Issue II
Contents
Sail Plan
Being
in All Respects Ready for Sea
Prepare
for Battle!
Sloop
of War
Sail
Plan
RETURN
TO TOP
Being
in All Respects
Ready
for Sea...
In the 18th century, and particularly in time
of war, the business of fitting-out, storing and crewing a King's ship
provided many a headache for those concerned. Captains newly appointed
to their commands used every skill, each hard-earned lesson of seamanship
and cunning to ensure that once clear of land they would be able to cope
with any demand or challenge thrown their way. Between the wars ships
were too often laid up in ports and estuaries and allowed to fall into
disrepair and suffer their most dangerous enemy, rot. Before any
vessel could safely go about her affairs her captain had to be certain
that the miles of rigging and cordage would withstand a full gale as well
as the more obvious hazards of an enemy broadside. More to the point,
he had to calculate how many extra replacements he could cram into his
hull so that he would not be made to run for port after his first setback.
Spare spars, timber for repairing boats and fittings, huge areas of canvas
so that he could repair and, if necessary, make new sails with minimum
delay. Powder and shot for a variety of ordnance, all had to be carefully
stowed throughout the ship, with a careful watch kept on the stability
and balance in order that sailing qualities would not be impaired.
As might be expected, the victualling
of warships was a constant worry. Salt pork and beef in the cask
and iron-hard biscuits provided the basic diet, and it fell to the ship's
cook to use his imagination and limited resources to make any kind of variation.
Burgoo or skillygolee was one such dish, and consisted of oatmeal gruel,
crushed toasted biscuits and lumps of boiled meat found to be useless for
anything else. A midshipman's favourite was ship's rat carefully
fattened on the best biscuit or bread crumbs. It was said to be quite
as good as rabbit.
Drinking water had to be stowed
in huge casks, and if not carefully checked could become a ready breeding
ground for disease, as water barrels were usually quick to go rancid.
Because of this, and the difficulty of obtaining a regular supply of fresh
water, the daily issue of alcohol was fairly generous, especially by today's
standards. A gallon of beer or a pint of strong wine per day while
stocks lasted, changing to a half pint of brandy or rum when they were
disposed of. Drink was frequently used as payment and barter between
decks, especially in vessels with bad and miserly captains who refused
to pay their people until the end of a commission, if then. It was
also responsible for much drunkenness, even in ships renowned for their
strict discipline. Punishment books show more men flogged for various
aspects of drunkenness than anything else.
But by far the biggest difficulty
which faced any captain at the start of a new commission was men.
Men to crew his ship. Men to set and reef sails under all conditions,
to load and fire the guns and to get to close grips with any of the King's
enemies. Men to steer and splice, to pull an oar and to find breath
to cheer when all hell was crashing round their ears in battle.
The size of his ship made little
difference. Be she a lofty three-decker, a first-rate of a hundred
guns, or a small, rakish frigate, the problem was proportionate and depressing
to many a hopeful captain.
Of course, a lot would depend
on the captain himself. If he had previously made his name as a brave
and resopurceful commander it was likely that he would attract volunteers
to his call. For it was not necessarily him humanity towards a ship's
comapny which would bring him the men he required. Harsh discipline
was taken for granted in times when hanging and deportation for minor crimes
were commonplace. But his successes would mark him down as a captain
likely to become rich from prize-money, which in turn would be shared amongst
his men.
A captain who had the reputation
for senseless brutality, or one who kept his company on a starvation diet,
would find the task of recruiting impossible. Some volunteers came
to a particular ship because they knew her captain only by name. This was
common in West country ships which often carried a good proportion of Cornish
tinminers, farm workers and the like who were prepared to risk their change
of calling merely because a captain was one of their own.
To commission a ship in any
major port could be a severe handicap. Many local sailors would be
exempt from naval service, being watermen or employed in the fishing fleet.
Others crewed the great ships of the East India Company or manned the countless
small craft which were needed to keep life moving on rivers and coastal
waters. And they were, of course, the very men whom a captain would
want most. These were trained and experienced seamen, and not the
usual collection of labourers and unemployed landsmen. Recruiting
parties visited outlying villages and hamlets, setting up their temporary
headquarters at an inn or ale house in the hopes that some likely hands
could be obtained. A captain was expected to supply his recruiting
officer with suitable handbills and posters, many of which were printed
in glowing and colourful terms in order to attract volunteers. They
were nailed on trees and notice boards, and it often fell to more literate
members of the community to read them aloud, so that the choice of wording
was all important. The expense of providing such posters had to be
met by the captain, and when his weary shore-party returned with perhaps
only two or three suitable men he would find himself wondering about his
own popularity, or lack of it.
Many captains had to resort
to the services of the press-gang to make up the bulk of their numbers,
Once again, the seasoned sailor was quick to grasp the dangers of this
system, and rarely moved about at night lest he be caught by the dreaded
press. But the officers who took their small parties ashore in search
of hands soon became equally cunning in their methods. They were
aided by boarding house crimps, who sold information as to the whereabouts
and suitability of available men. After that it was not too difficult
to separate the seamen from the untrained. A sailor's hands became
so ingrained with tar after working at sea in shrouds and rigging that
a quick inspection was all that was required. Tattoos on their arms,
once proudly gained in some foreign port, were a bad handicap when under
the eye of a King's officer.
And so as the ship gathered
her stores and took on the appearance of a proper man-of-war, so too did
her company begin to gather within her hull. Volunteers and pressed
men, seamen transferred from other ships or taken off incoming vessels,
they were willing or otherwise being merged into one living unit.
Occasionally a captain might be lucky enough to be in the vicinity of an
Assize Court where he could obtain men who might other wise face more hazardous
and uncertain futures in the convict colonies of Botany Bay. To use
these methods might seem unfair and in some cases savage. But without
proper census or conscription there was no better way known of crewing
the ships required to fight against a powerful enemy.
When the moment finally came
for the ship to weight anchor and clear the land, our captain must have
watched his new company with mixed feelings. In those days there
were no training depots, no safe places where bewildered and unskilled
men could be broken in gently to the sea's ways.
As each ship had to depend
on her own resources, so too did her company have to rely on each other,
on the skills and knowledge of the professional men who might have to place
ropes in their hands, like teachers with simple children, until they grasped
the meaning and use of every piece of rigging. It was often said
that any man, once he had been at sea for a few months, could go aloft
in total darkness and never make a mistake.
Being in all respects ready
for sea might have been a formal acknowledgement on a piece of paper, but
to the captain who placed his signature below it, it represented far more.
And as he watched his ship beat clear of the shore, and saw the sails thunder
and harden to the first wind, he must have marvelled at the authority invested
in him. For upon him everything depended. To reach his proper
destination and make a landfall. To control his officers and marines, his
seamen and every living soul under his command. Next to God he was
the supreme being in their lives. He could advise and punish, reward
and flog, as his mind directed. But at no time could he forget that
his was the final responsibility. Recognition for success could so
easily change to blame for failure, and unlike his other officers he could
share his doubts with no one.
Ready for sea? He had
to be ready for everything.
RETURN TO TOP
Prepare
For
Battle!
Until the Napoleonic Wars, little had been done
to encourage admirals or individual captains to deviate from the laid down
instructions for fighting a sea battle. It was expected that a fleet
would approach the enemy in three squadrons with the main one under the
admiral's overall command in the centre. Once the position and course
of the enemy force had been located by the small, faster vessels, frigates
and sloops, it was up to the admiral to arrange his squadrons to best advantage.
Everything depended on the wind and the time available for preparation.
Sometimes the opposing fleets sailed on long parallel lines, or they approached
each other on a converging tack, the admiral trying his utmost to take
the wind-gage at the moment of contact. This meant keeping to windward
of the enemy, which had a double advantage. Firstly, the gun-crews
would be unhampered by their own smoke, which would blow downwind and further
help to blind the enemy. Not less important, if an enemy ship should
have spars or canvass shot away in the first exchange of fire, she might
slew downwind and expose her unprotected stern to a full and murderous
broadside, which, if well timed, could sweep through her decks from stern
to bows, turning the inner hull into a bloody and demoralised shambles.
In these slow and terrible
embraces each fleet could suffer fearful losses in men and ships.
It was not unknown for the victorious fleet or squadron to be so battered
as to be incapable of capturing prizes or pursuing stragglers, and with
hardly enough men and sails to reach safety.
Nevertheless, the more hidebound
still frowned on unorthodox methods which were later perfected by men such
as Hood and Nelson. In 1782, during the War of Independence, Admiral
Rodney dumbfounded his critics by breaking the French line to secure his
victory at the Battle of the Saintes, but found little support for his
tactics. It was still generally believed that if a captain laid his
ship beside an enemy and battered her into submission it was enough for
any man. It is true to say that British gunnery far outmatched all
other, no matter under what colours an enemy sailed. Being so long
at sea and in all conditions, the British sailor had plenty of time to
practise. For to the ordinary Jack Tar the gun was part of his daily
life. His mess was between a pair of guns, he ate and slept by them,
saw them at every waking moment.
Ships were rated according
to their size and firepower, i.e., a First Rate was a three-decker of a
hundred guns or more, and at the other end of the scale, a Sixth Rate was
the smallest type of frigate, single-decked, mounting 20-24 guns.
These latter were known as post-ships, being the smallest to be commanded
by a post-captain, one of over three years seniority.
In the 18th century, the most
popular gun by far was the long thirty-two pounder, the heaviest and most
accurate in the fleet. Mounted only in ships-of-the-line, which were
expected to withstand the tremendous battering of the line of battle where
ranges were often less than twenty yards, it could, when properly handled,
hurl its massive ball some three thousand yards. At short range one
such ball could pierce three feet of solid oak.
Normally a gun such as this
would have a crew of fifteen men, some of whom would be required to man
a twin weapon on the opposite side of the deck, although it was rare for
a ship to engage both sides at once.
The rest of the ship's artillery
was made up of similar but smaller weapons which fired a variety of shots
which ranged from the ordinary solid ball to the more complex types of
shot such as chain, bar and langridge, which was used mainly for dismasting
another vessel or so tearing her sails and rigging to fragments as to render
her helpless.
For the deadly business of
close action grape shot and cannister were employed. These charges
of packed balls would explode and scythe outwards on impact, and were used
to shoot down officers and men on exposed decks, or to batter away a ship's
defenders prior to boarding her.
When two ships eventually came
together in battle, and the heavier guns were forced to remain silent for
fear of setting friend and foe alight in one great pyre, the action became
even more terrible. Hand-to-hand, armed with cutlasses and boarding
pikes, axes and clubs, the embattled ships fought back and forth until
at last one was forced to submit.
It was hardly surprising that
casualties were heavy. But it was almost as bad preparing for battle
as it was to face actual combat. It might take all day before the
two fleets drew close enough to engage. From the moment that a frigate,
the 'Eyes of the Fleet,' had topped the horizon with the signal Enemy
in Sight hoisted to her yards, there was nothing on anyone's mind but
the prospect and certainty of battle. As the seamen swarmed aloft
to rig chains on the yards to prevent them from falling on the gun crews
below, while they spread nets across the upper decks to protect men from
falling débris and enemy boarders alike, many must have glanced
at the horizon for the first glimpse of a sail.
Decks had to be sanded to give
better grip to the gun crews, hammocks stowed in the nettings to guard
against flying wood splinters and pistol balls, and below decks the screens
which divided mess from mess, officer from seaman, were torn down to transform
the ship into one long double battery of guns.
The older hands would be the
more worried. They had lived through other battles in other ships,
and knew the odds on survival and death. The new recruits and pressed
men would watch the slow-spreading might of the enemy's ships along the
horizon more with awe than real understanding.
Nearer and nearer, and the
tension is unbearable. Marines parade on the poop and high in the
fighting tops the best marksmen prepare to shoot down enemy officers when
near enough to aim their muskets. The captain paces the quarterdeck
apparently unruffled, but his mind grappling with a dozen doubts and anxieties
at once.
Below decks the other gun crews
wait, watching theirports for a first sign of a target. It
is almost dark between decks, but the light which filters through each
gun port is sufficient to show the red paint on timbers and bulwarks, which
it is hoped will disguise the horror of an enemy broadside if it bursts
into this quiet place. The officer in charge of the gun deck rubs
his chin, the sound making his messenger, a thirteen-year-old midshipman,
swallow with alarm.
Below, deeper still in the
hull, the surgeon ponders with his assistants, the lob-lolly boys who wait
to drag the wounded to their makeshift table of sea chests and start their
own sort of work. No anaesthetic here. Just a strap between
the teeth, a full swallow of rum and brandy, and the grisly business begins.
Suddenly, in a flash it is
here. All around, above and below, the jarring roar of cannon fire,
the squeal of trucks as the guns are run out again and again, the sounds
of falling spars and of shots slamming hard into the hull. It is
a world of smoke and terrible din, of powder-blackened bodies and staring
eyes, mouths calling out orders which deafened ears can no longer hear.
On the upper deck the daylight
is gone in the smoke, and it is painful to breathe. Men are falling
and dying, and above the choking fog the enemy's flag seems right alongside.
The helm is shot away, a lieutenant is carried below, dead or badly wounded,
nobody knows or cares. On his pitted deck, our captain walks back
and forth like a man in a trance, while the planking spurts splinters to
mark where the enemy's sharpshooters are trying to cut him down.
And then it is done.
The enemy's flag dips into the smoke. No one knows what has happened
along the line of battle, it is beyond our small, cringing world of noise
and smell.
A hand reaches out to touch
an old friend. The captain looks at a seaman and forces a grin.
The enemy has struck.
To us. It is enough. It has to be so.
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Sloop
of War
 Here,
we turn and look back in time to 1778, when the young Richard Bolitho takes
his first decisive step in his career to a command of his own.
In the eighteen gun Sparrow, sloop of war, he sees everything he
has yearned for and dreamed of during his years as a subordinate officer.
Freedom from higher authority so that he can exercise his ideas and skills,
the opportunity to cut away the apron strings of fleet and squadron to
explore his own ability.
But if 1778 represents a challenge to Bolitho it offers a real threat to
his country. The War of Independence is already changing from a rebellion
to a full-scale conflict in which the British Army is hard put to keep
a foothold on the American mainland. The bitter military defeat at
Saratoga last year has raised doubts about the efficiency of strategy,
the competence of high command. And now the French are here to exploit
their old enemy's misfortunes. With ships and men to back up Washington's
soldiers and privateers they hope to recover their previously lost lands
from the British once and for all.
Sparrow
is a small, intimate world where every victory is shared, each setback
deeply felt. Bolitho soon learns that captains too must obey, even
when the orders are wrong, but he also begins to understand the true meaning
of command, the responsibility of it, the pride of holding it.
Against the background of swift sea-fights and wearying convoy duty, the
glimpses of another life of influence and power in New York, he sees the
inevitable before many who are more experienced. At the battle of
the Chesapeake he also sees the cost which has to be paid for hidebound
ideas and rigid tactics.
It is the turning point for Bolitho and for the Navy. And for Sparrow,
sloop of war.
GO TO
ISSUE III
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