by Roy Adkins
In fact, Duckworth’s success was founded more on luck than judgement. He had been blockading what was left of the defeated combined fleet of French and Spanish ships at Cadiz when news arrived that a French fleet was at sea. His decision to raise the blockade and go in pursuit did not make him popular with Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, who, on the death of Nelson, had become commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet. Duckworth was also out of favour because earlier he had actually sighted the other part of the fleet from Brest, led by Rear-Admiral Jean-Baptiste-Philibert Willaumez, but had mistakenly let it go. The breakout of one part of the fleet from Brest may have been neutralised relatively quickly, but not before reinforcements had been delivered to the French at San Domingo, and Willaumez was still at large. This was a practical demonstration of how much harder it was to find and destroy French fleets once they were at sea than to keep them cooped up in their ports. It was a salutary lesson to the British that a great battle had been won at Trafalgar but they had yet to win the war.
The blockade of French and Spanish ports was tightened as much as possible, and Collingwood, mollified by Duckworth’s achievement, felt that the situation in and around the Mediterranean was under control. The blockade might be the most effective weapon against Napoleon, but it was hard and monotonous work, offering little of interest and no financial rewards. Social etiquette prevented admirals from mixing too much with subordinate officers, and so the boredom of blockade duties affected them deeply. Napoleon, when on board a British warship heading for exile, commented that ‘I used to go amongst them [the seamen], speak to them kindly, and ask different questions. My freedom in this respect quite astonished them, as it was so different from that which they had been accustomed to receive from their own officers. You English are aristocrats. You keep a great distance between yourselves and the people.’3 When one of his officers in whom he could confide left the blockade, Collingwood felt quite alone and wrote to his wife and daughters:I shall miss Admiral Grindal [Richard Grindall, captain of the Prince at Trafalgar, and afterwards promoted to rear-admiral] very much, for he has been a companion for my evenings: and when he is gone I shall have only Bounce [Collingwood’s pet dog] to talk to . . . The only subject that gives a gleam of cheerfulness is the hope that the fleet in Cadiz may venture out again: they will soon be strong enough. I have only been ten days in port since I left England. It would weary any thing. Would that we had peace, that I might laugh again, and see you all merry around me.4
The men in the ships were not happy either, and many of those who had fought at Trafalgar felt aggrieved that their efforts had not been better rewarded. The crew of the Royal Sovereign went so far as to present a formal petition to the Admiralty when the ship reached Plymouth, in which they listed their grievances, including only a few men being granted shore leave when in harbour for repairs, and not being allowed to send dirty clothes to be washed on shore. They concluded that ‘your Lordships’ petitioners further sheweth that contrary to the rest of the Ships that were in the said Action of 21st of Oct[obe]r they have not received the smallest encouragement since the action, not even a single drop of extra liquor’.5
Privileges such as shore leave and receiving letters from home were granted at the discretion of captains of individual ships - and some were more generous than others. Many captains feared that allowing seamen ashore encouraged them to desert, especially as a large percentage had been pressed into the navy, but keeping them on board ship in a British port after long tours of duty also made many of them determined to escape at the first opportunity. It was because the men were rarely given shore leave that women were frequently permitted on board the anchored ships, and this was also felt to reduce the likelihood of homosexuality among the men. Homosexual acts were crimes brought before a court martial, such as one that took place ‘on board the Salvador, in Plymouth Dock, for the trial of William Taylor and Thomas Hobbs, two seamen, charged with committing an unnatural crime, which being proved against them, they were sentenced to receive 500 lashes each, to forfeit all their pay, and be imprisoned two years in solitary cells. They underwent a part of their punishment on Monday last, alongside the ships in Hamoaze and Cawsand Bay; one of them received 300, and the other 370 lashes.’6 Such harsh punishment was not unusual, and the men could even be hanged.
Ostensibly, only the wives and children of seamen were granted the privilege of joining them on board, but they were actually far outnumbered by prostitutes. Wives seldom knew which port their husbands had arrived at, or even which ships they were in, and so on top of the problems of travelling it was very difficult for them to join their husbands. In most cases ships were anchored offshore rather than moored in the docks, and boatloads of prostitutes were rowed out to the ships. Usually all a seaman had to do was claim that one of them was his wife, which gave rise to the saying that sailors have a wife in every port. The French army officer René-Martin Pillet, a prisoner-of-war in England for several years, observed that ‘the vessel is opened to all the girls of a dissolute life, who offer themselves. Sometimes moreover, for form’s sake, a hypocritical captain requires the female visitors to take the title of the sister, niece, cousin or relation of the sailor they designate.’7
The seaman William Robinson gave a graphic account of the women who greeted the arrival of his warship at Spithead39:After having moored our ship, swarms of boats came round us; some were what are generally termed bomb-boats [bumboats], but are really nothing but floating chandler’s shops; and a great many of them were freighted with cargoes of ladies . . . So soon as these boats were allowed to come alongside, the seamen flocked down pretty quick, one after the other, and brought their choice up, so that in the course of the afternoon, we had about four hundred and fifty on board. Of all the human race, these poor young creatures are the most pitiable; the ill-usage and the degradation they are driven to submit to, are indescribable; but from habit they become callous, indifferent as to delicacy of speech and behaviour, and so totally lost to all sense of shame, that they seem to retain no quality which properly belongs to [a] woman.8
The process by which the women were brought on board was next described in detail by Robinson, who made a pointed comparison to slavery:On the arrival of any man of war in port, these girls flock down to the shore, where boats are always ready; and here may be witnessed a scene, somewhat similar to the trafficking for slaves in the West Indies. As they approached a boat, old Charon [the boatman], with painter in hand, before they step on board, surveys them from stem to stern, with the eyes of a bargaining jew;and carefully culls out the best looking, and the most dashingly dressed; and, in making up his complement for a load, it often happens that he refuses to take some of them, observing, (very politely) and usually with some vulgar oath; to one, that she is too old; to another, that she is too ugly; and that he shall not be able to sell them; and he’ll be d——d if he has any notion of having his trouble for nothing.9
Robinson also pointed out just how much the officers were involved in controlling the traffic in prostitutes, contrasting their behaviour with their pretensions to being gentlemen:The only apology that can be made for the savage conduct of these unfeeling brutes is, that they run a chance of not being permitted to carry a cargo alongside, unless it makes a good shew-off; for it has been often known, that, on approaching a ship, the officer in command has so far forgot himself as to order the waterman to push off — that he should not bring such a cargo of d——d ugly devils on board, and that he would not allow any of his men to have them. At this ungentlemanly rebuff, the waterman lays upon his oars awhile, hangs his lip, musing on his mishap; and in his heart, no doubt cursing and doubly cursing the quarter-deck fool, and gradually pulls round to shore again, and the girls are not sparing of their epithets on the occasion. Here the waterman is a loser, for he takes them conditionally: that is, if they are made choice of, or what he calls sold, he receives three shillings each; and, if not, then no pay, - he has his labour for his pains . . . these were the ter
ms at Portsmouth and Plymouth in war-time, at these great naval depôts. A boat usually carries about ten of these poor creatures at a time, and will often bring off three cargoes of these ladies in a day; so that, if he is fortunate in his sales, as he calls them, he will make nearly five pounds by his three trips. Thus these poor unfortunates are taken to market like cattle.10
As a parting shot, Robinson explained the sole reason for the system: ‘It may seem strange to many persons, that seamen before the mast40 should be allowed to have those ladies on board; whilst the officers must not, on pain of being tried by a court-martial, for disobedience of orders, the Admiralty having made a regulation to that effect. The reason of this is, that the seamen are not allowed to go on shore, but the officers are, and may partake of what pleasure they choose.’11
Accommodation below deck was crowded enough under normal circumstances, but the influx of so many women filled it to overflowing, and Admiral Edward Hawker provided a vivid picture of life on board a warship in port in a pamphlet he published anonymously in 1821:The whole of the shocking, disgraceful transactions of the lower deck is impossible to describe - the dirt, filth, and stench . . . and where, in bed (each man being allowed only sixteen inches breadth for his hammock) they [each pair] are squeezed between the next hammocks and must be witnesses of each other’s actions. It is frequently the case that men take two prostitutes on board at a time, so that sometimes there are more women than men on board . . . Men and women are turned by hundreds into one compartment, and in sight and hearing of each other, shamelessly and unblushingly couple like dogs. Let those who have never seen a ship of war picture to themselves a very large low room (hardly capable of holding the men) with five hundred men and probably three hundred or four hundred women of the vilest description shut up in it, and giving way to every excess of debauchery that the grossest passions of human nature can lead them to, and they see the deck of a seventy-four-gun ship the night of her arrival in port.12
To upper-class observers such as Hawker, the women were hard-bitten, drunken and debauched. At Portsmouth they were known as ‘Spithead Nymphs’ and ‘Portsmouth Polls’, and the surgeon George Pinckard described what he regarded as a typical specimen in his account of a visit to Portsmouth:In respect to streets, houses, markets, and traffic, Portsmouth is not unlike other country towns, but Portsmouth Point [by the docks], Portsea Common, and some other parts of the town have peculiarities which seem to sanction the celebrity it has acquired. In some quarters, Portsmouth is not only filthy and crowded, but crowded with a class of low and abandoned beings, who seem to have declared war against every habit of common decency and decorum . . . To form to yourself an idea of these tender languishing nymphs - these lovely sighing ornaments of the fair-sex, imagine something of more than Amazonian stature, having a crimson countenance, emblazoned with all the effrontery of Cyprian confidence, and broad Bacchanalian folly: give to her bold countenance the warlike features of two wounded cheeks, a tumid nose, scarred and battered brows, and a pair of blackened eyes, with balls of red; then add to her sides a pair of brawny arms, fit to encounter a Colossus, and set her upon two ankles like the fixed supports of a gate. Afterwards, by way of apparel, put upon her a loose flying cap, a man’s black hat, a torn neckerchief, stone rings on her fingers, and a dirty white, or tawdry flowered gown, with short apron and a pink petticoat; and thus, will you have something very like the figure of a ‘Portsmouth Poll’.13
The women depicted by Pinckard were prostitutes who plied their trade on shore, as he mercilessly described:Callous to every sense of shame, these daring objects reel about the streets, lie in wait at the corners, or, like the devouring kite, hover over every landing-place, eager to pounce upon their prey; and each unhappy tar, who has the misfortune to fall under their talons, has no hope of escape till plucked of every feather. The instant he sets foot on dry land he is embraced by the neck, hugged round the waist, or hooked in the arm by one or more of these tender Dulcineas; and, thus, poor Jack with pockets full of prize-money, or rich with the wages of a long and dangerous cruize, is, instantly, dragged (though, it must be confessed, not always against his consent) to a bagnio, or some filthy pot-house, where he is kept drinking, smoking, singing, dancing, swearing, and rioting, amidst a continued scene of debauchery, all day and all night, and all day and all night, until his every farthing is gone. He is, then, left to sleep till he is sober, and awakes to return, pennyless, to his ship - with much cause to think himself fortunate, if an empty purse be the worse consequence of his, long wished for, ramble ashore.14
While many of the women who survived for any length of time as sea-port prostitutes may well have come to resemble the caricature figure that Pinckard represents, most were despairing young women who had turned to prostitution merely to survive in a brutal society that offered little other employment for an unattached woman not protected by her family. The seaman Robert Mercer Wilson recorded an incident at Spithead in his journal for September 1805 that demonstrates just how desperate some of the prostitutes were:While we lay taking on board our stores, the ship’s company [of the frigate Unité] were allowed to have women on board, and really I could almost fill a volume with the different scenes I saw, and the frequent discourses I heard; but as it would be no agreeable thing to those who never heard of the like, and no new thing to those who have, I shall only mention one circumstance which came immediately under my eye. A good-looking woman was taken in one day by a messmate of mine. When he brought her below, I observed that in spite of her trying to be cheerful, she was sad and many a sigh escaped her - also [this escaped] the notice of my thoughtless messmates, who were more mindful of pleasure than noticing whether their girls were glad or sad. Even if they had observed the latter the consolatory reflexion would have been replete with a few hearty dry curses - though in justice to those who uttered them, they meant no harm, so much are seamen in general addicted to swearing. For my part I observed her sighs, and from her discourse I found her to be a woman of some learning . . . I was surprised and amazed when I perceived her to be big with child. ‘Good God!’ said I to myself, ‘well might she sigh and look sad.’ What had hindered myself and my messmates from observing it before was [that] she had so artfully concealed it with her cloak in such a manner that it was impossible to perceive it till she took off her cloak. 15
Wilson asked her how she had come to be a prostitute and was given a familiar story:It was briefly thus; that ‘she had seen happier days, and might have done so to this time but for a young man who, although he was the occasion of all her woes and [of] her present situation, she could not hate’. She told her story so pathetically that I was sensibly touched with the narration; I only grieved I was not in a situation to relieve her . . . In spite of my remonstrances with my messmate (her partner) not to have any connections with her, my offering to take her off his hands, which made him think I was anxious to possess her charms, made him the more determined . . . Poor girl! It was a dear bought pleasure for her, for next morning she was seized with convulsions severe, which indicated the quick birth of the infant in her womb. When her situation was made known, our First and Second Lieutenants (to their honour be it said) gave her a guinea each; I contributed a small matter, but not half so much as I could wish, and she went on shore. The next day a letter came from her (though not written by her) to this effect; ‘that she [had] scarcely arrived on shore before she was delivered of a fine boy, in a promising state.’16
There was not always a clear distinction between a sailor’s wife and a prostitute - sometimes sailors married prostitutes, but more often sailors’ wives were forced to turn to prostitution to survive. Despite all that the Admiralty did to help seamen send money to their wives, many received only irregular payments and were often living in poverty. This was not necessarily because sailors did not want to send money, but because the system for doing so was erratic and unreliable. A seamen’s wife was not told where or when her husband’s ship would return to Britain and often had to trave
l across country to see him. The only method of social support was the workhouse, but these were organised on a local basis and paid for, grudgingly, out of local taxes. For this reason a destitute woman was taken back to her parish of origin rather than being given help where she was then living. In places overcrowded with seamen’s wives from all over the country, such as Portsmouth and Plymouth, the burden on local people would have been crippling if such a strict regime had not been in place. As it was, the cost of returning the impoverished families of seamen to their home parish was very high in the major ports and naval bases. In any case, the workhouse was an absolute last resort, as they were badly run, miserable places with a high mortality rate, largely because the sick and the destitute were housed together with hardly any medical help. In the ports, little work was available for women, and begging was not a realistic option. Beggars who were caught were also taken back to their home parish, but there were so many of them that the competition rather than fear of arrest made begging uneconomic for a sailor’s wife. Faced with such a harsh existence, accompanying their husbands on board a warship may have been the least daunting alternative for those wives who had the opportunity.
The navy might turn a blind eye to the custom of taking prostitutes aboard ships anchored at British ports, but did not openly acknowledge it. When Princess Caroline, who earlier had a brief relationship with Sir Sidney Smith, made an official visit to the Caesar in Cawsand Bay at Plymouth, Gunner William Richardson recorded the event:On May 11, 1806, Her Royal Highness Caroline, consort to His Royal Highness George, Prince of Wales, being on a visit to Edgecumbe House, paid our Admiral [Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan] a visit on board the Caesar, accompanied by Lady Hood and some others of distinction, and were received with a royal salute of twenty-one guns. The ship had been cleaned and prepared for the purpose, and all the girls (some hundreds) were ordered to keep below on the orlop deck and out of sight until the visit was over. As Her Royal Highness was going round the decks and viewing the interior, she cast her eyes down the main hatchway, and there saw a number of the girls peeping up at her. ‘Sir Richard,’ she said, ‘you told me there were no women on board the ship, but I am convinced there are, as I have seen them peeping up from that place, and am inclined to think they are put down there on my account. I therefore request that it may no longer be permitted. ’ So when Her Royal Highness had got on the quarterdeck again the girls were set at liberty, and up they came like a flock of sheep, and the booms and gangways were soon covered with them, staring at the princess as if she had been a being dropped from the clouds.17