The seamanship, the navigation, and the gunnery of the Elizabethan age will ever be memorable, not merely because they attained such excellence after centuries of imperfection, but because by a combination of these three arts the whole future of England was mapped out, her supremacy assured, and her colonial expansion begun.

A four-masted warship of her reign was not a handy creature to control. She could fight and she could ride out an Atlantic gale, but she was clumsy; she was—even the best of her class—much addicted to rolling, owing to the fact that she possessed such immense weights above the water-line. She was certainly an improvement on the ships of Henry VII and VIII, but she was too cumbrous to be considered in any degree satisfactory. Before we proceed to discuss the way they were handled, let us briefly survey the principal types of vessels on board which the men of this reign had to serve.

There was, firstly, the “high-charged” man-of-war with her lofty poop and forecastle. A contemporary illustration shows such a vessel with guns protruding from the stern and two tiers of guns running along either side of the ship. There were light guns in the forecastle as well. That portion on the main deck between the break of the poop and forecastle was the waist, where the crew moved about and the ship’s boats were stowed. In those days, when so much of the fighting was done at close quarters, and the enemy endeavoured so to manoeuvre his ship as to come alongside and pour his men on the other’s deck, dealing out slaughter to all who should bar his way, it was the aim of the attacked ship to catch the invaders between two fires. The poop and forecastle being so well guarded and, by reason of their height, so difficult to assault, the enemy might possibly board the ship at the waist. But inasmuch as the after bulkhead of the forecastle and the forward bulkhead of the poop were pierced for quick-firing guns, the boarding party was likely to meet with a warm reception. As an additional obstacle to boarding, it was customary before a fight to stretch long red cloths over the waist. These cloths were edged on each side with calico, says an Elizabethan writer, and were allowed to hang several feet over the side all round the ship, being sometimes ornamented with devices or painted in various colours. Wooden barriers, called “close-fights,” were also built across the ship’s deck for repelling boarders, and were loopholed like the bulkheads. Furthermore, nettings were stretched across the ship to prevent any falling spars from dealing death to the crew.

The tumble-home on these ships was excessive, but since they carried so many decks it was essential that the topmost should be as light as possible. But just as on a modern steamship the master can survey everything forward from the eminence of his bridge, so the Elizabethan captain, standing on the poop, was able to command the whole ship, to see ahead and to keep an eye on his men. There was no uniform colour for painting the Elizabethan hulls, Mr. Oppenheim says. Black and white, the Tudor colours green and white, red, and timber colour were all used. Sometimes a dragon or a lion gilded was at the beak-head, with the royal arms at the stern. On either side of the stern was a short gallery, on to which the captain could emerge from his cabin under the poop. The long tiller from the rudder came in under the poop, and was controlled by a bar or whipstaff attached to this same tiller. “The roul,” says James Lightbody in his “Mariner’s Jewel,” published in 1695, “is that through which the whipstaff goeth, which is a piece of wood the steersman holdeth in his hand to steer withal.” The man received his orders, as a rule, from the master of the ship, but when entering port the pilot would instruct him how to steer.

There was not very much room in the fo’k’sle—just enough to sleep a few of the crew and for stowing coils of rope and the like. The galley was erected at the bottom of the hold on a brick floor. Below the upper deck came the main deck. Here were disposed the heavier guns, and here the crew were berthed. Between this and the hold was a false orlop, where the bread-room and the cabins of the petty officers were placed. But what was perhaps especially noticeable about these ships was the extent to which the poop and the beak projected away from the hull. Consequently, not only did these craft roll, but they pitched considerably as well. The interiors of the cabins were painted green, and there was a certain amount of carving externally both at beak and stern. So much for the “high-charged” type of ship.

But there was also the pinnesse or flush-decked species, such a craft as brought home to England the body of Sir Philip Sidney, and such a craft as often formed a unit in those long, perilous transatlantic voyages of discovery. These craft had no raised forecastle other than a small platform, and only a short quarter-deck. There was no such thing as triangular sails on the full-rigged ships of those days. There was, indeed, a spritsail, which was a squaresail set on a yard depending from the long, steeved bowsprit, and this was the only headsail. The foremast and mainmast each set a course and topsail, while the mizzen and bonaventure each carried a lateen fore-and-aft sail. The fore-topmast and main-topmast could be struck if necessary. Elizabethan prints show, situated just above the lower yard on the bigger ships, a round top or platform from which quick-firing guns and arrows could be fired. At the yard-arms were sometimes fitted hooks, which, catching the enemy’s rigging and sails, would do him considerable damage.

The following represent the different types of “great ordinance” carried by a ship of war at this period:—

But it was seldom that any ordnance greater than a demi-cannon was used on board ship.

The guns were made of brass or iron, and were mounted on wooden carriages which had four wheels. They could be run in and out by means of tackles. In his interesting little book, “The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnance,” by William Bourne, published in 1587, the author significantly speaks of “this barbarous and rude thing called the Art of Shooting in great Ordnaunce.” This was the period, you will remember, when arrows, bills, and pikes had not yet lost their admirers. He tells you in his preface that he has written this book because “we English men haue not beene counted but of late daies to become good Gunners, and the principall point that hath caused English men to be counted good Gunners hath been for that they are hardie or without fear about their ordnaunce: but for the knowledg in it other nations and countries haue tasted better therof, as the Italians, French, and Spaniardes, for that the English men haue had but little instruction but that they haue learned of the Doutchmen, or Flemings in the time of King Henry the eight.”

He goes into the subject with great thoroughness and points out that allowance must be made for the wind, and how to secure good aim. The cannon are to be placed so as to be right in the middle of the ports of the ship, and care is to be taken that the wheels of the gun-carriage are not made too high. He advises that when shooting from one ship at another, if there is any sea on it is essential to have a good helmsman “that can stirre steadie.” The best time to fire at the other vessel is when the latter is “alofte on the toppe of the sea,” for then “you have a bigger marke than when she is in the trough.” If the ship rolls, “then the best place of the ship for to make a shotte is out of the head or sterne.” The shorter ordnance is to be placed at the side of the ship because they are lighter, and if the ship should heave “wyth the bearyng of a Sayle that you must shutte the portes,” then you can easily take the guns in.

“In lyke manner,” he proceeds, “the shorter that the peece lyeth oute of the shyppes syde, the lesse it shall annoy them in the tacklyng of the Shippes Sayles, for if that the piece doe lye verye farre oute of the Shyppes syde, then the Sheetes and Tackes, or the Bolynes wyll alwayes bee foule of the Ordnaunce, whereby it maye muche annoy them in foule weather.” Therefore the long guns are best placed so that they are fired from the stern. But a gun so placed must be “verye farre oute of the porte, or else in the shooting it may blowe up the Counter of the Shyppes sterne.”

In another equally delightful volume entitled “Inventions or Devises,” the same author tells his reader how to “arme” (i.e. protect) a “ship of warre.” You are to keep your men as close as you may, and have the bonnet off the sail or other canvas stretched along the waist and decks, as I have shown on an earlier page. The forecastle and poop, Bourne says, you may “arm” with “manlets or gownes” “to shaddow your men”; so also the tops, “but now in these daies,” he adds, “the topfight is unto little effect, since the use of Calivers or Muskets in Ships,” for the latter could do so much damage. He therefore advises against having many men in the tops. After alluding to the netting, which I explained just now, Bourne suggests that the captain must send the carpenter “into the holde of the Ship” “to stop any leake if any chance. And also to send downe the Surgion into his Cabin, which ought and must be in the holde of the ship.”

The supreme head of the ship was the captain, who was not necessarily a navigator nor even a seaman; but he was the wielder of authority and discipline. He it was who had to keep under control a crew that was prone to swearing, blasphemy, violence, mutiny, and other sins. Sir William Monson has left behind in his most interesting “Naval Tracts” many an entertaining detail of sea life during the Elizabethan period, and tells that a captain might punish a man by putting him in the “billbows during pleasure,” ducking him at the yard-arm, hauling him from yard-arm to yard-arm under the ship’s keel (otherwise known as keel-hauling), fastening him to the capstan and flogging him there, or else fastening him at the capstan or mainmast with weights hanging about his neck till his poor heart and back were ready to break. Another brutal punishment was to “gagg or scrape their tongues for blasphemy or swearing.”

Elizabethan captains, says Monson, “were gentlemen of worth and means, maintaining their diet at their own charge.” In a fight the lieutenant had charge of the forecastle. It was not till the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign that the rank of lieutenant was created for the training of young gentlemen destined ultimately for command. He came aboard quite “green” in order to learn what seamanship he could, and to assist the captain in the discipline of the ship; but he was not allowed to interfere with the navigation, which was entirely the work of the master. Not unnaturally there was a good deal of friction between the lieutenant and the master. Even the common seaman had an ineradicable contempt for this landlubber, more especially in the seventeenth century during the Anglo-Dutch wars.

In his “Accidence, or The Path-way to Experience necessary for all Young Seamen,” written by Captain John Smith, the first Governor of Virginia, we have a great deal of information which tells us just what we should wish to know. Of the captain and master we have already spoken. The latter and his mates are to “commaund all the Saylors, for steering, trimming, and sayling the Ship.” The pilot takes the ship into harbour, the Cape-merchant and purser have charge of the cargo, the master-gunner was responsible for all the munitions, while the carpenter and his mate looked after the nails, pintles, saws, and any caulking of seams as well as the splicing of masts and yards. The boatswain had charge of the cordage, marlinespikes, and sails, etc., while his mate had command of the longboat for laying out kedge anchors and warping or mooring. The surgeon had to have a certificate from the “Barber-surgeons Hall” “of his sufficiency,” and his medicine-chest must be properly filled. The marshal was to punish offenders, and the corporal was to see to the setting and relieving of the watch. Every Monday the boatswain was to hear the boys box the compass, after which they were to have a quarter can of beer and a basket of bread.

The men messed in fours, fives, or sixes, and the steward’s duty was “to deliuer out the victuall.” The quartermasters had charge of the stowage, while a cooper was carried to look after the casks for wine and beer, etc. The large ships had three boats, viz. (1) the boat, (2) the cock, and (3) the skiff. These were respectively put in charge of (1) the boatswain, (2) the cockswain, and (3) the skiffswain. Hence the origin of these designations. A cook was carried, and he had his store of “quarter cans, small cannes, platters, spoones, lanthornes,” etc. The swabbers’ duties were to wash and keep clean the ship. But the first man that was found telling a lie every Monday was indicted of the offence at the mainmast and placed under the swabber to keep the beak-head and chains clean. The sailors were the experienced mariners who hoisted the sails, got the tacks aboard, hauled the bowlines, and steered the ship; while the younkers were the young men called “foremast men,” whose duty it was to take in topsails, furl and sling the mainsail, and take their trick at the helm.

In those days the custom of dividing a ship’s company into watches was already in vogue. “When you set sayle and put to sea, the Captaine is to call up the company; and the one halfe is to goe to the Starreboord, the other to the Larboord, as they are chosen: the Maister chusing first one, then his Mate another, and so forward till they bee diuided in two parts.” In those days the reckoning by tonnage was far from reliable as indicating the true size of a ship. Columbus, after his second voyage across the Atlantic, writes to Captain Antonio de Torres of the ship Marigalante, and refers to the freighting of ships by the ton “as the Flemish merchants do,” and this, he suggests, would be a better and less expensive method than any other mode. But when after the capture of a prize the division of shares was made, it was to the advantage of the crew to make the tonnage as big as possible. The custom was to allot the share in proportions. The ship took a third, the victualler took another third, and the remaining third was divided up among the crew. Of this latter third the captain received nine shares, the master seven, and so on down to the boys who had one share, and there was a reward given to the man who first descried the sails of the ship ultimately captured. A reward was also paid to the first man who rushed on board the enemy.

According to Monson, every man and boy was allowed 1 lb. of bread a day and a gallon of beer a day, viz. a quart in the morning, a quart at dinner, a quart in the afternoon, and a quart at supper. On flesh-days each man could have 1 lb. of beef or else 1 lb. of “pork with pease.” Flesh-days were Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. The other days were fish-days, and on these every mess of four men was allowed a side of salt fish, “either haberdine, ling, or cod,” 7 oz. of butter, and 14 oz. of cheese. Fridays were excepted, for on these days they had but half allowance. Monson was naturally prejudiced against the Spanish ships, which he accused of being badly kept—“like hog-sties and sheep-coats”—and of giving an allowance of diet far too small. Every man cooked for himself and there was no discipline, although they carried more officers than the English ships. In the latter the captain inspected his ship twice a day to see that she was kept sweet and clean “for avoiding sickness,” but the holds were so badly ventilated, dark, and smelly, the beer was so frequently bad, the food so often putrid, and the crew themselves so lacking in habits of cleanliness, that scurvy, dysentery, and other diseases frequently broke out and men died in large numbers. One has only to look through the logs of some of the Elizabethan voyages of discovery to see this for oneself.

In addition to the officers already mentioned must be given two more. These were first the ship’s chaplain, who celebrated the Holy Communion on Sundays, read prayers two or three times on week-days, preached, and visited the sick and wounded. And secondly a trumpeter, who blew on his silver instrument when the ship went into action, at the changing of the watches, and at the coming and going of a distinguished guest. His place was on the poop, and it was customary for “himself and his noise to have banners of silk of the admiral’s colours.” The watch was set at eight, and so on through the night and day. When on these occasions the trumpeter sounded his blast he was to “have a can of beer allowed for the same.”

And now that we have got some idea in our minds of the details of the seaman’s life on board an Elizabethan ship, let us be rowed off from the shore in one of her three boats which is bringing water and wood and provisions. The good ship is lying to her anchor in the roadstead about to get underway. Transport yourself, then, in imagination to that epoch when England’s seamen made such wonderful history, and endeavour to believe that the cock-boat actually bumps up alongside the English galleon. You clamber up the ship’s side and find yourself on her deck, where the crew are standing about ready to hear the commands of the master. And now let us watch them get under way. I shall quote not from fiction of to-day, but from an account written by an Elizabethan, this same Captain John Smith, as he wrote it for the edification of young seamen.

“Bend your passerado to the mayne-sayle, git the sailes to the yeards, about your geare on all hands, hoyse your sayles halfe mast high, make ready to set sayle, crosse your yeards, bring your Cable to the Capsterne. Boatswaine, heave a head, men into the tops, men upon the yeards. Come, is the anchor a pike? Heave out your topsayles, hawle your sheates. What’s the Anchor away? Yea, yea. Let fall your fore sayle. Who’s at the helme there? Coyle your cable in small slakes. Hawle the cat, a bitter, belay, loufe (= luff), fast your Anchor with your shanke painter, stow the boate. Let falle your maine saile, on with your bonnets and drablers, steare study before the wind.

“The wind veares, git your star-boord tacks aboord, hawle off your ley sheats ouerhawle the ley bowlin, ease your mayne brases, out with your spret-saile, flat the fore sheat, pike up the misen or brade (= brail) it. The ship will not wayer, loure the maine top saile, veare a fadome of your sheat. A flown sheate, a faire winde and a boune voyage! The wind shrinks. Get your tacks close aboord, make ready your loufe howks (= luff hooks) and lay fagnes, to take off your bonnets and drablers, hawle close your maine bowline.

“It ouervasts. We shall have wind. Sattle your top sailes, take in the spret sayle. In with your topsayles. Lower your main sayles, tallow under the parrels, in with your maine sayle, lower the fore sayle. The sayle is split, brade up close all your sayles, lash sure the Ordinances, strike your top masts to the cap, make them sure with your sheepes feete. A storme, hull,47 lash sure the helme a ley, lye to try out drift.48 How capes the ship? Cun the ship, spoune before the winde. She lusts, she lyes under the Sea. Trie her with a crose jacke, bowse it up with the outlooker. She will founder in the Sea, runne on shore, split or billage on a Rocke, a wracke. Put out a goose-winge, or a hullocke of a sayle.

“Faire weather! Set your fore sayle. Out with all your sailes. Get your Larboard tackes aboord, hawle off your Starboord sheats, goe large, laske, ware yawning. The ship’s at stayes, at backe-stayes. Ouer-set the ship, flat about, handle your Sayles, or trim your sayles. Let rise your tacks, hawle of your sheats. Rock-weede, adrift, or flotes! One to the top to looke out for Land. A ship’s wake, the water way, the weather bow, weather coyle. Lay the ship by the Ley, and heave the lead, try the dipsie (= deep-sea) line. Bring the ship to rights, fetch the log-line to try what way shee makes. Turne up the minute glasse, observe the hight. Land, to make land, how beares it. Set it by the Compasse. Cleare your leach-lines, beare in, beare off, or stand off, or sheare off, beare up.

“Outward bound, homeward bound, shorten your Sailes, take in your Sailes, come to an Anchor under the Ley of the weather shore, the Ley shore, nealed too, looke to your stoppers. Your anchor comes home, the ship’s a drift, vere out more Cable. Let fall your sheat Anchor, land locked, mo(o)re the ship. A good Voyage, Armes, arme a skiffe, a frigot, a pinnace, a ship, a squadron, a fleete. When you ride amongst many ships, pike your yards.

“To the boat or skiffe belongs oares, a mast, a saile, a stay, a halyard, sheats, a boat-hook, thoughts (= thwarts), thoules (thole-pins), rudder, irons, bailes, a trar-pawling or yawning, carlings, carling-knees, for the David (davit), the boates-wayles, a dridge. To row a spell, hold-water, trim the boate, vea, vea, vea, vea, vea, who saies Amen, one and all, for a dram of the bottle?”

Impressionist-writing you describe all this? Yes, certainly. But it has the effect, has it not, of conveying just what we are attempting, a general idea of the life of Elizabethan sailors at sea? “Many supposeth,” writes this same author, “any thing is good enough to serve men at sea, and yet nothing sufficient for them a shore, either for their healthes, for their ease, or estates, or state.” ... “Some it may bee will say I would have men rather to feast than fight. But I say the want of those necessaries occasions the losse of more men than in any English fleet hath bin slaine in any fight since (15)88: for when a man is ill sicke, or at the poynt of death, I would know whether a dish of buttered Rice, with a little Cinamon and Sugar, a little minced meate, or roast beefe, a few stewed Prunes, a race of greene-ginger, a flap Jacke, a can of fresh water brued with a little Cinamon, Ginger and Sugar, be not better than a little poore John, or salt fish, with oyle and mustard, or bisket, butter, cheese or oatemeale pottage on fish dayes, salt beefe, porke and pease. This is your ordinary ship’s allowance, and good for them are well, if well-conditioned, which is not alwayes, as seamen can too well witnesse: and after a storme, when poore men are all wet, and some not so much a cloth to shift him, shaking with cold, few of those but will tell you a little Sacke or AquvitÆ is much better to keepe them in health, then a little small beere or cold water, although it be sweete.”

The sea literature of the Elizabethan period is rich in illustrations of the ways employed. Shakespeare, whom some critics verily believe to have been a sailor—so unfailingly accurate are his numerous sea terms—here and there, and especially in “The Tempest,” reflects a good deal of the life on board ship. In such logs as the voyages of the great Arctic explorer John Davis, there is many a nautical expression that cannot fail to arrest our attention. And in order to complete the impressionistic sketch of Captain John Smith, permit me here to bring to the reader’s notice some of the phrases which I have collected from other sources of this period.

There were various expressions used to mean heaving-to: thus “strake suddenly ahull” to signify “suddenly hove-to.” So also “tried under our maine course, sometimes with a haddock of our sail,” as Davis has it, or “a hullocke of a sayle,” as Smith expresses it. Perhaps it was thus that the synonym “try-sail” originated, signifying a small handkerchief of canvas with which to lie comfortably hove-to. “The third day being calme, at noone we strooke saile, and let fall a cadge anker.” “Cadge” is spelt “kedge” nowadays. They used to “let slippe” their cables—made of hemp—from the “halse” or hawse-pipe. But sometimes “the cable of our shut (= sheet) anker brake.” “For the straines (= strands) of one of our cables were broken, we only road by an olde junke!” (Junk is still sailor’s slang for worn-out rope.) In those days when there was no such thing as telegraph or post, when ships traversing the ocean were so few as unlikely to meet except rarely, months and years went by without news of mariners. But sometimes when an outward-bound English ship met a fellow-countryman homeward-bound, an effort was made to send letters back. There was an instance of this during Davis’s third voyage when two days out from Dartmouth. They met the Red Lion of London sailing home from Spain. So they hailed the latter and asked her master to carry letters back to London. “And after we had heaved them a lead and a line, whereunto wee had made fast our letters, before they could get them into the ship, they fell into the sea, and so all our labour and theirs was also lost.”

Happily there still exists the “Traverse-Booke,” which Davis made during his third voyage, when he set out to discover that north-west passage which was only found in the present decade by Captain Roald Amundsen, who also was the first to reach the South Pole. And I cannot believe that even a brief extract of Davis’s sailing will fail to be of the greatest interest to modern seamen, whether amateur or professional. I have therefore thought fit to append the following, which covers the first nine days beginning from the time when his little fleet of three, consisting of the “barke” Elizabeth, the “barke” Sunneshine, and the “Clincher” Helene, weighed their anchors and set sail from Dartmouth.

A Traverse-Booke made by M. John Davis in his third voyage for the discoverie of the North-West passage, Anno 1587.

The phrase “lay upon the lee” is just another way of saying they hove-to. “A leake of 500 strokes in a watch” was identical with saying that they had to work the pumps to that number in such a period. It should be added, further, that by “elevation of the pole” is, of course, meant the ship’s latitude.

Some of the vessels of the sixteenth century were terribly slow creatures. There was a nickname given to those lethargic coasters which, because they could not do much against the current and had to proceed from one roadstead to another and there anchor till the tide turned, were known as “roaders.” No one who has made himself familiar with their long and trying voyages could ever accuse the Elizabethan seamen of cowardice in bad weather. Once, Davis relates, when his ship was fighting her way through a storm, her mainsail blew right out of her; whereupon the master of the ship crept along the mainyard, which had now been lowered down to the rails, and gathering the sail as it was hauled out of the sea, gallantly fought with it and succeeded in bending it again to the yard, “being in the meane while oft-times ducked over head and eares into the sea.”

The reader will remember just now in the extract from Smith the expression “she lusts” for “she lists.” Among hundreds of our English seamen in this twentieth century “lust” is still used to mean “list.” Smith, as we saw, also wrote “spoune before the wind.” Davis, too, related that “we spooned before the sea,” the exact meaning being that they drove before the gale under bare poles. The latter also uses the expression “a mighty fret of weather” to mean “a mighty squall.” Those who are familiar with the language of the fishermen on the north-east coast of England will call to mind their word “sea-fret” to denote a fog approaching the land.

Few nautical words are so well known to us as “skipper.” Before the sixteenth century was ended the Dutch seamen had fraternised a good deal with the sailors of England. The Low Countries were fast becoming great shipbuilders and navigators, and not unnaturally some of their phrases began to be used by our men. The Dutch word to this day which is used to mean captain is still “schipper,” and among the English seamen at the end of the sixteenth century the equivalent “shipper” was employed to refer to the same personage. There were other slang phrases prevalent, such as a “light-horseman” to mean a fast-pulling gig. So also Davis speaks of a “trade” wind to mean regular and steady. “The wind blowing a trade,” he remarks. But some of these phrases employed by seamen of those days are a little less obvious. “Tressle-trees,” for example, might puzzle many a modern sailorman. “This night we perished our maine tressle-trees, so that wee could no more use our maine top-saile.” These trestle-trees were just a couple of strong pieces of wood, or of iron, and were fitted one on either side of the lower masthead so as to support the heel of the topmast. Such expressions as “ground-tackle” are as frequently employed to-day as then, but over and over again we find that a ship “came roome,” “bare roome with her,” to mean that the former came to leeward, put up her helm and bore away.

Anxious as he naturally was concerning a thousand matters, the life of the captain at sea was many degrees happier than that of his crew. At least he had a decent cabin and bed in which to sleep and take his meals and sip his punch, otherwise known as “Rosa Solis,” consisting of brandy, spices, and hot water. But the seamen’s comforts were disgracefully neglected, with the result that they died in dozens. Some more humane captains such as John Smith did their best for the men; but this was exceptional. And yet it was a thoroughly unsanitary age. Davis himself admits that many of his crew were “eaten with lice” as big as beans. Monson includes among the causes of the discouraging of seamen the inexperienced commanders who were put over them, the bad victuals which they had to endure, the dishonesty in serving them—the beef, for instance, given so that five men had to partake of four men’s allowance—and the delay which was made in paying their wages. Especially were these abuses noticeable during the early years of the seventeenth century. Men were impressed into the service even in those days, though there were volunteers as well. At the time of the Armada our sailors received as wages fourpence a day, but this was paid quarterly. In addition, of course, there was sometimes prize money in the proportions already mentioned. In Monson’s time complaint was made of the kind of foremast men who were pressed into the service “to pleasure friends.” Such men as “taylors, porters, and others of that rank, unworthy of the hatches to lie on,” were brought aboard and given no less than £1 11s. a month. And yet, when opportunity allowed, the captain used to send his crew ashore in the ship’s boats “to walk in the fields ... to take the air.” But among the officers there was too much “excessive banqueting on board” and a great waste of powder, as, for instance, when guns were fired at the drinking of a man’s health.

And the same authority has something very interesting to tell us concerning the ceremonial wearing of the flag on board ship. I have no intention of confusing our chronological sequence, but I must ask the reader for a moment to recall that incident which was one of the indirect if not the real causes of the first Anglo-Dutch wars. It will be remembered—which English schoolboy does not remember it well?—that when Captain Young, one May Day in 1652, was bound down Channel and met a convoy of Dutchmen coming up, he was angered to find the foreigner declined to salute, and an engagement immediately followed. Now, writing long before that incident had ever occurred, Monson definitely states that if a foreign fleet should pass on our seas and meet our admiral’s ship, the former were expected to acknowledge our sovereignty by coming under the lee of the admiral, by striking their topsails and taking in their flag. “And this hath never been questioned,” he adds, except out of ignorance, as in the case of Philip II, when he met the Lord Admiral of England when the former was sailing to England in order to marry Queen Mary. The custom was that if any foreign ship were to arrive in one of our ports or to pass a fort or castle, she must, as she entered, and before coming to anchor, take in her flag three times “and advance it again.” But should the English admiral be in the harbour, the foreigner was not to display his flag at all.

Prior to the reign of James I, all admirals wore the St. George’s flag at the topmast head. But when the Union of Scotland had been effected there was added the cross of St. Andrew. An admiral at anchor took in his flag in the evening and fired a gun and set the watch. “The flag carried under the poop of a ship,” he remarks, “shews a disgrace,” and is never used except when it is won or taken from an enemy.

Jealousy of Spain and greed of gold had as much to do with the impetus given to English seamanship and navigation during Elizabethan times as any inherent love of the sea. To meet this new zeal various writers, some of whom we have already mentioned, set to work to write treatises that would turn raw agricultural labourers and tavern-haunters into fighting sailors and navigators. William Bourne, from whom we have already quoted, in his “Regiment for the Sea” was the first to give a book on navigation written by an Englishman. This was in the year 1573, and a rare example of this little work is still preserved in the British Museum. In it he pointed out the various ways for finding the variation of the compass, exposed the errors of the plane charts, and advised mariners in sailing towards high latitudes to keep their reckoning by the globe, as in those regions the plane chart was most likely to land them into trouble.

In 1594 John Davis, the Arctic explorer, published his “The Seaman’s Secrets.” This book became very popular, and took the place of the Spanish Martin Cortes’ handbook, which had been used in the English translation. There is a vast amount of matter in Davis’ “Secrets” which is worth perusing even by the modern navigator. He speaks of “great Circle navigation,” and gives a whole host of valuable practical hints. “The Instruments necessarie for a skilfull seaman,” he explains, “are a Sea Compasse, a Cross staffe, a Quadrant, an Astrolabe, a Chart, an instrument magneticall49 for the finding of the variation of the Compasse, an Horizontall plaine Sphere, a Globe, and a paradoxall Compasse”50 ... “but the Sea Compasse, Chart and Crosse staffe are instruments sufficient for the seaman’s use, the astrolabie and quadrant being ... very uncertaine.” In this book he gives instruction as to tides, stars, and how to use the astrolabe. And it is worth noting that he speaks of the English Channel after the fashion of our Gallic neighbours, who still refer to “La manche.” “Our Channell,” he explains, “commonly called the Sleue” (sleeve).

Everyone knows that longitude is the distance east or west of a given meridian. In those days Greenwich did not enter into the matter: the observatory there had still to be founded. When Davis wrote in the year 1594 there was no variation at St. Michael’s in the Azores, and so the longitude was reckoned from there. “Longitude,” he defines, “is that portion of the Equator contained betweene the Meridian of S. Michel’s, one of the Assores, and the Meridian of the place whose longitude is desired: the reason why the accompt of longitude doth begin at this Ile is, because that there the compasse hath no variety.”

Be it remembered, also, that it was Davis who improved the cross-staff and superseded the clumsy astrolabe for taking meridian altitudes at sea. It was commonly spoken of as Davis’s quadrant, and was afterwards improved by Flamstead with the addition of a glass lens. Subsequently it was further improved by Halley, and as such was used almost exclusively till the year 1731, when it was in turn superseded by Halley’s quadrant. When we read again the entrancing narratives given in Hakluyt and elsewhere of the Elizabethan voyages into the unknown, let us note that reposing somewhere in the high poop of these ships there were most probably all the following instruments for navigating the trackless seas. There was a calendar, an astrolabe, a cross-staff, a celestial globe, a terrestrial globe, a universal horloge for knowing the hour of the day in every latitude, a nocturne labe for telling the hour of the night, one or more compasses, a navigation chart, a general map, and a printed chart.

Ship Designer with his Assistant.

This illustration belongs to the latter half of the sixteenth century, or the beginning of the seventeenth, and is among the Pepysian MSS. in Magdalene College, Cambridge. Pepys’ own title for this is “Fragments of Ancient English Shipwrightry.”