by Roy Adkins
Heart of oak are our ships,
Heart of oak are our men;
We always are ready, steady, boys, steady!
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer, again and again.5
In the age of sail, the backbone of the navy was the ordinary seaman, the Jack Tar. The word ‘tar’ was in use by the 1600s, and became a familiar term for a sailor. It was particularly used by the officers to describe the men. At times it was prefixed by ‘jolly’ and it probably derived from ‘tarpaulin’, which was a sheet of canvas that was coated with tar to make waterproof cloth. Because it was black in colour, it is thought by some that the word ‘tarpaulin’ may have originated from ‘tar’ and ‘pall’, suggesting a similarity to a funeral pall. A sailor’s waterproof hat was also called a tarpaulin, and the term ‘tarpaulin’ was applied to those few officers who rose from the ranks and so were not gentlemen.
The origin of ‘Jack’ – a familiar term for John – is disputed, but it was frequently a generic name given to anyone from the common mass of people. The term ‘Jack the Tar’ appears in an engraving of 1756 (the start of the Seven Years War with France) entitled ‘The Invasion’ by William Hogarth. The verses at the bottom of the engraving, also written by David Garrick, began:
See John the Soldier, Jack the Tar,
With Sword & Pistol arm’d for War,
Should Monsir dare come here!!
The Hungry Slaves have smelt our Food,
They long to taste our Flesh and Blood,
Old England’s Beef and Beer!6
In 1770 the playwright and essayist Francis Gentleman published a book of critical reviews, The Dramatic Censor, that he dedicated to David Garrick and in which one actor was described as ‘stalking backward and forward, like a Jack-tar on the quarter-deck’.7 ‘Jack Tar’ was applied to both American and British seamen, and one instance relating to the American War of Independence is a song that begins, ‘Come brave honest Jack Tar, once more will you venture? Press warrants they are out: I would have you to enter.’8 Known as ‘Jack Tar’, this song was first published in 1776. The men would frequently call themselves ‘Jack’ or ‘Jack Tar’,* while the officers also used the terms ‘the Men’ or ‘the People’. The words ‘sailor’ and ‘seamen’ are now interchangeable, but sailor once meant a person who managed the sails.
The black substance known as tar was an intrinsic ingredient of life at sea, since it was used for waterproofing and protection, and barrels of tar were always stored on board. Up to the late eighteenth century, a warship’s outer hull was protected underwater from shipworm attack by being coated with a mixture of tar and hair held in place by thin sheets of planking. The gaps between planks (seams) of a ship were also kept watertight by caulking, in which oakum (strands of old rope mixed with tar) was forced into the cracks with iron tools, and the seams were then sealed with tar. Tar was also used to try to prevent various ropes from rotting through the damaging effects of wind and sea water – ropes were made from vegetable fibre, usually hemp (wire ropes were then unknown). Tar therefore pervaded everything, right down to the skin and clothing of the seamen, who would also use tar to waterproof their hats and coats.
The Royal Navy obtained barrels of tar primarily from the Baltic, with some from North America. It was manufactured by burning pine resin in the vast forests of northern Europe, and was generally referred to as Stockholm tar because Stockholm was the major exporting port. The 9th Earl of Dundonald – the father of Thomas Cochrane, the maverick naval officer – was a gifted scientist and in 1780 he developed a new method of extracting tar from the coal that was mined on his Culross Abbey estate. He could see that the tar would be beneficial in ships and for coating iron to prevent rusting. While his discoveries were brilliant, he was a disastrous businessman, and others successfully adapted his work and made their fortune, especially the use of coal gas for lighting, which he thought was only a novelty. In fact, tar and coke became profitable by-products of producing gas from coal.
Tar can occur naturally as bitumen, and when his ship was patrolling the Ionian Islands in 1812, the seaman George Watson was allowed to land at Zakynthos, where, he said, ‘there is a well, in the middle of a corn field, that produces tar, and all around the margin of it to some distance, is this bituminous substance, and by putting a ladle into this well … you may draw it up full, and it is so perfect in nature, it only requires boiling to be fit for use. I was at this place with some others, and got a barrel of its contents as a specimen.’9 These natural bitumen springs had been utilised for hundreds of years and were even mentioned by Herodotus. Another source occurs close to the River Severn in Coalbrookdale in Shropshire. It was known since at least the late seventeenth century and was believed to have medicinal properties. Dundonald became involved in the Coalbrookdale industries, including tar extraction, and in 1786 a further spring of bitumen was discovered when an underground canal was being dug. This ‘tar tunnel’ subsequently produced thousands of gallons of tar. The Admiralty and the shipbuilders, though, were reluctant to adopt Dundonald’s tar for protecting hulls, and shortly afterwards coppering of ships became standard practice instead – covering the outer hull with thin copper sheets. This not only protected vessels from shipworm, but slowed down the encrustation of the hull and so made the vessels faster.
Within the close wooden walls of sailing warships, young boy volunteers, all kinds of civilian seamen from fishermen to smugglers, raw novices conscripted by the press-gang, and numerous foreign recruits were trained, disciplined and gradually absorbed into crews that formed the front line in the defence of Britain. Although from a seafaring island, these men in the Royal Navy were not always bred to the sea, nor were many of them willing volunteers, yet they lived, fought and sometimes died together as a real ‘band of brothers’.
The marines are also part of this story. They were sea soldiers who served on board warships as sentries, forming a buffer between the officers and the seamen. In naval engagements, they provided small-arms fire with muskets, and they also took part in attacks on land, aided the press-gangs and frequently helped out on board. Since 1755 the marine regiments had been under the control of the government department known as the Admiralty, and in 1802 they became the Royal Marines. Two years later the Royal Marine Artillery was formed. Like army soldiers, the redcoats, the marines wore red tunics and were frequently called ‘jollies’ by the sailors. Naval officers wore a blue uniform, and although ordinary seamen did not have a uniform, blue was a preferred colour, and so they were nicknamed ‘bluejackets’, while soldiers and marines were ‘lobsters’.
According to Daniel Goodall, who enlisted as a marine in 1805, there was a ‘hereditary dislike popularly supposed to be entertained by the blue jackets for the “lobsters” – for Jack is declared on authority to “hate a marine as the Devil hates holy water”’.10 While operating along the Adriatic coast in boats in 1812, the seaman George Watson said that they were accompanied by both marines and soldiers: ‘You would have laughed to see the distinction [Lieutenant Augustus] Cannon, who always commanded the squadron, made when addressing them, and the marines, in discharging their muskets, as they generally fired alternately; he used to cry, “Well done, fire soldier!” then, “fire marine!” conformably to the idea which the Jack tars entertain of marines, viz. that they are, neither soldier nor sailor.’11
Captain Basil Hall gave a caricature picture of marines and seamen in order to highlight their differences:
The words Marine and Mariner differ by one small letter only; but no two races of men, I had well nigh said two animals, differ from one another more completely than the ‘Jollies’ and the ‘Johnnies’* … Jack wears a blue jacket, and the Jolly wears a red one. Jack would sooner take a round dozen [lashes], than be seen with a pair of braces across his shoulders; while the marine, if deprived of his suspensors, would speedily be left sans culotte. A thorough-going, barrack-bred, regular-built marine, in a ship of which the sergeant-major truly loves his art, has, without any ver
y exaggerated metaphor, been compared to a man who has swallowed a set of fire-irons; the tongs representing the legs, the poker the back-bone, and the shovel the neck and head. While, on the other hand, your sailor-man is to be likened to nothing, except one of those delicious figures in the fantoccini [puppet] show-boxes, where the legs, arms, and head, are flung loosely about to the right and left, no one bone apparently having the slightest organic connexion with any other; the whole being an affair of strings, and springs, and universal joints!12
Now that air travel is the most common form of passenger transport overseas, it is too easy to overlook just how important shipping was in the past. Despite the Channel Tunnel, Britain is an island, and the vast majority of imports and exports still travel by sea. Without any trade by sea Britain might not starve immediately, but the problems of providing subsistence would prove immense. It was during the wars with France that Britain gained effective control of maritime global trade, after which navy and merchant ships became essential for the survival of the nation and the rise of the empire. Involvement with shipping spread far inland, and at the end of the war, one naval officer remarked that ‘there are few families [in Britain] who either are not actually, or may not soon be, connected with the naval service’.13 Anyone researching their family history in Britain today is therefore likely to find close connections with the sea, and most people have at least one Jack Tar in their ancestry.
A FEW FACTS AND FIGURES
I shall not use many nautical expressions, but when they occur, I will not divert you from the subject, by explanatory annotations, as, I think, terms used at sea, are so generally known, to you, and this commercial country at large, that it would only be a waste of time to illustrate them.
George Watson in the introduction to his memoirs, published in 18271
Although many people today are familiar with boats as a leisure pastime, very few are associated with the sea professionally, either directly or indirectly, and so Watson’s words no longer hold true. Most people do not understand nautical terms, though they may use old naval expressions unwittingly in their everyday language (such as in ‘the devil to pay!’*). The following paragraphs are therefore intended for those who are perhaps new to naval history or for those who want to be reminded of information that has slipped their grasp.
Nelson’s navy was the Royal Navy, but was far more frequently referred to as the British Navy by officers and other writers of the time, and is still commonly referred to as such by historians today, especially when there is likely to be confusion with navies of other states that also had a ‘royal navy’. It was occasionally described as the English Navy, just as the word England was used, even by Scotsmen, to describe Great Britain. Nelson in his correspondence calls the service ‘the Navy’, ‘His Majesty’s Navy’ or ‘His Majesty’s Royal Navy’ – his Majesty being King George III, who ruled from 1760 to 1820, although owing to severe illness his son the Prince of Wales (the future George IV) became Prince Regent in 1811.
Names of ships can be even more confusing, because some British ships had French-sounding names, such as the Guerriere, and some French ships had English-sounding names, like the Berwick. This arose when the original names of captured ships were retained. The Guerriere was a French frigate (La Guerrière) that was captured by the Blanche frigate in a fierce battle off the Faroe Islands in 1806 and was then incorporated into the Royal Navy with the same name, though French accents were usually dropped. Blanche was the name given to a frigate that was built in 1786 at Bursledon and wrecked through pilot error off Holland thirteen years later. The name Blanche was then given to another frigate that was being built at Deptford, but that vessel was captured in July 1805. A few months earlier the Spanish Amfitrite was captured off Cadiz and came into service with the Royal Navy in 1806. There was already an Amphitrite in the Royal Navy, and so the Spanish ship was renamed Blanche – it was this ship that captured the Guerriere. The Blanche was wrecked off Ushant eight months later, and the Guerriere was destroyed by the American frigate Constitution in 1812. The seamen also gave nicknames to their ships, especially when the official names were difficult to pronounce, such as Billy Ruffian for the Bellerophon. The men were often referred to collectively by their ship’s name, such as ‘the Shannons’.
Sailing warships depended on wind, which was harnessed by sails, for their power, and they were constrained by wind direction in their manoeuvrability. The warships were square-rigged, which meant that the sails in their neutral position hung from the three masts (vertical poles) across (‘square to’) the breadth of the vessel (whereas fore-andaft vessels had the sails running down the length of the vessel). The sails themselves were not square, but rectangular or tapering, and they were made by sailmakers from lengths of canvas cloth. The canvas was manufactured from flax that was imported largely from the Baltic.
The three masts were the foremast (at the forecastle), mainmast (the largest mast, near the centre) and mizzenmast (on the quarter-deck). The bowsprit was a fourth mast that extended at an angle from the bow of the ship (the front or ‘fore’ end). Masts of warships were not a single piece of wood but comprised several sections. The lower mast was made up of pieces of timber fitted together. On top of the lower mast was a topmast, made from a single pole (tree trunk), which was in turn surmounted by a topgallant mast, also a single pole. In bad weather the topgallant mast and the topmast could be lowered – struck – to the deck to reduce the weight and exposure to the wind. The sails were supported by the yards, which were poles that were at right-angles to the masts and could be hoisted up and down. The yards were named according to their mast and their position on the mast, such as the fore topgallant yard right at the top of the foremast. The end of the yard was the yardarm, and the foreyardarm was all too familiar as the place from which condemned men were hanged.
The standing rigging comprised shrouds and stays, which were ropes that were permanently in place to support the masts, yards and bowsprit. The shrouds prevented the masts moving sideways, and stays prevented forward and backward movement. The ropes known as running rigging were ones that passed through pulley blocks, and they were used to hoist and lower the yards and control the sails. A single ship of the line had about 40 miles of rope of different sizes, for rigging, anchors and guns, as well as about one thousand pulley blocks, and the sails covered over an acre in area.
In a battle the tactics of a sailing ship were dictated by weather conditions, even down to which side of an enemy vessel was attacked. Being downwind from an enemy was regarded as a defensive position, because a ship only had to hoist more sails to escape, while being upwind was an attacking position. Warships in Nelson’s time were essentially floating platforms from which to fire cannons,* which were concentrated down each long side (‘broad side’), as there was no room to fire more than a few cannons from the bow or stern (the rear or ‘after’ part of the ship). The term ‘larboard’ for the left-hand side of the ship when looking from the stern towards the bow came to be replaced by ‘port’, because larboard was too easily confused with starboard, the term for the right-hand side of the ship. The traditional strategy of fighting at sea was for each opposing side to form their warships into a line, bow to stern, parallel with their opponent’s line of battle. The two lines of ships would then pound each other at close range until individual ships surrendered or retreated, and the simultaneous firing of the guns along one side was called a broadside. The biggest ships were known as ‘ships of the line’ – so called because these were the battleships, carrying at least sixty-four guns (cannons), that traditionally formed the line of battle. The term ‘battleship’ is an abbreviation of ‘line of battle ship’.
Ships of the line were rated according to the number of guns and therefore the number of gun decks – decks that were strong enough to support the weight of the guns. First rates (such as the Victory) had one hundred guns or more and three gun decks (‘three-deckers’) – three full decks that carried guns. These ships were usually flag
ships, as they were large enough to accommodate an admiral, who was a flag officer. Second rates also had three gun decks and ninety to ninety-eight guns. Third rates were the most common and had two gun decks (‘two-deckers’) and sixty-four to eighty-four guns. Fourth rates also had two gun decks, and fifty to sixty guns, but were not common. The heaviest guns were carried on the lower gun deck to prevent the ship being top-heavy. Frigates had one gun deck and were either fifth rates with thirty to forty-four guns or sixth rates with twenty to twenty-eight guns.
Other Royal Navy vessels such as brigs, sloops, gunboats and bomb vessels were not rated, and technically they were not ships, as that term tended to be restricted to vessels that were square-rigged and had a bowsprit and three masts. A brig, for example, was a two-masted vessel that usually had fourteen to eighteen guns and was mainly used for running errands. These unrated vessels were too small to have a full captain, but instead had a commander as a senior officer, with the courtesy title of ‘captain’. The size of a naval vessel is often expressed by the number of guns in brackets after the name, such as Raisonnable (64), Nelson’s first ship in 1771, and Victory (100), the ship in which he died at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Apart from the gun decks, warships also had armed quarterdecks and forecastles. The quarterdeck was a part-deck that ran from the mainmast to the stern and was the place from where officers controlled the ship, similar to the ‘bridge’ of a modern ship. Ships of the line also had a poop, the highest deck of the ship, which was above the quarterdeck and covered about half its length. The forecastle (or fo’c’sle) was at the same level as the quarterdeck, but was at the bow. The gap between the forecastle and the quarterdeck was the waist. The next deck down was the main deck, or upper gun deck, which ran the entire length of the ship. This was also called the weather deck, as it was open to the weather in the centre, at the waist. In a three-decker ship there was a main deck, middle deck and lower deck, which were all gun decks, though at times the term gun deck is used just to refer to the lower deck.