E. Keble Chatterton

At 6.30 A.M. in these East Indiamen the crew began to wash down decks, and an hour later the hammocks were piped up and stowed in the nettings round the waist by the quartermasters. At eight o’clock was breakfast, and then began the duties of the day.E The midshipmen slept in hammocks also, but the chief mate and the commander were the only officers in the ship to have a cabin of their own.

In no other ships outside the navy, excepting perhaps some privateers, was discipline so strict. The seamen were divided into two watches, the officers into three. The crew had four hours on duty and four hours off. There was always plenty of work to be done. After saying good-bye to the English coast cables had to be put away and anchors stowed for bad weather. Sails were being set, men were sent aloft to take in sail, and sheets and braces required trimming. The East Indiamen from the latter part of the eighteenth century had all been steered by wheels, and the accompanying illustration shows the wheel on board the East Indiaman Triton.

The rigging also had to be set up occasionally, and among the confidential signals to be used by these ships when proceeding in a convoy, you will find one which asks permission of the commodore to be allowed to heave-to and set up rigging. In addition, ballast sometimes required shifting, sails had to be repaired, leaks stopped, masts greased, new splices made and so on. This was in normal voyages: but in the case of bad weather there was much more besides.

DECK SCENE OF THE EAST INDIAMAN “TRITON.”
This contemporary sketch shows the wheel and mizzen mast and two gun carriages of an East Indiaman of 1792, and is used as a decorative heading to the ship’s list of signals employed when convoying.

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On Wednesdays and Saturdays the ‘tween decks were cleaned and holystoned. The origin of the word “holystoned” has been variously derived. To “holystone” is to rub the decks with sandstone or “prayer-books.” When ships, both of the East India Company, his Majesty’s navy and other craft, used to anchor in St Helen’s Roads (off Bembridge, Isle of Wight, facing Portsmouth) the place was found convenient for two reasons. There was a convenient dip-well close to the shore, which still exists to-day: and this water kept in wooden butts used to keep so well, and unlike much other water did not turn putrid when the ships had been at sea some time, that East Indiamen were actually known to have brought back some of it home quite fresh after being out to the East and remaining in the ship about a twelvemonth. But besides the excellent water, the men used to be sent ashore here to obtain sand for scrubbing the decks. One day it was discovered that there was nothing so good as a piece of the stone of the old St Helen’s Church, which had recently been abandoned, the relic of which survives to-day only as a sea-mark. In those sacrilegious days there was little respect for hallowed things, such as churches or graves, and before long every ship that came to these roads would send men ashore as a matter of course to fetch bits of the church and even gravestones in small blocks. The suggestion is that thus when the decks were rubbed with them the work was known as “holystoning,” and the blocks themselves called “Bibles” or “Prayer-books.”F

The men in these East Indiamen were divided into messes, of eight men, their allotted space being between the guns, where the mess-traps were arranged. The ‘tween decks had to be kept scrupulously clean, and were inspected by the commander and surgeon. No work was allowed to be performed on Sunday except what was necessary, though manuscript journals rather show that this regulation was not much respected. The crew were mustered in their best clothes, and then everyone that could be spared was present at prayers. Dinner was served at noon, and the passengers were given three courses and dessert, but without fish. There was plenty of wine and beer, and there was also grog at 11 A.M. and 9 P.M. Champagne was drunk twice a week. There was a cow carried, and later on the calf, which was always brought on board with its mother, became veal when the ship had crossed the line and was nearer India. In addition there were also ducks and fowls, sheep and pigs, so that the ship’s boats and decks were often mildly suggestive of a farmyard. The crew had grog served out to them at dinner-time and on Saturday nights, when the time-honoured custom of “sweethearts and wives” had not begun to die out. As we have seen from Addison’s journals the ceremonies of crossing the line were kept up, and Eastwick has instanced dances: and in addition theatricals were also given on board to relieve the monotony of the long voyage.

The men often employed their dog-watches to “make and mend,” or going through their sea-chests, games or amusements. On Saturday nights there would be songs and dancing. When they reached their Eastern port, the men would unload the ship themselves without the assistance of natives. And a ship in those days was far more independent of the shore than even a sailing ship is to-day. There were no better riggers in the world, and steel rope had not taken the place of hemp. We have seen from Addison that in China the crews of the Company’s ships rowed guard on Sundays among the ships in the harbour. The number of guns which these ships carried has been mentioned at various dates throughout these pages, and the men were drilled with about as much persistency as in the Royal Navy of that time. The mediÆval boarding-pike was still in use, and they were drilled also in musket, cutlass and other small-arms. Also quite naval fashion was the custom of holding courts martial on board, the members being composed of the captain and the four senior officers, the latter having always been sworn when the captain took his oath prior to the ship’s sailing from London. Discipline was strict even to harshness and cruelty, and punishments were sometimes inflicted for the merest trivialities. At the same time these crews were not as mild as a porcelain shepherdess, and they were a tough, virile, desperate class as a whole. The reader will recollect Addison’s entry in his journal that such and such a seaman was punished “with a dozen” for insolence or neglect. This punishment was inflicted over the bare back and shoulders by the brawny boatswain’s mate armed with a cat-o’-nine-tails, the victim being triced up by the thumbs. And when it was all over a bucket of salt water washed the blood away. Yes, these men were reckless, they were a coarse lot of dare-devils, they were ever ready to break all the laws and regulations which concerned them. They would desert or cheat his Majesty’s customs, knock a man down, drink far more than was good for them, yet for all that they were true seamen to their finger-tips, who could be relied upon to go aloft in all weathers, and the very fellows on whom you could rely when it was a question of nerve and pluck. In battle, stripped to the waist, they would fight with the utmost courage: and when punishment was whacked out to them they bore it like true sons of Britain.

They were kept fairly busy on board, yet as there were so many hands no one could justly complain of being overworked as in the case of the modern man-of-war. They had always plenty of food and grog, and they knew that if they were killed in the Company’s service their wives and dependents would be looked after.

As for the ships themselves, they were of course all built of wood. From roughly 1775 to well on into the nineteenth century they were not only rigged, fitted out, manned and handled like the contemporary frigates of the Royal Navy, but they were, in the first place, built after their model, with one exception. The East Indiamen were a fuller-bodied type, but the naval frigates, inasmuch as they were built for speed and not for cargo, could afford to have finer lines. A great deal of valuable room had to be wasted in the excessive amount of pig-iron ballast which these ships had to carry. To call them fast would not be truthful, but then there was no competition before the year 1814, and so there was little need to hurry, and they certainly were not driven. At the approach of night they snugged down, for there was no premium awaiting them, however fast they made the voyage. If, however, they endangered the ship or damaged the cargo they would not only incur the East India Company’s displeasure, but detract from their own privileges.

Therefore before darkness overtook them these ships would always take in their royals and fine-weather sails, and the royal yards would be sent down on deck. If bad weather threatened them t’gallantsails and mainsail would also be stowed, and a precautionary reef tucked in the topsails. Thus these vessels never made record-breaking runs, and were never given the opportunity of showing their fullest speed. Caution was the dominating factor, and not speed. In other words, the policy was the exact opposite of the clipper ships which were to follow: but then the clippers were built for speed, and not for fighting. There was in essentials very little difference between the hulls of the time of James I. and of the early nineteenth century, if we omit the somewhat elaborate external decoration which was peculiar to the Stuart times, and give the ships their later triangular headsails, staysails and a spanker instead of the old lateen mizen. The cumbrous hull was really but little modified. Built of English oak, elm, and Indian teak, copper-fastened throughout, the later ships of the Company were strong and well-found, with good spars, stout rigging and canvas. Sometimes they were built by the very men and on the very yard that had witnessed the building of the King’s ships.

One of the finest ships ever built for the Company was the famous East Indiaman Thames. Happily that great marine artist of the early nineteenth century, E. W. Cooke, sketched her in all her beauty, and the accompanying illustration shows how she appeared in the year 1829. This was a vessel of 1424 tons, with her general, massive appearance, the strength of her gear, the gun-ports, the decorative stern with its windows—the East Indiaman with all her striking characteristics of picturesque power. A boat hangs in davits on either quarter, the topsails are still single and very deep, with plenty of reef-points, but the hull is certainly unnecessarily cumbrous and clumsy—impressive rather than beautiful, strong rather than fine. But in any case she would have been a pretty tough proposition for a contemporary hostile ship to tackle, especially with such crews as she carried. Compared with her contemporary, the West Indiaman Thetis (which is here shown in the act of getting under way off the Needles), the Thames is a more powerful fighting ship. But the West Indiamen were essentially more suited for trade, and their capacity for cargo was very great. They were mercantile craft pure and simple.

One of the greatest disasters which ever befell any of these East Indiamen was the loss of the Kent. This was a fine new ship which had left the Downs on the 19th of February 1825. She was of 1350 tons, so very similar to the Thames. She was bound out to China, calling first at Bengal, and in her were travelling officers, troops, women and children of the 31st Regiment, as well as twenty private passengers and a crew of 148 officers and men.

Favoured with a fine north-east wind the Kent made, for her class of vessel, a quick passage down the English Channel, and on the 23rd was out in the Atlantic pitching to the swell. Interrupted occasionally with bad weather the stately ship pursued her way across the Bay of Biscay for another five days, when a heavy gale from the south-west sprang up, and the following morning the weather got worse: the fair wind which had brought them down Channel now headed them and tormented. The bigger sails were taken in, and others were close reefed. Topgallant-yards had to be struck, and so violent was the gale that by the morning of the 1st of March the vessel had to be hove-to under a triple-reefed main-topsail only. In other words, there was only the merest patch of canvas allowed on her.

She was rolling very badly, and life-lines were run along the deck for the whole watch of soldiers to hang on by. For the women and children below, matters were alarming and unpleasant in those cooped-up quarters. So heavily did the Kent roll that at every lurch her main chains were well below the water. Things were bad enough on deck, but below the furniture and other articles had broken away from their cleats and were being violently dashed about both in the cabins and the cuddy. In order to see whether everything was all right below in the hold, one of the ship’s officers went down with a couple of seamen, in case anything might have broken adrift and be endangering the hull. He took with him a patent safety lantern, but as the lamp was burning dimly he handed it up to the orlop deck to be trimmed. He then discovered that one of the spirit casks had got adrift, and sent the two men to get some wood to wedge it up. Soon afterwards the ship gave a heavy lurch, so that the officer most unfortunately dropped the lantern. In his eagerness to recover it he let go his hold of the cask, and there was a smash. Instantly the spirits reached the lamp and the whole of the afterhold was in a blaze.

Here was a terrible position: a raging storm outside and a raging fire within. Clouds of smoke came up the hatchway and were blown violently to leeward as the wind fanned the flames. The captain of the ship gave his orders, and both the seamen and the troops worked their very hardest with buckets, pumps, wet sails, hammocks—anything in fact that could be employed to put the fire out. But far from decreasing the conflagration was spreading, and smoke came up in volumes from all four hatchways. The captain now ordered the lower decks to be scuttled, the combings of the hatches to be cut, and the ports to be opened, so that all the sea possible might have a free entry. Meanwhile some of the sick soldiers, a woman and several children, unable to gain the upper deck, had perished.

As some of the passengers went below they met one of the mates staggering up the hatchway, exhausted and almost senseless. He reported that he had just stumbled over some dead bodies, who must have perished in the suffocating smoke. With difficulty the lower ports could be opened owing to the atmosphere, but when the passengers at last succeeded the sea came pouring in, carrying chests and bulkheads before it. Happily the tons of water which made their way into the hold checked the fury of the flames and decreased the possibility of explosion, which had been the greatest fear. But now the ship was fairly water-logged, and death from explosion was apparently to give way to death by drowning. Efforts were therefore made to close the ports again, and batten down the hatches and stifle the fire. The occasion was terrifying in the extreme, for it was merely a question as to how long the grave position could be tolerated. Six or seven hundred human beings in the agony of suspense—often more trying than physical pain itself—were on the upper deck. Some had been suffering the pangs of seasickness for days, many had rushed up from below with no time to slip on warm clothes, others were seeking out husbands, wives or children. Some were standing resigned to their fate, while others, as is always the case on such occasions, were indulging in despair and frenzy. Some were saying their prayers, while some of the toughest of the soldiers and seamen took up their positions immediately over the magazine in the hope that when the explosion came at any moment they might be blown into eternity without delay. Every man, woman and child was, to use a fitting expression, “bump up against the inevitable,” and everyone acted according to his or her character in this time of crisis.

Meanwhile the seas were making game of the ship, and suddenly the Kent’s binnacle broke away and was dashed to pieces on the deck. This was taken as a particularly bad omen by some, and the end was being awaited as certain. But just then the fourth mate decided to send a man up to the foretop in case—and it was not even a slender hope—that a distant ship might be descried. With dramatic suddenness the man, after scanning the horizon, began waving his hat and shouting.

“A sail on the lee bow!” he exclaimed, and the announcement was received with three cheers. Flags of distress were at once hoisted, minute guns began to be fired, and setting the three topsails and foresail the Kent ran down to the direction of the stranger. This was found to be the brig Cambria, of 200 tons burthen, on her way from Falmouth to Vera Cruz with a number of Cornish miners on board. After the Kent’s signals had been hoisted there followed a further period of suspense. Had the brig seen the signals? Had the sound of the guns reached her in the violence of the gale? But presently the stranger was seen to hoist British colours and to crowd on all sail, in spite of the gale. Her captain was evidently determined to assist if he could.

There are those who say that the age of miracles has ended, but the good fortune of falling in with the Cambria was really far more extraordinary than may seem to the modern reader. To-day the continuous stream of traffic across the Bay of Biscay—liners, men-of-war, tramp steamers and a few sailing ships—is something very considerably greater than at the time of which we are speaking. To-day, if such an occurrence took place in a ship bound for India, there would always be shipping in the vicinity and wireless would summon assistance before very long. But at this time there were no lines of steamships ploughing their regular furrow across the Bay. There were few ocean-going vessels of any sort, and you might cross the ocean time after time without sighting another craft. It was therefore one of those rare instances that the Cambria should have chanced to be anywhere in the neighbourhood.

As the ships were lessening the intervening distance, the Kent’s boats were being got ready. The ship’s commander consulted with the colonel and major of the regiment, and provision was made to prevent that dreaded incident in such a case as this, which has sometimes marred the whole picture of self-sacrifice and resignation. Some of the soldiers and seamen in the Kent seemed to give evidence of being the ones to rush the boats at the first opportunity. To thwart this, some of the military officers stood over them with drawn swords, and this had a wholesome effect.

The starboard boat was filled with women and children so far as its capacity allowed, these people getting into her through the cuddy-port on that side. The boat was then lowered away into a sea that was so awful that it seemed impossible for the little craft to live many minutes. Even as it touched the water the usual difficulty occurred—and it must have been much worse in those days when there were no patent davits or disengaging gear. The tackle was unhooked only with difficulty, and the boat narrowly escaped being dashed to fragments against the great, heavy hull of the Kent. Over the sea the people in the Kent watched the load of human lives, now on the summit of a wave crest, now disappearing in the trough. But at length, after this further suspense, strong British arms pulled her alongside the Cambria, and the first human being to be lifted into the Cambria was an infant of only a few weeks old.

The passage had taken twenty minutes between the sinking and rescuing ships, and after this load had been received on board, the other boat came off. One of the passengers in the Cambria who watched the incident afterwards stated that the seas were so big that when the two ships happened to be in a trough of sea at the same time, the Kent, great as she was, could not be seen for the intervening mountain wave. The Cambria had wisely taken up her position some distance from the Kent, fearing that if there were an explosion she might be badly injured. But evidently the Kent’s boats on their return journey had to row to windward, and this was not easy. Owing to the seas now running these boats could not come alongside the Kent again: so the women and children had to be tied together in twos and then lowered from the stern, the boat doing its best to be immediately underneath at the right time. Everyone who has had experience of the sea knows how difficult this must have been, and it happened that many of these poor women were unwillingly ducked several times in the sea before being received half-drowned and half-dead with terror into the boats. Still, not one of this sex was lost thereby, though some of the children perished with exhaustion and shock.

Some of the soldiers behaved with great gallantry, and worked hard to save the women and children, to their own danger. The Kent had six boats, but three had been swamped or stove in during the trips between the two vessels. All this time the flames were spreading worse than ever, and as the daylight was drawing to a close it became a race against time, for there were still many passengers on board, although many had been taken off to the Cambria. The Kent’s captain had a rope made fast to the outer end of the spanker-boom, and after walking out to the end of this spar the men had to slip down by the rope into the remaining boats below. Many landsmen, however, dreaded this means of escape so much that they preferred to throw themselves out of the stern windows. Rafts were constructed out of spars, hen-coops and other materials, and acted as a means of reaching the boats. But now night had fallen over the wreck. Some of the baser passengers who remained still on board had drunk themselves speechless: others were prowling about for spoil, whilst the ship’s poultry and pigs were turning the ship into a mad farmyard.

As the darkness came down the work of rescue was the more difficult. The Kent was now sunk ten feet below her marks, and squalls of wind and rain together with the big seas made her hours of existence fewer. The guns had burst their tackle owing to the action of the flames, and as they fell into the hold exploded. There were still a few people left in the ship, including the captain, but the latter, having in vain tried to persuade the others to leave, left them too terror-stricken and dumbfounded to move. Crawling out along the spanker-boom and steadying himself by the topping lift, he dived into the sea and was picked up by one of the boats. As the last boat left the side of the Kent, flames burst through the cabin windows. Some of those who had feared to leave the ship had also a miraculous escape. Driven by the flames, they sheltered as best they could on the chains (where the rigging joins the ship’s hull) and stood there till the masts went by the board. They then clung to one of these masts until a ship named the Caroline, bound from Egypt to Liverpool, saw the explosion when three miles away and made all sail in its direction, and so picked up fourteen survivors. The captain of the Caroline stood by till daylight, but was unable to find any more people.

The magazine (which in East Indiamen ships was placed under the forecastle) had exploded about 1.30 A.M., and portions of the old East Indiaman that had set forth so well with a fair wind now rose into the air like rockets. As for the survivors in the Cambria, they had been hauled on board with difficulty by the Cornish miners standing in the chains as the heave of the sea lifted the boats up to that level. The women, surviving children and men were made as comfortable as possible, in spite of the fact that 600 people in a brig of only 200 tons put a somewhat heavy strain on the accommodation at their disposal, with a heavy Atlantic gale blowing too. In a few days all the food and water on board would give out, so, at the risk of carrying away his masts, the captain of the brig drove her for all she was worth before the gale, so that by the afternoon of 3rd March the Scillies were sighted, and soon after midnight the ship had cast anchor in Falmouth harbour. It was another miracle that the Cambria arrived in Falmouth when she did, for an hour after she had dropped anchor the wind flew right round to north-east and remained there for several days. This would have meant a head-wind for the brig, and meanwhile in this delay—for those bluff old craft were very slow beating and could not sail very close—many of her passengers must have died of starvation.

At Falmouth the survivors disembarked, being met on the beach by huge crowds, and were hospitably received in the houses of the inhabitants, who also got up a subscription for the relief of the sufferers. A service of thanksgiving was held, and a few days later the passengers and sailors were sent to their homes, the troops embarking for Chatham, while the sick and injured remained in hospital. Notwithstanding that about six hundred had been saved, yet eighty-two had perished in this disaster. Some of the seamen belonging to the Kent had certainly behaved in a cowardly manner by refusing to go back and fetch the remainder of their shipmates until they were compelled by the captain of the Cambria. It is such instances as these which make one wonder whether those rough characters were always as brave as we have preferred to hope they were.

The captain of the Cambria for his fine seamanship and the excellent manner in which he directed the rescue was awarded the sum of £150 from the War Office, with smaller sums to the mate, crew and miners. The East India Company, in compensation for the losses and expenses caused by this rescue, sent the sum of £287, 11s. to the captain of the Cambria for payment of the bill of provisions, £287, 10s. on account of the owners for the food of the passengers, and £300 for demurrage. In addition, they presented the Cambria’s captain with the sum of £600, the first mate £100, and varying sums to the crew and miners. Other presents were also made by Lloyd’s, the Royal Humane Society, the Royal Exchange Assurance, and the Liverpool underwriters.