Jack Tar

by Roy Adkins

  Apart from the noise generated by their toil, in most ships strict silence was maintained when at work – hard labour was not aided by the rhythm of sea shanties in the Royal Navy. James Gardner recounted that on board the Barfleur in 1790, ‘in working the ship no one was allowed to speak but himself [Captain Calder], and I have seen the Barfleur brought to an anchor and the sails furled like magic, without a voice being heard except his own’.24 Gardner thought such silence was exceptional, but Aaron Thomas showed that at least some tasks were done in silence:

  When a ship is under sail in hazy weather, has land in sight on both boards, is within soundings, has rocks and sandbanks laid down on the charts near where she supposes herself and is entering a harbour or bay, all hands are on deck. Silence is ordered. The sails full of wind, the sea dashing against her bows, the waves in contest against her sides, and she in motion, gliding on the liquid fluid with immense impetuosity – All yet is silence! The Captain speaks, he gives his commands, they are all executed in quiet alertness. All, all are mute but one – the man heaving the lead [for measuring the depth of water].25

  The captain of the Pegasus in 1786 insisted that

  The officers are to use every means in their power to prevent that but too common and absurd practice of seamen in making a noise on every occasion, when the duty of the ship is carrying on, by huzzaing, hallowing, etc, when boats etc are hoisting in or out, working at the capstan, hoisting the sails, etc. They are to be acquainted that no such custom will be allowed, and if they dare to persist, they will be severely punished.26

  He added: ‘The strictest silence to be observed whenever the men are at their quarters, and the officers are particularly ordered to prevent any noise or confusion.’27

  Gunnery practice was carried out up to noon, but otherwise the off-watch seamen had some time to themselves, which they frequently spent in catching up on their sleep in a quiet corner on a lower deck. Typical days rarely occurred, because even if there were no enemies to encounter or potential prizes to chase, changes in weather conditions ensured that the sailing of the ship needed constant attention. Basil Hall spelled out the variety of shipboard life:

  In many other professions, it is possible to calculate beforehand, with more or less precision, the degree and kind of work which a young man is likely to be called upon to perform, but there is a peculiar difficulty in coming to any just conclusion upon these points, even in a vague way, in the life of a sailor. His range of duties includes the whole world; he may be lost in the wilderness of a three-decker, or be wedged into a cock-boat of a cutter; he may be half fried in Jamaica, or wholly frozen in Spitzbergen; he may be cruising six days of the week in the midst of a fleet of a hundred sail, and flounder in solitude on the seventh; he may be peacably riding at anchor in the morning, and in hot action before sunset. He may waste his years in idleness, the most fatal contingency of all to subordination; or he may be worn out by sheer fatigue. If employed on the home station, he may hear from his friends every day; or if serving abroad he may be fifteen months (as I have been) at a time, without receiving a single letter or a newspaper. He may serve under a soft or easygoing commander, which is a great evil; or be ground down by one of those tight hands, who, to use the slang of the cockpit, keep everyone on board ‘under the fear of the Lord and a broomstick’. In short, a man may go to sea for twenty years, and find no two commanding-officers, and hardly two days, alike.28

  On the other hand, much of the work was repetitive, and when blockading a port or escorting a convoy it could easily become tedious.

  Daily life for the marines on board was more predictable than that of the sailors, because their main role was in battle, either between ships or attacking shore installations. When not needed for fighting, which was for the vast majority of their time, marines were used as unskilled labour and as sentries. They acted as a buffer between the officers and the men and guarded key parts of the ship, like the gunpowder magazines, to keep order or to prevent men gaining access. ‘Their duties are various, such as circumstances require,’ Robert Wilson elaborated. ‘In harbour, the one half of them, or one division, mount guard three days in the week and are exempt from ship’s duty – i.e. in the working line – while the other division that is off guard work in common with the ship’s crew and are called the working part of marines. At sea, they do their duty with the afterguard, except those that are on sentry.’29 Samuel Leech said that ‘there are from thirty to forty marines to be disposed of. These do duty as sentries at the captain’s cabin, the ward-room, and at the galley during the time of cooking. They are also stationed at the large guns at night, as far as their numbers run.’30 Wilson gave more details about their sentry duties:

  Concerning the different posts of the sentries, there are [always] four … at sea or in harbour, viz. the fore cockpit, down where the gunner’s, boatswain’s and carpenter’s store-rooms are, and the fore magazine of powder; the gunroom door, by the after cockpit, where the captain’s and lieutenants’ store-rooms for wine, etc., are, also the purser’s steward’s storeroom and the after magazine for powder; the captain’s cabin door; the scuttle butt, where fresh water is kept, also when the captain’s and officers’ dinners are dressing, attendance at the galley fire is another post. In harbour, in addition, the posts are the gangways and forecastle, with the poop at night time only. The posts mentioned are the regular ones. One marine only has to remain four or two hours according to his watch.31

  The marines also spent their time in weapons practice, drilling and cleaning their kit. A manual on the training of marines, published by Lieutenant Terence O’Loghlen in 1766, recommended the type of exercise to be used at sea:

  The best method, in my opinion, to exercise marines on board a ship is, first to draw up the soldiers in a single rank round the deck, facing inwards, and make them go through the Manual and Platoon Exercise in that position. The officer stands in the centre to give the words of command, and to see that every man is attentive as if he had been ashore in battalion. So soon as the Platoon Exercise is ended, the detachment must be formed into three ranks, at either side of the deck, facing outwards, and subdivided into small platoons as you have room. The soldiers are then to get their cartridges, and prime and load … When the detachment fires [has fired] six rounds, the general beats [on a drum]. The officer must then form his detachment two deep … and perform Parapet Firing in that order.32

  O’Loghlen’s view of training marines on board ship was to keep exercises simple and repetitive, and he also recommended that ‘no other firing or evolution should be attempted at sea. It can answer no purpose whatever to puzzle men with impracticalities. Soldiers kept in constant practice in the manner prescribed, cannot forget more than they will be able to recover in two or three days on shore. Marines should be accustomed to fire frequently with ball* on board ship at a mark hung for the purpose at the extremity of the fore-yard arm.’33

  The marines occupied an ambivalent position in the general running of the ship, for while they often worked and fought alongside the seamen, they were regarded as a defence of last resort for the officers if the crew mutinied. One of the duties of marines was to stand guard while men were punished. A serious crime such as mutiny could well result in hanging, but crimes of a less serious nature were invariably punished by floggings, which all hands were called to witness around eleven o’clock. Afterwards, dinner was served at midday, along with the first issue of grog, while just enough men were left to keep the ship sailing. These were the seven-bell men who ate half an hour earlier. Following their dinner men not on watch might be allowed leisure time, or else they undertook training and exercises, while the idlers continued with their work. In the next watch, the first dog watch, it was time for supper along with the second issue of grog, after which was the daily routine of ‘beating to quarters’ when the men were assembled at their battle stations. Sometimes this was followed by gunnery practice, or the men might be given leisure time again. At 8 p.m., the end of the second
dog watch, all the hammocks were piped down, and the idlers and the watch that had just come off duty went below to sleep. After this the master-at-arms, whose role was that of a policeman, keeping law and order, and his assistants known as corporals (who were all seamen) went through the ship to check that fires and lights were extinguished.

  The seamen, marines and petty officers could be accused of all manner of misdemeanours and more serious offences, but the type of punishment depended very much on the attitude and tolerance of the captain. Royal Navy law was embodied in an Act of Parliament of the mid-seventeenth century, which was revised in 1749 with subsequent amendments and comprised thirty-six Articles of War. These had to be read aloud to the seamen each month – some captains read them out instead of holding a religious service on Sundays. Most of the articles were concerned with various offences and the types of punishment available.

  For less serious offences, grog could be stopped or watered down, and skilled seamen and petty officers could be disrated (demoted) so that they were reduced in rank and their pay was decreased, or they could be flogged – referred to frequently as flogging at the gangway, or simply being punished at the gangway. This was by far the most common form of punishment, though in theory only a dozen lashes were allowed without a court martial – something captains frequently ignored or circumvented. The 1806 regulations merely reminded the captain that he alone could order punishments ‘which he is never to do without sufficient cause, nor ever with the greater severity than the offence shall really deserve’.34 It was not until the war was almost over that an effective check on the power of captains was introduced, as Basil Hall noted: ‘Antecedent to June 1811, the date of the order by which officers in command of ships were required to send quarterly returns of punishments to the Admiralty, there was little or no restraint upon the despotic authority of the captain, as far, at least, as corporal punishments were concerned.’35

  What happened when the men were called to witness a flogging was revealed by Samuel Leech:

  The hoarse, dreaded cry of ‘All hands ahoy to witness punishment!’ from the lips of the boatswain, peals along the ship as mournfully as the notes of a funeral knell. At this signal the officers muster on the spar deck, the men on the main deck. Next came the prisoner; guarded by a marine on one side and the master at arms on the other, he was marched up to the [wooden] grating. His back was made bare and his shirt laid loosely upon his back; the two quartermasters proceeded to seize him up; that is, they tied his hands and feet with spun-yarns, called the seizings, to the grating. The boatswain’s mates, whose office it is to flog on board a man of war, stood ready with their dreadful weapon of punishment, the cat-o’-nine-tails.36

  Leech described the legendary cat: ‘This instrument of torture was composed of nine cords, a quarter of an inch round and about two feet long, the ends whipt with fine twine. To these cords was affixed a stock, two feet in length, covered with red baize … it is a most formidable instrument in the hands of a strong, skilful man.’37

  Next, Leech related the painful scenes that they had to watch:

  The boatswain’s mate is ready, with coat off and whip in hand. The captain gives the word. Carefully spreading the cords with the fingers of his left hand, the executioner throws the cat over his right shoulder; it is brought down upon the now uncovered herculean shoulders of the man. His flesh creeps – it reddens as if blushing at the indignity; the sufferer groans; lash follows lash, until the first mate, wearied with the cruel employment, gives place to a second. Now two dozen of these dreadful lashes have been inflicted: the lacerated back looks inhuman; it resembles roasted meat burnt nearly black before a scorching fire; yet still the lashes fall …Vain are the cries and prayers of the wretched man … four dozen strokes have cut up his flesh and robbed him of all self-respect; there he hangs, a pitied, self-despised, groaning, bleeding wretch; and now the captain cries, forbear! His shirt is thrown over his shoulders; the seizings are loosed; he is led away, staining his path with red drops of blood, and the hands, ‘piped down’ by the boatswain, sullenly return to their duties.38

  The vast majority of punishments were either for drunkenness, or for crimes committed under the influence of drink, as Daniel Goodall observed:

  In all the ships I ever served in, the Captains made continual but, I am sorry to add, generally the most unavailing efforts to check this vice. The punishments were of the old stock kind where flogging was not resorted to, such as stopping the grog of all convicted of drunkenness for a month or six weeks at a time, or putting an extra quantity of water into it, and compelling the culprits to drink it in the presence of officers – a most unpalatable punishment to many offenders. Sometimes a trial was made of the infliction of extra duty, generally of the most disagreeable kind, and in many instances these modes of meeting the evil were far more efficacious than flogging. But on board every ship afloat there were some characters, often the very best of the seamen too, who seemed to take a special pride in getting drunk, notwithstanding the risks they ran in indulging their whim or propensity.39

  The frequency with which men were punished depended partly on how strict the captain was and partly on how prone the men were to break the rules. Aaron Thomas of HMS Lapwing commented in his journal that ‘Upon an average we flog two men in 3 weeks, but we have had many heavy squalls amongst the officers we have at this time, our boatswain and surgeon in confinement for drunkenness, and both will have court martials.’40 George Vernon Jackson’s first ship in 1801 was HMS Trent, under Captain Edward Hamilton. Jackson thought the ship was well disciplined and efficient, ‘but these qualities had all been promoted at no small sacrifice of humanity. No sailor was allowed to walk from one place to another on deck, and woe betide the unfortunate fellow who halted in his run aloft, unless expressly bidden to do so for some particular purpose. The “cat” was incessantly at work.’41 One passenger’s view on board HMS Gibraltar in 1811 was somewhat different, since he thought punishments were fairly meted out and to only a few men:

  I could not but observe how very seldom the men were punished; and that they never were disgraced at the gangway but for some wilful fault. The captain does not choose to flog a man for an error which is excusable, and the only crimes for which punishment was inflicted were drunkenness, insolence and quarrelling, or a wilful neglect of duty where it was plain to everybody that the culprit deserved the correction he received. It generally happened that the same men were constant offenders; nothing could keep some of them sober, or quiet, which convinces me that a ship’s company could not be kept in order unless the fear of corporal punishment deterred some of the notorious bad characters, who too often disgrace a Man of War … I have known a boy at school receive more lashes at one time, than ever the captain of the Gibraltar inflicted upon the most incorrigible of his people. Sir Francis Burdett [radical reformer] and co may talk, but I wish they could point out any other means than that of occasional flogging by which 600 men confined in a ship could be restrained from faults which would lead to more serious consequences … There are always a very great proportion of a ship’s company who never felt it [flogging]. Generally speaking, not one 20th out of 600 or 700 men ever allow themselves to be thus disgraced.42

  The degree to which different men felt and reacted to flogging varied considerably, and this, apart from the brutality of the punishment, was what made it unjust. George Watson spoke of how he was flogged: ‘I was seized to the grating, and there received a dozen lashes, from the cat o’ nine tails, whose claws I believe are worse than theirs which are said to have nine lives, and I felt them so keenly, being the first and the last time they scratched my back, that I thought I would rather let the rogue that caused what I endured kick me overboard another time, than have those unnatural devil-cats at my shoulders.’43 The seaman George King, however, made light of the frequent floggings that he received, usually for being drunk. On one occasion he recorded that ‘at ten the hands was turned up, thirteen of us being in the Master at Arms report. Whe
n my name was called I received my batty [punishment] which was two dozen right and left. It was a piercing cold morning but I was warmed for that day.’44

  What irked the men was the inconsistency of punishment, and Aaron Thomas noted the apparent injustice or at least illogicality of sentences, as on Monday 13 August 1798:

  Punished William Dun, the quarter gunner, for striking Peg Roberts (Woodcock’s whore) on Friday night with one dozen lashes. Punished Michael Byrne the marine with 9 lashes for finding fault with the Doctor’s physic &c. Punished the boy [Richard] Skipper on his backside with 12 lashes for giving half a gill of rum to Gater the marine for washing his clothes. There is something particular in this case. The boys are allowed their rum, and if they drink it, they often get drunk with it, therefore it is understood they may give it to persons who wash and mind for them. And many boys in some ships sell their liquor. But this particular boy was flogged for giving his liquor away to a marine who had done work for him. So that by flogging this lad, it is the same as giving out orders for all boys to drink their own allowance, and thereby get drunk with it. The best that can be said of it is that it will encourage intoxication.45

  What was regarded as a crime in one ship might be tolerated in another, such as swearing. On board the Minerva in 1793, William Richardson observed the ill feeling when they were forbidden to swear: