Jack Tar

by Roy Adkins

We now commenced having leave on shore by watches for forty eight hours and having but little money I soon found out where the bum boat woman lived, where she supplied me and others with a few pounds till pay day, taking care she had good interest by paying five shillings extra for each pound. Three of my shipmates with myself determined to have a regular spree. We commenced drinking grog at the three legs a man [brothel] in High Street and it was not long before we suited ourselves with a girl each and when we had well bowsed up our gibs [drunk enough liquor] we called a coach and swore we would be gentlemen for one day. Accordingly we desired the coachman to drive to Portsea and back. Occasionally … [we] cried out ‘avast’ when we wanted to wet the whistle at different houses. About three in the afternoon we had some dinner and the coachman bore us company. From thence we drove backward and forward till dusk, when we alighted at the house we started from. We paid the fare and then completely sewed the coachman up, he being a complete tippler. We then repaired with our doxies homeward and the following day our leave was expired, but as our money was not all gone we staid on shore another day and night reserving as much as would give us a good stifter [drink] the next morning, and pay the boat hire, as [it] was customary when men went on shore on leave never to come off sober.91

  The amount of money that seamen managed to waste in a very short time is well documented. At Malta in 1812 George Watson’s ship was overhauled, and they were allowed leave while the work continued: ‘One watch at a time were sent on shore on liberty, that is, as a sailor thinks, to do as you like. Each division was allowed to remain out of the ship forty eight hours, which was time enough for a man of war’s man to waste as much rino [money] as he could earn in half a year. We had prize money paid us previous to our landing, which made our jaunt more agreeable.’92

  At Nevis in October 1798, Aaron Thomas watched some seamen returning late from leave: ‘at 6pm the three liberty men came aboard in a boat, in a dismal pickle, the serjeant of marines having been looking for them all day. Hilliard the boatswain’s mate had lost his hat, jacket, shoes, waistcoats and six joes – half of sailors are truly asses when ashore.’93 Whether Hilliard lost the clothes or sold them is not recorded, but selling possessions to buy drink and women was a frequent occupation of the sailors and represented a brisk trade in most ports. While at Minorca for some time, with several opportunities for leave, George Watson soon spent his money: ‘Being often on shore I naturally run out of cash, having so many ways to get rid of it, I had almost disposed of every article of dress which anybody would buy, and still I was hard run.’94 Watson commented that the people of Gibraltar ‘appear on all occasions ready to buy poor Jack’s clothes, which are generally disposed of at a very low rate to procure wine &c. I sold a waistcoat here, I paid half a guinea for at Portsmouth, for the small sum of half a crown, and I have no doubt they would get as much again for it, when they sold it to another having plenty of money, and wanting such an article.’95

  Frederick Hoffman was of the opinion that it was almost impossible to change the attitudes and habits of the seamen, and consequently they would always end up poor or destitute:

  Sailors possess shades like other men, but when you reflect that they are on board their ships for months in an open sea, exposed to all weather, privation, and hardship, which they bear with philosophic patience, you will agree with most people and admit that they deserve indulgence when they get on shore, but you may wish for their sakes that they knew the value of money better. You cannot change the Ethiopian’s skin without boiling him in pitch, which you know is a dangerous experiment. Sailors seldom arrive at the age of reflection until they are past the meridian of life, and when it is almost too late to lay by anything considerable to make them comfortable in their old age.96

  Apart from the spendthrift ways of the seamen, part of the problem was paying out their wages and prize-money in lump sums in arrears, with intervals of many months or more between each pay day. Daniel Goodall commented on the situation in 1801:

  The custom at that time prevalent in the navy was, that no person got any pay until he had been over six months in the service. If at any time the ship in which a new hand served was in course of pay after the expiry of his six months’ service, he received whatever balance was due to him beyond that period, but the first six months’ was always retained until the ship was paid off – a provision meant for Jack’s benefit in order that he might not be cut adrift at the last without some means in hand, but which Jack, with his proverbial improvidence, too frequently turned to but poor account. Formerly, when a vessel-of-war was first commissioned, her crew received no pay whatever until they had been twelve months aboard of her; she was then said to be in the course of pay, and they got what was due for six months the first time they went into port after the expiry of the year’s service. In the case, however, of a ship being ordered on a foreign station, the crew received two months’ pay in advance, and this was ultimately adopted as the rule with all ships when first commissioned, whether for home or foreign service.97

  Transferring or ‘turning over’ seamen from one ship that had just entered a home port to another one about to sail, without giving them any shore leave or their full back pay, also caused a great deal of resentment, as Nelson noted in 1783: ‘My time, ever since I arrived in Town, has been taken up in attempting to get wages due to my good fellows, for various ships they have served in the war. Disgust of the seamen to the Navy is all owing to the infernal plan of turning them over from ship to ship, so that men cannot be attached to their officers, or the officers care two-pence about them.’98

  Inevitably even careful seamen could run out of cash because of the way they were paid, and then they resorted to borrowing. On board ship it was often the purser who acted as financier, but he was usually regarded by the men as a swindler. Samuel Leech certainly had a grudge against pursers:

  The practice of paying seamen at long intervals is the source of many evils. Among these, is the opportunity given to pursers to practise extortion on the men … The spendthrift habits of most sailors leave them with a barely sufficient quantity of clothing, for present purposes, when they ship. If the cruise is long, they are, consequently, obliged to draw from the purser. This gentleman is ever ready to supply them, but at ruinous prices. Poor articles with high prices are to be found in his hands; these poor Jack must take of necessity, because he cannot get his wages until he is paid off. Hence, what with poor articles, high charges and false charges, the purser almost always says he has a claim which makes Jack’s actual receipts for two or three years’ service, woefully small. Were he paid at stated periods, he could make his own purchases as he needed them.99

  When in port seamen found plenty of opportunities of spending their money even if they were not given shore leave. In 1801 the Temeraire was at Plymouth, and Daniel Goodall described the scene on board when the sailors were paid:

  As soon as the ship was refitted and provisioned for another cruise, and reported ready for sea, the commissioner and pay-clerks came on board and paid the ship’s company. The fact of pay being delayed until all the preliminary work was got through had made no difference on the score of Jack’s having all the delights of spending, for the money being sure, a great deal of it could be got rid of by anticipation. From the time we had cast anchor, all who had cash, either in possession or reversion, were quite in a position to command the luxuries most in request among seamen, for the Plymouth bum-boat women took good care to fetch alongside regular supplies of legs of mutton, geese, turkeys, hams, sausages, red herrings, soft bread, butter, eggs, tea, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. On all of those good things they, of course, charged a very handsome profit, for they had to leave a margin for the risks attending the short credit before pay-day, and the still greater risks after it, as the ship seldom remained more than two days at most after the men were paid. The actual risk, to be sure, was but small, for Jack considered his debts of this kind as debts of honour, so that the bum-boat women had a thousand-fold better chanc
es in their favour than even bum-bailiffs.100

  Many traders who sold goods to the seamen in British and Mediterranean ports were described as Jews and were not highly regarded. According to Goodall, they were seen as legitimate targets for any cruel jokes the seamen could devise:

  Jack had a totally different code of morals to guide him in his dealings with the Jew slop-merchants, whom he esteemed it a highly creditable achievement to cheat – an achievement of which he, however, could but rarely boast, so preternaturally was their native cunning sharpened in their dealings with the sea-going Gentiles, who were so alive to every chance of giving them the worst of a bargain. In Jack’s creed a belief in a Jew’s honesty found no place, and the extortionate price they in general demanded for all their wares certainly afforded some small ground for the seamen’s heterodoxy in regard to Judiacal probity. It did happen at times that the Children of Israel got worsted in their dealings with the men of war.101

  Goodall described how the warships were transformed into floating markets:

  I should mention here that the slop-merchants were accustomed to bring their goods on board in large hampers, lined inside with oilcloth, and bound outside with iron hoops – these receptacles answering the purpose much better than boxes, as being so much lighter, whilst they were hardly less secure, the lid being firmly padlocked until the merchant was ready to display his goods, which he simply did by folding back the capacious lid and spreading the more attractive articles thereon. These hampers were capacious enough to contain a stock of wearing apparel worth sixty or seventy pounds, so it may well be believed that their owners took no inconsiderable care of them and felt no small amount of anxiety in regard to their safety when they ventured for the purpose of traffic on board of a ship in course of pay.102

  As usual, when the seaman George King was paid a substantial sum, most of his money went to buy drink:

  On our arrival in Spithead in the month of June [1806] we were ordered to join Sir Samuel Hood off Rochfort. We then received our proportion of wages for the first time since 1804 which was a new scene to me. The Jews crowded on board with their baskets and bales of slops besides the bum boat women with quarts of rum tied up in paper similar to pounds of sugar, and we all in the ship was eager to obtain that drug. I purchased such articles I was in need of and then looked out for grog having a few pounds to splice. I was soon supplied by the bum boat women. Elated by the success of obtaining of it, I went below to my mess where we soon got through that quantity. In the meantime some of my messmates had got two or three more quarts of the same, only paying seven shillings a quart, and we thought that very reasonable as we had been in the habit of paying one shilling for one pint of three water grog from our shipmates. On the following day we were ordered to sea. About 12 pm we unmoored, shortened in, and at two weighed and made sail to join the commodore off Rochfort. The same evening at sunset we beat to quarters as is customary and I being a little elevated was reported for being drunk and on the following morning at seven bells received one dozen lashes.103

  For seamen like John Powell who were careful with their money, pay day was a time for observing the foolishness of the sailors in wasting their hard-earned cash. From Powell’s comments it would seem that George King’s purchases of grog were among the better bargains to be had:

  On the day appointed for payment about two hundred Jews came on board bringing with them all sorts of slops, watches, hats, rings, jackets, telescopes etc. it was exactly like a fair. There was also provisions of all sorts to be sold, together with gingerbread and cakes, which many of the men were fools enough to buy. One man gave eight guineas for a watch and the next morning he found it was good for nothing; another gave thirty shillings for a hat that was not worth 12, so that is the way that they are always so poor as they usually are.104

  Apart from drink and food, the seamen also bought items to adorn their living space in the ship, which Samuel Leech noted: ‘Most of the men laid out part of their money in getting new clothing; some of it went to buy pictures, looking-glasses, crockery ware, &c., to ornament our berths, so that they bore some resemblance to a cabin.’105 The desire to make the ship comfortable might even stretch to commissioning paintings. The officers routinely had their cabins decorated with pictures, among which portraits of loved ones were particularly popular, but as George Watson remarked, the crew of a large warship usually included men from various professions who used their talents to entertain other crew members in their spare time, such as the artist, who ‘suiting himself to the manners of his patrons, attracted the eye with scenes similar to those used by the poet, to affect the passions and delight the ear. There were “Jack on a cruise”, capering, drinking, fighting, &c. always attended with “Poll” or “Bess” and the like, with many other most obscene and lascivious representations … all which helped to cheer the heart of “poor Jack”, and beguile the weary hours of a long blockade.’106

  Basil Hall commented that it was the ‘domestic character, indeed, [which] gives the Navy of England its peculiar distinction, and mainly contributes to its success. For English naval men, and they alone, so truly make the sea their home. When afloat, they have no other thoughts of professional duty or of happiness but what are connected with the vessel in which they swim.’107 Since Hall was an officer his point is made rather more smugly than how many of the seamen might have expressed it, but his view remains valid, and later he noted that ‘It is impossible to describe the degree of regret, I might almost dignify it by the name of sorrow, with which some of us left the Leander, whose good old wooden walls had formed our house and home.’108 This is not so surprising when it is remembered that the warships were not just war machines, but the only home that serving sailors knew, often for many years.

  Map of South America

  ELEVEN

  GLORY AND HONOURS

  Having been some thirty years at sea, sitting down to reflect what sort of life you have spent and asking yourself whether you wish to pass such another.

  One of Captain Rotheram’s ‘Growls of a Naval Life’1

  From when Nelson joined the Royal Navy in 1771 to his death in 1805, a period of thirty-four years, Britain was at war for two-thirds of that time – and another decade would elapse before peace was finally secured. As the war dragged on, year after year, everybody loved to hear of victories, even if the casualties were high, because such news lifted the spirits and made people feel more secure from foreign invasion. William Richardson was in the West Indies when his ship, the Prompte, received the news about the defeat by Nelson in 1798 of Napoleon’s fleet off Aboukir in Egypt:

  Here we first heard of the glorious battle of the Nile, fired a salute on the occasion and in the evening illuminated the ship, our noble 1st and only Lieut. made a large bowl of good punch and we drank the health of the gallant Nelson with six more guns, then the health of our noble captain, who was on shore dining with the Governors, with four guns and then to the officers and crew of the Prompte, set off sky rockets and burnt blue lights and concluded the night merry and cheerful.2

  This was nothing compared to the celebrations in Britain, and even that staid newspaper The Times adopted a light-hearted approach:

  It is but justice that his Country should grant arms to Lord Nelson, since he has so gallantly lost one in her service … In their boasted Expedition to the East, the French had taken care to get the start of Nelson; but he shewed his superior skill by crossing the line before them. Captain Berry and his Hearts of Oak distinguished themselves so nobly, that every Briton sincerely hopes our English Oak may always bear such a Berry … It was observed after the action, that most of the French were miserably cloathed, and many nearly naked, although our gallant Admiral had given them so handsome a dressing.3

  Already the journalists were referring to ‘Lord’ Nelson, although no announcement had yet been made about a peerage, and when it did come many felt that being created a baron, when Admiral Jervis had been created an earl for a lesser victory, was an ins
ult.

  Although Nelson and his officers received many gifts and rewards for the victory, relatively little filtered down to the crews. Rewards for such victories were presented particularly by organisations of businessmen whose goods travelled by sea and needed naval protection, or by those involved in insuring ships and their cargoes. Trophies in the form of ceremonial swords and silver plate were common, as were gifts of money. Officers also aspired to promotion and social advancement, and they certainly looked for awards of orders of chivalry, such as the Order of the Bath, or peerages as recognition of their services.

  It was rare for medals to be awarded, either for individual gallantry or for campaigns. Gold medals were issued to the admirals and captains involved in the battles of St Vincent and the Glorious First of June, and all officers and men were awarded privately minted medals for the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar, but it was not until the reign of Queen Victoria that an attempt was made to recognise the heroic efforts of the navy at this time. In 1848 the Naval General Service Medal was issued to the survivors of over two hundred naval actions that took place between 1793 and 1815.

  The seaman always looked to prize-money as his reward, but shares of prize-money from large battles like the Nile and Trafalgar were low, because the enemy ships were much more likely to be destroyed or badly damaged, and had no valuable cargoes to sell, while any prize-money was shared between crews of the whole fleet. After the island of Martinique was taken from the French in 1794 Midshipman James Scott had great hopes of his share of the prize-money from the expedition. Being wounded he was transferred from his ship, the Pompée, and sent back to Britain in the Belleisle with an expectation that he would receive his money soon after arrival: