The lot of the modern seaman is of a vastly different order of things from that of the eighteenth-century sailor. Hardships though there may be in this twentieth century, yet they are not to be mentioned when we remember the hard-swearing, bullying days of Queen Anne. Morals, both ashore and afloat, were at a particularly low ebb; irreligion and blasphemy were rampant. On board ship there was very rarely Divine worship, even on the large East Indiamen, although this neglect was certainly contrary to orders. But the managers themselves, in order to save the expense of having to carry a chaplain, used to rate their big ships as of only 499 tons, and so keep themselves within the law.

One of the most interesting personalities of this period was William Hutchinson, who for some time was a famous privateer. As an instance of the kind of tyrannical captains of his day, he mentions one whom he remembered in the Jamaica trade. The latter used to make his ship a veritable floating hell for all concerned. He was an excessive drinker, he was a notorious gambler, always seeking a quarrel, and much addicted to heavy swearing. He never got the best out of his people, for the reason that when he was not maltreating his men he was damning his officers. If during a heavy squall the officer of the watch offered to take in sail or to bear away, this virulent skipper would regard such a suggestion as an act of piracy. And yet he himself was so heedless of what was prudent, that he would sometimes run his ship before the wind and carry on till she was overpressed and could not be controlled by the helm. And there came a time when this skipper and his ship put forth to sea and never came back at all.

Hutchinson wrote one of the most interesting books on seamanship which it has ever been my pleasure to read. His complaint was that too many men were so devoted to the methods which they had been accustomed to, that they could not be prevailed upon to try others which were better. There certainly was a good deal of ignorance about in this eighteenth century. Some men, he says, endeavour to make ships perform impossibilities, as, for instance, backing their craft astern to clear a single anchor when the wind is right aft against the windward tide; or trying to back a ship with sails so set as to prevent her shooting ahead towards a danger when laid-to; or driving broadside with the wind against tide, not knowing that a ship driving on either tack will always shoot forward the way her head lies, in spite of any sail set aback. He complained, too, of the neglect of sea officers’ education. One may add that the only training which naval officers received at this time was by going to sea. They came from the shore to the quarter-deck and picked up what knowledge they could. It is true that, in 1727, George II established a Naval Academy at Portsmouth. But it was a very exclusive institution, and open to only a few of the sons of the nobility and gentry. Therefore it languished through neglect before very long, but in 1806 was raised to the dignity of a Royal Naval College.

The eighteenth-century midshipman of the Royal Navy was a man of low social standing. His age varied from ten to forty-five, the older men having been promoted from before the mast. Mere boys, who knew but little about the ways of a ship, and in any case had had but little training, were given the rank of lieutenant. The country had so much fighting on hand that it badly needed men. Forty thousand men were voted in 1705, justices of the peace being authorised to seek out seamen and deliver them to the press-gangs. Whilst penalties were threatening for those who concealed seamen, rewards were held out to those who should discover and help to arrest them. Landsmen being eligible, it was not surprising that a raw, incompetent lot of gaol-birds had to do service for their country on the seas. But they were not even healthy of body. One has only to read Anson’s “Voyage Round the World.” Among the men that were sent to him by the authorities, thirty-two out of one batch of 170 were straight from the hospital and sick-quarters. Of the soldiery he was to carry, all the land forces that were to be allowed him were 500 Chelsea pensioners, consisting of men invalided for age, wounds, or other infirmities.

But there were some very fine fellows in two branches of the merchant service. Hutchinson calls attention to these: “Those seamen in the coal and coasting trade to the city of London, are the most perfect in working and managing their ships in narrow, intricate, and difficult channels, and in tide ways; and the seamen in the East India trade are so in the open seas.” “The best lessons for tacking and working to windward in little room,” he remarks elsewhere, “are in the colliers bound to London, where many great ships are constantly employed, and where wages are paid by the voyage, so that interest makes them dexterous.” The mainmast of such craft stood further aft than was customary. Therefore they had a strong tendency to gripe, and so they often used their spritsail and all head sail for going to windward and making them manageable. In narrow channels, when the wind was blowing so strongly that all hands could not haul aft the fore sheet, this had to be done by the capstan. These little brigs had no lifts to the lower yards, no foretop bowlines, but short main bowlines, and snatch-blocks for the main and fore sheets. The main braces led forward so that the main and maintop bowlines were hauled and belayed to the same pin. “We have ships,” he says, “that will sail from six to nine miles an hour, upon a wind, when it blows fresh and the water is smooth, and will make their way good within six points of the wind, in still water, a third of what they run by the logg.”

The accompanying illustration shows the well-known manoeuvre of boxhauling, which Hutchinson was most anxious to teach his brother seamen. For the benefit of the non-nautical reader, I may explain that this is a method of veering a ship when the sea is so bad that she cannot tack, and is dangerously near the lee shore. Boxhauling, insisted Hutchinson, is the surest and best method of getting a ship under command of helm and sails in a limited space. “There is a saying amongst seamen,” he adds, “if a ship will not stay you must ware her; and if she will not ware, you must box-haul her; and if you cannot box-haul her, you must club-haul her—that is, let go the anchor to get her about on the other tacks.” Every maritime officer to-day has written across his mind in imperishable letters the five L’s—“log, lead, look-out, latitude, and longitude.” In Hutchinson’s day the sailor had only three of these, and he quotes the great Halley as emphasising the importance of the three L’s—lead, latitude, and look-out. For the difficulty of the longitude was still unsolved.

Briefly, the history of this problem is as follows. Longitude is, of course, the distance which a ship makes east or west. These eighteenth-century navigators had their quadrant for finding their latitude, and they used the log-line, log-ship, reel, and half-minute glass to tell them roughly and inaccurately the distance sailed by the ship. These, by the way, were kept stowed in the “bittacle” (binnacle), which in those days was a wooden box arrangement containing a compass on each side with lights in between. There were usually two of these “bittacles” on board, viz. one for the steersman and one for the “person who superintends and directs the steerage,” says Moore, “whose office is called conning.” The accompanying illustration will indicate quite clearly the appearance of an eighteenth-century “bittacle.” Throughout history all sorts of efforts had been made to do for longitude what the quadrant and cross-staff had done for latitude. The great voyages of discovery in the early sixteenth century had especially given this research an impetus. In 1530 and again in 1598 a means had been sought. Philip III of Spain offered a thousand crowns to him who should discover the instrument for finding longitude. All sorts of prizes were offered by different Governments at different dates. The States of Holland held out an offer of 10,000 florins. The melancholy wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovel on the Scillies with his squadron caused the English Parliament, in 1714, to offer £20,000 for any method which could determine the longitude. Two years later the French Government offered 100,000 livres, and so the impetus continued without avail. The whole civilised world was crying out for something which no scientist could give.

And then, in 1765, the English prize was at last won by John and William Harrison, who were able to make instruments most suitable for this purpose, and received the £20,000. This was that invaluable little article the chronometer, which means so much to the modern mammoth steamships. Dr. Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, had, in 1754, discovered the method of finding longitude by lunar observations on shore. After navigators at last began to employ chronometers the dawn of modern methods had already occurred. In 1767 came the first publication of the “Nautical Almanac,” Hadley’s quadrant was made known in 1731, and the sextant in 1761. Perhaps, as the sailing masters in the Navy had to provide their own nautical instruments, there was not such an incentive to accustom themselves to new methods as might otherwise have been the case.

Till the time when Hadley’s quadrant was adopted, masters had always stuck to Davis’. The ship’s time was still kept by half-hour glass. The quartermaster, when the sand had run down, capsized the glass again and struck the ship’s bell—on eight occasions during the watch. All the different courses sailed during a watch of four hours were marked by the quartermaster on a circular disc of hard wood. This was called a traverse board, and thereon were marked the different points of the compass. On the line of each point radiating from the centre were eight little holes, just as one sees in a cribbage-board. One at a time, pegs were placed into these holes to register the various courses sailed in every watch. And then, later on, the courses were entered on a log-book or slate, and the course and distance made good reckoned out.

I have not been able to find any authority which would settle the date when wheels for steering a ship were first invented; but I am convinced that it was somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth century. Hutchinson, whose “Practical Seamanship” was published in 1777, speaks of the steering wheel in the following terms: “The great advantages experienced from steering a ship with this excellent machine has occasioned it to become more and more in use; even small ships that have their tillers upon deck frequently now steer with a wheel.” And he states that most of these wheels have eight spokes, though large ships have a ten-spoked wheel.

The Newcastle colliers, of which we were speaking just now, had anything but good charts to guide them, and their methods of coasting are certainly worth noting. About two-thirds of their voyage from Newcastle-on-Tyne to the Pool of London will be found to have consisted of navigating in the region of dangerous shoals. And yet in that eighteenth century, even though they had not a really reliable chart between them, hundreds of these little brigs used to sail backwards and forwards between the metropolis and the north with scarcely ever a shipwreck. Indeed, so few were the losses that the owners very rarely had their craft insured. That meant that they could afford to carry their coal, iron, timber, hemp, flax, or whatever it might be, at low freights. There was keen competition to get their goods first to market, and some very sportive passages were made. The last of these interesting old craft, so cleverly handled, so fascinating as they must have been to watch, I believe ended her days in a North Sea gale not very long since.

Hutchinson’s enthusiasm for these is infectious. He has no literary power of expression, but in the plain, staccato language of a hard merchant sailor and privateer he makes one jealous of the sights which he saw with his own eyes and can never be seen again. There is not to-day—certainly as regards British waters—any such craft as a brig, unless there is one small training ship still cruising about Plymouth Sound. But in his day one sometimes saw a fleet of 300 of them all turning to windward, having every one of them come out of the Tyne on the same tide. The sight of so many fine little ships crossing and recrossing each other’s bows so quickly, and with such little room, made a distinguished Frenchman hold up his hands, and remark “that it was there France was conquered.”

In going through such shallow and narrow channels as Yarmouth Roads the fleet collected themselves for mutual safety. In the absence of good charts and efficient buoyage—it was not till 1830 that the singular distinction of producing the worst charts passed away from England—it was essential to use great caution in such strong tideways. The procedure was, therefore, as follows: The fleet being now together, each ship had a man in the chains heaving his lead. He sung out the soundings loud enough for his neighbours to hear. This happened in every ship; so that those vessels announcing shoal water would be recognised as getting too near the sands; that other bunch of craft declaring consistently deeper water would be in the channel, and the rest could follow their lead. In this manner the best water was always found.

Anyone who has navigated up or down the Swin Channel at the entrance to the Thames Estuary knows that the region is full of shoals, made still more dangerous by the strong tides which set athwart them. In clear weather the excellent modern buoyage makes the passage easy. But in the eighteenth century, and in thick weather, when the fleet from Newcastle came to the Swin, they hoped to have a head wind, and not to be able to lie their course. Why? Well, they smelt their way by continuous soundings, and if they were beating to windward they would find as they prolonged each tack the water began to shoal; it was then time to ’bout ship, and they stood on the other tack till the shallow water warned them once more. But if they had had a fair wind and been able to keep straight on, they ran the risk, they said, of getting piled up on the wrong side of the sand-spits in some swatch-way. Therefore the fleet adopted clever tactics. The lesser draught ships endeavoured to wait till the bigger vessels passed ahead. The former would then follow close behind, knowing that if the largest craft could float, so also could they. But when the bigger ships found the water shoaling, they, too, would let go anchor and let the smaller ships go ahead. Then the tide having flooded still more, and the small fry having been observed to be all right, up came the cables and the procession went on its way. It was just because these vessels had to experience such a great deal of anchor work that they held the record of any ships afloat for breaking out their hooks with their windlass in the shortest time. Whenever an ex-collier’s crew shipped aboard another vessel, it was found that the windlass needed half the men to do the work.

Those were the days of real seamanship of all kinds and sorts, so we can afford in these modern times to admire a lost art. “Nice managers of sloop-rigged vessels,” says this fine old skipper, “turning to windward in narrow channels, when they want but little to weather a point, rather than make another tack, have a practice of running up in the wind till the headway ceases, then they fill again upon the same tack; this they call making a half board.” But Hutchinson had no great faith in “weather-glasses,” and even doubts “their being of any great service to seafaring people.” However, he does admit that on one occasion he had warning of an approaching storm in the English Channel from Tampion’s portable barometer. About seventy sailing ships had got under way from the Downs with a moderate south-east breeze. In the morning the quicksilver fell from 29½ inches to 28½. He had all his small sails up, and ordered all hands to set to work and take in the small sails and lower the t’gallant yards. About eight in the evening the storm came on, the ship being now abreast of the Lizard, the wind having shifted to south-south-east. Suddenly it flew round to north-north-west, blew very strongly, and though he had no canvas aloft except the foresail in brails, yet it laid the ship more down on her broadside than ever he had known her. Later on they passed a ship bottom upwards, which had obviously foundered in the same squall.

Hutchinson, who himself preferred squaresails cut deep and narrow rather than shallow and broad, alleging that thus they stood better on a wind, opined that because of this superior shape the colliers and timber-carriers already mentioned sailed so well and required so few hands. And we get just a brief reference to the hardy Liverpool pilots of those days. Perhaps the reader is aware of the heavy sea which gets up among the sands at the mouth of the Mersey, and that in those waters it was and is often a most difficult undertaking to put a pilot on board an incoming ship. In such weather that it was impossible for the pilot-sloop to get alongside the incoming ship the two craft would get as near to each other as they dared, and then the bigger craft would throw a small line aboard the sloop, which the pilot would quickly hitch round his body, leap overboard, and so be pulled on board—more drowned than alive, one would have thought. Sometimes the incoming craft would veer out a rope astern which the sloop would pick up, and the same business followed as before. But even the Liverpool pilots were not so brilliant as those whose duty it was to take ships out from the Tyne across the treacherous bar, when sometimes they were compelled to let the ship lie almost on her beam ends so as to float out into the North Sea without hitting the shoals at the river’s mouth.

We have not much room to deal with the glorious fights of the privateers of those days. Those who are interested in the subject will find what they require in Captain Statham’s “Privateers and Privateering.” But we cannot pass on without at least a reference to these adventurous craft. Handsome enough were the prizes which sometimes they gained; but many were the times they failed for the reason that, after some years of peace, their crews were undisciplined and untrained. But about the middle of the eighteenth century improvements had been made in the metal, the casting and the boring of the cannon, which were now made not quite so heavy, and therefore of less inconvenience to a ship. Bags of horsehair were employed for protection against musket shot, whilst a rail, breast high, was affixed each side with light iron crutches and arms and netting to hold the men’s hammocks and bedding long-ways. Rope shakings and cork shakings, too, were also employed as a further protection from the enemy’s fire. But the powder that was served out in those scandalous days was often enough disgustingly weak and lacking in velocity.

In the golden days of the privateer, so soon as she had got out to sea all hands would be called to quarters and officers sent to their stations; there would be a general exercise of guns and small arms, everything made ready for action, and the general working of the ship thoroughly well drilled. Chasing and fighting had been brought down to the condition of a fine art, and there were recognised tactics according as to whether your opponent were as big, bigger, or smaller than yourself. If your enemy were your superior, it was better not to bring your ship right alongside, but, before the attack opened, get on his weather quarter, luff your ship into the wind with the helm alee, until your after lee gun, which you fired first, could be pointed on to the enemy’s stern. Then batter away with your lee broadside. They endeavoured also to rake the enemy fore and aft with their biggest guns as they passed, their object being, if possible, to smash the rudder head, the tiller, tiller ropes and blocks—in fact, to destroy any of the steerage tackle so that the ship might become unmanageable, and thus readily fall into the hands of the privateer.

One or two devices which have since passed away, but were in use during the eighteenth century, may be mentioned before we pass on. I wonder how many “seamen” now serving on steamships would know what “fothering” meant? It was a device that in the days of the old wooden sailing ships saved both lives and ship on more than one occasion. This was an ingenious means of stopping a leak below the vessel’s water-line when at sea and unable to beach or dry-dock. It was employed at least once during Captain Cook’s voyages at a critical time after the ship had struck on a rock, and the sea was pouring in so fast that the pumps were of little avail. Moore, in his “Midshipman’s Vocabulary,” published in 1805, describes the method as performed by fastening a sail at the four corners, letting it down under the ship’s bottom, and then putting a quantity of chopped rope-yarns, oakum, wool, cotton, etc., between it and the ship’s side. By repeating this operation several times the leak sucks up a portion of the loose stuff, and so the water ceases for the most part to pour into the ship. Hutchinson also mentions that once when cruising the step of their foremast carried away in a gale of wind, and made so great a leak that pumping was little good. They were far from the nearest land, and matters were critical; so they unbent the spritsail, stitched it over one side with oakum, then with ropes to the clews and ear-rings they applied it to the leak, and so effectually stopped the hole that before long the pumps had freed the ship of water.

There is nothing new, apparently, even in sea-sayings. Probably there is not an officer to-day in the Merchant Service who has never heard the maxim, “Better to break owners than orders.” Well, Hutchinson knew this phrase, and used it not for trading, but for privateering. The owners’ orders were usually “to proceed with all possible expedition to the designed station to take prizes.” And he had a very ingenious device, which, if I mistake not, was actually resurrected and tried with modifications in Southampton Water three or four years ago. Hutchinson’s idea was to scrub ships’ bottoms while at sea instead of having to bring them to dock or careen them. He had himself used this new method, which could easily be performed while at anchor or on the ocean in a calm. The device consisted of a frame of elm-boards enclosing a couple of 10-gallon casks with square spaces each side filled with birch-broom stuff that projected and was to come in contact with the ship’s bottom. To use this a block was lashed under the bowsprit, and another at the stern on the driver boom. A single rope was rove through these blocks just long enough to haul the scrubber, which did its work fore-and-aftwise underneath the ship.

The accompanying illustration may seem to the reader a fanciful picture, but it is nothing of the kind, and was made from a sketch done on the spot. In this will be noticed a ship with no fewer than thirty different sails. Hutchinson declares that in a light air—when he needed all the canvas he could spread—he turned to windward with all the sail drawing. As an ingenious piece of seamanship it is worthy of note, and surpasses the achievements of the clippers with their reputation for skysails and moonrakers. He speaks of the sail on the aftermost mast as the mizzen, and that curious-looking canvas right at the stern as a large driver with a light boom to make it set properly. There were two tail blocks at the outer end thereof, lashed to the rail; and in order that it might set better a bowline was attached. Below this will be observed the strange sight of a water-sail aft as well as forward. It was really a foretopmast stuns’l, and was hauled out to the end of the boom of the driver. As an example of what an ingenious skipper could do to get way on his ship in light airs, I think this illustration will be impossible to beat.

There is an interesting volume entitled “A Mariner of England,” which gives an account of the career of a William Richardson, who from cabin boy rose to the rank of warrant officer between the years 1780 and 1819, a record that gives one a real insight into the life of a seaman at that time. When he joined H.M.S. Minerva, in 1793, as a bluejacket, there were no slop-chests, but the purser at stated periods served out as many yards of dungaree as were required to each man for jackets, shirts, and trousers. Needles and thread were also served out, and then the men made the garments for themselves. He gives you, also, some idea of the mismanagement that went on; the crews made up of raw, ignorant, and stupid men, commanded by a young post-captain who only three or four years ago had been midshipman. In tacking and wearing, however, the strictest discipline was enforced. Not a word was allowed to be spoken; only the voice of the commanding officer was to be heard on those occasions, and the boatswain’s pipe was just loud enough to be heard. Swearing was checked by putting down the names of the delinquents on a list, and these men were subsequently punished with seven or eight lashes at the most. The launch was stowed on the main deck under the booms; and on certain nights a lantern was hung up on deck, and a fiddler seated on the topsail-sheet bitts, and there would be dancing for those who cared.

The reader will remember we called attention some time back to those spritsails which seem so curious to us moderns. They were also known as “water sails” and as “Jimmy Greens,” both appellations being due, obviously, to the unhappy knack they possessed of scooping up the sea. They are now long since obsolete, but they were retained for a long time for veering the ship’s head round to leeward in the event of her foremast being shot away. But they were also used even when the foremast was standing—both on a wind and off. If on a wind the yard could be topped, and the sail could also be reefed diagonally.

When Hood sent his dispatch to the Controller of the Navy announcing the victory of the British fleet at the Battle of the Saints in 1782, he made reference to some of Rodney’s signals, e.g. for a general chase; to steer more to starboard or port; to shorten sail; to set more canvas; and if the admiral should wish to order his ships to cease firing, “the white flag at the fore topgallant masthead, before dark, calls every ship in.” There were also night signals in use in the Royal Navy about this time. Thus, for instance, when the admiral wished to order his fleet to unmoor and ride short he hung out three lights, one above another, in the main topmast shrouds above the “constant” light in the maintop, and fired two guns, which were answered by the flagships, each private ship hanging out a light in her mizzen shrouds. So also when the signal was being given to weigh anchor, the admiral hung out some light on the maintopmast shrouds and fired a gun, which was answered by the flagships and private ships as before.

Apart altogether from the unsatisfactory kind of seamen which often made up the crews of the English Navy, matters were far from ideal among their officers. There was a spirit of decadence even here. When Benbow was sent to the Spanish Main to seize Cartagena, and fell in with the French, his own captains disobeyed orders, kept out of action, and allowed Benbow to fight the enemy practically single-handed. Similarly, when Matthews was in the Mediterranean attacking the combined Spanish-French fleets, he was basely betrayed by Lestock, who kept astern out of action. As the result of an inquiry, not only was Lestock not punished, but Matthews, who happened to sit in Parliament on the side of the Opposition, had his name struck off the Navy List. There are, unfortunately, too many instances of this kind of thing on record during this century. Some were loyal and straightforward, but none the less inefficient. The captains, wrote Admiral Keppel to Lord Hawke in August, 1778, “are indeed fine officers, and the ships are fine. Some of them, indeed, want more experience in discipline to do all that can be expected from them, but a complete fleet cannot be formed in a day. Our greatest want is petty officers, and that deficiency is general.” And then, you will remember, all the discontent among the seamen culminated in the year 1797, when a series of mutinies broke out. The first was at Spithead, when Lord Bridport was about to take his fleet to sea. He had made the signal to unmoor, when suddenly every ship’s company gave three cheers and refused to go until their pay was increased. They made one exception, however; if the French fleet were out then they would put to sea to fight them, otherwise they declined to go. Lieutenant Philip Beaver, who was serving on the Monarch, writing to his sister two days after this event, admits that with one exception all the crews behaved “with great prudence, decency, and moderation ... and obey their officers as before in the regular routine of ship’s duty—saying that they are not dissatisfied with their officers or the service, but are determined to have an increase of pay, because it has not been increased since the time of Charles the First, and that everything since that period has risen 50 per cent, that no attention had been paid to their petitions.” Eventually the statements of the men were found to be well substantiated, and they were pardoned. But there was another mutiny on May 7; six days later another broke out at the Nore, and in the same month among the men of Admiral Duncan’s fleet off the Texel, and even in Jervis’ fleet off Cadiz.

In no respect is the canker of the eighteenth century better shown than in the condition of tactics displayed by the admirals of this time. During the Anglo-Dutch wars, many a valuable and wholesome lesson had been learned by the English Navy, but the Battle of Malaga in 1704 showed that instead of tactical progress being made, the age had become—to quote an apt expression of Admiral Mahan—“the epoch of mere seamanship.” As soon as inspiration deserts art, we all know how valueless becomes mere technique. It was much the same with eighteenth-century tactics. There was not a breath of inspiration; it was a period of formality, of stiff insincerity both ashore and afloat. The curse of our policy in fighting naval battles was the fetish of the cast-iron tactics which no officer dared to modify. It was not till Hawke came swooping down that these lifeless, formal affairs began to improve. Till his time there was far greater respect for the letter than the spirit of tactics, so that a naval battle between the English and her enemy was just this: the English fleet came along in line-ahead, and then each ship laid herself alongside the corresponding ship of the enemy’s line, with the result that there was a series of duels.

Hawke’s idea was not that, but to concentrate his whole force against a part of the enemy’s fleet, and this idea was carried out by Rodney, when he defeated the French at the Battle of the Saints in 1782. It is true that the signal book then in use in the Royal Navy, plus the inefficient state of the service generally, caused Rodney’s signal to be misunderstood. But it turned out better than it might have done. In medieval times, the great idea was to lay your ship aboard the other ship and fight her to a finish. Then, the reader will remember, came the Cromwellian period, which altered all this. But instead of continuing this progress, the eighteenth century actually reverted to the medieval method, and this was the practice against which Hawke and Rodney set their faces determinedly.

In the matter of tactics, as in shipbuilding, the French were decidedly our superiors. And our officers—or, at any rate, those who were keen and zealous for the service—recognised this. “I believe you will, with me, think it something surprising,” wrote Captain Kempenfelt to the Comptroller of the Navy, “that we, who have been so long a famous maritime power, should not yet have established any regular rules for the orderly and expeditious performance of the several evolutions necessary to be made in a fleet. The French have long since set us the example.... Oh, but ’tis said by several, our men are better seamen than the French. But the management of a private ship and a fleet are as different from each other as the exercising of a firelock and the conducting of an army.... The men who are best disciplined, of whatever country they are, will always fight the best.... In fine, if you will neither give an internal discipline for your ships, nor a system of tactics for the evolutions of your fleet, I don’t know from what you are to expect success.... We should, therefore, immediately and in earnest set about a reform; endeavours should be used to find out proper persons, and encouragement offered for such to write on naval tactics, as also to translate what the French have published on that subject. They should also enter into the plan of education at our marine academies.” The date of this letter was January 18, 1780, and in saying what he did Captain Kempenfelt was placing his finger on the real point of the matter.

It was two years after this that John Clerk published his “Essay on Naval Tactics.” British officers of this period had a supreme contempt for book learning, just as the simpler sort of seaman has to-day. But it was not till Clerk published the above book that officers began to change their mind. Up till now works on tactics had been French. Clerk’s was the first volume on this subject in the English tongue. It is not too much to assert that this completely revolutionised British naval tactics, and that to its teaching were largely due the victories of Rodney, Howe, Duncan, and St. Vincent. And the interesting fact was that it was written not by an officer, but by a layman; not by a seaman, but by a Scotch laird. Those who are attracted by the subject of tactics will find much in this book that is instructive, even though steam and steel ships and our present-day weapons never entered into Clerk’s contemplation. And the numerous plans criticising actual contemporary sea fights will be found most helpful to a complete understanding of the nautical events of this period.

One of the most memorable battles in the whole of our naval history was that which is known as the “Glorious First of June,” 1794. The tactics which Howe employed on this occasion are interesting, because, although he formed his fleet in line-abreast, and was able to disable the enemy’s rear, forcing their van and centre to break away to support their rear, yet there was such a ship-to-ship mode of attack that it may seem to have been a reversion to the olden days of medievalism. But the reason for this was that Howe was well aware that, crew for crew, the English were superior to the French. The result proved that his belief was well grounded, for at this time the crisis in the British Navy had just passed, the improvement in tactics had taken place, and the decadent ebb had already run its course.

The kind of fighting instructions which had been issued by Russel in 1691 and continued till after the Battle of the Saints in 1782, was superseded very shortly after the latter date. It was Lord Howe who made this change, so that the basis of the new tactical code was no longer the Fighting Instructions, but the Signal Book. Instead of the signals being secondary to the instructions, the position was now exactly reversed. In 1790 these fighting instructions took a second form, in the shape of a new code of signals, and upon this tactical system were based all the great actions of the Nelson period. The code continued until the year 1816, when an entirely new signal book appeared, which was based on Sir Home Popham’s code, the latter having been in use for a number of years for “telegraphing.” It was Popham’s code that was used for making Nelson’s famous signal at Trafalgar.

Howe’s tactics at the Glorious First of June were illustrative of the ideas which were then rooted in the minds of British admirals. By sailing in line-abreast instead of adhering rigidly to the eternal line-ahead, Howe showed that he was conscious of the modern progress in tactics. But there his appreciation ended. For, as you peruse the events of this battle, you find that the rest of the contest became confused and haphazard, the British admirals throwing over the lessons of Clerk and employing just their own ideas and initiative. The credit of the Battle of St. Vincent belongs to the daring of Nelson in taking upon himself a heavy responsibility when he saw that Jervis had made a tactical mistake. We have no room to deal with this here; but I wish to remind the reader that the line-head formation was that adopted by Jervis. Just before the battle, when he perceived how the Spaniards were disposed in two divisions, he resolved to pass between them in single line-ahead, separate them thoroughly, and then concentrate on the one division which was much larger than the other. Thus, clearly, he belonged to the same school of tacticians as Rodney and Howe.

It was in the middle of the reign of George II that a regular uniform was first adopted for the officers of the English Navy. Hitherto they had worn the same kind of clothes which their contemporaries wore in the streets ashore. Every man dressed in the manner he preferred. But in the year 1747 the question of a uniform colour and pattern was being discussed when the King himself settled the point. It happened on this wise. A certain admiral had been sent to the Admiralty on an entirely different matter by the Duke of Bedford, who was then First Lord. He was ushered into an apartment surrounded by various dresses, and was asked to state which of these he considered the most appropriate; to which the admiral answered that he thought blue or red, or red and blue, since these were our national colours. “No,” replied the Duke, “the King has determined otherwise; for having seen my Duchess riding in the Park a few days ago, in a habit of blue, faced with white, the dress took the fancy of His Majesty, who has appointed it for the uniform of the Royal Navy.”52 Since that time, as the reader is aware, these two colours, blue and white, have remained the colours of our Navy, although the cut of the clothes has altered from time to time.

We alluded just now to the introduction of wheels on board sailing ships, and endeavoured to fix the date as approximately the middle of this century. The following account of the Great Storm on November 27, 1703 (in which no fewer than thirteen men-o’-war were lost, many more seriously damaged, and the Eddystone lighthouse destroyed), shows that tillers, as in Elizabethan days, were still used, and the wheel not yet invented. The following is the autograph report by Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, commanding a squadron of eight ships in the Downs. The fact that the ships drifted all the way from the Downs to the Galloper (in the North Sea) gives some indication of the fury of that autumn hurricane. This dispatch is among the MSS. preserved in the British Museum:—

“On Saturday last soone in the morning wee had a most miserable Storme of Wind, which drove us to some Streights, for after wee had veerrd out more than three Cables of our best bower that Anchor broke, soon after our Tillar broke, and before we could secure our Rudder it broke from our Sterne, and has shaken our Stern Post that we prove very leakey, and had our four Chaine Pumps and a hand Pump goeing to keep us free. We lett go our Sheete Anchor, and veered out all the Cables to it, butt that did not ride us, butt wee drove near a sand called the Galloper, of which we saw the breach; I directed the Maine Mast to be cutt by the Board, after which we ridd fast. Of eight Ships that came out of the Downes four are missing, the Association, Russell, Revenge, and Dorsettshire; pray God they drove cleare of the sand....

“P.S. I doubt it has farr’d worse with the four Ships that have drove away than it has done with us: I have some hopes that some of them have drove to Sea; but if so they are without Anchors or Cables and may be without Masts: I judge it will be of Service if some Frigg^t were sent out to looke for them.”

And yet there was at least one ship which had the wheel invention in the year 1747. In Hawke’s dispatch to the Secretary to the Admiralty, recording the action off Rochelle, in August, 1747, after relating that he kept his wind as close as possible so as to help the Eagle and Edinburgh, which had lost her foretopmast, he relates that “this attempt of ours was frustrated by the Eagle’s falling twice on board us, having had her wheel shot to pieces.” We may, therefore, fix the date of the first steering wheel as not earlier than 1703, and not later than 1747.