drowned in one heavy Sea—Life-saving
Apparatus of little use—Lessons of the Disaster—Wreck of the
_Deutschland_—Harwich blamed unjustly—The good Tug-boat
_Liverpool_ and her Work—Necessity of proper Communication with
Light-houses and Light-ships—The new Signal Code and old
Semaphores
CHAPTER XXI.
A CONTRAST—THE SHIP ON FIRE!—SWAMPED AT SEA.
The Loss of the _Amazon_—A Noble Vessel—Description of her 278
Engine-rooms—Her Boats—Heating of the Machinery—The Ship on
Fire—Communication cut off—The Ominous Fire-bell—The Vessel put
before the Wind—A Headlong Course—Impossibility of Launching the
Boats—“Every Man for Himself!”—The Boats on Fire—Horrible Cases
of Roasting—Boats Stove in and Upset—The Remnant of
Survivors—“Passing by on the Other Side”—Loss of a distinguished
Author—A Clergyman’s Experiences—A Graphic Description—Without
Food, Water, Oars, Helm, or Compass—Blowing-up of the _Amazon_—“A
Sail!”—Saved on the Dutch Galliot—Back from the Dead—Review of
the Catastrophe—A Contrast—Loss of the _London_—Anxiety to get
Berths on her—The First Disaster—Terrible Weather—Swamped by the
Seas—The Furnaces Drowned out—Efforts to replace a
Hatchway—Fourteen Feet of Water in the Hold—“Boys, you may say
your Prayers!”—Scene in the Saloon—The Last Prayer Meeting—Worthy
Draper—Incidents—Loss of an Eminent Tragedian—His Last
Efforts—The Bottle Washed Ashore—Nineteen Saved out of Two
Hundred and Sixty-three Souls on Board—Noble Captain Martin—The
_London’s_ Last Plunge—The Survivors picked up by an Italian
Barque
CHAPTER XXII.
EARLY STEAMSHIP WRECKS AND THEIR LESSONS.
The _Rothsay Castle_—An Old Vessel, unfit for Sea Service—A Gay 297
Starting—Drifting to the Fatal Sands—The Steamer Strikes—A Scene
of Panic—Lost within easy reach of Assistance—An Imprudent
Pilot—Statements of Survivors—A Father and Son parted and
re-united—Heartrending Episodes—The Other Side: Saved by an
Umbrella—Loss of the _Killarney_—Severe Weather—The Engine-fires
Swamped—At the Mercy of the Waves—On the Rocks—The Crisis—Half
the Passengers and Crew on an Isolated Rock—Spolasco and his
Child—Holding on for Dear Life—Hundreds Ashore “Wrecking”—No
Attempts to Save the Survivors—Several Washed Off—Deaths from
Exhaustion—“To the Rescue!”—Noble Efforts—Failure of Several
Plans—A Novel Expedient adopted—Its Perils—Another Dreary
Night—Good Samaritans—A Noble Lady—Saved at Last—The Inventor’s
Description of the Rope Bridge—The Wreck Register for One
Year—Grand Work of the Lifeboat Institution
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Naval Flags of the World _Coloured Frontispiece_
Raleigh at Trinidad _To face page_ 5
Sir Walter Raleigh 5
Raleigh on the River 9
Monson and the Biscayan Ship 12
Monson at Cadiz 17
Action in Cerimbra Roads 21
Monson at Broad Haven 25
De Ruyter on the Medway 32
Peter the Great 33
The Imperial Workman receiving a Deputation 36
Old Dockyard at Deptford 37
Saye’s Court, Deptford 39
Commodore Anson 45
The _Centurion_ off Cape Horn 49
Surrender of the _Carmelo_ 56
Anson taking the Spanish Galleon 61
Cape Cod 64
The _Dartmouth_ in Boston Harbour 65
Destruction of the Tea Cargoes 72
Nelson and the Bear 73
Nelson at Copenhagen _To face page_ 76
Lord Nelson 76
The _Charlotte Dundas_ 84
Symington 85
Outline of Fitch’s First Boat 89
Fitch’s Second Boat 89
The _Clermont_ 93
Bell’s _Comet_ 96
Four Great Engineers _To face page_ 97
The _United Kingdom_ 99
Arrival of the _Great Western_ at New York 100
Section and Plan of the Stern of a Screw Steamer 101
The _Robert F. Stockton_ 103
The First Cunard Steamer 105
Cunard Paddle Steam-ship _Scotia_ 109
The Cunard Screw Steam-ship _Bothnia_ 109
Mr. Plimsoll 112
Mr. Plimsoll Speaking in the House of Commons 116
Exterior of Lloyd’s 124
Interior of Lloyd’s 125
The _Great Eastern_ in a Gale off Cape Clear _To face page_ 129
Mr. I. K. Brunel 129
Mr. Scott Russell 129
The Launch of the _Great Eastern_ 133
Arrival of the _Great Eastern_ at New York 136
The _Monitor_ passing the Vicksburg Batteries 138
Peace and War
The _Miantonoma_ 140
Interior of a Turret Ship 141
The _Inflexible_ 145
Section of the _Alexandra_ 147
Preparing for Torpedo Experiments at Portsmouth
The Old Style and the New (a Three-decker and a
Torpedo Boat)
Lieutenant Cushing’s Attack on the _Albemarle_ 149
Different Forms of Torpedoes 153
Torpedo Experiments at Portsmouth, with the
Electric Light
Paraguayan Torpedo blowing up a Brazilian 154
Ironclad
The Tower of Cordouan 157
Destruction of Rudyerd’s Lighthouse _To face page_ 161
Winstanley’s Lighthouse 161
Rudyerd’s Lighthouse 161
The Eddystone Lighthouse 168
Portrait of Smeaton 170
Interior of the Light-chamber of the Eddystone 171
Lighthouse on the Inchcape Rock 176
The Skerryvore Lighthouse 178
Revolving Light Apparatus 184
Breakwater at Venice 188
Cherbourg from the Sea 192
Portland 193
Holyhead Breakwater 196
Great Storm in the Downs 200
The Storm in the Thames at Wapping 204
West-Indiamen Driven Ashore at Tilbury Fort 205
A Life-boat Going Out _To face page_ 209
Greathead’s Life-boat 209
Life-boat Saving the Crew of the _St. George_ 213
Loss of a Life-boat at the Shipwreck of the 216
_Ann_
A Life-boat and Carriage—Latest Form 217
Ramsgate—The _Aid_ Going Out 220
“Curly” weather
A Group of Life-boat Men 229
On the Coast at Deal 232
Rescue of the Danish Vessel 236
Survivors Rescued from the Rigging of a Wreck
Wreckers Waiting for a Wreck 241
Major Warburton at the Wreck of the _Inverness_ 244
A Wreck Ashore
Loss of the _Albion_ Lugger 248
Map showing Coast of Ramsgate and the Goodwin 252
Sands
Wreck of the _Woolpacket_ on Bideford Bar _To face page_ 253
The Lugger reaching Ramsgate Harbour 253
Ronayne’s Bravery 257
The _Northfleet_ 260
Wreck of the _Northfleet_ 265
The Scilly Islands 268
The Bishop Rock Lighthouse 269
Wreck of the _Deutschland_ 272
Burning of the _Amazon_ _To face page_ 281
The _Amazon_ Steam-ship 281
Rescue of the Survivors of the _Amazon_ 284
The _London_ 289
The _London_ Going Down 292
Getting out the _London’s_ Boats 296
Wreck of the _Rothsay Castle_ _To face page_ 297
The Menai Straits 300
Saved at Last
Beaumaris 305
Entrance to Cork Harbour 308
The Survivors on the Rock 312
Rescue of the Survivors of the _Killarney_ 316
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SEA.
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
Extent of the Subject—The First American Colony—Hostilities with
the Indians—117 Settlers Missing—Raleigh’s Search for El
Dorado—Little or no Gold discovered—2,000 Spaniards engage in
another Search—Disastrous results—Dutch Rivalry with the
English—Establishment of two American Trading Companies—Of the
East India Company—Their first Great Ship—Enormous Profits of the
Venture—A Digression—Officers of the Company in Modern Times—Their
Grand Perquisites—Another Naval Hero—Monson a Captain at
Eighteen—His appreciation of Stratagem—An Eleven Hours’
hand-to-hand Contest—Out of Water at Sea—Monson two years a Galley
Slave—Treachery of the Earl of Cumberland—The Cadiz
Expedition—Cutting out a Treasure Ship—Prize worth £200,000—James
I. and his Great Ship—Monson as Guardian of the Narrow Seas—After
the British Pirates—One of their Haunts—A Novel Scheme—Monson as a
Pirate himself—Meeting of the Sham and Real Pirates—Capture of a
Number—Frightened into Penitence—Another caught by a _ruse_.
Many and vast are the subjects which naturally intertwine themselves with
the history of the sea! Great voyages have not been organised for the mere
discovery of so much salt water—except as a means to an end—and the good
ship has almost always sailed with a definite and positive mission. The
history of but a single vessel involves the history, more or less, of
hundreds of people; it may mean that of thousands. So the history of the
ocean is that also of lands and peoples, far off or near. Subjects the
most diverse are still intimately connected with it. In the space of a few
years’ time, war and peace are strangely contrasted; brilliant discoveries
are succeeded by disastrous failures, and heroic deeds stand side by side
with shameless transactions. Take only a few of the succeeding pages, and
we shall find recorded in them the stories of the early colonisation of
America, and of the disastrous voyages in quest of the fabled El Dorado,
followed by the brave and daring deeds of one of our greatest naval
heroes; these again by the establishment of the great commercial company
which once ruled India, succeeded by stories of pirates on the sea, and
“bubble” promoters ashore. Sketches of maritime affairs must be “in black
and white,” so great are the contrasts. But let us turn to our first
subject, the early voyages to, and colonisation of, the great New World.
About one hundred men formed the first little colony landed in Virginia
from the expedition of Greenville in 1585. Raleigh, at his own expense,
sent a shipload of supplies for them next year, but before it arrived the
settlers, and the very Indians of whom such flattering accounts had been
given, had quarrelled, and so many of the former had fallen as to imperil
the existence of the colony; the survivors thought themselves fortunate
when Drake unexpectedly arrived off the coast, and took them away. When
Greenville reached the settlement, a couple of weeks after, they had left
no tidings of themselves, and, wishing to hold possession of the country,
he landed fifteen men, well furnished with all necessaries for two years’
use, on the island of Roanoake. This voyage paid its expenses by prizes
taken from the Spaniards, and by the plunder of the Azores on the way
home, where they spoiled “some of the towns of all such things as were
worth carriage.”
Raleigh, next season, fitted out a third expedition of three vessels, with
one hundred and fifty colonists, under the charge of John White, who was
to be Governor, with twelve chosen persons as assistants: their town was
to be named after himself. After narrowly escaping shipwreck, they arrived
off Roanoake, and White, taking the pinnace, went in search of the fifteen
men left in the preceding year, but “found none of them, nor any sign that
they had been there, saving only the bones of one of them, whom the
savages had slain long before.” Next day they proceeded to the western
side of the island, where they found the houses which had been erected
still standing, but the fort had been razed. They “were overgrown with
melons of divers sorts,” and deer were feeding on the melons. While they
were employed repairing these, and erecting others, one George Howe
wandered some two miles away, when a party of half-naked Indians, who were
engaged in catching crabs in the water, espied him. “They shot at him,
gave him sixteen wounds with their arrows, and after they had slain him
with their wooden swords, they beat his head in pieces, and fled over the
water to the main.” Captain Amadas had taken an Indian named Manteo to
England with him, and this man, now with White, was sent to the island of
Croatoan, where his tribe dwelt, to assure them of the friendship of the
English, and an understanding was established. It was ascertained that the
men left the preceding year had been treacherously attacked by hostile
natives, and that two had been killed, and their storehouse burned; the
remainder had successfully fought through the Indians to the water’s edge,
and had escaped in their boat, whither they knew not. Their fate was never
learned. Manteo’s friends entreated that a badge should be given them, as
some of them had been attacked and wounded the previous year by mistake.
Something similar occurred shortly afterwards, when the English, burning
to avenge Howe’s death, attacked a settlement in the night, shooting one
of the men through the body before they discovered that the natives there
were of the friendly tribe. According to Raleigh’s instructions, Manteo
was christened, and called lord of Roanoake. About this time, the wife of
Ananias Dare, one of the twelve assistants, was delivered of a daughter,
who, as the first English child born in that country, was very naturally
baptised by the name of Virginia. And now the ships had unladen the
planter’s stores, and were preparing for departure. It was deemed
advisable that two of the assistants should go back to England as factors
and representatives of the company, but all appeared anxious to stop. At
length the whole party, with one voice urged White to return, “for the
better and sooner obtaining of supplies and other necessaries for them.”
This he very naturally refused, as it would look at home as though the
Governor had deserted his band, and had led so many into a country in
which he never meant to stay himself. But at last he yielded to them, and
was furnished with a testimonial setting forth the reasons. White arrived
in England at a period when the danger of a Spanish invasion was imminent,
a most unfortunate time for the colonists. When Raleigh was preparing
supplies for them, which Greenville was to have taken out, the order was
countermanded. White represented the urgency of their wants, and two small
pinnaces were despatched with supplies, and fifteen planters on board.
Instead of proceeding to America, they commenced cruising for prizes,
till, disabled and rifled by two men-of-war from Rochelle, they were
obliged to retreat to England. And now Raleigh, who is said to have
already expended £40,000 over these attempts at colonisation, appears to
have sickened of them, and to have assigned his patent to a company of
merchant adventurers. White did his utmost for the poor settlers he
represented, and learning that some English ships were about to proceed to
the West Indies, tried his best to arrange that they should take some
provisions and stores to Virginia, the upshot of which was that he only
obtained a passage for himself.
The colony had now been left to itself for two years. When the vessels
anchored near the spot, they observed a great smoke on the island of
Roanoake, and White, who had a married daughter among the colonists, hoped
that it might proceed from one of their camps. Two boats put off from the
ships, and the gunners were ordered to prepare three guns, “well loaded,
and to shoot them off with reasonable space between each shot, to the end
that their reports might be heard at the place where they hoped to find
some of their people.” Their first search was vain, for though they
reached the spot from which the smoke came, there were no signs of life
there. The next day a second search was made, but one of the boats was
swamped, and the captain and four others were drowned. The sailors averred
that they would not seek further for the colonists; they were, however,
over-ruled, and another attempt was made. Again they noted a great fire in
the woods, and when the boat neared it, they let their grapnel fall, and
sounded a trumpet, playing tunes familiar at the time; but there was no
response. They landed at daybreak, and proceeded to the place where the
colony had been left. “All the way,” says White, “we saw in the sand the
print of the savages’ feet trodden that night; and as we entered up the
sandy bank, upon a tree at the very brow thereof were curiously carved
these fair Roman letters, C R O, which letters presently we knew to
signify the place where I should find the planters seated, according to a
token agreed upon at my departure.” He had told them in case of distress
to carve over the letters or name a cross; but no such sign was found. At
the spot itself where he expected the settlement, he found the houses
taken down, and the place enclosed with logs or trees. Many heavy
articles, bars of iron, pigs of lead, shot, and so forth, were lying
about, almost overgrown with grass and weeds. Five chests, of which three
were his own, were found at last, but they had been evidently broken into
by the savages. “About the place,” says White, “many of my things, spoiled
and broken, and my books torn from the covers, the frames of some of my
pictures and maps rotten and spoiled with rain, and my armour almost eaten
through with rust.” But on one of the trees or chief posts of the
enclosure, the word CROATOAN was carved in large letters, and he now
understood that they were with Manteo’s tribe. It was agreed that they
should make for that place; but again fortune was against them.
One disaster followed another, and when at last they left Virginia, it was
with the intention of wintering in the West Indies, and returning the
following spring; but even this was not to be. Stress of weather drove
them to the Azores, and once there it was naturally decided to return to
England. No later attempt was made to succour them, and the fate of
ninety-one men, seventeen women, and nine children, and of two infants
born there, the names of which are preserved in Hakluyt, was never known.
Raleigh has been greatly blamed for inhumanity in this connection. His
excuse is that it was the busiest part of his eventful life. He had just
borne his part in the defeat of the Armada; had been one of eleven hundred
gentlemen who ventured on the unfortunate Portuguese expedition; had been
sent, in what was regarded as an honourable banishment, but none the less
an exile, to Ireland; on regaining his place in the queen’s favour had
taken an active part in Parliamentary service; was concerned in a fresh
naval expedition from which he was recalled by the queen, and had his
first taste of that cell in the Tower, which later on he left only for the
scaffold.
In 1595, we find Raleigh bent on a discovery which had long been a
feverish dream with him—the conquest of the fabled El Dorado. It was but
the result of the discoveries of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru; and all
over the Spanish main there was a fond belief extant in something greater
and richer than anything yet found. One of the traditions of the day was
that a relative of the last reigning Inca of Peru, escaping from the wreck
of that empire, with a large part of its remaining forces and treasure,
had established himself in a new country, which was found to be itself as
rich in mines as that from which he had migrated. “The Spaniards,” says
Southey, “lost more men in seeking for this imaginary kingdom than in the
conquest of Mexico and Peru.”
[Illustration: RALEIGH AT TRINIDAD.]
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]
Raleigh was encouraged in this enterprise by such men as Cecil, and the
Lord High Admiral Howard, who contributed to its cost. His idea was to
enter the land of gold by the Orinoco, and prior to his own voyage he
despatched a ship, under Captain Whiddon, to reconnoitre on that part of
the coast, and to seek information at the island of Trinidad. When Raleigh
and his squadron had arrived at one of its ports he found a company of
Spaniards from whom he cautiously extracted all they knew or believed
concerning Guiana. “For these poor soldiers,” says he, “having been many
years without wine, a few draughts made them merry; in which mood they
vaunted of Guiana, and of the riches thereof, and all what they knew of
the bays and passages, myself seeming to purpose nothing less than the
entrance or discovery thereof, but bred in them an opinion that I was
bound only for the relief of those English whom I had planted in Virginia,
whereof the bruit was come among them, which I had performed in my return
if extremity of weather had not forced me from the said coast.” Raleigh
stopped some time here, not merely to extract all the information
possible, but also to be revenged on the Governor, who the year before had
behaved treacherously, entrapping eight of Captain Whiddon’s men. This he
accomplished by taking and burning one of their new towns, and detaining
the Governor, Berrio, at his pleasure on board. The same day two more of
his ships arrived, and they prepared for the purposed discovery. “And
first,” says Raleigh, “I called all the captains (_i.e._, caciques or
native chiefs) of the island together that were enemies to the Spaniards;
* * * and by my Indian interpreter, which I carried out of England, I made
them understand that I was the servant of the queen, who was the great
cacique of the north, and a virgin, and had more caciqui under her than
there were trees on that island; that she was an enemy to the Castellani
(_i.e._, Spanish from Castille) in respect of their tyranny and
oppression, and that she delivered all such nations about her as were by
them oppressed; and having freed all the coast of the northern world from
their servitude, had sent me to free them also, and withal to defend the
country of Guiana from their invasion and conquest. I showed them her
Majesty’s picture, which they so admired and honoured as it had been easy
to have brought them idolatrous thereof.” Raleigh used the Governor with
courtesy and hospitality, and sounded him well concerning Guiana; and
Berrio conversed with him readily, having no suspicion of Raleigh’s
intentions. But when Sir Walter told him that he had resolved to see that
country, the Governor “was stricken into a great melancholy,” and tried
all he could to dissuade him. He described the rivers as full of
sandbanks, and so shallow that no bark or pinnace could ascend them, and
scarcely a ship’s boat; that they could not carry provisions for half the
journey, and that the “kings and lords of all the borders of Guiana had
decreed that none of them should trade with any Christians for gold,
because the same would be their own overthrow, and that for the love of
gold the Christians meant to conquer and dispossess them altogether.” The
golden country was 600 miles farther from the coast than he had been
informed, which piece of news Raleigh carefully concealed from his
company, for he was resolved “to make trial of all, whatsoever happened.”
After many explorations, on the part of his captains, of the rivers, the
mouths of which were found to be as shallow as he had been told, he, with
100 men divided in a galley, four boats and barges, and carrying
provisions for a month, resolved to see for himself.
From the spot where the ships lay, they had as much sea to cross as
between Dover and Calais, the waves being high, and the current strong.
They at length entered a stream, which Raleigh called the River of the Red
Cross, and where they noted Indians in a canoe and on the banks. Their
interpreters, Ferdinando and his brother, went ashore to fetch fruit, and
drink with the natives, when they were seized by the chief with the
intention of putting them to death, because “they had brought a strange
nation into their territory to spoil and destroy them.” Ferdinando and his
brother managed to escape, the former running into the woods, and the
latter reaching the mouth of the creek where the barge was staying, when
he cried out that his brother was slain. On hearing this, “we set hands,”
says Raleigh, “on one of them that was next us, a very old man, and
brought him into the barge, assuring him that if we had not our pilot
again we would presently cut off his head.” The old man called to his
tribe to save Ferdinando, but they hunted him through the forest, with
shouts that made the whole neighbourhood resound. At length he reached the
water, and climbing out on an overhanging tree, dropped down and swam to
the barge, half dead with fear. The old Indian was retained as pilot.
Ascending with the flood, and anchoring during ebb tide, they went on,
till on the third day their galley grounded, and stuck so fast that it was
a question whether their discoveries must not end there; but at last, by
lightening her of all her ballast, and hauling and tugging, she was once
more afloat. Next day they reached a fine river, where there was no flood
tide from the sea, and they had to contend against a strong current; “and
had then,” says Raleigh, “no shift but to persuade the company that it was
but two or three days’ work” to reach their destination. “When three days
were overgone, our companies began to despair, the weather being extreme
hot, the river bordered with very high trees that kept away the air, and
the current against us every day stronger than the other; but we once more
commanded our pilots to promise to end the next day, and used it so long
as we were driven to assure them from four reaches of the river to three,
and so to two, and so to the next reach; but so long we laboured that many
days were spent, and we driven to draw ourselves to harder allowance, our
bread even at the last and no drink at all; and ourselves so wearied and
scorched, and doubtful withal whether we should ever perform it or no, the
heat increasing as we drew towards the line, for we were now in five
degrees. The farther we went on (our victuals decreasing and the air
breeding great faintness) we grew weaker and weaker, when we had most need
of strength and ability, for hourly the river ran more violently than
other against us; and the barge, wherries, and ship’s boat had spent all
their provisions, so as we were brought into despair and discomfort, had
we not persuaded all the company that it was but one day’s work more to
attain the land, where we should be relieved of all we wanted; and if we
returned that we should be sure to starve by the way, and that the world
would also laugh us to scorn.” The old Indian now offered to take them to
a town at a short distance, where they could get bread, hams, fish, and
wine, but to reach it they must leave the galley, and proceed up a smaller
stream with the barge and wherries. Raleigh, with two of his captains and
sixteen musketeers started, but when, after hard rowing, it grew night,
and there were no signs of the place, they feared treachery. The old
native still assured them that it was but a little further, and they rowed
on past reach after reach, and still no town or settlement could be
discovered. At last they decided to hang the pilot, and Raleigh states
distinctly that “if we had well known the way back again by night, he had
surely gone, but our own necessities pleaded sufficiently for his safety,
for it was now as dark as pitch, and the river began so to narrow itself,
and the trees to hang from side, so as we were driven with arming swords
to cut a passage through those branches that covered the water.” At last,
an hour after midnight, a light was seen, and the welcome noise of the
village dogs heard, as they rowed towards it. There were few natives there
at the time, but some quantity of provisions was obtained, with which they
returned to the galley next day. The natives called this stream the river
of alligators, and a negro, who was one of the galley’s crew, venturing to
swim in it, was devoured by one of those animals. Raleigh says of the
country through which it passed, “whereas all that we had seen before was
nothing but woods, prickly bushes, and thorns, here we beheld plains of
twenty miles in length, the grass short and green, and in divers parts
groves of trees by themselves, as if they had with all the art and labour
in the world been so made of purpose; and still as we rowed, the deer came
down feeding by the water’s side, as if they had been used to a keeper’s
call.”
Still proceeding up the great river, their provisions almost exhausted,
they observed four canoes coming down the stream, to which they gave
chase. The people in two of the larger escaped into the woods, and left
behind a large stock of bread, which was very welcome. Searching the
woods, Raleigh came across an Indian basket, which proved to be that of a
refiner, as it contained quicksilver, saltpetre, and other things for
gathering and testing metals, and also the dust of such as he had
discovered. Raleigh offered £500 to the soldier who should take one of
three Spaniards known to have been with this party, but they escaped. He
was more fortunate with the Indians who had accompanied them, and one of
them was taken for pilot, from whom he learned that the richest mines were
“defended with rocks of hard stones, which we call white spar” (presumably
quartz). He states that in the canoes which escaped there was a good
quantity of ore and gold.
Still proceeding, on the fifteenth day, to their great joy, the distant
mountains of Guiana came into view, and the same day brought them in sight
of the great Orinoco, about the branches of which river thousands of
tortoise eggs were found, which proved to be “very wholesome meat, and
greatly restoring.” The natives, too, were friendly, and to Raleigh’s
credit, be it said, he appears in all cases to have treated them fairly
and well. With the cacique he made merry, treating the natives to a small
quantity of Spanish wine, they in return bringing in fruits, bread, fish,
and flesh. The chief conducted them to his own town, “where,” says
Raleigh, “some of our captains caroused of his wine till they were
reasonably pleasant; for it is very strong with pepper, and the juice of
divers herbs digested and purged; they keep it in great earthen pots of
ten or twelve gallons, very clear and sweet; and are themselves at their
meetings and feasts the greatest carousers and drunkards in the world.”
The settlement stood on a low hill, “with goodly gardens a mile compass
round about it.” And so they proceeded, meeting friendliness everywhere
among the natives, till the rivers commenced fast rising, and they could
not row against the stream. Small parties were then detailed ashore to
look for mineral stones. Raleigh describes the country as lovely; “the
deer crossing in every path; the birds towards the evening singing on
every tree with a thousand several tunes; cranes and herons, of white,
crimson, and carnation, perching on the river’s side; the air fresh with a
gentle easterly wind; _and every stone that we stooped to take up promised
either gold or silver by its complexion_. * * * I hope some of them cannot
be bettered under the sun; and yet we had no means but with our daggers
and fingers to tear them out here and there, the rocks being most hard, of
that mineral spar aforesaid, which is like a flint, and is altogether as
hard, or harder; and besides, the veins lie a fathom or two deep in the
rocks. But we wanted all things requisite, save only our desires and good
will, to have performed more, if it had pleased God.” Some of the others
brought glistening stones, and among them, apparently pyrites, which very
commonly accompanies gold, but of the precious metal itself Raleigh could
hardly boast a speck in truth. His account of these discoveries is mixed
up with the strangest fables, as for example of the Ewaipanoma, a people
of that country whose eyes were in their shoulders, and their mouths in
the middle of their breasts!
[Illustration: RALEIGH ON THE RIVER.]
The ships were regained, and the expedition sailed for England, where
Raleigh, in spite of the work which he published under the boastful title
of “The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, with
a Relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the Spaniards call
El Dorado),” &c., lost both popular and queenly favour, having brought
home no booty. In fact the narrative given to the world rather did him
harm than good, for it is full of excuses, admits that the voyage had been
most unprofitable, and is undoubtedly not veracious in many particulars.
His arguments for immediately attempting the conquest of Guiana were not
regarded. Yet still he had means and friends. Two expeditions to Guiana
were afterwards organised, neither of which resulted in any discovery or
profit.
But others besides Raleigh and his followers had been inflamed with the
accounts floating about concerning El Dorado. Berrio, the Spanish Governor
before mentioned, despatched his camp master to Spain to levy men, sending
with him some golden carvings and “images, as well of men as beasts,
birds, and fishes,” in order to obtain further aid from the king and his
subjects. This agent, Domingo de Vera, was a man of ability, and
thoroughly unscrupulous; he courted notoriety by appearing always in a
singular dress, adorned with golden trinkets and jewels, and being of
great stature, and riding always a great horse, attracted much attention,
being known popularly as the Indian El Dorado. He was successful in
raising seventy thousand ducats at Madrid, and a large additional sum at
Seville: obtained authority for raising a band of adventurers, and five
good ships to carry them out. Men of good birth left their estates,
respectable middle-class men gave up their incomes and employments, sold
everything, and embarked with their wives and children; even a prebendary,
and many priests, gave up sure prospects of advancement to join the
expedition, which at last aggregated two thousand persons. Berrio had only
asked for 300, and when the expedition reached Trinidad, they had to be
apportioned to various other settlements; the women and children being
serious encumbrances at the time, and enduring great misery. The savage
Caribs attacked their canoes when proceeding to St. Thomas and elsewhere.
One detachment of three hundred were reduced to thirty souls by the crafty
Indians, who, after very partially supplying them with provisions, watched
them sink with weakness and disease till they became an easy prey. In some
places they set fire to the grass, and the wretched travellers, unable to
fly before it, were burned to death. Those who reached the Orinoco, not
merely found no gold, but little of that abundance so glowingly described
by Raleigh. Vera himself soon died in Trinidad, and Berrio did not long
survive him. Of the original two thousand who left Spain, it is doubtful
whether a tithe survived the first year. Had Raleigh been a favourite with
the people, or had his character been above suspicion, it is more than
likely that some similar disaster might have had to be recorded on the
pages of English history.
Sir Walter Raleigh has enlightened us,(1) as regards the condition of
commerce and of the English mercantile marine shortly before the union of
the crown of England and Scotland, in a remarkable paper, “which
contains,” says a competent authority, “many remarkable commercial
principles far in advance of the age in which the author lived.” He states
that the ships of England were not to be compared with those of the Dutch,
and that while an English ship of one hundred tons required a crew of
thirty men, the Dutch would sail such a vessel with one-third that number.
Holland became the depôt of numerous articles, “not one hundredth part of
which were consumed by the Dutch,” while she gave “free custom inwards and
outwards for the better maintenance of navigation and encouragement of the
people to that business.” Sir Walter tells us that France offered to the
vessels of all nations free customs twice and sometimes three times each
year when she laid in her annual stock of provisions, and also in such raw
materials as were not possessed by herself in equal abundance. Denmark
granted free customs the year through, excepting only one month. The Dutch
were the great carriers by sea, in consequence of the facilities granted
them at home, “and yet the situation of England lieth far better for a
storehouse to serve the south-east and the north-east kingdoms than theirs
do; and we have far the better means to do it if we apply ourselves to do
it.” He complained that although the greatest fishery in the world is on
the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Holland despatched to the
Baltic and up the Rhine more than a million pounds sterling worth of
herrings, where we did not export one. He states that Holland trafficked
in “every city and port of Britain with five or six hundred ships yearly,
and we chiefly to three towns in their country and with forty ships; the
Dutch trade to every port and town in France, and we only to five or six,”
and that the Dutch were even ruining our Russian trade. In spite of
probable exaggerations in Raleigh’s statements as laid before the King, it
is evident that with the laws as they stood, the Dutch must have had, as
regards their commercial marine, very much the best of it.
While there was much depression among the shipowners, they did not
overlook the advantages to be derived from intercourse with the
newly-discovered world of North America. Though the expeditions promoted
by Raleigh and his associates had been unfortunate, profitable ventures
were soon after made, beads, trinkets, and articles of little value being
exchanged for skins and furs obtained by the Indians; and Captain Gosnold
made in 1602 the first _direct_ voyage across the Atlantic to America—all
other English sailors at least having sailed by way of the Canaries and
West Indies. “Steering in a small bark, directly across the Atlantic, in
seven weeks he reached Cape Elizabeth on the coast of Maine. Following the
coast to the south-west, he skirted ‘an outpoint of wooded land;’ and
about noon of the 14th of May he anchored ‘near Savage Rock,’ to the east
of York Harbour.... Not finding his ‘purposed place’ he stood to the
south, and on the morning of the 15th discovered the promontory which he
named Cape Cod. He and four of his men went on shore. Cape Cod was the
first spot in New England ever trod by Englishman.” He traded with the
natives in peltries, sassafras, and cedar-wood, and was probably the first
to sow English corn on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard. In 1606 two
maritime companies, the “Plymouth Adventurers,” and the South Virginia
Company, were authorised to colonise and form plantations; the first
having right to the territory which now embraces Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
and New York; and the second, to that which now includes Maryland,
Virginia, and North and South Carolina. A single steamer of these days has
often landed more emigrants at New York than did a dozen of these early
expeditions at other points, for their progress at first was painfully
slow.
The great East India Company was formed in England more than a century
after the discovery, by Vasco de Gama, of the route to India _viâ_ the
Cape. The first voyage of Thomas Cavendish is worthy of more note than it
has received, inasmuch as it contributed more than anything else to
awakening the merchants of London to the importance of the trade prospects
there. Starting in July, 1586, he circumnavigated the globe, passing
through the Straits of Magellan westward, in eight months less than Drake.
He was the first English navigator to discern the value of the position of
St. Helena, to describe with accuracy the Philippine Islands, and to bring
home a map and description of China; and what is more remarkable is the
fact that he was scarcely more than twenty-two years of age when he took
command in this first most adventurous voyage. He was shipwrecked five or
six years later on the coast of Brazil, and lost his life there. Through
Mr. Thorne, an English merchant, often mentioned in connection with these
early voyages, the London merchants gained a considerable amount of
knowledge relating to the important trade with the Indies enjoyed by the
Spanish and Portuguese; and at length, in the year 1600, more than 200
shipowners, traders, and citizens associated, and formed a body corporate,
having received many special privileges from the Crown, “including,” says
Lindsay,(2) “that of punishing offenders either in body or purse, provided
the mode of punishment was not repugnant to the laws of England. Its
exports were not subjected to any duties for the four first voyages,
important indulgences were granted in paying the duties on imports, and
liberty was given to export £30,000 each voyage in coin or bullion,
provided £6,000 of this sum passed through the Mint. But not exceeding six
ships, and an equal number of pinnaces, with 500 seamen, were allowed to
be despatched annually to whatever station might be formed in India, with
the additional provisoes that the seamen were not at the time required for
the service of the Royal Navy, and that all gold and silver exported by
the Company should be shipped at either London, Dartmouth, or Plymouth.”
The Company started with a capital of £72,000, and equipped five vessels
for the first venture, the largest of which was the _Dragon_ of 600 tons;
her commander, according to the practice of the day, receiving the title
of “Admiral of the Squadron.” The first voyage was very successful;
important commercial relations were formed with the King of Achin, in
Sumatra; and a factory established at Bantam, after which the ships
returned to England richly laden.
A serious rival was, however, in the field. The separation of the Dutch
provinces from the crown of Spain had caused their merchants to be sent
abroad to seek new fields of commerce, and as they had gained an intimate
knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese affairs, they were then the
predominant naval power in the Indian Seas, and were quite ready to
contend against any supremacy on the part of England’s traders. English
merchants were, however, ready for them, the profits on the first
expedition having incited them to grander efforts. They obtained a new
Charter in 1609, and the Company constructed a vessel of larger size than
any hitherto employed in the English merchant service, which they named
the _Trades’ Increase_. She was 1,200 tons, and even her pinnace was 250
tons. At her launch, the Company gave a great banquet, at which the dishes
were of china ware, then a great novelty in England. With these and two
other vessels Sir Henry Middleton set sail, touching at Mocha, on the Red
Sea, where, entrapped ashore by the Mohammedans, eighty of his crew were
massacred, sixteen others disabled, and he himself severely wounded.
Proceeding to Bantam, the _Trades’ Increase_ was unfortunately
shipwrecked, and poor Middleton died heartbroken at the failure of the
expedition. But other voyages followed, which were enormously profitable
to the Company. One expedition is mentioned which, “though absent only
twenty months, earned in that time a profit of no less than 340 per cent.”
“Factories”—trading posts or forts—were established, and the Company
obtained the favour of the Moghul Emperor, Jehangir, more especially after
they had been fortunate enough to repel some of the Portuguese who were
attacking his posts. They even contrived to obtain a footing in Japan,
through the influence of William Adams, a Kentish man, who had been pilot
on one of the earliest Dutch expeditions, and who stood high in the
Emperor’s favour. The intercourse then opened was allowed to die out, and
has only been re-established late in our own time. In seventeen years
after the first establishment of the Company its affairs had become so
prosperous that its stock reached a premium of 203 per cent., and the
Dutch East India Company suggested an amalgamation of the two corporations
with a view to exclude and crush their common enemy, the Portuguese. This
was never carried into effect, but in 1619 a treaty of trade and
friendship was established. They were to “cease from rivalry, and
apportion the profits of the different branches of commerce between them.”
Alas! all this amicable billing and cooing were to speedily end; such
self-abnegation was found hardly practicable between business rivals. A
series of hostilities ensued in the following year; a number of Englishmen
were massacred by the Dutch at Amboyna, and sea-fights occurred between
the vessels; the result being that the Dutch had it all their own way in a
few years afterwards. The directors of the English Company even meditated
winding up its affairs. Something similar happened more than once
afterwards before they became a grand company and the real governors of
India. The rise of British power there is one of those surprising
revolutions which never before occurred in history. The managers of a
trading company in London first became the lords of a manor a dozen times
the size of England, and controlled the destinies of kings and princes,
engaging in war or peace as occasion seemed to demand. Think of the
affairs of a great country settled in a counting-house! But at length the
anomaly had to cease, and, as most readers will remember, the East India
Company lost its powers and privileges in 1858, and ceased to exist as a
governing body. Retiring allowances were made to commanders and officers.
It may be interesting to note that up to 1814 trade with India, so long a
jealously-guarded monopoly with the Company, was thrown open to private
competition, but that they retained the exclusive trade with China for a
long period after that date.
A trifling digression may be allowed here, as it really bears on our
subject. The East India Company was long a synonym for everything that was
rich and powerful, and many of its civil servants visited or retired to
England as opulent and independent men. The maritime branch of the service
received a goodly slice of the pie; and some facts relating thereto
recorded by Lindsay, the authority before quoted, himself long a great
shipowner, will astonish and interest the reader. A commander’s position
in the H. E. I. Co.’s service was most assuredly worth having, for his
salary was a very small part indeed of his receipts. The Company granted a
number of “indulgences” to their naval officers, of which the following
are only part. Ninety-seven tons of space were reserved for the commander
and officers, of which the former of course took the lion’s share, 56½
tons. They were permitted to import on the homeward voyage tea to the
following extent:—9,336 lbs. for the commander, 1,228 lbs. for first mate,
and the lower grades were each privileged in the same way, but to a
smaller extent. The officers might bring in China-ware as a flooring for
the tea-chests, the quantity of which might range from 20 to 40 tons,
according to the size of the vessel. They were even allowed surplus
tonnage, when it could be safely and conveniently carried. The commander
received as his perquisite the passage-money paid by _all_ private
passengers, the cost of their provisions and wine being alone deducted.
His table was luxuriously supplied, and he was allowed to import for his
own use two butts of Madeira wine. The first mate had, among his extra
allowances, and quite apart from the regular supply of provisions on
board, 24 dozen of wine or beer, 2 firkins of butter, 1 cwt. of cheese, 1
cwt. of groceries, and 4 quarter casks of pickles for the voyage. Lindsay
says, “So many were their privileges, and so numerous their perquisites,
that during five India or China voyages a captain of one of the Company’s
ships ought to have realised sufficient capital to be independent for the
rest of his life.” He was, in effect, a merchant, doing business for
himself while in the employ of a large mercantile concern, and his
officers were the same on a smaller scale. The above writer considers that
the direct and inevitable remuneration to a commander was from £3,000 to
£5,000 per round voyage, out and home, but that with his privileges and
perquisites it might and often did reach £8,000 to £10,000, or more. He
mentions one instance which came within his own knowledge, where “the
commander of one of the ships employed on the ‘double voyage’—that is from
London to India, thence to China, and thence back to London, where he had
a large interest in the freight on cotton or other produce conveyed from
India to China—realised no less than £30,000.” And yet some of them were
not satisfied, and the Company had to make laws and investigations
concerning illicit trading and smuggling with the connivance of the Custom
House officers. Some of the commanders had even put into ports for which
they had no orders, to carry out their own purposes.
The internal economy of an East Indiaman was, as regards discipline and
order, modelled for the most part upon that of a man-of-war, and carried
more men, twice over, than does many a modern steamer double her tonnage.
Thus, one of the finest vessels of the Company, mentioned by Lindsay, was
for a considerable period the _Earl of Balcarras_. She was of 1,417 tons,
and had 130 souls on board. After the commander came six mates, a surgeon
and assistant, six midshipmen, purser, boatswain, gunner, carpenter,
master-at-arms, armourer, butcher, baker, poulterer, caulker, cooper, two
stewards, two cooks, eight boatswain’s, gunner’s, carpenter’s, caulker’s,
and cooper’s mates; six quartermasters, a sailmaker, seven servants for
officers, and seventy-eight seamen. But we are wandering from our theme.
[Illustration: MONSON AND THE BISCAYAN SHIP.]
The reign of Elizabeth was a glorious epoch in the history of naval
affairs, and great names crowd upon us. It is impossible to pass by that
of Sir William Monson, who served his country for fifty years, through
three reigns, and whose “Naval Tracts” are almost as valuable as were his
services, illustrating as they do the condition of the navy and maritime
affairs of the period, and abounding in the details of well-described
exploits.
Monson was of a good Lincolnshire family, and at an early age entered
Baliol College, Oxford, where he remained a couple of years, till the
excitement of the war with Spain determined him to run away to sea, as he
did not expect to get the consent of his parents. At this date, 1585, he
was only sixteen years of age. “I put myself,” says he, “into an action by
sea, where there was in company of us two small ships, fitted for
men-of-war, that authorised us by commission to seize upon the subjects of
the King of Spain; then made I the sea my profession, being led to it by
the wildness of my youth.” He had not long to wait for adventure. “A
strong and obstinate ship of Holland” was encountered, whose captain had
the audacity not to strike his flag immediately, when required to do so.
The Dutch vessel had an English pilot on board, through whom communication
was held; and the master of the privateer, by a ruse of navigation,
ordering his helmsman in a loud voice to port his helm, while in an
undertone he instructed him to do just the reverse, nearly fouled the
Dutchman, whose men got out oars and fenders to prevent the impending
collision. “When we saw their people thus employed,” says Monson,(3) “and
not to have time to take arms, we suddenly boarded, entered, and took her
by this stratagem.” Monson, when an old man, used to chuckle over his
boyish share in this exploit, and includes it among “stratagems to be used
at sea” in his “Tracts.”
But he was to have speedily a better opportunity of distinguishing
himself. The privateer on which he served—for she was nothing
more—encountered a large Biscayan ship off the Spanish coast, whose
captain refused to strike. A few of the English crew, including Monson,
managed to board her, when the sea suddenly rose, and this mere handful
were left on the Spaniard’s decks, while the privateer was compelled to
ungrapple. The storm increased, and it was not possible to succour the
little band, who fought for _eleven_ hours, from eight o’clock in the
evening to seven the next morning. The Spaniards attempted to blow up the
deck which they maintained, but “were prevented by fire-pikes,” and at
last surrendered after a desperate contest. The decks were covered with
the dead and dying. “I dare say,” says the narrator of the event, “that in
the whole time of the war there was not so rare a manner of fight, or so
great a slaughter of men.” Monson, who had now received his “baptism of
fire” with a vengeance, determined that nothing should take him from his
adopted profession, and it is presumable that his friends became
reconciled to it, for we find him suddenly raised, at one step, from the
grade of a volunteer to the rank of captain, although but eighteen years
old! Family influence, doubtless, had something to do with it. Gentlemen
captains, who were often brave men, but who knew little enough about naval
affairs, were common in those days. Raleigh distinguishes them very
distinctly from the “tarpauling captain,” or mariner who had learned his
profession from a youth up. Monson, however, as his writings prove, soon
became an adept in navigation and all the arts of seamanship.
Passing over a voyage in which Monson was nearly shipwrecked, we come to
1589, when he accompanied the Earl of Cumberland in his expedition to the
Azores. The crews were reduced to great distress from want of water, and
while cruising among the islands, a grand spout was seen issuing
apparently from one of their cliffs. Cumberland asked Monson to go with
four men and find out whether it was available for their use. While they
were rowing towards the land, a great whale, lying asleep on the water,
was noted from the ship, and was mistaken for a rock, whereupon the vessel
tacked about and put to sea, leaving Monson to his fate. (The original
narrative does not explain whether the waterspout, noticed from the ship,
had proceeded from the whale, before it fell asleep.) “I had no sooner,”
says Monson, “set my foot ashore, than it began to be dark with night and
fog, and to blow, rain, thunder, and lighten in the cruellest manner that
I have seen. There was no way for me to escape death but to put myself to
the mercy of the sea; neither could I have any great hope of help in life,
for the ship was out of sight, and there only appeared a light upon the
shrouds to direct me.” The narrative says that a countryman of Monson’s on
board prevailed upon his lordship (the Earl of Cumberland) to forbear
sailing. This was, one would think, hardly necessary, as Monson was his
second in command; but stress of weather will probably account for the
vessel being driven some distance. They rowed and rowed, but lost all
sight of the ship. At length, in despair, they fired their last charge of
powder from a musket. The flash was seen through the fog, and they were
saved. “We were preserved,” says the narrative, “rather by miracle than
any human act; and to make it the more strange we were no sooner risen
from our seats, and ropes in our hands to enter the ship, but the boat
sunk immediately.” The subsequent sufferings of the crew from the
continued want of water have rarely been equalled. “For sixteen days
together,” says Monson, “we never tasted a drop of drink, either of beer,
wine, or water; and though we had plenty of beef and pork of a year’s
salting, yet did we forbear eating it, for making us the drier. Many drank
salt water, and those that did died suddenly; and the last words they
usually spoke were ‘Drink, drink, drink!’” There were 500 men on board,
and the mortality, though not expressly stated in numbers, is said to have
been something fearful. At last they made the coast of Ireland, and
obtained relief. So severely was Monson’s health affected by this voyage,
that he retired from the active pursuit of his profession for a year
afterwards.
Again he joined the Earl of Cumberland in 1591 on an expedition directed
against Spain, off the coasts of which he successfully took two caravels
by one of the stratagems for which he was famous. He had boarded one from
the ship’s boat; he manned her with a part of his boat’s crew, and rowed
back to his ship. The Spaniards on the other caravel far in the distance
thought that the first, her consort, had been dismissed, and so shortened
sail to meet her; and was consequently taken unawares by a mere handful of
men. But Monson only wanted to obtain information as to the enemy, and let
them both off. This act turned out fortunately for him; for shortly
afterwards, being left in charge of a prize taken from the Dutch, he was
attacked by the Spaniards in six galleys, the consequence being that he
was taken prisoner, when he found that his recent conduct towards the
caravels had been reported favourably, and he was treated with more
courtesy than had been usual before. But he was to suffer a long captivity
for all that. At the Tagus he would probably have escaped had not an
unforeseen chance prevented. While the galleys were in the harbour, a
Brazilian, master of a Dutch ship, chanced to come on board that on which
Monson was confined, and, pitying his hard fate, offered to take him off
on his vessel, if he could devise any plan which should not implicate
himself. Monson gave out to the rest of the prisoners that, tired of his
life, he intended to drown himself. His intention really was to drop
quietly into the water, and if possible swim to the friendly bark. But
just before he had made his arrangements, the galleys were ordered to sea,
and when they returned the ship had sailed. It is probably fortunate for
him that he did not make the attempt, as, had it been frustrated, he would
have probably suffered death, as did an Italian a short time afterwards,
who had been trying to raise a general conspiracy on board. His execution
was effected in the most horrible manner, his arms and legs being
severally tied to the sterns of four galleys, which were rowed in four
different directions, thus quartering him.
Monson was afterwards removed to the castle of Lisbon, from which an
attempt on his part to escape was frustrated by the treachery of an
English interpreter there, whom he had been forced to employ. Fortunately,
the letter which he had entrusted to a page, who was to have conveyed it
_in his boots_ to Lord Burleigh, became so saturated and obliterated by
rain, that nothing could be made of it, and the whole matter was allowed
to pass. Not so, however, after he had helped a Portuguese to escape, who
had been condemned to death. The latter, aided by Monson’s skill, managed
to pass the sentinels disguised as a soldier, and then lowering himself by
a rope, effected his plans. The flight having been discovered, Monson was
accused of having assisted him, and was taken before the judge. “But
neither threats nor promises of liberty could induce him to confess. He
pleaded that he was a prisoner of war, that he was subject to the law of
honour and arms, and that it was lawful for him to seek his freedom: he
urged the improbability of holding such intercourse as was imputed to him
with one whose language he did not understand; and he concluded by
cautioning them to be wary what violence they offered him, as he had
friends in England, and was of a nation that could and would revenge his
wrongs.” The latter argument probably it was that carried the day; but
until released—no doubt by exchange—he was closely guarded.
In 1593, Monson again joined Cumberland, and considering the fidelity
which he had always shown to that admiral, the latter seems to have
treated him very badly. In the course of their voyage, a dozen Spanish
hulks laden with powder were taken, half of which were left to Monson to
haul over, while his admiral put to sea with the rest. Monson had with him
only about fifty men. What was his surprise towards night to find that
Cumberland had released the hulks which he had taken, and that they were
crowding on all sail to join their consorts in his charge, with hostile
intent, which it would be madness on his part to attempt to frustrate. He
barely escaped; when the enemy boarded him on one side of his vessel, he
leaped into the long boat on the other side, receiving a wound which
remained all his days. Southey certainly puts it mildly when he says, “The
conduct of the Earl of Cumberland in this affair admits of no reasonable
or satisfactory explanations,” for it looks far more like downright
treachery. A couple of years afterwards, the Earl very plainly declared
his colours by first inducing him to join him in his voyage, and then
superseding him. Monson could not brook this, and returned, after some
adventures, to England, where we soon find him with the Earl of Essex, in
the expedition to Cadiz. At that most remarkable siege, he was in the
thick of the fight ashore with Essex, where he received a shot through his
scarf and breeches; another shot took away the handle and pommel of his
sword, while he remained uninjured. But his principal services were in
connection with the destruction of the fleet, which meant a loss of six or
seven millions sterling to Spain. “The King of Spain,” says Monson, “never
received so great an overthrow, and so great an indignity at our hands as
this; for our attempt was at his own home, in his own ports, that he
thought as safe as his chamber, where we took and destroyed his ships of
war, burnt and consumed the wealth of his merchants, sacked his city,
ransomed his subjects, and entered his country without impeachment.”
Monson was knighted for his conduct at this siege.
[Illustration: MONSON AT CADIZ.]
The abundant “pluck” possessed by Monson is illustrated in the following
example. In 1597, on the island expedition, Monson’s ship was separated
some distance from the admiral’s squadron, when a fleet of twenty-five
sail was noted approaching in the dead of the night. Not being able to
distinguish their flag, he determined to reconnoitre for himself, before
signalling to the English ships. He approached them in his boat, hailing
them in Spanish, and they, replying that they were of that nationality,
asked whence he came. He replied that he was of England, and told them
that his ship, then in sight, was a royal galleon, and could be easily
taken, his object being to make them pursue him, so that he might
gradually lead them into the wake of the squadron. All he got for this
impudently gallant attempt was a volley of bad language and another of
shot.
But all Monson’s exploits pale before an action which occurred in Cerimbra
roads, in which a great treasure-ship was cut out, in sight of a fortress
and eleven galleys, and within hearing of the guns of Lisbon. He was then
associated with Admiral Sir Richard Lewson, but the principal part of the
service was performed by himself. When the carrack and galleys were
discovered lying at anchor, a council was held on board the admiral’s
vessel, which occupied the better part of a day, as many of the captains
thought it folly to attempt to capture a great ship defended by a fortress
and eleven galleys. Monson thought differently, and it was at length
agreed that he and the admiral should anchor as near the carrack as they
could, while the other and smaller vessels should ply up and down, holding
themselves in readiness for any emergency. It is likely, as Southey
remarks, that “the sight of these galleys reminded Sir William of the
slavery he had endured at Lisbon in similar vessels, if not indeed in some
of these identical craft, and he longed to take revenge upon them.” Monson
says that in order to show contempt of them, he separated from the rest of
the fleet, by way of challenging and defying them. “The Marquis of St.
Cruz, General of the Portuguese, and Frederick Spinola, General of the
galleys, accepted the invitation, and put out with the intention of
fighting him; but they were diverted from their purpose by a renegade
Englishman, who knew the force of the vice-admiral’s ship, and that she
was commanded by Monson.”
The town of Cerimbra lies at the bottom of a roadstead, which usually
affords protection for shipping. It had at that time a strong fortress
close to the beach, and a fortified castle, while there was a troop of
soldiers ashore, whose numerous tents lined the coast. The galleys were
partly covered or flanked by a neck of rock, and the batteries could play
over them, thus affording them great protection, while they could
themselves keep up a continuous fire at any approaching vessel. Again,
Monson tells us, “there was no man but imagined that most of the carrack’s
lading was ashore, and that they would hale her aground under the castle
where no ship of ours would be able to come at her—all which objections,
with many more, were alleged, yet they little prevailed. Procrastination
was perilous, and therefore, with all expedition, they thought convenient
to charge the town, the fort, the galleys, and carrack, all at one
instant.” This was done next morning, although a gale sprung up about the
time of the attack. The admiral weighed, fired the signal gun, hoisted his
flag, and was the first at the attack; “after him followed the rest of the
ships, showing great valour, and gaining great honour. The last of all was
Monson himself, who, entering into the fight, still strove to get up as
near the shore as he could, where he came to an anchor, continually
fighting with the town, the fort, the galleys, and the carrack all
together; for he brought them betwixt him, that he might play both his
broadsides upon them. The galleys still kept their prows towards him. The
slaves offered to forsake them ... and everything was in confusion amongst
them; and thus they fought till five of the clock in the afternoon.”
Monson’s stratagems and rapidity of action paralysed the commanders of the
galleys, and the men rowed about wildly to avoid him, not knowing what to
do. The admiral came on board his ship, and, embracing him in the presence
of the ship’s company, declared that “he had won his heart for ever.”
And so the battle raged till the enemy showed such evident signs of
weakness, that it was proposed to board the carrack. Here, however, the
admiral interposed, as he wished to preserve the treasure on board. The
ships were ordered to cease firing, and one Captain Sewell, who had been
four years a prisoner on the galleys, from one of which he had only just
escaped by swimming, was selected to parley with them. He was to promise
honourable conditions, but insist that as the English held the roadstead,
as several of the galleys were _hors de combat_, and the castle powerless,
they must expect the worst in a case of refusal. The captain of the
carrack would not treat with an officer who had so recently been a slave
in their power, but sent a deputation of Portuguese gentlemen of quality,
desiring that they should be met by those of similar rank in the English
service. They were, of course, properly received, but having delivered
their message, evinced a great desire to hasten back; they revealed the
real state of affairs by admitting that it was a moot question on the
carrack whether the parley ought to be entertained, or the vessel set on
fire. Monson’s promptitude once more saved the situation. Not waiting to
hear any more, or receiving any instruction from Admiral Lewson, he
ordered his men to row him to the carrack. Several officers on board
recognised him, and the commander, Don Diego Lobo, a young man of family,
motioning his men apart, received him courteously. After some little
palaver, Monson informing Don Diego of the rank he held in the expedition,
and assuring him of his high regard for the Portuguese nation, the real
business of their interview was approached. Diego asked that he, his
officers and men, should be put on shore that night; that the ship and its
ordnance should be respected, and its flags remain suspended; the treasure
he would concede to the victors. Monson agreed to the first proposition,
excepting only that he required a certain number of hostages whom he would
detain three days, but laughed at the idea of separating the ship and its
contents; and stated that “he was resolved never to permit a Spanish flag
to be worn in the presence of the Queen’s ships, unless it were
disgracefully over the poop.” A long discussion followed, and Monson, who
was determined to have his way, made a show of descending to his boat. His
firmness won the day, and all his demands were eventually conceded, after
which he conducted Don Diego and eight gentlemen on board his ship, “when
they supped, had a variety of music, and spent the night in great
jollity.” This is Monson’s account; it is doubtful whether the Portuguese
were thoroughly enjoying themselves under the circumstances! When next day
Sir William accompanied them on shore, he found the Count de Vidigueira at
the head of a force numbering 20,000 men, whose services were not of much
account now. The disgust ashore at the comparatively easy victory attained
by the English may be imagined. Besides the capture of the carrack, two of
the galleys were burnt and sunk; the captain of another was taken
prisoner, and the others fled during the engagement, although they were
afterwards shamed into returning by the heroic behaviour of Spinola, who
defended the carrack against desperate odds. The total loss of life in the
town, castle, and vessels, although never accurately known, must have been
immense, while the victory was purchased by the English with the loss of
only six men, scarcely a larger number being wounded.
[Illustration: ACTION IN CERIMBRA ROADS.]
The carrack, named the _St. Valentine_, was a vessel of 1,700 tons
burthen; she had wintered at Mozambique on her return from the Indies,
where a fatal malady killed the bulk of her crew; indeed, it is stated
that out of more than 600 men scarce twenty survived the whole voyage. The
Viceroy of Portugal sent the galleys before named to protect her, and put
on board 400 volunteers. The value of this prize was close on £200,000. It
is just to Monson to state that he offered Diego “permission to take out
of her whatever portion of the freight he could conscientiously claim as
his own.” This proposal the proud young commander declined. His life
afterwards was a series of misfortunes. He was thrown into prison for
losing the carrack; escaped from captivity only to languish an exile in
Italy; and at last died just as fortune once more seemed to smile upon him
by offering him a chance in his own king’s service.
On the accession of James I. a general peace ensued so far as England was
concerned. All in all, the rest was beneficial to the navy, and many
defects were remedied and reforms inaugurated. In one of the earliest
reports presented to the king on the condition of the navy, after
enumerating certain pressing needs, we find the estimate for its _annual_
expenditure placed at rather less than £21,000—an amount which a single
ironclad would have swallowed up entirely, and got considerably into debt.
James caused one fine vessel to be constructed, in 1610, in which every
improvement known at the time was introduced. She was christened the
_Prince Royal_. Stow describes her as follows:—“This year the king builded
a most goodly ship for warre, the keel whereof was 114 feet in length, and
the cross beam was forty-four feet in length; she will carry sixty-four
pieces of ordnance, and is of the burthen of 1,400 tons. This royal ship
is double built, and is most sumptuously adorned, within and without, with
all manner of curious carving, painting, and rich gilding, being in all
respects the greatest and goodliest ship that ever was builded in England;
and this glorious ship the king gave to his son Henry, Prince of Wales;
and the 24th September, the king, the queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duke
of York, and the Lady Elizabeth, with many great lords, went unto Woolwich
to see it launched; but because of the narrowness of the dock it could not
then be launched; whereupon the prince came the next morning by three
o’clock, and then at the launching thereof the prince named it after his
own dignity, and called it the _Prince_.” Phineas Pett, one of a family of
leading naval constructors of those days, was its builder. A well-known
authority(4) says, “Were the absurd profusion of ornament with which the
_Royal Prince_ is decorated removed, its contour or general appearance
would not so materially differ from the modern vessel of the same size as
to render it an uncommon sight, or a ship in which mariners would hesitate
at proceeding to sea in, on account of any glaring defects in its form,
that in their opinion might render it unsafe to undertake a common voyage
in.” A very large number of superior vessels were added to the royal navy
during this epoch, but the commercial marine was in a bad way until late
in James’s reign. What its conviction was at this time may be gathered
from the fact that in 1615, half way in the reign, there were not more
than ten vessels of 200 tons burthen each in the port of London. Less than
seven years afterwards, such was the improvement, that Newcastle alone
could boast more than a hundred, each of which exceeded that tonnage.
During this peaceful epoch Monson had to fulfil an unthankful office as
guardian of the narrow seas, _i.e._, the English and Irish Channels, and
adjacent waters. He had to transport princes and ambassadors while war was
going on, and as it would seem from a paper included in his “Tracts,” at
his own expense. This document runs at a first glimpse very curiously.
Take one entry, “1604, August 4. The constable of Castile at his coming
over, 200 (followers) 3 (meals).” An unconscionable number of followers
and very few meals, it would seem, for so many; but it doubtless means
three meals apiece on the passage from Calais or Dunkirk to Dover. The
retinue of “followers” sometimes aggregated as many as 300. During this
period, however, Monson made some careful notes on the Dutch fisheries,
then a most important source of revenue to that nation, while ours were
almost entirely overlooked. Nine thousand Dutch vessels were kept in
constant employment by these fisheries, a considerable proportion of which
were on our own coasts, and conducted under our very noses. He was
employed at intervals for two years in combating similar encroachments on
the part of French fishermen. “The adventurous spirit of the age,” says
Southey, “was averse to an employment so tranquil and so near home.” Men
would rather seek the uttermost parts of the earth in a vain search for
wealth than settle down to a certain, safe, and profitable employment.
Monson waxes eloquently indignant on the subject in one of his chapters.
“My meaning is,” he says, “not to leave our fruitful soil untilled, our
seas unfrequented, our islands unpeopled, or to seek remote and strange
countries disinhabited, and uncivil Indians untamed, where nothing appears
to us but earth, wood, and water, at our first arrival; for all other hope
must depend on our labour and costly expenses, on the adventures of the
sea, on the honesty of undertakers; and all these at last produce nothing
but tobacco(5)—a new-invented useless weed, as too much use and custom
make it apparent. * * * * You shall be made to know, that though you be
born on an island seated in the ocean, frequented by invisible fish,
swimming from one shore to the other, yet your experience has not taught
you the benefits and blessings arising from that fish. I doubt not but to
give you that light therein, that you shall confess yourselves blinded,
and be willing to blow from you the foul mist that has been an impediment
to your sight; you shall be awakened from your drowsy sleep, and rouse
yourselves to follow this best business that ever was presented to
England, or king thereof; nay, I will be bold to say, to any state in the
world. I will not except the discoveries of the West Indies by Columbus;
an act of greatest renown, of greatest profit, and that has been of
greatest consequence to the Spanish nation.” Exaggerated as all this may
appear, Monson was right in his estimation of the profitable nature of the
business. At that time the Dutch used to vend their fish in every European
market, and obtain in exchange the productions of all countries. Monson
also remarks on the carelessness of the English at that time in regard to
lobsters, oysters, and lampreys, all of which the Dutch obtained from our
coasts. In order to encourage the fisheries an Act had been passed
prohibiting butchers from killing meat in Lent, and Monson wished it to be
made compulsory on the rural population to consume fish. “Neither,” says
he, “will it seem a thing unreasonable to enjoin every yeoman and farmer
within the kingdom to take a barrel of fish for their own spending,
considering they save the value thereof in other victuals; and that it is
no more than the fisherman will do to them to take off their wheat, malt,
butter, and cheese for their food to sea.” This agitation did good in
calling attention to a neglected industry. The great enemies of the
fishermen then were the pirates who infested the coasts, and who, if they
ran short of provisions, looked upon them as their natural providers,
rarely, if ever, paying for what they took. And before passing to other
subjects, let us accompany Monson—on paper—on a little expedition he took
against some of the said pirates.
So considerable an amount of alarm had been caused by piratical
adventurers on the coasts of Scotland, that King James was in 1614
urgently requested to send some royal ships there. Sir William Monson and
Sir Francis Howard were despatched at once, and after calling at Leith to
obtain information and also the service of pilots, proceeded to the Orkney
Islands. Touching at Sinclair Castle, the residence of the Earl of
Caithness, situate on “the utmost promontory” of Britain, they learned
that the accounts had been much exaggerated. There were only two known to
the Earl, and indeed one of them whom Monson took could hardly be deemed
such at all; he was a common sailor, and when he had found out the nature
of the service to which he had been engaged, he had abandoned it as soon
as possible. Clarke, the other adventurer, to whom the title of pirate
more fairly belonged, had been ashore to the castle a day previously, and
had been entertained in a friendly way, the fact being that the Earl and
his tenants were a little afraid of him as an ugly customer. Hearing that
Sir William was on the coast, he had fled: Monson, therefore, finding it
useless and needless to remain at Caithness, sailed for Orkney, where he
left Sir Francis Howard while he proceeded to explore the coasts in
detail, putting into every inlet where it was likely Clarke or other
pirates might be hidden. He was unsuccessful in his search, and at length
decided to make for Broad Haven—a noted rendezvous for pirates—partly on
account of its remoteness and inaccessibility, and partly because one
Cormat dwelt there, who, with his daughters, entertained these thieving
adventurers with great cordiality. On the voyage he encountered a terrible
gale, “that it were fit only for a poet to describe.” One of his vessels
was engulfed in the seas, and no traces of it or of its crew remained,
while the others were dispersed and did not see each other again till all
met in England. Monson had now alone to beard the lion in his den.
[Illustration: MONSON AT BROAD HAVEN.]
Arrived at Broad Haven, which he describes as “the well-head of all
pirates,” he made good use of the half-pirate he had secured, the only
person on board who knew anything of that den of sea-thieves. This man,
with some others of the crew who had had some experience in piratical
pursuits before, were sent to Cormat, “the gentleman of the place,” with a
well concocted story. Monson was described, for the nonce, as one Captain
Manwaring, a grand sea-rover, liberal to all he liked, and whose ship was
full of wealth. “To give a greater appearance of truth to all this, the
crafty messenger used the names of several pirates of his acquaintance,
and feigned messages to the women from their sweethearts, making them
believe that he had tokens from them on board. The hope of wealth and
reward set the hearts of the whole family on fire; and the women were so
overjoyed by the love tales and presents, that no suspicion of deceit
entered into their minds.” Cormat proffered his services, and recounted
how many pirates he had assisted, at great peril to himself; he further
volunteered to send two “gentlemen of trust” on board next day, as
hostages for his sincerity. He recommended that some of them should come
ashore next day, armed, and kill some of the neighbours’ cattle; this was
intended doubtless to frighten the poor settlers round, so that he himself
might derive all the benefit of Manwaring’s visit. Next morning the farce
began, the first part of the programme being followed as Cormat had
directed; Captain Chester, with fifty men, was despatched ashore by
Monson; some cattle were killed, and the pseudo-pirates, swaggering and
rollicking, were invited to Cormat’s house, where they received a riotous
welcome. Cormat’s two ambassadors went on board Monson’s vessel, and
delivered a friendly message. When they had delivered it, Sir William
desired them to observe everything around them carefully, and to tell him
whether they thought that ship and company were pirates. It was idle to
dissemble any longer, especially as these men could not, if they would,
betray Sir William’s design. He accordingly reproached them for their
transgressions, told them to prepare for death, and ordered them to be put
in irons, taking care that neither boat nor man should be allowed to go on
shore until he was ready to land. When he at length went ashore to visit
Cormat, four or five hundred people had assembled on the beach to receive
the famous “Captain Manwaring.” He pretended to be doubtful of their
intentions, when they redoubled their protestations of friendship, three
of the principal men running into the water up to their arm-pits, striving
who should have the honour of carrying him ashore. One of these was an
Irish merchant, who did a thriving trade with the pirates; another was a
schoolmaster; and the third was an Englishman, who had formerly been a
tradesman in London. These gentry conducted Sir William to Cormat’s house
amidst huzzas and shouts of welcome, everybody seeking to ingratiate
himself with the supposed pirate. “‘Happy was he,’ says Monson, ‘to whom
he would lend his ear.’ Falling into discourse, one told him they knew his
friends, and though his name had not discovered it, yet his face did show
him to be a Manwaring.” In short, they made him believe he might command
them and their country, and that no man ever was so welcome as Captain
Manwaring. At the house a scene of revelry ensued; the harper played
merrily for the company, who danced on the floor, which had been newly
strewed with rushes for the occasion. The women made endless inquiries for
their distant lovers, and no suspicion seems to have crossed the minds of
any in regard to the fate of the two ambassadors, who were supposed to be
enjoying themselves with the sailors on board. In the height of the
festivities, the Englishman was particularly communicative; showed Sir
William a pass for the interior which he had obtained by false pretences
from the sheriff, authorising him to travel from Clare to make inquisition
for goods supposed to have been lost at sea, and which enabled him to
journey and sell his plunder without suspicion. He even proffered the
services of ten mariners who were hiding in the neighbourhood, and Monson,
of course, pretended heartily to accept their services, promising a
reward. He asked the man to write them a letter, which at once he did as
follows:—“Honest brother Dick and the rest, we are all made men, for
valiant Captain Manwaring and all his gallant crew are arrived in this
place. Make haste, for he flourisheth in wealth, and is most kind to all
men. Farewell, and once again make haste.” Monson took charge of the
letter, and would, doubtless, have used it, had not the approach of night
obliged him to bring about the _denouement_ of this play. The comedy was
all at once to change into a tragedy.
In the midst of their riotous mirth, he suddenly desired the harper to
cease, and in serious and solemn tones commanded silence. He told them
that, hitherto, “they had played their part, and he had no share in the
comedy; but though his was last, and might be termed the epilogue, yet it
would prove more tragical than theirs.” He undeceived them as to his being
a pirate, and declared his real business was to punish and suppress all
such, whom his Majesty did not think worthy the name of subjects. “There
now remained nothing but to proceed to their executions, by virtue of his
commission; for which purpose he had brought a gallows ready framed, which
he caused to be set up, intending to begin the mournful dance with the two
men they thought had been merry-making aboard the ship. As to the
Englishman, he should come next, because being an Englishman his offence
did surpass the rest. He told the schoolmaster he was a fit tutor for the
children of the devil, and that as members are governed by the head, the
way to make his members sound was to shorten him by the head, and
therefore willed him to admonish his scholars from the top of the gallows,
which should be a pulpit prepared for him. He condemned the merchant as a
receiver of stolen goods, and worse than the thief himself; reminding him
that his time was not long, and hoping that he might make his account with
God, and that he might be found a good merchant and factor to Him, though
he had been a malefactor to the law.” One can imagine the change which
came over the assembly; all their high spirits were quenched in a minute,
while the principals abandoned themselves to despair, believing that their
hour was at hand. When Sir William left them to go aboard, the carpenter
was still hammering away at the gallows.
Next morning the prisoners were brought out to meet their doom, and were
kept waiting in an agony of terror, while the people generally were sueing
for their lives, and promising that they would never assist or connive at
pirates again. Sir William had never really the intention to hang any of
them, and “after four-and-twenty hours’ fright in irons he pardoned them;”
the Englishman being the only one who suffered any actual punishment. He
was banished from the coast, and the sheriff was admonished to be more
careful in granting passes for the future.
The very next day, while still at Broad Haven, Sir William nearly captured
a pirate who was entering the harbour, when the latter took alarm at
seeing a strange vessel, and stood off to sea, where he remained six days
in foul weather. A day later the pirate anchored at an island near Broad
Haven, and contrived to forward a letter to Cormat, who having just
escaped one danger, did not desire to risk his neck again; he accordingly
showed the letter to Monson. It ran as follows:—“Dear Friend, I was
bearing into Broad Haven to give you corn for ballast, but I was
frightened by the king’s ship I supposed to be there. I pray you send me
word what ship it is, for we stand in great fear. I pray you, provide me
two kine, for we are in great want of victuals; whensoever you shall make
a fire on shore, I will send my boat to you.” This just suited Monson, who
had a particular aptitude for stratagem. He directed Cormat to answer his
request in the affirmative. “He bid him be confident this ship could not
endanger him; for she was not the king’s, as he imagined, but one of
London that came from the Indies with her men sick, and many dead. He
promised him two oxen and a calf; to observe his directions by making a
fire; and gave him hope to see him within two nights.” A few of the ship’s
company, disguised in Irish costumes of the period, were sent to accompany
the messenger, with instructions to remain in ambush. The hungry pirates
were keeping a sharp look out for the beacon fire, and it was no sooner
lighted, than they hastily rowed ashore, and received the letter, which
gave them great satisfaction. Sir William meanwhile was quietly laying
plans for their capture. Guided by the Irish peasantry, he took a number
of his company a roundabout trip by land and water till he brought them
suddenly upon the place where the fire was made, and the pirates were
taken so unawares that they yielded without an effort to escape. The whole
gang was seized and taken to Broad Haven, where the captain was hanged as
an example to the rest. Monson so completely cleared the coast of pirates,
and frightened those who had aided them, that on his way home, “groping
along the coast,” he could not obtain a pilot. Monson’s active career,
although it extended to the reign of Charles I., was now nearly over.
CHAPTER II.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
Charles I. and Ship Money—Improvements made by him in the Navy—His
great Ship, the _Royal Sovereign_—The Navigation Laws of
Cromwell—Consequent War with the Dutch—Capture of Grand Spanish
Prizes—Charles II. seizes 130 Dutch Ships—Van Tromp and the Action
at Harwich—De Ruyter in the Medway and Thames—Peace—War with
France—La Hogue—Peter the Great and his Naval Studies—Visit to
Sardam—Difficulty of remaining _incognito_—Cooks his own Food—His
Assiduity and Earnestness—A kind-hearted Barbarian—Gives a Grand
Banquet and _Fête_—Conveyed to England—His Stay at Evelyn’s
Place—Studies at Deptford—Visits Palaces and Public Houses—His
Intemperance—Presents the King a £10,000 Ruby—Engages numbers of
English Mechanics—Return to Russia—Rapid increase in his
Navy—Determines to Build St. Petersburg—Arrivals of the First
Merchantmen—Splendid Treatment of their Captains—Law’s Mississippi
Scheme and the South Sea Bubble—Two Nations gone Mad—The “Bubble”
to Pay the National Debt—Its one Solitary Ship—Noble and Plebeian
Stockbrokers—Rise and Fall of the Bubble—Directors made to
Disgorge.
Charles I., as we all know, had a fatal amount of belief in the royal
prerogative. One of his first acts, after ascending the throne, was to
assume the direct government of Virginia, and not only to treat the
charter of the company as annulled, “but broadly declared that colonies
founded by adventurers, or occupied by British subjects, were essentially
part and parcel of the dominion of the mother country.” The Virginia
Company vainly complained that they had expended a fifth of a million
sterling over the undertaking; their territory was appropriated to the
Crown, as were shortly afterwards North and South Carolina, Georgia,
Tennessee, and part of Louisiana. But these arbitrary acts were as nothing
to the ship-money tax. There was some precedent for it. “The ancient
princes of England, as they called on the inhabitants of the counties near
Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence of the border, had
sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish ships for the defence
of the coast. In the room of ships, money had sometimes been accepted.
This old practice it was now determined, after a long interval, not only
to revive but to extend. Former princes had raised ship-money only in time
of war; it was now exacted in a time of profound peace. Former princes,
even in the most perilous wars, had raised ship-money only along the
coasts; it was now exacted from the inland shires. Former princes had
raised ship-money only for the maritime defence of the country; it was now
exacted, by the admission of the Royalists themselves, with the object,
not of maintaining a navy, but of furnishing the king with supplies which
might be increased at his discretion to any amount, and expended at his
discretion for any purpose.”(6) The resistance which followed, and which
assisted the unfortunate monarch to his downfall, is too well known to
need recapitulation here. Worthy Monson, who, although bluff and hearty
enough as a sailor, was something of a courtier, defended the levy of the
obnoxious tax. But then he believed that Charles really wanted the money
for the navy alone, and for retaliation upon the Dutch, while the nation
at large had not much faith in their king, or in the alleged purposes for
which the tax was to be levied. This is not the place for any defence,
partial or otherwise, of Charles’s policy. He did, however, show a
considerable amount of energy in his attempts to improve the navy, and
constructed one vessel, the _Sovereign of the Seas_, or _Royal Sovereign_,
which was in every respect an advance on anything built before it. One
Thomas Heywood wrote a very learned and flowery tract concerning it.
“There is one thing” says he, “above all things for the world to take
speciall notice of, that shee is beside tonnage so many tons in burden, as
their have beene yeares since our blessed Saviour’s incarnation, namely,
1637, and not one under or over; a most happy omen, which, though it was
not the first projected or intended, is now by true computation found so
to happen.” A description of her ornamentation would occupy several pages
of this work; gold and black were the colours alone employed. She was 232
feet long, had three flush decks, besides quarter-deck and raised
forecastle. “Her lower tyre” had thirty ports; her middle tier the same;
and the third, twenty-six ports for guns. Her forecastle, half-deck,
stern, and bows were all pierced for heavy guns—that is, heavy for those
days. On the stern was painted a Latin inscription, thus “Englisht,” as
Heywood puts it:—
“He who seas, windes, and navies doth protect,
Great Charles, thy great ship in her course direct!”
She was built of the best oak, and no more seaworthy ship had ever been
turned out from Woolwich previously. _The Royal Prince_, built only
nineteen years before, seems to have been a mere holiday ship, and was at
the above-mentioned date laid up; the _Royal Sovereign_ was in active
service for nearly sixty years, and would have been rebuilt but for an
untoward accident. The history and fate of this fine ship are thus briefly
described by a descendant of the architect, Phineas Pett, writing in
January, 1696:—
“The _Royal Sovereign_ was the first great ship that was ever built in
England; she was then designed only for splendour and magnificence, and
was in some measure the occasion of those loud complaints against
ship-money in the reign of Charles I.; but being taken down a deck lower,
she became one of the best men-of-war in the world, and so formidable to
her enemies that none of the most daring among them would willingly lie by
her side. She had been in almost all the great engagements that had been
fought between France and Holland; and in the last fight between the
English and the French, encountering the _Wonder of the World_, she so
warmly plied the French Admiral, that she forced him out of his
three-decked wooden castle, and chasing the _Royal Sun_ before her, forced
her to fly for shelter among the rocks, where she became a prey to lesser
vessels, that reduced her to ashes. At length, leaky and defective herself
with age, she was laid up at Chatham to be rebuilt; but being set on fire
by negligence, she was, on the 27th of this month, devoured by the element
which so long and so often before she had imperiously made use of as the
instrument of destruction to others.”
Charles, in spite of his troubles, either rebuilt or added eighteen
vessels to the Royal Navy, leaving it not merely numerically stronger, but
improved in all other particulars. The immense square sterns and full bows
originally copied from the Dutch (who built their ships apparently on
their own model) gave place to more shapely sterns and sharper bows.
Extremely high poops and forecastles—copied, one would think, from the
Chinese—were abandoned as increasing the dangers of seamanship. Tonnage
and number of guns were largely increased. A “first rate” advanced from
fifty to sixty, and afterwards to a hundred guns.
Holland, during the reigns of James I. and Charles I., had been carrying
off all the commercial honours from England, and it was becoming evident
that prohibitory laws were needed to stop their triumphant progress on the
sea. In 1646, and again in 1650, two Acts were passed, both having the
same tendency, to prevent foreign ships trading with England’s new
plantations in Virginia, Bermuda, Barbadoes, “and other places in
America.”(7) On the 9th of October, 1651, the celebrated Navigation Act of
Cromwell came into operation. There were no half measures in that Act. It
declared that no goods or commodities whatever of the growth, production,
or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America, should be imported either into
Great Britain or Ireland, or any of the colonies, except in _British-built
ships, owned by British subjects, and of which the master and
three-fourths of the crew belonged to that country_. This, literally
translated, meant that England wanted the carrying trade of everything
that concerned her own well being. The next enactment went further. It
provided that no goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of any
country in Europe should be imported into Great Britain except in British
ships, owned and navigated by British subjects, “_or in such ships as were
the real property of the people of the country or place in which the goods
were produced, or from which they could only be, or most usually were,
exported_.” This provision was aimed at the Dutch; they had little to
export. But unless one can understand the long-stifled animosity and
jealousy felt in England regarding their commercial supremacy on the seas,
and as regards the carrying trade, he can hardly understand why laws,
which would nowadays be considered ridiculous and unjust, were so popular
then. So strong had these feelings become, that when the Dutch despatched
an embassy to England for the purpose of obtaining a revocation of the
navigation laws, its members had to be guarded from the violence of the
mob.
England had now unmistakably asserted her right to carry on her own
over-sea trade in her own ships, and to enter the lists with any other
nation as regards foreign trade. This action was a defiance hurled at
Holland, and after a little manœuvring ended inevitably in war. A few
facts only regarding that war may be permitted here. The Dutch were at
first, and indeed for the most part, the sufferers. Within a month of its
declaration, Blake captured 100 of their herring boats, and twelve of
their frigates, sinking a thirteenth. In 1652-3 there were five actions.
In the first Blake was successful; in the second he was thoroughly beaten
by Martin Tromp (father of the Tromp best known in history). The third,
early in 1653, resulted in a victory for the English, the Dutch losing 300
merchantmen they had captured not long before; the fourth was a decided
victory for England, and the fifth was an indecisive action. The English,
however, took possession of the Channel, and scarcely a day passed without
Dutch prizes being brought into English ports. Many of the Dutch ships,
returning from distant parts of the world, rounded Scotland, rather than
pass up the Channel. On the fifth of April, 1654, a treaty of peace was
concluded; Cromwell requiring, before it was signed, an admission of the
English sovereignty of the seas, and the Dutch consenting to strike their
flag to the ships of the Commonwealth.
One of the greatest maritime successes of the Protector’s time was the
capture of Spanish galleons worth, with their freight, £600,000. The fleet
had been lying idly off Cadiz endeavouring to provoke the Spanish squadron
to an engagement, or trusting to intercept their returning treasure ships.
Captain Stayner in the _Speaker_, accompanied by the _Bridgewater_ and
_Plymouth_, left the English fleet temporarily with the intention of
taking water on board in a neighbouring bay. On his course he luckily fell
in with eight galleons from America. Such an opportunity warmed up the
hitherto drooping spirits of the English sailors, and they fought with
fury. In a few hours one of the galleons was sunk, a second burned, two
ashore, and four taken prizes. They were loaded with plate, ore, and
money. When the treasure reached London it was placed in open carts and
ammunition wagons, and carried in triumph through the streets to the
Tower, with a guard of only _ten_ soldiers. This rather ostentatious
display of confidence in the people proved an excellent move for Cromwell;
nothing added more to his popularity among the lower classes. The Earl of
Montague, who convoyed it home, but who in reality had nothing to do with
its capture, was the subject of universal panegyrics and parliamentary
thanks.
If Charles II. could have reversed any of Cromwell’s legislative measures,
he and his court would most assuredly have done so. But they were simply
modified, and not to the advantage of the Dutch, who were very much
irritated, but attempted to gain time. Charles, however, without waiting
for a formal declaration of hostilities, seized 130 of their ships laden
with wine and brandy, homeward bound from Bordeaux, which were taken into
English ports, and condemned as lawful prizes, although such an act could
not be justified by any law of nations. War was again declared in 1665,
and an action occurred off Harwich, in which the celebrated Van Tromp was
engaged. The Dutch lost nineteen ships, burnt or sunk, with probably 6,000
men; the English lost only four vessels, and about 1,500 men. Then came a
coalition between the French and Dutch, and the great battle of June 1st,
1666, in which England lost two admirals, and twenty-three great ships,
besides smaller vessels, 6,000 men, and 2,600 prisoners; and the Dutch
four admirals, six ships, and 2,800 soldiers. The Dutch could fairly claim
the victory here, but less than eight weeks later, July 24th, were
thoroughly beaten, De Ruyter being driven into port, and a large number of
merchant ships and two men-of-war being taken immediately afterwards.
While negotiations were going on for peace next year, the Dutch, believing
Charles to be trifling, despatched De Ruyter to the Thames. All London was
in a panic. A strong chain had been thrown across the Medway, but the
Dutch, with favourable wind and strong tide, broke through it, destroyed
the fortifications of Sheerness, burnt royal and merchant ships, and
pushed up the river as far as Upnor Castle, near Chatham. It was even
feared that the fleet would sail up to London Bridge, and to prevent it,
thirteen ships were sunk in the river at Woolwich, and four at Blackwall.
Numerous platforms furnished with artillery were hastily prepared at
various points. After committing all the damage that he could in the
Thames, De Ruyter sailed for Portsmouth, intending to cause similar havoc,
but finding the fleet well prepared, he passed down the Channel and
captured several vessels at Torbay. Thence turning back, he hovered about
hither and thither, keeping the coast in continual alarm until the treaty
of peace was signed in the following summer. By its provisions each nation
retained the goods and prizes it had captured, while all ships of war and
merchant vessels belonging to the United Provinces meeting our men-of-war
in British waters, were required to “strike the flag and lower the sail as
had been formerly practised.” From this date the merchant navy of England
steadily increased, and London became that which Amsterdam had been, the
mart of nations, the chief emporium of the commercial world. In spite of
De Ruyter, England had therefore greatly gained by this war.
[Illustration: DE RUYTER ON THE MEDWAY.]
And now France sought to pluck from England the laurels she had won from
the Dutch. Her naval force had become formidable, and augmented by
privateers, played havoc with our merchant vessels. By the destruction or
capture of nearly the whole of our Smyrna fleet, with two English ships of
war convoying them, and other captures, it was estimated that the loss to
England was a million sterling. But May 12th, 1692, brought its revenge.
On that day the memorable battle of La Hogue was fought, and the French
lost nearly the whole of their navy to us.
From 1688 to the death of Queen Anne, the trade of the American
plantations had steadily and rapidly increased, till at the latter date it
employed 500 vessels, a large proportion of which were engaged in the
slave trade from Africa. It started as a monopoly in the hands of the
African Company, incorporated at first under Act of Parliament as traders
in gold and ivory, but soon developing into traffickers in human flesh. In
1698 an Act of Parliament gave permission to all the king’s subjects,
whether of England or America, to trade to Africa on payment of a certain
percentage to the company on all goods exported or imported, negro slaves
being, nevertheless, exempted from this tax. How great this inhuman and
nefarious trade had developed may be gathered from the fact that the
French, _in one year_, and to supply _one_ island, that of St. Domingo,
transported 20,000 slaves from Africa.
[Illustration: PETER THE GREAT.]
Passing rapidly over the pages of history, we come to an important epoch
in the progress of merchant shipping, when the trade to Russia was
practically thrown open to our merchants by an Act “entitling any person
to admission to the Russia Company upon payment of an entrance fee of five
pounds.” It was about this time that the Czar abdicated temporarily, and
made a voyage to Holland and England, travelling _incognito_, or as much
so as he could. Many popular accounts of Peter the Great’s stay in these
two countries are so full of errors that the present writer may be
permitted to give, moderately in detail, some account of them, derived
from the best authorities.(8) They have a distinct bearing on our subject,
not merely because one of Peter’s leading objects was the study of
ship-building and maritime affairs, but because his studies led to an
immense increase in Russia’s naval power. Previously, in fact, she could
hardly be said to have had any at all.
In many published accounts the Czar is represented as a mere youth at the
period of his visit to the dockyards of Holland and England. The fact is
that he was twenty-five years of age, and had already served in two
campaigns. Indeed, it may be said that the latter campaign, in which he
conquered Azoff, partly by the assistance of foreigners and ships built by
foreigners, was the means of opening his eyes to the superiority of the
Western Europeans over his own barbarous subjects. Resolute, ambitious,
and intelligent, he determined that his people should not remain half
savages. Influenced by such motives, he dispatched, in 1697, sixty young
Russians, selected out of the army, to Venice and Leghorn, under orders to
make themselves instructed in everything pertaining to the arts of
ship-building and navigation; forty more were sent to Holland for the same
purpose, and his own voyage had largely the same object. “It was a thing,”
says Voltaire, “unparalleled in history, either ancient or modern, for a
sovereign of five-and-twenty years of age to withdraw from his kingdom for
the sole purpose of learning the art of government.” It happened that
Peter was not as yet represented at any of the foreign courts, and he
therefore appointed an embassy extraordinary to proceed, in the first
instance, to the States-General of Holland, while he would accompany it
simply in the character of an _attaché_. The three ambassadors were
General Le Fort, a native of Geneva, who had been of immense service to
the Czar, and was now his confidential friend; Alexis Golowin, Governor of
Siberia; and Voristzin, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. With
secretaries, attachés, pages, and guards, the retinue numbered 200
persons. Their passage through Germany was a grand carouse, and the hard
drinking for which the Russians are still noted, was very much observed.
At one of these bacchanalian debauches, the Czar, who was a hot-headed
man, took such violent offence at something said by Le Fort, that he drew
his sword and ordered him to defend himself. “Far be it from me,” said Le
Fort; “rather let me perish by the hand of my master.” Peter had raised
his arm, but one of the retinue dared to interfere, and caught hold of it.
Peter’s anger was of short duration; he displayed, says Voltaire, “_autant
de regret de cet emportement passager qu’Alexandre en eut du meurtre de
Clitus_,” and immediately asked Le Fort’s pardon, saying, “that his great
desire was to reform his subjects, but he was ashamed to say he had not
yet been able to reform himself.”
Having reached Emmerich, the impetuous and youthful monarch left the
embassy, and proceeded in a boat down the Rhine, not halting till he
reached Amsterdam, “through which,” says one authority, “he flew like
lightning, and never once stopped till he arrived at Zardam,(9) fifteen
days before the embassy reached Amsterdam.” One of his small party in the
boat happened to recognize a man there who was fishing in a boat, as one
Kist, who had worked for some time in Russia. He was called to them, and
his astonishment may be conceived at seeing the Czar of all the Russias in
a little boat, dressed like a Dutch skipper, in a red jacket and white
trousers. Peter told Kist that he should like to lodge with him; the poor
man did not know what to do, but finding the Czar in earnest procured him
a cottage behind his own, consisting of two small rooms and a loft. Kist
was instructed not to let any one know who the new lodger was. A crowd
collected to stare at the strangers; and to the questions put to them,
Peter used to answer in Dutch that they were all carpenters and labourers
hard up for a job. But the crowd did not believe it, for the dresses of
some of his companions belied the statement. The Czar, shortly after
arriving at Zardam, paid visits to a number of the families of Dutch
seamen and carpenters whom he was employing at Archangel and elsewhere,
representing himself as a brother workman. Among others he called upon a
poor widow, whose deceased husband had once been a skipper in his employ,
and to whom he had some time before sent a present of 500 guilders. The
poor woman begged him to tell the Czar how “she never could be
sufficiently thankful” for his great kindness, little dreaming that the
rough-looking young man before her was that monarch. He assured her that
the Czar should most certainly be acquainted with her message. Peter
proceeded to purchase a quantity of carpenter’s tools, and his companions
were ordered to clothe themselves in the common garb worn in the
dockyards.
Next day was Sunday, and it became evident that some one had let the cat
more or less out of the bag, for crowds of sailors and dock-hands
assembled before Peter’s lodgings, which annoyed him terribly. But the
fact is that a Dutch resident of Archangel had written home to his
friends, informing them of the projected voyage, and enclosing a portrait
and description of the Czar. Among the crowd a garrulous barber, who
believed he had recognised him, shouted out, “Dat is der Tzar!” and all
poor Peter’s little stratagems could not save him from the curiosity of
the populace. A Hollander has left a description of him, which would
indicate that he was too noticeable to be mistaken by any who had once
seen him. He was very tall and robust, quick and nimble of foot, and
dexterous and rapid in all his actions; his face was plump and round,
fierce in his look, with brown eyebrows, and short curling hair of a
brownish colour. His gait was quick, and he had a habit of swinging his
arms violently, while he always carried a cane, which he occasionally used
very freely over the shoulders of those who had offended him. “His
extraordinary rapidity of movement in landing or embarking used to
astonish and amuse the Dutch, who had never before witnessed such
‘_loopen, springen, en klauteren over der schepen_.’”
[Illustration: THE IMPERIAL WORKMAN RECEIVING A DEPUTATION.]
When the embassy entered Amsterdam formally, Peter took part in the
procession, but only as a private gentleman in one of the last carriages,
and he was not recognised. But little of his time was given to the
ambassadors; it was almost entirely spent in the docks, among
shipbuilders, and on the shipping, and in sailing about the Zuyder Zee and
elsewhere, where he was accustomed to carry so much sail on his little
boat as to alarm his companions for his safety. “His first exploit in the
dockyard of Mynheer Calf, a wealthy merchant and shipbuilder, with whom he
was prevailed on to lodge, after quitting his first cabin, was to purchase
a small yacht, and to fit her with a new bowsprit, made entirely with his
own hands, to the astonishment of all the shipwrights; they could not
conceive how a person of his high rank could submit to work till the sweat
ran down his face, or where he could have learned to handle the tools so
dexterously.” While in the dockyard he was entered in the books as a
ship-carpenter, and conformed in every way to its regulations. He was
known among the workman as Pieter Zimmerman, sometimes as Pieter Bass, or
Master Peter. Dutch authorities speak of his simple habits; he was an
early riser, lighted his own fire, and frequently cooked his own food
while living in the cottage. When any one wished to speak to him, “he
would go with his adze in his hand, and sit down on a rough log of timber
for a short time, but seemed always anxious to resume and finish the work
on which he had been employed.” An English nobleman visited the yard, and
asked the superintendent to point out the Czar to him unnoticed. This was
done, and the superintendent, seeing that the Czar was resting for a
moment, called out to him, “Pieter Zimmerman, why don’t you assist those
men?” Peter immediately got up and helped to shoulder the heavy log they
were carrying. He would lend a helping hand at everything connected with
ships, even rope and sail making, and smith’s work. Once, at Müller’s
manufactory, at Istia, he forged several bars of iron, and put his own
mark on them, making his companions blow the bellows and fetch the coals.
The Czar insisted upon receiving the same payment as the other workmen,
and bought a pair of shoes with the money, remarking “I have earned them
well, by the sweat of my brow, with hammer and anvil.” Peter finished his
labours at ship-carpentering by assisting to put together a yacht, which,
at the suggestion of one of the burgomasters, was to be presented to him
as a _souvenir_ of his visit to Holland. He worked at it every day till it
was finished, when he christened it the _Amsterdam_. His numerous
investigations into science included surgery, and he carried his
instruments about with him, ever ready to pull a tooth, or bleed, or even
tap a patient for the dropsy. In short, his desire for practical knowledge
was insatiable. Ten times a day, while accompanying his friend Calf and
others about the ships, and yards, and factories, and mills, he would ask,
“Wat is dat?” and being told, would answer, “Dat wil ik zien,”—“I shall
see that.” His companions were not half so earnest as their master, and
after awhile they hired a large house, kept a professed cook, and enjoyed
themselves in idleness.
While in Holland, the news arrived of a Russian victory over the Turks and
Tartars, and the imperial workman received the congratulations of the
Emperor of Germany, the Kings of Sweden, Denmark, and other countries. He
celebrated the event by giving a grand entertainment to the principal
officials and merchants of Amsterdam, their wives and daughters. “The
sumptuous dinner was accompanied and followed by a band of music, and in
the evening were plays, dancing, masquerades, illuminations, and
fireworks. His respectable friend, Witsen, told him that he had
entertained his countrymen like an emperor.” And now, after nine months’
hard work at Zardam, he had an interview with King William at the Hague,
who arranged to transport him and his suite in one of the royal yachts,
accompanied by two men-of-war.
[Illustration: OLD DOCKYARD AT DEPTFORD.]
[Illustration: SAYE’S COURT, DEPTFORD.]
No secret was made of the Czar’s rank in London, although he tried to live
as privately as possible. He was placed under the special charge of the
Marquis of Carmarthen, and a great intimacy sprang up between them. A
large house was hired for him and his suite at the bottom of York
Buildings, where the marquis and he used to spend their evenings together
frequently in drinking “hot pepper and brandy.” But then a pint of brandy
and a bottle of sherry was nothing uncommon as a morning draught for the
Czar. After seeing all the sights of London, he paid visits to Chatham,
Portsmouth, and elsewhere, but the larger part of his time was spent at
Deptford, where he repaired to investigate and learn the higher branches
of naval architecture and navigation. There is little or no evidence,
popular tradition to the contrary notwithstanding, that he ever worked as
a shipwright there,(10) or engaged in more laborious employment than
rowing, or in sailing yachts and boats about the Thames. The writer has
before him now one of the conventional pictures of “Peter at Deptford.” It
represents a smooth-faced youth of feminine appearance, and about sixteen
years old at most, vigorously engaged, apparently, in doing damage to a
ship’s bulwarks with a gigantic hammer and formidable spike. The fact is
that Peter was in his twenty-sixth year, had been the ruler of a great
empire for several years, and was beyond his years in acquirements and
earnestness; a man of strong passions, and sadly given to drink. Peter was
glad to get out of town. Crowds gave him an amount of annoyance that was
inexplicable to a Londoner; and he avoided, as much as he could, balls and
assemblies and public gatherings for the same reason. Nor could he have
desired a more pleasant and suitable place than that which was provided
for him, the celebrated Saye’s Court, Evelyn’s charming house and
grounds(11) close to Deptford Dockyard, which had just become vacant by
the removal of Admiral Benbow, who had been its tenant. A special doorway
was broken through the boundary wall of the dockyard to facilitate
communication for the Czar. Benbow had given poor Evelyn much
dissatisfaction, but the new occupant was rather worse. His servant wrote
to him, “There is a house full of people, right nasty. The Tzar lies next
your study, and dines in the parlour next your study. He dines at ten
o’clock, and six at night; is very seldom at home a whole night; very
often in the king’s yard, or by water, dressed in several dresses. The
king is expected there this day; the best parlour is pretty clean for him
to be entertained in. The king pays for all he has.” But, alas for poor
Evelyn’s hedges! The Czar, by way of exercise, and to prove his strength,
used to trundle a wheel-barrow, full tilt, through a favourite
holly-hedge, “which,” says Evelyn, “I can still show in my ruined gardens
at Saye’s Court (thanks to the Tzar of Muscovy).” The Czar employed his
days in acquiring information on all branches of naval architecture, and
in sailing about the river with Carmarthen and Sir Anthony Deane,
commissioner of the navy. “The Navy Board received directions from the
Admiralty to hire two vessels to be at the command of the Tzar whenever he
should think proper to sail on the Thames,” and the king made him a
present of a small vessel, the _Royal Transport_, giving orders to have
such alterations and accommodations made in her as the Czar might desire.
“But his great delight was to get into a small-decked boat, belonging to
the dockyard, and taking only Menzikoff, and three or four others of his
suite, to work the vessel with them, he being the helmsman; by this
practice he said he should be able to teach them how to command ships when
they got home. Having finished their day’s work, they used to resort to a
public house in Great Tower Street, close to Tower Hill, to smoke their
pipes, and drink beer and brandy. The landlord had the Tzar of Muscovy’s
head painted and put up for his sign.” The original sign remained till
1808.
Greenwich Hospital surprised him, and King William, having one day asked
him how he liked his hospital for decayed seamen, Peter answered simply,
“If I were the adviser of your Majesty, I should counsel you to remove
your court to Greenwich, and convert St. James’s into a hospital.” In the
first week of March a sham naval fight was organised near Spithead, for
his amusement, eleven ships being engaged. The _Postman_, a journal of the
period, says, “The representation of a sea engagement was excellently
performed before the Tzar of Muscovy, and continued a considerable time,
each ship having twelve pounds of powder allowed; but all the bullets were
locked up in the hold, for fear the soldiers should mistake.” The
enterprising journal did not, probably, send down a special
representative, as would any leading paper of to-day, and the small
quantity of powder allowed must be a mistake. The Czar was greatly pleased
with the performance, and told Admiral Mitchell, who arranged the
performance, that “he considered the condition of an English admiral
happier than that of a Tzar of Russia.” On their way home from Portsmouth,
the Russian party, twenty-one in all, stopped a night at Godalming. The
sea air had done so much good to their appetites that at dinner they
managed to get through an entire sheep, three quarters of lamb, five ribs
of beef, weighing three stone, a shoulder and loin of veal, eight fowls,
eight rabbits, two dozen and a half of sack, and one dozen of claret.
Their light breakfast consisted of half a sheep, a quarter of lamb, ten
pullets, twelve chickens, seven dozen eggs, salad “in proportion,” three
quarts of brandy, and six quarts of mulled wine.
When residing at Deptford, he made the acquaintance of the celebrated Dr.
Halley, “to whom he communicated his plan of building a fleet, and in
general of introducing the arts and sciences into his country,” and asked
his opinions and advice on various subjects. The doctor spoke German
fluently, and the Tzar was so much pleased with the philosopher’s
conversation and remarks that he had him frequently to dine with him; and
in his company he visited the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. An
important concession was made by him to some leading merchants, through
the influence of the Marquis of Carmarthen. Tobacco had been so highly
taxed that none but the wealthy Russians could afford it. The Czar agreed
that on paying him down £12,000 (some accounts say £15,000) it should go
in duty free. He stipulated that his friend Carmarthen should receive five
shillings for every hogshead so admitted. Peter stuck to his friends, and
his kindheartedness in general does much to obliterate the memory of some
traits of character which are not to his credit. On leaving England, he
“gave the king’s servants, at his departure, one hundred and twenty
guineas, which was more than they deserved, they being very rude to him,”
says one plain-speaking historian. To the king he presented a rough ruby
which the jewellers of Amsterdam had valued at £10,000 sterling. Peter
carried this gem to King William in his waistcoat pocket, wrapped up in a
piece of brown paper. The king had treated him in a royal fashion, so far
as Peter would allow him, and before he departed induced him to sit to Sir
Godfrey Kneller for his portrait, which is now at Windsor. Four yachts and
two ships of the Royal Navy were placed at his disposal when he departed
once more for Holland. Peter took with him to Russia three English
captains who had served in the Royal Navy, twenty-five captains of the
merchant service, thirty pilots, thirty surgeons, two hundred gunners, and
a number of mechanics and smiths, making a total of little less than five
hundred persons, all natives of Great Britain. A letter from one of them
to a relative in England shows how much Peter did, almost immediately on
his return to Russia, in the interests of his navy. He had already
thirty-six ships of war: twenty, ranging from thirty to sixty guns each,
were to be launched the following spring; eighteen galleys were being
constructed by Italian workmen, and one hundred smaller vessels were on
the stocks. The forests of masts he had seen at London and Amsterdam had
fired his ambition, and we now find him not merely determined to have a
navy, but a port of the first class. Hence St. Petersburg.
Passing over events in the history of Peter the Great not bearing on
maritime subjects, we learn that “Five months had scarcely elapsed from
laying the first stone of St. Petersburg, when a report was brought to the
Tzar that a large ship, under Dutch colours, was standing into the river.
It may be supposed this was a joyful piece of intelligence for the
founder. It was nothing short of realising the wish nearest his heart: to
open the Baltic for the nations of Europe to trade with his dominions, it
constituted them his neighbours; and he at once anticipated the day when
his ships would beat the Swedish navy, and drive them from a sea on which
they had long ridden triumphant with undivided sway. When Peter was
employed in building his fleet at Voronitz, Patrick Gordon one day asked
him, ‘Of what use do you expect all the vessels you are building to be,
seeing you have no seaports?’ ‘My vessels shall make ports for
themselves,’ replied Peter, in a determined tone; a declaration which was
now on the eve of being accomplished.
“No sooner was the communication made, than the Tzar, with his usual
rapidity, set off to meet this welcome stranger. The skipper was invited
to the house of Menzikoff: he sat down at table, and to his great
astonishment, found that he was placed next the Tzar, and had actually
been served by him. But not less astonished and delighted was Peter on
learning that the ship belonged to, and had been freighted by his old
Zaardam friend, with whom he had resided, Cornelius Calf. Permission was
immediately given to the skipper to land his cargo, consisting of salt,
wine, and other articles of provisions, free of all duties. Nothing could
be more acceptable to the inhabitants of the new city than this cargo, the
whole of which was purchased by Peter, Menzikoff, and the several
officers, so that Auke Wybes, the skipper, made a most profitable
adventure. On his departure he received a present of five hundred ducats,
and each man of the crew, one hundred rix-dollars, as a premium for the
first ship that had entered the port of St. Petersburg.”(12) The second
ship to arrive was also Dutch; the third was an English vessel; both
received the same premium. The rapidity with which the swampy banks of the
Neva were covered with wharfs and buildings has been almost unexampled in
history. Peter had Amsterdam in his eye when he laid out St. Petersburg,
and he had secured the services of a number of Dutch ship-builders and
masons, architects, and surveyors well versed in making solid foundations
on swampy land.
And now, while England was distracted by the civil war of the first
Pretender, and by the rupture with Charles XII. of Sweden, she had much
trouble with the Barbary pirates, who, in the West Indies in particular,
constantly harassed her shipping interests. So great a nuisance had these
“water-rats” become that £100 head-money was offered for every captain,
£40 for any rank from a lieutenant to a gunner, and £20 for every pirate
seaman. Any private who delivered up his commander was entitled to £200 on
the conviction of the latter. But there were also at that period
“land-rats” at home, as bad as any pirate, preying on the public purse.
This was the epoch when Hamlet’s words “they’re all mad there,” might
almost have been said of England, and with even greater truth of our
neighbours across the Channel. Two extraordinary schemes, one of which was
to make France the richest of commercial nations, and the second of which
was to pay the national debt of England, were propounded, great companies
raised, and supported by half the people, from princes to petty tradesmen.
As projects depending upon commerce with foreign countries, they, of
course, are intimately connected with our subject. Need it be said that
the writer refers to the two extraordinary delusions known as the
Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea Bubble?
The first of these projects was designed to develop the resources of the
great country lying round the Mississippi, especially Louisiana; to open
up mineral deposits supposed to be wonderfully rich; and to carry on a
general trade with that part of America. The second, which more intimately
concerns us, included a monopoly of trade with the South Sea, a somewhat
elastic title, but which meant at the time commerce with the countries of
Spanish America. The South Sea Company was originated by Harley, Earl of
Oxford, in 1711, with the distinct view of “providing for the discharge of
the army and navy debentures, and other parts of the floating debt,
amounting to nearly ten million sterling.” A company of merchants took
this debt upon themselves, the Government agreeing to secure them, for a
certain period, six per cent. interest, and grant them the monopoly of the
trade to the South Seas. The most exaggerated ideas relating to the
mineral wealth of South America were prevalent at the time, and when a
report, most industriously spread, was circulated that Philip V. of Spain
was ready to concede four ports of Chili and Peru for purposes of trade,
South Sea stock rose in value with extraordinary rapidity. That monarch,
however, never meant to grant anything like a free trade to the English.
After sundry negotiations had been opened the royal assent was given to a
contract, conceding the privilege of supplying the colonies with negroes
for thirty years, and of sending _once a year one vessel_ “limited both as
to tonnage and value of cargo” to trade with Mexico, Peru, and Chili, the
king to enjoy one-fourth of the profits. On these hard conditions and
slender privileges was the great Bubble blown into popular esteem. Rumours
of commercial treaties between England and Spain were circulated, whereby
the latter was to grant free trade to all her colonies; the rich produce
of the Potosi mines “was to be brought to England until silver should
become almost as plentiful as iron. For cotton and woollen goods, with
which we could supply them in abundance, the dwellers in Mexico were to
empty their golden mines. The company of merchants trading to the South
Seas would be the richest the world ever saw, and every hundred pounds
invested would produce hundreds per annum to the stockholder.”(13) These
and still more lying statements were spread in every direction. The stock
rose like a rocket. And, so far as the present writer can discover, the
first voyage of the one annual ship, not made till 1717, six years after
the first establishment of the company, was also its last! The following
year the trade was suppressed by the rupture with Spain.
“It seemed at that time as if the whole nation had turned stock-jobbers.
Exchange Alley was every day blocked up by crowds, and Cornhill was
impassable for the number of carriages. Everybody came to purchase stock.
‘Every fool aspired to be a knave.’ In the words of a ballad published at
the time, and sung about the streets—
“‘Then stars and garters did appear
Among the meaner rabble;
To buy and sell, to see and hear
The Jews and Gentiles squabble.
‘The greatest ladies thither came,
And plied in chariots daily;
Or pawned their jewels for a sum
To venture in the Alley.’”
Not merely South Sea stock, but schemes of even a wilder nature now
deluged the market. It would seem incredible, but it is vouched for on
good authority, that one adventurer started “_A company for carrying on an
undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is_,” and in
one day sold a thousand shares, the deposit on which was £2 per share. He
thought it prudent to decamp with the £2,000, and was no more heard of.
Mackay publishes a list of eighty-six bubble companies, which were
eventually declared illegal and abolished. But the South Sea Bubble was a
Triton among these minnows, and the directors, having once tasted the
profits of their scheme by the rapid rise of its shares, kept their
emissaries at work. Nor indeed were they much needed, for every person
interested in the stock endeavoured to draw a knot of listeners round him
in ’Change Alley, or its purlieus, to whom he expatiated on the treasures
of the South American Seas. Then came the rumour that Gibraltar was to be
exchanged for certain places on the coast of Peru. Instead of paying a
tribute to the King of Spain, the company would be able to trade freely,
and send as many ships as they liked.
“Visions of ingots danced before their eyes,”
and the directors opened their books for a subscription of a million, and
then for a second million, and the frantic speculators took it all. Swift
described ’Change Alley as a gulf in the South Seas:—
“Subscribers here by thousands float,
And jostle one another down,
Each paddling in his leaky boat,
And here they fish for gold and drown.
“Now buried in the depths below,
Now mounted up to heaven again,
They reel and stagger to and fro,
At their wits’ end, like drunken men.
“Meantime, secure on Garraway cliffs,
A savage race, by shipwrecks fed,
Lie waiting for the foundering skiffs,
And strip the bodies of the dead.”
The directors used every art to keep up the price of the stock. It rose
finally to £1,000 per share. A few weeks afterwards it was down to £175,
then to £135, and the Bubble had burst.
To detail the various plans tried or suggested to bolster up the company,
the Parliamentary inquiries, or the stringent measures adopted to punish
the directors, would be out of place here. Suffice it to say that a bill
was brought in for restraining the South Sea directors and officers from
leaving the kingdom for a twelvemonth. They were forbidden to realise on
their estates and effects, neither must they will or remove them.
Eventually they were obliged to disgorge their gains. “A sum amounting to
two million and fourteen thousand pounds was confiscated from their
estates towards repairing the mischief they had done, each man being
allowed a certain residue in proportion to his conduct and circumstances,
with which he might begin the world anew. Sir John Blunt was only allowed
£5,000 out of his fortune of upwards of £183,000; Sir John Fellows was
allowed £10,000 out of £243,000; Sir Theodore Janssen £50,000 out of
£243,000; Mr. Edward Gibbon £10,000 out of £106,000; Sir John Lambert
£5,000 out of £72,000.” After every effort on the part of the Committee of
Investigation, a dividend of about 33 per cent. was divided among the
unfortunate proprietors and stock-holders. It took long before public
credit was restored.
[Illustration: COMMODORE ANSON.]
CHAPTER III.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
A Grand Epoch of Discovery—Anson’s Voyage—Difficulties of manning
the Fleet—Five Hundred Invalided Pensioners drafted—The Spanish
Squadron under Pizarro—Its Disastrous Voyage—One Vessel run
ashore—Rats at Four Dollars each—A Man-of-war held by eleven
Indians—Anson at the Horn—Fearful Outbreak of Scurvy—Ashore at
Robinson Crusoe’s Island—Death of two-thirds of the Crews—Beauty
of Juan Fernandez—Loss of the _Wager_—Drunken and Insubordinate
Crew—Attempt to blow up the Captain—A Midshipman shot—Desertion of
the Ship’s Company—Prizes taken by Anson—His Humanity to
Prisoners—The _Gloucester_ abandoned at Sea—Delightful Stay at
Tinian—The _Centurion_ blown out to Sea—Despair of those on
Shore—Its Safe Return—Capture of the Manilla Galleon—A Hot
Fight—Prize worth a Million and a half Dollars—Return to England.
The second of the greatest epochs of discovery—one, indeed, hardly
inferior to that of Columbus and Da Gama, when Dampier, Byron, Wallis, and
Carteret, Cook, and Clerke may be said to have substantially completed the
map of the world in its most essential and leading features—would follow
in proper sequence here, but for a pre-arranged plan, which will place
“The Decisive Voyages of the World” by themselves. One voyage of this
period, that of Commodore Anson, deserves mention, inasmuch as it was
instigated for the purpose of making reprisals on the Spaniards for their
behaviour in searching English ships found near any of their settlements
in the West Indies or Spanish Main, and not for attempts at discovery. It
also gives some little insight into the condition of the navy at the
period. It was most wretchedly equipped and manned, and although the ships
were placed under Anson’s command in November, 1739, they were not ready
to sail till ten months later, so great was the difficulty in obtaining
men. They had to be taken from all and any sources. Five hundred
out-pensioners from Chelsea Hospital were sent on board, many of whom were
sixty years of age, and some threescore and ten. Before the ships sailed,
240 of them, fortunately for themselves, deserted, their place being
filled by a nearly equal number of raw marines, recruits who were so
untrained that Anson would not permit them to fire off their muskets, for
fear of accidents! Of the poor pensioners who sailed, not one returned to
tell the story of their disasters, while of the whole squadron, consisting
of six ships of war, mounting 226 guns, one alone, the _Centurion_,
commanded by Anson himself, reached home, after a cruise of three years
and nine months. The history of this voyage, as told by the chaplain of
the vessel,(14) is one round of miseries and disasters.
“Mr. Anson,” says the narrator of this eventful voyage, “was greatly
chagrined at having such a decrepit attachment allotted to him; for he was
fully persuaded that the greatest part of them would perish long before
they arrived at the scene of action, since the delays he had already
encountered necessarily confined his passage round Cape Horn to the most
rigorous season of the year. Sir Charles Wager (one of the Lords of the
Admiralty) too, joined in opinion with the Commodore, that the invalids
were no way proper for this service, and solicited strenuously to have
them exchanged; but he was told that persons who were supposed to be
better judges than he or Mr. Anson, thought them the properest men that
could be employed on this occasion.” All of the poor pensioners “who had
limbs and strength to walk out of Portsmouth deserted, leaving behind them
only such as were literally invalids.... Indeed, it is difficult to
conceive a more moving scene than the embarkation of these unhappy
veterans. They were themselves extremely averse to the service they were
engaged on, and fully apprised of all the disasters they were afterwards
exposed to, the apprehensions of which were strongly marked by the concern
that appeared in their countenances, which were mixed with no small degree
of indignation.” Nor can one read these facts without sharing the same
feeling. Brave men who had spent the best of their youth and prime in the
service of their country, were ruthlessly sent to certain death.
On the 18th of September, 1740, the squadron, consisting of five
men-of-war, a sloop-of-war, and two tenders, or victualling ships, made
sail. The vessels comprised the _Centurion_, of sixty guns and 400 men,
commanded by George Anson; the _Gloucester_ and _Severn_, each fifty guns
and 300 men; the _Pearl_, of forty guns and 250 men; the _Wager_, of
twenty-eight guns and 160 men; and the _Tryal_ sloop, eight guns and 100
men. On their way down the Channel they were joined by other men-of-war
convoying the Turkey, Straits, and American merchant fleets, so that for
some distance out to sea the combined fleet amounted to no less than
eleven vessels of the Royal Navy, and 150 sail of merchantmen. Anson
called at Madeira, and refreshed his crews, from thence appointing the
Island of St. Catherine’s, on the coast of Brazil, as the rendezvous for
his fleet. Arrived there it was found that a large number of the men were
sickly, as many as eighty being so reported on the _Centurion_ alone, and
the other ships in proportion. Tents were erected ashore for the invalids,
and the vessels were thoroughly cleaned, smoked between decks, and finally
washed well with vinegar. The vessels themselves required many repairs to
fit them for the intended voyage round the Horn. The then governor of this
Portuguese island, one Don Jose Sylva De Paz, behaved very badly, doing
all in his power to prevent Anson from obtaining fresh provisions, and
secretly dispatched an express to Buenos Ayres, where a Spanish squadron
under Don Josef Pizarro then lay, with an account of the number and
strength of the English ships. The history and disasters of this squadron
would fill a long chapter.
Pizarro had with him six ships of war, and a very large force of men, two
of the vessels having seven hundred each on board. But in spite of his
superior strength, he avoided any engagement at this time, and seems to
have been extremely desirous of rounding Cape Horn before Anson, for he
left before his provision ships arrived. Notwithstanding this haste the
two squadrons were once or twice very close together on the passage to
Cape Horn, and the _Pearl_, being separated from the fleet, and mistaking
the Spanish squadron for it, narrowly escaped falling into their hands. In
a terrible gale off the Horn the Spanish vessels became separated, and
Pizarro turned his own ship’s head, the _Asia_, for the Plata once more.
One of his squadron, the _Hermiona_, of fifty-four guns and 500 men, is
believed to have foundered at sea, for she was never heard of more.
Another, the _Guipuscoa_, a still larger ship, with 700 souls on board,
was run ashore and sunk on the coast of Brazil. Famine and mutiny were
added to the horrors of these voyages. On the latter-named ship 250 died
from hunger and fatigue, for those who were still strong enough to work at
the pumps received only an ounce and a half of biscuit _per diem_, while
the incapable were allowed an ounce of wheat! Men fell down dead at the
pumps, and out of an original crew of 700, not more than eighty or a
hundred were capable of duty. The captain had conceived some hopes of
saving his ship by taking her into St. Catherine’s. When the crew learned
his intention, they left off pumping, and “being enraged at the hardships
they had suffered, and the numbers they had lost (there being at that time
no less than thirty dead bodies lying on the deck) they all, with one
voice, cried out, ‘On shore! on shore!’ and obliged the captain to run the
ship in directly for the land, where the fifth day after she sunk with her
stores and all her furniture on board her.” Four hundred of the crew got,
however, safely to shore. On another of the Spanish ships they became so
reduced “that rats, when they could be caught, were sold for four dollars
apiece; and a sailor who died on board had his death concealed for some
days by his brother, who during that time lay in the same hammock with the
corpse, only to receive the dead man’s allowance of provisions.” The
_Asia_ arrived at Monte Video with only half her crew; the _Esperanza_, a
fifty-gun ship, had only fifty-eight remaining out of 450 men, and the
_St. Estevan_ had lost about half her hands. The latter vessel was
condemned, and broken up in the Plata.
When Pizarro determined, in 1745, to return to Spain, they managed to
patch up the _Asia_, at Monte Video, but had only 100 of the original
hands left. They pressed a number of Portuguese, and put on board a number
of English prisoners (not, however, of Anson’s squadron) and some Indians
of the country. Among the latter was a chief named Orellana, and ten of
his tribe, whom the Spaniards treated with great inhumanity. The Indians
determined to have their revenge. They managed to acquire a number of long
knives, and employed their leisure in cutting thongs of raw hide, and in
fixing to each end of the thongs the double-headed shot of the
quarter-deck guns, which when swung round their heads, became powerful
weapons. In two or three days all was ready for their scheme of vengeance.
It was about nine in the evening, when the decks were comparatively clear,
that Orellana and his companions, having divested themselves of most of
their clothes, came together to the quarter-deck, approaching the door of
the great cabin. The boatswain ordered them away. Orellana, however, paid
no attention to him, placed two of his men at either gangway, and raising
a hideous war-cry, they commenced the massacre, slashing in all directions
with the knives, and brandishing the double-headed shot. The six who
remained with the chief on the quarter-deck laid nearly forty Spaniards
low in a few minutes, of whom twenty were killed on the spot. Many of the
officers fled into the great cabin, and hastily barricaded the door. A
perfect panic ensued on board. Many attempting to escape to the forecastle
were stabbed as they passed by the four Indian sentries, and others jumped
into the waist, where they thought themselves fortunate to lie concealed
among the cattle on board; a number fled up the main shrouds and kept on
the tops or rigging. The fact is that those on board did not know whether
it was not a general mutiny among the pressed hands and prisoners, and the
yells of the Indians and groans of the dying, and the confused clamour of
the crew, were all heightened in effect by the obscurity of the night. And
now Orellana secured the arm-chest, which had been placed on the
quarter-deck for security a few days before. It was of no use to him, as
he only found a quantity of fire-arms, which he did not understand, or for
which he had no ammunition; the cutlasses, for which he was in search,
were fortunately hidden underneath. By this time Pizarro had established
some communication with the gun-rooms and between decks, and discovered
that the English prisoners had not intermeddled in the mutiny, which was
confined to the Indians. They had only pistols in the cabin, and no
ammunition for them; at last, however, they managed to obtain some by
lowering a bucket out of the cabin window, into which the gunner, out of
one of the gun-room ports, put a quantity of cartridges. After loading,
they cautiously and partially opened the cabin door, firing several shots,
at first without effect. At last, Mindinuetta, one of the captains of the
original squadron, had the fortune to shoot Orellana dead on the spot, on
which his faithful companions one and all leaped into the sea and
perished. For full two hours these eleven Indians had held a ship of
sixty-six guns, and manned by nearly 500 hands!
Pizarro, having escaped this peril, reached Spain in safety, “after having
been absent between four and five years, and having,” says the narrator,
“by his attendance on our expedition, diminished the naval power of Spain
by above three thousand hands (the flower of their sailors), and by four
considerable ships of war and a patache.” He had not encountered Anson,
nor done any of his ships damage. To the disasters and adventures
encountered by that commander we must now return.
[Illustration: THE “CENTURION” OFF CAPE HORN]
Off Cape Horn the weather was so terrible that it obliged the oldest
mariners on board “to confess that what they had hitherto called storms
were inconsiderable gales.” Short, mountainous waves pitched and tossed
the vessels so violently that the men were in perpetual danger of being
dashed to pieces. One of the best seamen on the _Centurion_ was canted
overboard and drowned; his manly form was long seen struggling in the
water, he being a good swimmer, while those on board were powerless to
assist him. Another man was thrown violently into the hold and broke his
thigh; a second dislocated his neck, and one of the boatswain’s mates
broke his collar-bone twice. The squalls were so sudden that they were
obliged to lie-to for days together, almost under bare poles, and when in
a lull they ventured to set a little canvas, the blasts would return and
carry away their sails. Squalls of rain and snow constantly occurred. The
_Centurion_, labouring in the heavy seas, “was now grown so loose in her
upper works that she let in the water at every seam, so that every part
within board was constantly exposed to the sea-water, and scarcely any of
the officers ever lay in dry beds. Indeed, it was very rare that two
nights ever passed without many of them being driven from their beds by
the deluge of water that came in upon them.” Shrouds snapped, and yards
and masts were lost on several of the squadron. Two of the vessels, the
_Severn_ and the _Pearl_, became separated from the fleet, and were no
more seen by them on the voyage.
But their worst trouble was a terrible outbreak of that insidious disease,
the scurvy. In April, May, and part of June, the loss on the _Centurion_
alone was two hundred men, and at length they could not muster more than
six fore-mast hands in a watch capable of duty. The symptoms of this
horrible complaint are various; but apart from the universal scorbutic
manifestations on the body, diseased bones, swelled legs, and putrid gums,
there is an extraordinary lassitude and weakness, which degenerate into a
proneness to swoon, and even die, on the least exertion of strength, and a
dejection of spirits which leads the invalid to take alarm at the most
trifling accident. Let the reader imagine what all this meant on
closely-packed ships, tempest-tossed off the dreaded Horn. When at length
the _Centurion_ reached the famed Crusoe Island, Juan Fernandez, the
lieutenant “could muster no more than two quartermasters, and six
fore-mast hands capable of working.” Without the assistance of the
officers, servants, and boys, they might never have been able to reach the
island after sighting it, and with such aid they were _two hours_ in
trimming the sails. When their sloop, the _Tryal_, followed them to this
haven of refuge, only the captain, lieutenant, and three men were able to
stand by the sails. When, ten days later on, the _Gloucester_ was seen in
the offing, and Anson had sent off a boat laden with fresh water, fish,
and vegetables for the crew, it was found that they had already thrown
overboard two-thirds of their complement. It took them, with some
assistance sent by Anson, a month before they could fetch the bay,
contrary winds and currents, but more their utterly exhausted condition,
being the causes. They were now reduced to eighty out of an original crew
of three hundred men. Severe as have been the sufferings from scurvy
endured on many of the Arctic expeditions, there is no case on record as
painful as this. The three ships which reached Juan Fernandez had on board
when they left England 961 men; before the ravages of the disease were
stopped the number was reduced to 335, scarcely sufficient to man the
_Centurion_ alone. And it must be remembered that all this time they were
uncertain of the movements of Pizarro and his fleet, which might appear
among them at any moment. The refreshment obtained at the island, fresh
water, vegetables, fruit, fish in abundance, a little goat’s flesh, and
seal-meat, proved of great value to those of the crew whose constitutions
were not thoroughly undermined by the fell disease; but it was as much as
they could do to effect the many repairs required on the vessels, to the
extent even of removing and replacing masts.
Of the beauty of many parts of Juan Fernandez the chaplain speaks in
enthusiastic terms. “Some particular spots occurred in these valleys,
where the shade and fragrance of the contiguous woods, the loftiness of
the overhanging rocks, and the transparency and frequent falls of the
neighbouring streams, presented scenes of such elegance and dignity, as
would with difficulty be rivalled in any other part of the globe.... I
shall finish this article with a short account of the spot where the
commodore pitched his tent, and which he made choice of for his own
residence, though I despair of conveying an adequate idea of its beauty.
The piece of ground which he chose was a small lawn, that lay on a little
ascent, at the distance of about half a mile from the sea. In the front of
his tent there was a large avenue cut through the woods to the seaside,
which, sloping to the water with a gentle descent, opened a prospect of
the bay and the ships at anchor. This lawn was screened behind by a tall
wood of myrtle sweeping round it, in the form of a theatre; the slope on
which the wood stood rising with a much sharper ascent than the lawn
itself, though not so much but that the hills and precipices within-land
towered up considerably above the tops of the trees, and added to the
grandeur of the view. There were besides two streams of crystal water,
which ran on the right and left of the tent within a hundred yards’
distance, and were shaded by the trees which skirted the lawn on either
side, and completed the symmetry of the whole.”
Meantime, the other vessels of the squadron did not put in an appearance.
That two of them, the _Pearl_ and _Severn_, were not to be expected, we
have already learned; but what had become of the _Wager_? It was learned
afterwards that while making the passage to the island of Socoro, one of
the rendezvous of the squadron, she had become entangled among the rocks
and grounded, soon becoming an utter wreck. The Honourable John Byron,
afterwards a commodore in his Majesty’s service, but then a youngster on
board, has left an account of the disaster in his well-known work.(15) “In
the morning, about four o’clock,” says he, “the ship struck. The shock we
received upon this occasion, though very great, being not unlike a blow of
a heavy sea, such as in the series of preceding storms we had often
experienced, was taken for the same; but we were soon undeceived by her
striking again more violently than before, which laid her upon her
beam-ends, the sea making a fair breach over her. Every person that now
could stir was presently upon the quarter-deck; and many of those were
alert upon this occasion that had not showed their faces upon deck for
above two months before; several poor wretches, who were in the last stage
of the scurvy, and who could not get out of their hammocks, were
immediately drowned.” Some seemed bereaved of their senses; one man was
seen stalking about the deck flourishing a cutlass over his head, calling
himself king of the country, and striking everybody he came near, till he
was knocked down by some of those he had assaulted. “Some, reduced before
by long sickness and the scurvy, became on this occasion as it were
petrified and bereaved of all sense, like inanimate logs, and were bandied
to and fro by the jerks and rolls of the ship, without exerting any
efforts to help themselves.... The man at the helm, though both rudder and
tiller were gone, kept his station; and being asked by one of the officers
if the ship would steer or not, first took his time to make trial by the
wheel, and then answered with as much respect and coolness as if the ship
had been in the greatest safety; and immediately after applied himself
with his usual serenity to his duty, persuaded it did not become him to
desert it as long as the ship kept together.” The captain, who had
dislocated his shoulder by a fall the day before, was coolness itself, and
one of the mates did all in his power to inspire them with the belief that
they would not be lost so near land. This wrought a change in many who but
a few minutes before had been in despair, praying on their knees for
mercy. It was another illustration of—
“When the devil was sick,”
for they commenced breaking in the casks of brandy or wine as they came up
the hatchway, and several got so intoxicated that they were drowned on
board, and lay floating about the decks for several days. The boatswain
and some of the men would not leave the ship so long as there was any
liquor to be found on her; and Captain Cheap, having got off as many of
the crew as would come, about a hundred and forty in number, suffered
himself to be helped out of his bed, put into the boat, and carried
ashore.
After passing a miserable night, almost without shelter, the calls of
hunger—most of them having fasted forty-eight hours—obliged them to seek
for sustenance. Two or three pounds of biscuit dust, one sea-gull, and
some wild celery, were boiled up into a kind of soup, which made all very
ill who partook of it. It was at first supposed that the wild herb was the
cause, but it was soon discovered that the biscuit dust, the sweepings of
the bread-room, had been gathered in a tobacco bag, and that the tobacco
dust mingled with it had acted as an emetic.
Still a number of the wretched crew remained on board, pilfering all they
could find, often whether it could be of use to them or not, and showing a
particular desire to provide themselves with arms and ammunition. They
averred that the authority of the officers must cease with the loss of the
ship; but as they came ashore, the arms were taken from them. When the
boatswain came ashore in laced clothes, Captain Cheap knocked him down.
“It was scarce possible to refrain from laughter at the whimsical
appearance these fellows made, who, having rifled the chests of the
officers’ best suits, had put them on over their greasy trousers and dirty
checked shirts. They were soon stripped of their finery, as they had
before been obliged to resign their arms.” The cutter, turned keel
upwards, was now placed on props and covered, so that it made a reasonably
comfortable habitation. Shell-fish were found in tolerable abundance, “but
this rummaging of the shore,” says Byron, “was now become extremely
irksome to those who had any feeling, by the bodies of our drowned people
thrown among the rocks, some of which were hideous spectacles, from the
mangled condition they were in by the violent surf that drove in upon the
coast. These horrors were overcome by the distresses of our people, who
were even glad of the occasion of killing the gallinazo (the carrion crow
of that country) while preying on these carcases, in order to make a meal
of them.”
Such stores as could be landed were placed in a guarded tent, and doled
out carefully. A few Indians arrived, and, after some parley, proved
friendly, and were presented with sundry trifles. The looking-glasses
astonished them; “the beholder could not conceive it to be his own face
that was represented, but that of some other behind it, which he therefore
went round to the back of the glass to find out.” They left, and in two
days returned with three sheep, which astonished the officers, inasmuch as
they were far from any of the Spanish settlements.
And now mutiny and desertion ensued. One section of the men, “a most
desperate and abandoned crew,” attempted, by placing a barrel of gunpowder
close to the captain’s hut, with a train to be lighted at a distance, to
destroy their commander and his authority by one fell blow, but were
dissuaded by one of their number, who had some conscience left. They
eventually built a punt, and converted the hull of one of the ship’s masts
into a canoe, escaping therewith to the mainland. They were never heard of
more. These men were a good riddance, but a more unfortunate event was to
follow. Mr. Cozens, a midshipman, had been placed under confinement for
being drunk, and using abusive language to the captain, but was soon after
released. Subsequently he had a dispute with the surgeon, and later with
the purser. The latter told him that he had “come to mutiny,” and fired
his pistol at him, narrowly missing him. The captain, hearing all this,
rushed out, and, without asking any questions, shot Cozens through the
head, and then declined to allow him to be removed to shelter. The
wretched young man (whom Byron believes to have been purposely “kept warm
with liquor, and set on by some ill-designing persons,” as he had always
been a good-natured, inoffensive man when sober) was allowed by the
captain to die like a dog, “with no other covering than a bit of canvas
thrown over some bushes,” fourteen days afterwards. This gave the men a
good excuse for that which they were about to execute.
It had been arranged that the long-boat, rescued from the wreck, should be
lengthened. The captain proposed that they should proceed northwards in
the Pacific, hoping that they might encounter and master one of the
enemy’s ships, and rejoin Commodore Anson; the men, very generally, were
bent on making their voyage home through the Straits of Magellan. While
the alterations were in progress, the matter rested temporarily, as they
were occupied in saving portions of, or stores from, the wreck, or in
obtaining shell-fish and sea-fowl, which seem not to have been too
abundant. Byron had cherished in his little hut a poor Indian dog, which
had become much attached to him. One day a hungry party of the men came to
him, and, after a little ineffectual remonstrance, took the dog away and
killed it; “upon which,” says Byron, “thinking that I had at least as good
a right to a share as the rest, I sat down with them, and partook of their
repast. Three weeks after that I was glad to make a meal of his paws and
skin, which, upon recollecting the spot where they had killed him, I found
thrown aside and rotten.” One of the men constructed a novel craft from a
large cask, to which he lashed two logs, one on either side. In this he
ventured out to sea, and often managed to get wild fowl. One day he was
upset by a heavy sea, but managed to scramble to a solitary rock, where he
remained two days, till accidentally rescued by a boat party.
While the coast was being reconnoitred, the “old cabal” had been revived,
the debates of which generally ended in riot and drunkenness. The meeting
of the leading mutineers was held in a large tent, which had been made
snug, by lining it with bales of broadcloth driven from the wreck.
Eighteen of the ship’s company had possession of this tent, from whence
committees were dispatched with their resolutions, and quite as often with
demands for liquor. The captain seemingly acquiesced, so far as their
projected voyage was concerned; but when they began to stipulate that his
powers as commander must be restricted, he naturally insisted upon the
full exercise of his rights. “This broke all measures between them, and
they were from this time determined he should go with them, whether he
would or no.” The unfortunate affair concerning Cozens was raked up, and
they threatened to put him under confinement, and bring him to trial in
England. When, however, they found that the long boat, cutter, and barge
were barely large enough to carry all, they agreed to leave him behind,
with the surgeon, and one of the officers of marines. Byron was taken on
board, but, as he says, “was determined, upon the first opportunity, to
leave them.” They were in all eighty-one when they left the island. Their
intention was to put into some harbour, if possible, every evening, as
they were in no condition for long sea-trips, neither would their scanty
provisions have lasted many days. Their water was contained in a few small
powder barrels; their flour was to be lengthened out by a mixture of
sea-weed; and their other supplies must depend upon their success in
hunting or fishing. Next day they considered it necessary to send back the
barge for some spare canvas, and Byron took the opportunity of leaving
them. When they were clear of the long-boat, he found that the men on
board contemplated deserting the deserters also. They “were extremely
welcome to Captain Cheap.” Some attempts were made to get a share of the
provisions from the mutineers, but they absolutely refused. When they had
left the captain and the two other officers, they had given them six
pieces of beef, the same of pork, and ninety pounds of flour. For a day or
two after Byron’s return with a few of the men, a small allowance was
doled out to them; “yet it was upon the foot of favour,” and soon ceased,
after which they had to subsist on “a weed called laugh,” fried in the
tallow of some candles they had saved, and wild celery. The account of
their sufferings, and eventual escape to Chili, forms the bulk of the
volume from which this narrative is taken. What became of the long-boat
and its crew of mutineers? More than three months after they deserted the
captain, thirty of them arrived at Rio Grande, on the coast of Brazil;
twenty had been left at various points, and a larger number had died from
starvation.
But to return once more to Anson. Just at the time they were straining all
points to make ready for leaving Juan Fernandez, a sail was espied far in
the offing. Whilst the vessel advanced, they fancied that she might be one
of their own ships; but when she hauled off, it was determined to pursue
her. The _Centurion_ being in the most forward state, immediately got
under sail; but the wind being light, they soon lost sight of the
stranger. Persuaded that she was an enemy, they steered in the direction
of Valparaiso for a couple of days; then considering that she must have
reached her port, were on the point of abandoning the chase, when a gale
blew them out of their course, at the same time bringing them once more in
sight of the unknown vessel, which at first bore down upon them, showing
Spanish colours. She appeared to be a large ship which had mistaken the
_Centurion_ for her consort, and was thought to be one of Pizarro’s
squadron; this induced Anson to clear the guns of all casks of water or
provisions which encumbered them, and prepare for action. When near
enough, she was discovered to be only a merchantman, the _Carmelo_,
without even as much as a tier of guns. A little later, four shot were
fired among her rigging, on which not one of the crew would venture aloft.
The ship yielded immediately. When the first lieutenant went on board, he
was received with abject submission; and the passengers on board,
twenty-five in number, were terrified at the prospect of the ill-treatment
they should receive. But Anson was always humane and generous with a
fallen foe, and they were soon re-assured. His kindness was not thrown
away. When at length Captain Cheap and his brother-officers of the wrecked
_Wager_ arrived in Chili (then an appanage of the Spanish Crown) they were
particularly well treated at Santiago. “We found,” says Byron, “many
Spaniards here that had been taken by Commodore Anson, and had been for
some time prisoners on board the _Centurion_. They all spoke in the
highest terms of the kind treatment they had received; and it is natural
to imagine that it was chiefly owing to that laudable example of humanity
our reception here was so good.” They even said that they should not have
been sorry had he taken them to England.(16) Anson’s prize on this
occasion had on board large quantities of sugar, cloth, and some little
cotton and tobacco; and in addition, that which was more valuable, several
trunks of wrought plate, and over _two tons_ of dollars (“twenty-three
serons of dollars, each weighing upwards of 200 lbs. avoirdupois”).
Shortly afterwards, Anson noted two sail, one of which appeared to be “a
very stout ship,” and which made for them, whilst the other stood off. By
evening they were within pistol-shot of the nearest, “and had a broadside
ready to pour into her, the gunners having their matches in their hands,
and only waiting for orders to fire.” The ship was hailed in Spanish, when
the welcome voice of Mr. Hughes, lieutenant of the _Tryal_, answered in
English that it was a prize taken by him a couple of days before. She had
tried to escape in the night by showing no lights, but an opening or
crevice in one of the ports had betrayed them. She was a merchantman of
about 600 tons, and had much the same cargo as that taken by Anson, but
not so much money on board. Her capture at that moment was invaluable, for
the _Tryal_ had sprung her mainmast, and was altogether unseaworthy. She
was condemned, and her crew, guns, and stores, with some additions, were
put on board the prize, now appropriately christened _The Tryal’s Prize_.
The sloop herself was scuttled and sunk. Shortly afterwards a third prize
was taken, on which several Spanish lady passengers were found, who hid
themselves in corners, till assured of honourable and courteous treatment.
Anson ordered that they should retain their own cabins, with all the other
conveniences and privileges they had enjoyed before, and ordered the
Spanish pilot, the second in command, to stay with them as their guardian
and protector. A fourth prize, of little value to the captors, as they
could not dispose of much of the cargo in any way, but a clear loss to the
Spaniards of 400,000 dollars, was taken a few days afterwards.
Next followed the capture of Paita, Peru, an important place in those
days, though it offered little or no resistance. When the sailors in
search of private pillage found the clothes of the Spaniards who had fled,
they were seized with an irresistible impulse to try them on; and soon
their dirty unmentionables and jackets were covered by embroidered clothes
and laced hats, not forgetting the bag-wig of the day. Those who could not
find men’s clothes put on women’s, and half the _Centurion’s_ crew were
transformed into masqueraders. The town was burned to the ground, after
treasure, in the shape of plate, dollars, and other coin, to the amount of
upwards of £30,000, had been taken, besides a number of valuable jewels,
and plunder generally, which became the property of the immediate captors.
A vessel in the harbour was taken, and five others scuttled and sunk. The
Spaniards, in their representations sent to the Court of Madrid, estimated
their total loss at a million and a half of dollars. After Anson left
Paita, there were dissensions on board regarding the miscellaneous
plunder, between those who had been ordered ashore and those whose duty
obliged them to remain on board. The Commodore ruled that it should be put
into one common fund, to which he gave his entire share, and then divided
impartially, in proportion to each man’s rank and commission. To all but a
few greedy grumblers this was perfectly acceptable, and the discontent,
which might easily have been fanned into mutiny, was quashed at once.
[Illustration: SURRENDER OF THE “CARMELO.”]
A day or two afterwards, they rejoined the _Gloucester_, and found that
its captain had taken a couple of small prizes, one of them with a cargo
of wine, brandy, and olives in jars, and about £7,000 in specie. The
people on the other, which was hardly more than a large boat or launch,
pleaded poverty, and that their cargo was only cotton. The men on the
barge had surprised them at dinner upon pigeon pie served on silver
dishes, and suspicion was aroused, which subsided when some little
examination had been instituted. When the packages, however, were more
carefully examined on board the _Gloucester_, a considerable quantity of
doubloons and dollars, to the amount of near £12,000, was discovered
concealed among the cotton. Before leaving the South American coast, Anson
sent fifty-nine prisoners, in two well-equipped launches taken from his
prizes, to Acapulco, where they arrived safely, and spoke highly of the
treatment they had received.
Anson was now on his way to the China Seas, to intercept, if possible, the
Manilla galleon, of which he had received some tidings. On the voyage it
became necessary to abandon the _Gloucester_. Besides the loss of masts,
which were literally rotted out of her, she was tumbling to pieces from
sheer rottenness; and when her captain reported on her condition, she had
seven feet of water in the hold, although his officers and men had been
kept constantly at the pumps for the past twenty-four hours. Her crew had
become greatly reduced in numbers, and out of her total complement of
ninety-seven, officers included, only sixteen men and eleven boys were
capable of keeping the deck. The removal of the _Gloucester’s_ people, and
such stores as could most easily be taken, occupied two days. It was with
difficulty that the prize-money taken in the South Seas was secured; the
prize goods were necessarily abandoned. “Their sick men, amounting to
nearly seventy, were conveyed into the boats with as much care as the
circumstances of that time would permit; but three or four of them expired
as they were hoisting them into the _Centurion_.” The _Gloucester_ was set
on fire in the evening, but did not blow up till six o’clock the following
morning.
At Tinian, one of the Ladrone Islands, Anson stopped some time, refreshing
his worn-out crew, and strengthening the ship. The island abounded in
cattle, hogs, and poultry, running wild; in oranges, limes, lemons,
cocoa-nuts, and bread-fruit. “The country did by no means resemble that of
an uninhabited and uncultivated place; but had much more the air of a
magnificent plantation, where large lawns and stately woods had been laid
out together with great skill, and where the whole had been so artfully
combined, and so judiciously adapted to the slopes of the hills and the
inequalities of the ground, as to produce a most striking effect, and to
do honour to the invention of the contriver.” These compliments to Nature
may often be paralleled in writers of the last century. When they had
dropped anchor, such was the weakness of the crew that it took them five
hours to furl their sails. “All the hands we could muster capable of
standing at a gun,” says the narrator, “amounted to no more than
seventy-one, most of whom, too, were incapable of duty, except on the
greatest emergencies. This, inconsiderable as it may appear, was the whole
force we could collect in our present enfeebled condition from the united
crews of the _Centurion_, the _Gloucester_, and the _Tryal_, which, when
we departed from England, consisted of near a thousand hands.” Some
Indians ashore fled when they landed, leaving their huts, one of which,
used as a large storehouse, was converted into a hospital for the sick,
one hundred and twenty-eight in number. Numbers of these were so helpless
that they had to be carried from the boats, the commodore assisting, as he
had before at Juan Fernandez, and the officers following suit. The poor
invalids soon felt the benefit of the abundant fresh fruits and water; and
although twenty-one were buried in the first and succeeding day, they did
not lose above ten more during the two months of their stay at the island.
One of the drawbacks of a stay at Tinian was the roadstead, which, with
its coral bottom, afforded a bad anchorage during the western monsoons.
This was convincingly proved to the people of the _Centurion_. In the
third week of September the wind blew with such fury that all
communication with the shore was cut off, as no boat could live in the sea
raised by it. The small bower cable, and afterwards their best bower,
parted. The waves broke over the devoted ship, and the long-boat, at that
time moored astern, was on a sudden canted so high that it broke the
transom of the commodore’s cabin on the quarter-deck, and was itself stove
to pieces, the poor boat-keeper, though extremely bruised, being saved
almost by a miracle. The end of all this was that the ship was driven to
sea, leaving Anson, several officers, and a great part of the crew on
shore, amounting in the whole to one hundred and thirteen persons. The
poor wretches on the ship expected each moment to be their last, as they
were altogether too few and weak to work a large vessel.
“The storm which drove the _Centurion_ to sea blew with too much
turbulence to permit either the commodore or any of the people on shore to
hear the guns which she fired as signals of distress; and the frequent
glare of the lightning had prevented the explosions from being observed;
so that when at daybreak it was perceived from the shore that the ship was
missing, there was the utmost consternation amongst them, for much the
greatest part of them immediately concluded that she was lost.” Anson,
whatever he thought himself, did all in his power to reason them out of
the idea, and immediately proposed that if she did not return in a few
days they should cut in half a small bark, a Spanish prize they had taken,
and lengthen her about twelve feet, which would enable her to carry them
all to China. After some days the men began to consider this their only
chance, and worked zealously at their allotted employments. These were
interrupted one day by “A sail!” being announced. Presently a second was
descried, which quite destroyed the conjecture that it was the ship
herself. The revulsion of feeling in Anson’s bosom was so strong, that for
once he was quite unmanned, and retired to his tent, with the bitter
feeling that now he could not hope to signalise the expedition by any
great exploit. He was, however, soon relieved by finding that the boats
were Indian proas, which, after cruising off the island for a time,
suddenly departed, and were lost to sight. The recital of the details
connected with the transformation of the bark would be tedious; suffice it
to say, that they had to manufacture many of the necessary tools, cut down
trees, and saw them into planks, and dig a dry dock, while others were
employed in collecting provisions. They were much mortified to find that
all the powder ashore did not amount to more than ninety charges. What if
the Spaniards should appear at this juncture?
However, in spite of all obstacles, they had proceeded so far with their
work as to have fixed upon a date for their departure from the island.
“But their project and labours were now drawing to speedier and happier
conclusion; for, on the 11th of October, in the afternoon, one of the
_Gloucester’s_ men, being upon a hill in the middle of the island,
perceived the _Centurion_ at a distance, and, running down with his utmost
speed towards the landing-place, he in the way saw some of his comrades,
to whom he hallooed out with great ecstasy, ‘The ship! the ship!’” It was
indeed the ship; and when Anson heard of it, we can well believe that he
broke through “the equable and unvaried character” he had hitherto
preserved. The men were in a p
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