The only danger attaching to a fine achievement is lest the next may appear insignificant by its side. The dramatist who has created a splendid climax has little to fear except that his effect may be utterly spoiled by some anti-climax. Transfer the simile to the region of wars, and how often all through history do you not notice that part of the grandeur has been robbed by the number of ex-fighting men who, no longer needed for the safety of their country, find themselves at a loose end? There has scarcely been one recorded war that has not shown the soldier and sailor almost happier in fighting than in surviving.

So it was, then, that after all those years of fighting on sea, after all those expeditions towards the West Indies and Spain, after the Armada fights and lesser campaigns had at last brought settled peace to our land, there was no employment for those numerous crews which had fought with such zest and daring. And so they turned their minds to something else, according to their circumstances. “Those that were rich rested with that they had; those that were poore and had nothing but from hand to mouth, turned Pirats; some because they became sleighted of those for whom they had got much wealth; some for that they could not get their due; some that had lived bravely would not abase themselves to poverty; some vainly, only to get a name; others for revenge, covetousness, or as ill; and as they found themselves more and more oppressed, their passions increasing with discontent, made them turne Pirats.”

So wrote Captain John Smith in his “Travells and Observations.” “The men have been long unpaid and need relief,” wrote Hawkyns to Walsyngham on the last day of July, after they had succeeded in driving the Spanish Armada out of the English Channel, and his own gallant crew had fought like true sailormen. “I pray your Lordship that the money that should have gone to Plymouth may now be sent to Dover.” “The infection is grown very great in many ships,” wrote Howard, three weeks later to Elizabeth, “and is now very dangerous; and those that come in fresh are soonest infected; they sicken one day and die the next.” And so we can easily understand that after all these privations and disappointments the ill-treated bands of seamen drifted into piracy as the most profitable life and profession.

Even during Elizabeth’s time there were, of course, plenty of these rovers in the English Channel, the most notorious of whom was a man named Callis, who cruised about off the Welsh coast. For companions he had a man named Clinton and one whose surname was Pursser. These gained great notoriety until the Queen had them caught and hanged at Wapping. And there was a man named Flemming, who was as big a rascal and as much “wanted” as the others; but inasmuch as he performed a fine deed for his country and was a patriot more than a pirate, he received not only his pardon, but a good reward as well. For he was roving about in the Channel when he discovered the great Spanish Armada sailing up. Then, heedless of the fact that his own country was anxious to see him dead, he sailed of his own accord into Plymouth, hastened to the admiral, and warned him of the momentous sight which his own eyes had beheld.

Afterwards there still remained some few pirates, so that it was “incredible how many great and rich prizes the little barques of the West Country daily brought home.” But now, after peace had come and the men who had fought the Spaniards were not needed, they betook themselves to help the Moorish pirates of Tunis, Algiers, and the north coast of Africa, and many became their captains. There they were joined also by the scum of France and Holland, but very few Spaniards or Italians came with them. Some were captured off the Irish coast and hanged at Wapping: others were pardoned by James I. They wandered in their craft north and east; to the English Channel, Irish Sea, and the Mediterranean, causing panic everywhere; and this notwithstanding that they had against them warships sent out by the Pope, the Florentines, Genoese, Maltese, Dutch, and English. There were seldom more than half a dozen of these piratical craft together, and yet they would invade a seaside town, carry off property and persons, attack ships and confiscate their freights with the greatest impudence. But after a while factions grew, and “so riotous, quarrellous, treacherous, blasphemous, and villainous” a community became “so disjoynted, disordered, debawched, and miserable, that the Turks and Moores beganne to command them as slaves, and force them to instruct them in their best skill.” It was after these pirates had committed frightful atrocities as far north as Baltimore, carried away men, women, and children into slavery and been a terrible menace to shipping, that James I’s navy performed the only active service of his reign when it was sent in 1620 to the Mediterranean. However, though it contained six royal ships and a dozen merchantmen and was away from October to the following June, yet it did little good as a punitive expedition. It was not until 1655 that Blake settled the Tunisian pirates, set fire to all the nine ships of the enemy, and came out of the harbour again with but small loss. And though even in this twentieth century the north coast of Africa still possesses a few pirate ships which have been known to attack a sailing yacht when becalmed, yet ever since Admiral Lord Exmouth, in August, 1816, with a small fleet of British and Dutch warships, exterminated the pirates at Algiers, silenced their five hundred guns, captured the Dey of Algiers, and released twelve hundred Christians, this relic of medieval piracy has been practically non-existent in European waters.

If the sixteenth century forms the climax of English seamanship, it is the seventeenth century which unfortunately is the anti-climax. Abuses crept into the Navy, so that by the year 1618 a complete reorganisation had to be undertaken, and the bribery, embezzlement, and general corruption had to be stopped so far as was possible. And yet, for all that, there was still being made important progress both in navigation and in shipbuilding. John Napier, in the year 1614, provided his tables of logarithms, which simplified the intricate calculations of navigators. In 1678 was published “The Complete Ship-Wright,” by Edmund Bushnell, which I believe to be the earliest treatise on shipbuilding printed in English. The way the London shipwrights were wont to measure their ships was as follows: They multiplied the length of the keel “into the breadth of the ship, at the broadest place, taken from outside to outside, and the produce of that by the half breadth. This second product of the multiplication they divide by 94 or sometimes by 100, and according to that division, 60 the quotient thereof, they are paid for so many Tuns.”

For example, take the case of a ship 60 feet long and 20 feet broad:—

But, says this same writer, the true way to measure must be by measuring the body and bulk of the ship underwater. He also gives some of the rule of thumb standards to which they worked. For instance, the mainmast of small ships was three times as long as the breadth of the ship. Thus the ship just mentioned with a beam of 20 feet would have a mainmast 60 feet high. The topmast, in like manner, was two-thirds the length of the lower mast in all cases. The mainyard was two-thirds of the mainmast plus one-twelfth of the mainmast.

There is an illustration in “The Mariner’s Jewel,” by James Lightbody, published in London in the year 1695, that shows the method which was employed in launching a ship at that time. It is demonstrated that the vessel was allowed to rest her weight on a cradle and then hauled into the water by means of a crab winch. As there was a paucity of dry docks in those days it was usual, when any painting of, or repairs to, the bottom of a ship had to be carried out, to careen the ship. She was hove down on one side by a strong purchase attached to her masts, the latter having been properly supported for the occasion to prevent their breaking under so great a strain. This was in vogue until about the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the custom of sheathing ships with copper, and thereby keeping a clean bottom for several years, superseded careening.

There is many an item in Lightbody’s work which is worth our notice. He tells us that can buoys were employed in those days “for shewing of danger,” and stuns’ls were already in use on board ship. They still used the word “davids” for “davits,” and employed a drabler to lace below the bonnet of the squaresails. “Drift-sail” was the name still given to a species of sea-anchor, which was used for riding by in heavy weather. The “sail” was veered right ahead by sheets, he says, to keep her head right upon the sea. Old hawsers were made up into fend-offs. The heavy guns were hauled out by means of a guy from the foremast to the capstan. A ship’s bottom was graved with a mixture of tallow, soap, and brimstone, which preserved her caulking and made her fast. There was a rope called a horse which was made fast to the foremast shrouds and spritsail sheets to keep the latter clear of the anchor-flukes, for in those days, as one can see from old prints, the anchor was stowed at the side of the ship close to the foremast shrouds.

Monson’s “Naval Tracts” are full of information regarding the seaman’s life at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He tells us that there were shipyards in his time at Chatham, Deptford, Woolwich, and Portsmouth; and that every time a ship returned from sea the Surveyor’s duty was “to view and examine what defects happen’d in the hull or masts.” The Grand Pilot was “chosen for his long experience as a pilot on a coast, especially to carry the King’s great ships through the King’s channel, from Chatham to the narrow seas: as also for his knowledge to pass through the channel called the Black Deeps.” As to the life on shipboard, “first and above all things you are to take care that all the officers and company of ships do offer their best devotion unto God twice a day, according to the usual practice and liturgy of the Church of England.” During a fight, if a ship chanced to receive damage near her bilge the leak was to be stopped with salt hides, sheet lead, plugs, “or whatsoever may be fit.” To guard against the worm eating into the wood, one way was to sheathe the hull with an outer plank and then burn the upper plank “till it come to be like a very coal in every place, and after to pitch it.” Ships of 400 tons were built of 4-inch planking; ships of 300 tons had 3-inch; small ships had 2-inch, “but no less.”

The system of signalling in vogue during the first half of the seventeenth century was of three kinds. By day topsails were lowered and raised. By night lights were shown: while the shooting of ordnance was used both by night and day. At night, too, an admiral showed two lights on his poop, the vice-admiral and rear-admiral being some distance astern, and each with one light on the poop. Every morning and evening the vice- and rear-admirals manoeuvred their ships so as to speak with the admiral and take their instructions, weather permitting, and then fell back into line again. If an admiral went about on the other tack at night, he fired a cannon and showed two lights, one above the other, and the rest of the fleet were to make answer. If he was forced to bear round, the admiral showed three lights on his poop, and the other ships replied with the same. If he shortened sail in the night for foul weather, he showed three lights on the poop one above the other. If in foul weather the ships of the fleet lost company and afterwards came in sight of each other, then “if in topsail gale, you shall strike your foretopsail twice; but if it be not topsail gale, you shall brail up your foresail and let it fall twice.” There were no fog-horns in use at this time on ships, but in thick weather they made a noise with a drum, trumpet, or would ring a bell and sometimes shoot off a musket. One man was kept continually on watch at the topmast head.

A gunner had to provide himself at sea with powder, shot, fire-pikes, cartridges, case-shot, crossbar-shot, etc., and a horn for powder, priming iron, linstocks, gunner’s quadrant, and a dark lantern. The types of guns now in use consisted—reckoning from the largest to the smallest—of the cannon royal, cannon, cannon serpentine, bastard cannon, demi-cannon, cannon petro, culverin, basilisk, demi-culverin, bastard culverin, saker, minion, falcon, falconet, serpentine, and rabanet. The cannon royal had a bore of 8½ inches, shot a 66-lb. shot a distance of 800 paces; whilst the rabanet had a 1-inch bore, shot a 1-lb. shot 120 paces.

A capital ship of the time of James I carried two guns in the gun-room astern and two in the upper gun-room, which was “commonly used for a store-room, lodgings, and other employments for a general or captain’s use, and his followers.” Above these two gun-rooms was the captain’s cabin, with the open galleries astern and on the sides. Fowlers and the smaller guns were thrust out from here.

The author of “The Light of Navigation,” published in 1612, remarks that among other things the “seafaring man or pilot” ought to know how to reckon tides, “that he may knowe everie where what Moone maketh an high water in that place, that when he would enter into any Haven or place, where he can not get in at lowe water, then he may stay till it be half flood.” He ought to know also the direction of the tide, and complains that some “upon pride and unwillingnes, because they would keepe the art and knowledge to themselves,” “will not suffer the common saylers to see their work.”

In the seventeenth century the lieutenant was still not necessarily a seaman. He was a well-bred gentleman, knowing how to entertain ambassadors, gentlemen, and distinguished visitors received on board. He was capable of being sent as a responsible messenger to important personages, and was, in short, of far more use as a social instrument than as a naval officer. During the Commonwealth soldiers again became sea-commanders, and the names of Blake, Monck, and Popham will instantly leap to the mind. Up till the time of Charles II the sea service had not always enjoyed the dignity of being deemed a profession worthy of gentlemen. There were, of course, exceptions; but as a general rule this was the case. But, thanks to the example of the Duke of York, afterwards James II, the Navy during the time of his brother Charles II became fashionable—too fashionable, in fact; for numbers of gentlemen got themselves promoted to the rank of ship’s captain while knowing very little indeed about ships and their ways. One has only to read through some of Mr. Pepys’ remarks to appreciate this unfortunate condition of affairs.

The reign of James II gave a still greater impetus to the English naval service. There was an improvement in administration and organisation generally, thanks partly to the personal inclination of James towards maritime matters, and partly to the lessons which he and others had learned during the Anglo-Dutch sea fights. But as to placing naval education on a sound basis, there was no such thing in England till the end of the Stuart period, although across the Channel the French were seeing to it that their sailors obtained not only a thoroughly practical, but also an adequate theoretical training. The English midshipman came aboard for his first cruise a complete landsman with no training. He managed to learn the rudiments of seamanship from the boatswain, and to get a smattering of elementary navigation; yet it was anything but a satisfactory training. There was little enough science in the sailor’s work, and hundreds of ships were wrecked through lack of proper instruments, until, in the year 1676, the founding of Greenwich Observatory enabled nautical astronomy to be developed to the great advantage of ships and men. Thanks to the English overseas colonies and the Newcastle colliers, to which Boteler refers in his famous “Dialogues,” published in 1685; to the numbers of other coasters; and last, but most important of all, to the long protracted Dutch wars which had taught many a greenhorn how to use the sea, there was a large and growing body of seamen, many of whose descendants were to fight under Rodney, Hawke, Jervis, Nelson, and other famous admirals at a later date.

At the end of the seventeenth century, captains in the Navy were being paid £1 10s. a month during the time of peace, but during war this was raised to £3. The idea of a naval uniform originated in France in the year 1669, but the practice of all grades of naval officers wearing uniform did not become general until the time of the first Empire. During the reign of our Charles II, ships of the English Navy carried as officers, captains, lieutenants, masters, pursers, surgeons, and chaplains. The seventeenth-century French Navy owed a very considerable debt to the far-sighted enterprise of Colbert, but directly it owed a very great deal to the labours of its chaplains, who instructed the pilots in their work and taught naval aspirants the mysteries of astronomy and navigation. During the first part of the seventeenth century the finest shipbuilders had been the Dutch, for, thanks to their East Indian and other colonies, Holland had every reason for building big ocean-going ships. No one in Spain, England, or France could for a time build ships like theirs. And so it was but natural that the zealous French went to Holland, lived there for some time in order to learn shipbuilding, translated the best Dutch authorities on this subject into French, and returned home to build on even more scientific lines. Therefore in the eighteenth century the French could build vessels as no one else in the world. It was from the latter, in turn, that the English at last acquired so much skill that the old rule-of-thumb methods of ship construction were for ever banished and the era of scientific shipbuilding entered upon. In such scientific matters as the improvement of gunnery, the log, the stability and better under-water design of ships, France led the way for those vast reforms which were subsequently to follow.

In the whole history of shipbuilding there is no name which stands out so prominently as Pett. From the time of Henry VIII right down till that of William and Mary, one or more members of this family were busy building ships for the State. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the finest and largest ship which had ever been in the British Navy was the Prince Royal, of 1200 tons. She was designed and built by Sir Phineas Pett, and her keel was laid down in 1608, and the first attempt to launch her was made on the 24th of September in 1610. Among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum is a quaint volume of a hundred and thirteen pages, entitled “The Life of Phineas Pette, who was borne Nov. 1^st, 1570,” and the account continues down to the year 1638. It is a curious record, in which the most intimate domestic matters are mixed up with the most interesting facts concerning the building of ships. For example: “In the beginning of August, I was summoned to Chatham with my fellow master shipwrites there to take a survey of the Navy according to the yearly Custom.... The 6th. of this Month of Aug^t. my wife was delivered of her 5th. son at Woolwich.”

However, this MS. attracts our attention, because it gives us a most interesting and detailed account of the way ships in England were launched only twenty-two years after the Armada was fought and vanquished. There is, I believe, in existence no such satisfactory a picture of the time-honoured ceremony of sending a ship for the first time into the water that is to be her abiding support. I will, therefore, ask the reader to be so good as to accompany me down to Woolwich a few days before the end of September in that year 1610. Here, at last, after two years’ worry, work, and anxiety, Pett has finished his master-work, the biggest craft which even a Pett had ever fashioned. Even to-day, as then, the shipbuilder feels never so much anxiety as the day on which the launching of a great ship is to take place. A hitch—a difficulty in persuading the ship and water to become acquainted—may spoil the labour of many a month, besides being a source of great depression to all concerned, from the builder downwards and upwards.

However, here we are arrived at the Woolwich yard, where the great Prince Royal is seen towering high above other craft, and the last touches are being given alike to the ship and to the arrangements, for Royalty are coming to grace the launching ceremony. There was a great “standing sett up,” Pett informs us, “in the most convenient place in the yard for his Majesty, the Queen and the Royal Children, and places fitted for the Ladies and Council all railed in and boarded.” All the rooms in Pett’s own lodgings had been “very handsomely hanged and furnished.” “Nothing was omitted that could be imagined anyways necessary both for ease and entertainment.” Pett had been round the dockyard on Sunday, September 23, and then in the evening came a messenger to him with a letter ordering him to be very careful and have the hold of the Prince Royal searched lest “some persons disaffected might have board some holes privilly an’ the ship to sink her after she should be launched.” Pett, however, was far too wide-awake not to have foreseen any such possibility.

On Monday morning, then, he and his brother and some of his assistants had the dock-gates opened. Everything was got ready for the approach of high tide and the time when the Prince Royal was to be floated. But matters were not going to be quite satisfactory. It was, of course, a spring tide, but unfortunately it was blowing very hard from the south-west, and this kept back the Thames flood so that the water failed to come up to its expected mark, and the tide was no better than at neaps. This was a great disappointment, for presently arrived the King and his retinue. Pett and the Lord Admiral and the chief naval officers received James as His Majesty landed from his barge, but it was with a heavy heart. The King was conducted to Mr. Lydiard’s house, where he dined. The drums and trumpets were placed on the poop and forecastle of the Prince Royal, and the wind instruments assigned their proper place beside them. But still the tide was behind-hand.

So Pett thought out a device. About the time of high water he had a great lighter made fast at the stern of the Prince Royal so as to help to float the latter. But it was of no avail, for the strong wind “overblew the tide, yett the shipp started, but yet the Dock gates pent her in so streight that she stuck fast between them by reason the ship was nothing lifted with the tide as we expected she should, and ye great lighter by unadvised counsel being cut of(f), the sterne of the ship settled so hard upon the ground that there was no possibility of launching that tide.” Furthermore, so many people had gone aboard the ship that one could hardly turn round. It was a terrible contretemps that the ship remained unyielding, for here were the distinguished visitors on board waiting. “The noble Prince himself accompany with ye Lord Admirall and other great Lords were upon the poope where the standing great guilt Cupp was ready filled with wine to name ye shipp so soon as she had been on floate according to ancient Custome and ceremoneys performed at such time by drinking part of the wine, giving the ship her name and heaving the standing cup overboard.”

But time and tide wait on no man, prince or shipbuilder. It was no use to expect a launch that day. “The King’s Maj^tie,” Pett adds sorrowfully, “was much grieved to be frustrate of his expectation comeing on purpose tho very ill at ease to have done me honour, but God saw it not so good for me, and therefore sent this Cross upon me both to humble me and make me to know that however we purposed He would dispose all things as He pleased.” Thus, at five that afternoon, the King and Queen departed. When the last guest had gone, Pett, pathetic but plucky, set to work with his assistants “to make way with the sides of the gates,” and, plenty of help being at hand, got everything ready before the next flood came up. The Lord Admiral had sat up all night in a chair in one of the rooms adjoining the yard till the tide “was come about the ship.” It was a little past full moon—when the tides, of course, are at their highest—and the weather was most unpropitious. It rained, it thundered and it lightened for half an hour, during which Prince Henry returned to the yard and went aboard the Prince Royal together with the Lord Admiral and Pett. It was now about 2 a.m., or an hour before high water. Another attempt was made to launch the great ship, and happily this time she sped into the water without any difficulty or the straining of screws or tackles. As she floated clear into the channel, the Prince drank from the cup and solemnly named the ship the Prince Royal. Thus, at length, this glorious ship that was to be so much admired presently with her fine carvings and decorations, with her elaborate figurehead at the bows representing her namesake on horseback, kissed the waters of the Thames. Soon, fitted with three lanterns at the poop and her yards and masts, her fifty-five guns and her spread of canvas, she would go forth to the open sea, the proudest ship flying the British ensign. But though this ship contained many of the improvements which had been made recently in the art of shipbuilding, yet there had been a scandalous excess of expense, for the Commissioners discovered that more than double the loads of timber had been used than had been estimated for.

It is undeniable that the Stuart seamanship was inferior to that of the Elizabethans. They could not handle their vessels with such dexterity as the contemporaries of Drake. The sailors who had not become pirates were not the equals of those who had fought against the Spaniards; and this for two reasons: firstly, the fisheries had become so bad as to discourage putting to sea; and, secondly, the voyages of discovery were now far fewer. As already stated, one of the happy results of the Anglo-Dutch wars was that they gave experience to inexperienced men. Often enough, too, as in the fleet that was sent in 1625 to Cadiz, the ships were leaky, cranky, and fitted with defective gear and the scantiest supply of victuals. Add to these drawbacks the incapacity of the officers and the diseases of the men, and you may rightly pity the lot of the sailor in those times. They were even put ashore at Cadiz fasting, so that they promptly filled their poor bellies with the wine of the country and became drunk.

Can you wonder, therefore, that during the Civil War, after there had been a series of mutinies during the reign of Charles I, the whole of the Navy, with the exception of one ship, deserted the royal cause as a protest against the bad food, the irregular pay, and the incapable officers? After that the victuals were improved, their wages were paid at a fair scale and with punctuality, and their affairs better regulated. But not even then were matters entirely satisfactory. As one reads through the correspondence of this period one can see that discipline was woefully lacking. Even Blake, keen disciplinarian that he was, found it necessary to write on the 1st of December, 1652, to the Admiralty Commissioners to the following effect soon after the encounter with the Dutch fleet off Dungeness: “I am bound to let your Honours know in general that there was much baseness of spirit, not among the merchantmen only, but many of the State’s ships, and therefore I make it my humble request that your Honours would be pleased to send down some gentlemen to take an impartial and strict examination of the deportment of several commanders, that you may know who are to be confined and who are not.” Captain Thomas Thorowgood—is not the surname suggestive of the Puritan period?—also wrote to complain that his crew had actually refused to accept their six months’ pay as being inadequate. “On Saturday night they were singing and roaring, and I sent my servant to bid the boatswain to be quiet and go to their cabins; but they told me they would not be under my command, so I struck one of them, and the rest put out the candle and took hold of me as though they would have torn me to pieces, so that I am almost beside myself, not knowing what to do.”

When Blake wrote to Cromwell in August, 1655, from on board the George, he complained of various matters. When he had wished to blaze away at the Spanish fleet there was a little wind “and a great sea,” so that he could not make use of the lower tier of guns. This arose from the old mistake of having the gun-ports too near the water’s edge. Furthermore, “some of the ships had not beverage for above four days, and the whole not able to make above eight, and that a short allowance; and no small part both of our beverage and water was stinking.” ... “Our ships are extreme foul, winter drawing on, our victuals expiring, all stores failing, and our men falling sick through the badness of drink and through eating their victuals boiled in salt water for two months’ space. Even now the coming of the supply is uncertain (we received not one word from the Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy by the last); and, though it come timely, yet if beer come not with it, we shall be undone that way.” Again he writes from the George, “at sea, off Lagos,” in 1657: “The Swiftsure, in which I was, is so foul and unwieldy through the defects of her sheathing laid on for the voyage of Jamaica, that I thought it needful to remove into the George.”

The importance of the Anglo-Dutch wars consists, inter alia, in the display of tactics that must now be mentioned, for this, if you please, represents the period of transition. We dealt some time back with the lack of tactics of the Elizabethan period, and saw that at least there was in existence a yearning after the line-ahead formation. The object of this is, of course, to enable each ship to fire into the enemy her very utmost, and give her opponent the benefit of a broadside. But it was not till the seventeenth century that this theory got a real foothold. Between 1648 and 1652 certain fighting instructions were issued for the English Navy, and may be summed up as follows: The fleet was not to engage the enemy if the latter should seem more numerous. On sighting the enemy, the vice-admiral and rear-admiral respectively were to form wings with their ships, to come up on either side of the admiral and to keep close to him. When the admiral gave the signal, each ship was to engage the hostile ship nearest to him, the admiral tackling the admiral of the enemy. Care must be taken not to leave any of their own ships in distress, and commanders of all small craft were to keep to windward of the fleet and to look out for fire-ships.

There was no instruction enjoining line-ahead as a battle formation, but it was understood, and when Blake had his first encounter with Marten Tromp the English ships formed into single-line ahead. So much for the moment with regard to tactics. What was the strategy displayed at the commencement of the Anglo-Dutch wars? Consider a moment what would most probably be that strategy employed by the British Navy to-day at the beginning of hostilities between ourselves and Germany. We should assuredly do three things: (1) We should close up the Straits of Dover and intercept German liners homeward bound. (2) That being so, the only possible chance of the enemy’s ships reaching their Fatherland would be to go round the north of Scotland: so we should have a squadron off the north-east coast of Scotland to thwart that intention. (3) And, lastly, we should send some of our warships across the North Sea to blockade German ports.

Now except for a comparatively slight coast erosion and the shifting of minor shoals, Great Britain in the twentieth century is geographically the same as in the seventeenth. Instead of a German enemy, imagine that Holland is the foe; instead of the German liners, substitute the Dutch Plate ships; instead of the modern steel steam warriors, substitute sail-propelled warships. Otherwise you have exactly similar conditions. The strategy is the same: only the century and the type of ships are different. For what happened? Ayscue with his squadron remained in the Downs to catch the Dutch Plate ships bound home to Holland. Blake was sent with sixty or seventy ships to the north-east of Scotland and captured a hundred of the Dutch fishing fleet, and then proceeded further north to intercept the Dutch merchantmen between the Orkneys and Shetlands. He then came in contact with the Dutch fleet and prepared for war, but a gale sprang up and dispersed Tromp’s ships. It was only the lack of good charts that made the English sea general reluctant to cross the North Sea into the shoal-strewn Dutch waters, though in fact they did cross later and blockade. Thus we may say that at any rate by the beginning of the first of these Anglo-Dutch wars there is the surest evidence that naval strategy was appreciated at its full value, and that it was modern and not medieval strategy.

And now let us pass to the year 1653, after the English fleet had come in from the English Channel to Stokes Bay for a refit. Important new orders were now issued which insisted that ships were to endeavour to keep in line with their chief so as to engage the enemy to the best advantage. When the windward line had been engaged, the English ships were to form in line-ahead “upon severest punishment.” Now please note two points: that this line-ahead tactic was not of foreign but English origin, and that following this order a general improvement in tactics followed. The second Dutch war showed the progress which had been made since the new type of Fighting Instructions had been issued. Earl Sandwich, the Lord High Admiral, had issued orders just a month before war was declared, to provide for the formation of line-abreast, and for forming from that order a line-ahead to port and starboard. The principle, too, of sailing close-hauled in single-line ahead is conspicuous after the Commonwealth period. During the first year of the third Dutch war still further progress was observed by the officers being instructed as to how they should keep the enemy to leeward and how to divide the enemy’s fleet if the latter were to windward; and the regulations once more insisted on the commanders maintaining their line-ahead and avoiding firing over their own ships. Two distinct schools of tactics arose: one purely formal, the other allowing room for personal initiative as occasion suggested. In the end the former won, and this continued till the end of the eighteenth century.

There is among the seventeenth-century MSS. in the British Museum still to be found a great deal of interesting data which well illustrates the experiences of ships and men in these times. Notwithstanding the incompetency of some of the captains who owed their position less to their ability as seamen than to influence, yet there were others who had been at sea most of their lives and had had command of merchant ships for years. Such men as these were of the highest value to their country during the Anglo-Dutch wars. You will remember that battle off Portland in 1653, during the first Dutch war. Richard Gibson, who was purser on board the Assurance at the time, has left behind his reminiscences of this fight. In the beginning of February the English fleet was sailing from Dover down Channel with a fair easterly breeze. “Gen^rl Blake and Deane in the Tryumph, S^r John Lawson Vice Adm^ll of the Redd in the Fairfax, Cap^tn Houlding Rear Adm^ll of y^e Redd in the Ruby, Gen^rll Monck Adm^ll of the White in y^e Vanguard, S^r W^m Penn Adm^ll of the Blew in the Speaker (now named the Mary), and the Whole Fleet about 52 Saile spread their Colours of Redd White and Blew, and their Flaggs Ensignes and Pendants (as now) according to their Division of Squadrons, and Sayled to meet the Dutch Fleet.... Upon our first Sight of the Dutch all the English had their Starbord tacks aboard; Gen^rll Blake Espying the Dutch Fleet to bare down before the Winde upon him got his Shipp ready, haled his Main Sayle up the Brailes, and braced his foretopsaile to the Mast.... The Dutch Fleet in a Boddy bore downe upon the Generalls, and pressed upon the Tryumph with as many Shipps as could well lay about her. Upon which S^r W^m Penn Tacked and his Division with their larboard Tacks (as soon as they could) stood thorow the Dutch fleet one way: as S^r Joⁿ Lawson (with his division) did the other.... Upon which such of the English Friggotts as Sailed well Stered out of Gunn Shot of the Dutch Fleet to Windward on the larbord side, untill they had got a head of severall Dutch Shipps of Warr: then set their Starbord Tacks and stand right with them, and boarded the first Dutch Shipp they could.”

It seems strange to us in these modern days, when excellent and reliable charts can be had for a few shillings, to read in the official dispatch signed by Monck and Blake to Cromwell that they supposed they would have destroyed the Dutch fleet off the Lowland coast, “but that it grew dark, and being off of Ostend among the sandes, we durst not be to bold, especially with the greate ships; soe that it was thought fitt we should anchor all night, which we accordingly did about 10 of the clock.” The way these ships manoeuvred in battle so as to get to windward of their enemy was as pretty a sight as a fleet of racing yachts to-day manoeuvring for the same ambition at the starting-line. At the battle of Lowestoft in June, 1665, at sunrise, the Dutch fleet “bore up to V(ice) A(dmiral) Minnes, and gave him a broadside, who received them accordingly, and so,” says a Harleian MS. of that date, “their whole Fleet passed by ours, firing at every Ship as they went, and receiving returnes from them, not one of either side being out of play at their first encounter: immediately upon which his R(oyal) H(ighness) made his Signe of the Tacking, that we might still keep the wind of them, which was as happily executed, notwithstanding that the Ennemy also strove for it.”

Yet again we have proof of the importance which the English Navy attached to falling into line of battle. The occasion was the four days’ battle off the North Foreland in June, 1666. When de Ruyter’s fleet had been sighted to leeward, our “General calld immediately a Council of Flag officers: which being done, ye signe was put out to fall into ye ligne of batle ... about 1 of ye clock ye fight began, Sir G. Askue with ye white squadron leading ye van.” In the official report of the battle of Solebay (May, 1672), Captain Haddock, in command of Lord Sandwich’s flagship the Royal James, shows that orders during battle were sent by means of the ship’s boats. “I had sent our Barge by my Lord’s command ahead to Sir Joseph Jordaine to tack, and with his division to weather the Dutch that were upon us, and beat down to Leeward of us, and come to our Assistance. Our Pinnace I sent likewise astern (both Coxswains living) to command our ships to come to our Assistance, which never returned.” And there are other instances of falling into line, as, for instance, at the battle on the 11th of August, 1673. “His H(ighnes)s Pr. Rupert seeing us come with that faire wind,” says the Stowe MS., “gave us the Signall to beare into his wake.” And again in the evidence of the Dutch Rear-Admiral Schey at the court-martial on Torrington after the battle of Beachy Head: “On the 10^th, being Munday morning, y^e Admirall Torrington made a signe for y^e ranging ourselves in a line, and our fleete being got into a line, y^e signe for engaging by a bloody flag from y^e Admirall’s foretopmast head being putt up.”

We spoke just now of the absence of good charts. It was Charles II who, being himself greatly interested in navigation and finding that there were no sea charts of the British Isles except such as were Dutch or copies of the Dutch—and very erroneous at that—gave a man named Greenville Collins command of a yacht for the purpose of making a sea survey, “in which service,” says Collins, “I spent seven years’ time.” James II, himself a great admiral, encouraged this work till its completion, and so good and accurate were the charts that they were in active use at any rate till the end of the eighteenth century. As to the lighting of the coast, this was still in a very primitive condition. The first navigation light in this country was that of the Roman Pharos at Dover, a day-mark which mariners still see to-day as they come bound up Channel. In monastic times probably St. Aldhelm’s (better known as St. Albans) Head showed a light to warn ships from the land, and it is also thought that there was a light at Flamborough51 and in Flintshire. In 1685, Lowestoft, Dungeness, the North and South Forelands, Orfordness, Flamborough, Portland, Harwich, and the Isle of Man were all lighted by beacon fires of wood and coal. These coal fires continued in some of the lighthouses round our coast even till well into the reign of William IV. But the Argand lamp, which was invented during the reign of James II, gradually and surely took the place of the older-fashioned beacon. And if we may, whilst we are on the subject, anticipate a few years, we may add that though in William IV’s time lights were more numerous and the system of buoys was well established, yet lightships were practically non-existent. The first lightship dates from 1732, when Robert Hamblyn and David Avery established such a ship at the Nore.

We may pass now to consider the conditions which regulated the work of Stuart seamen on board one of the ships such as fought against the Dutch. We have to think of a type of warship that was nothing else than a slightly developed specimen of the Elizabethan period. The difference between the Tudor and Stuart ships at their fullest development is merely that the latter had become much bigger and carried additional sails and guns and crew. As a broad statement, this sums the matter up in the fewest words. Had you passed one of the biggest of the Stuart ships at sea you would have seen a three- and sometimes a four-masted craft with topsails and t’gallants above her courses. On such a ship as the Sovereign of the Seas, if we are to judge by a perfectly authentic engraving, royals were also set sometimes. On the mizzen you would have observed the lateen sail still in existence. What especially would have struck you would have been not merely the elongated beak, but the very long bowsprit. The sailors had to creep out along this spar, keeping themselves, by hanging on to a stay or spreader, from slipping into the ocean every time the vessel rose or fell to the motion of the waves. It was a pretty wet job to lay out along there in a breeze of wind when the beak-head was dipping well down into the sea every time she pitched and hurling a veritable cascade over them. There was one squaresail bent to a yard underneath the bowsprit, and this water-sail had a couple of round holes—one at either side low down near the foot—the object being to permit the water, which this low sail scooped up, to escape. The sheets of this sail led aft and came on board abaft the fore shrouds. In fine weather a bonnet was sometimes laced to this spritsail. But in these Stuart ships there was also a square spritsail hoisted on a sprit-topmast. To hoist this sail the men had, of course, to go right out to the extreme forward end of the bowsprit. Above this topmast flew the Union Jack.

A Seventeenth-Century First-Rate Ship.

Embarkation was made by means of the “Entring Port,” which is clearly shown amidships.