by Sam Willis
preventer stay, Serves the same purpose as a stay but is used as a temporary expedient when excessive force is expected.
quarter, 1. The sides of the ship’s stern. 2. (pl.) Each man’s post or station in action. 3. Mercy, safety on surrender. 4. — deck, see deck. 5. on the —, in a direction between abeam and right aft, diagonal to the ship’s course. 6. — gallery, a balcony projecting from the stern and quarter of large ships, accessed via the admiral’s or captain’s cabin.
rake, vb. To fire down the length of an enemy ship from ahead or astern.
reach, vb. To sail with the wind abeam.
reckoning, 1. A calculation of the ship’s position. 2. dead —, an estimate of the ship’s position without the benefit of observations, by calculating course, speed and drift from a known point of departure.
reef, 1. A tuck taken in a sail to reduce its area. 2. A line of submerged rocks. 3. — point, a short length of line secured through a sail in order to be made fast around the yard or boom to take in a reef.
reef, vb. To shorten sail by bundling part of the sail against yard or boom.
reef tackle pendants, Ropes used to lighten the sail when reefing by pulling the unused sail up towards the yard.
rideau/radeau, Derived from the French radeau meaning raft. A naval gun platform.
riders, Interior ribs that strengthen a ship’s frame.
rigging, sb. 1. The ropes supporting and controlling the masts and spars. 2. running —, rigging controlling the movement of sails and movable spars. 3. standing —, rigging supporting the masts.
royal, A small square sail flown above the topgallant.
sail, 1. A piece of cloth spread aloft by masts and rigging to catch the wind and propel a ship. 2. Some number of ships. 3. — cloths, heavy canvas for sails. 4. — plan, an arrangement of sails. 5. easy —, a reduced sail plan, for slow speed. 6. fore —, the fore course, the lowest square sail set on the foremast. 7. head —, a sail set forward of the foremast. 8. main —, the main course, the lowest square sail set on the mainmast. 9. stay —, a triangular sail set on one of the stays supporting a mast from ahead. 10. studding —, a light sail temporarily spread outboard of a square sail in light airs. 11. top —, a square sail hoisted on the topmast, above the course.
sail, vb. 1. (Of any sort of ship) to move, to proceed. 2. make —, to hoist, spread sail. 3. shorten —, to reduce, take in sail.
sheet, A rope or tackle controlling the clew of a sail.
sheer hulk, An old vessel fitted with sheers to assist in the stepping or striking of masts.
shift, vb. 1. To exchange, replace or move. 2. — flag, (of an admiral) to change flagship.
shot, 1. A bullet or (non-explosive) projectile fired from a great gun. 2. canister —, see canister. 3. chain —, hollow shot formed in two halves containing and linked by a length of chain, designed to damage rigging. 4. dismantling —, one of a number of types of shot designed to damage masts and spars. 5. grape —, see grape. 6. fire —, hollow shot filled with an incendiary compound.
shroud, A stay supporting a mast from the side.
skids, Long vertical timbers fixed amidships to the ship’s side to protect the hull when heavy items are hoisted or lowered. slip (a cable), To cast off; especially to sail without weighing anchor, in which case the anchor cable is let slip and buoyed for later retrieval.
sloop, A small cruising warship, having only one internal deck, and mounting her main battery on the upper deck.
sound, vb. To take a sounding, to measure the depth of water beneath a ship.
spar, 1. A mast, pole or boom. 2. — deck, see deck.
spirketting, The timber between the decks and the gun ports.
Spithead, An area of the Solent, off Portsmouth.
spring, A hawser led from the capstan, out of the ship aft and made fast some way along the anchor cable, hauling on which will cant an anchored ship to bring her broadside to bear as desired.
spring, vb. (Of a mast or spar) to split along the grain.
spritsail, 1. A sail set on a yard below the bowsprit. 2. — topsail, a sail set on a small mast stepped on the end of the bowsprit.
standing, adj. Fixed.
stantions/stanchion, A small pillar of wood or iron used as a support for various purposes in a ship: they can be used to support the decks, quarter-rails, awnings etc.
starboard, Relating to the right-hand side of the ship.
stay, vb. 1. To tack. 2. in stays, of a ship pointing into the wind while in the process of going about. 3. miss stays, vb. in tacking, to fail to turn into the wind and to fall back on to the original tack.
staysail, see sail.
step (a mast), To place a ship’s mast.
stern, 1. The after end of the ship. 2. — post, a straight timber erected on the after end of the keel, supporting both the rudder and the structure of the stern. 3. — chaser, a chase gun pointing aft.
strike, vb. 1. To lower a mast, spar, sail etc. 2. To strike colours, to surrender. 3. To run aground.
studdingsail, A light sail temporarily set outboard of a square sail in light airs.
surge, Bodily movement of the ship ahead or astern.
sway, Bodily movement of a ship from side to side.
tack, 1. A rope or tackle serving to haul down the clew of a square sail. 2. The course held by a ship beating to windward. 3. larboard —, port —, the tack on which the wind blows from the left-hand side of the ship. 4. starboard —, the tack on which the wind blows from the right-hand side of the ship.
tack, vb. 1. To shift tacks, to go about, to turn into the wind and so onto the opposite tack. 2. To beat to windward by successive tacks.
tiller, sb. A bar inserted in the head of the rudder by which the ship is steered.
top, 1. A platform built at the head of the lower masts, serving to spread the shrouds of the topmast and provide a space for men working aloft. 2. — gallant, see topgallant. 3. — hamper, ship’s structure or equipment carried high up, tending to increase windage or reduce stability. 4. — man (likewise foretopman etc.), a seaman skilled in working aloft. 5. — mast, a mast fitted to the top of the lower mast and extending it. 6. — sail, see sail. 7. — sides, the upper part of the ship’s structure, clear of the water-line. 8. — timber, a structural timber forming the uppermost section of a frame on each side. 9. — weight, the weight of ship’s structure or equipment carried high, hence tending to reduce stability. 10. fore —, main —, mizzen —, a) the platform built at the head of the foremast, mainmast, mizzenmast; b) the fore, main or mizzen topmast head, the head of the topmast or topgallantmast.
topgallant, 1. A square sail set on the topgallantmast, above the topsail. 2. — mast, a mast fitted to the top of the topmast and extending it. 3. — yard, the yard set on the topgallantmast, spreading the topgallant.
taffrail, Bulwark at the after end of the poop or quarterdeck.
top (of a mast), A platform built at the top of the lower mast.
treenail, trenail, A wooden peg or pin used to fasten together the parts of the hull of a wooden ship.
truss, Secures a yard to its home mast.
trussle tree/trestle-tree, Strong horizontal timbers that support the mast top.
tumblehome, The inward slope of the ship’s side above the waterline.
tye, A thick runner securing a tackle to a yard or gaff.
unhandy, Unmanoeuvrable, clumsy.
unmoor, vb. To weigh anchor, to cast off a mooring.
upperworks, The upper portion of the ship’s structure.
van division, The leading division of a fleet or squadron divided into van, centre and rear.
vice-admiral, A flag officer ranking below admiral and above rear-admiral.
wake, The track of the ship’s passage through the water astern.
wear, vb. 1. To alter course from one tack to the other by turning before the wind. 2. To fly a particular flag or carry some distinguishing mark.
weather, 1. Relating to the direction fro
m which the wind is blowing. 2. — gage, the windward position in relation to another ship or fleet.
weather, vb. To get to windward of something.
weatherly, adv. (Of a ship) tending to ship seas easily.
wind, 1. The direction from which the wind blows. 2. The windward position, the weather gage. 3. head —, a wind coming from ahead, one making progress on that course impossible. 4. off the —, adv. sailing with the wind abaft the beam. 5. on the —, adv. sailing close-hauled.
windward, adj. Relating to the direction from which the wind is blowing
woolding, a rope wound numerous times around a mast to support it if it is split or if the mast is composed of numerous pieces of timber and requires such support.
yard, 1. A spar hung horizontally from a mast to spread the head or foot of a square sail. 2. An establishment to build, repair and supply warships. 3. — arm, the extreme ends of a yard. 4. main —, the yard spreading the mainsail.
yaw, Deviations from side to side of the ship’s course under pressure of wind and sea.
NOTES
Introduction
1 The impressive few are: Warner, O., The Glorious First of June (London: 1961) and The Life and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Collingwood (London: 1968); Krajeski, P.C., In the Shadow of Nelson: The Naval Leadership of Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, 1753–1812 (London: 2000); Hore, P., ‘John Richards Lapenotiere and HM Schooner Pickle and their Fifteen Minutes of Fame’ Mariner’s Mirror, 91, no. 2 (2005) pp. 284–93; Duffy, M. and Morriss R., ‘The Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794’ in Duffy M. and Morriss R. (eds.), The Glorious First of June 1794: A Naval Battle and its Aftermath (2001), pp.1–12 and Blake, R., Evangelicals in the Royal Navy, 1775–1815: Blue Lights & Psalm-Singers (Woodbridge, 2008).
2 J.B. Bourchier, ed., Memoir of the Life of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, vol. 1 (London: 1873), 68.
3 The criteria for inclusion remains an interesting question. James Saumarez’s action in the Gut of Gibraltar in July 1801, in which two Spanish First Rates of 112 guns were destroyed and a French Third Rate of 74 guns was captured, is the most notable exclusion. His level of success equalled, if not exceeded, Bridport’s tally of three enemy 74-gunners captured or destroyed at Groix in 1795, the smallest of the British victories in the collection. The reason for the exclusion of Saumarez’s action is therefore curious. Perhaps it is because a total of three enemy ships taken or destroyed was, by 1801, an insufficient measure of victory even if two of those ships were magnificent Spanish First Rates. Or perhaps it is because of the nature of their destruction; in the chaos of battle those ill-fated Spaniards fired into each other, believing each to be an enemy ship, until they both exploded.
4 N.H. Nicolas, ed., The Dispatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, vol. 2 (London: 1845), 63.
5 Bridport’s action off Groix in 1795 might be added to this list but it is important to remember that although Bridport was criticised within the navy for failing to press his victory, the public were delighted and considered him a hero.
6 N.A.M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain 1649–1815, vol. 2 (London: 2004), 608, 639.
7 But note that Saumarez’s capture and destruction of three enemy ships in the Gut of Gibraltar on 12 July 1801 is not included in the collection of dispatches. Even if it is included in this calculation the gap is still four years and three months.
8 M. Lewis, A Social History of the Navy 1793–1815, (1960), p 440–443.
9 See for example FF235, 236, 238, 240, 245, 246, 248, 250, 252, 254, 255 published in Nicolas, The Dispatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, V, (1845), pp. 215–27, but they are badly transcribed and heavily edited.
10 J. Sugden, Nelson: A Dream of Glory (London: 2005), 703.
11 J.D. Davies, ‘Adam, Viscount Duncan,’ in British Admirals of the Napoleonic Wars: The Contemporaries of Nelson, ed. P. Le Fevre and R. Harding (2005), 62.
12 Quoted in T. Jenks, Naval Engagements: Patriotism, Cultural Politics, and the Royal Navy 1793–1815 (Oxford: 2006), 27.
13 W. Marsden, A Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of William Marsden (London: 1838), 126.
14 Rodger, Command of the Ocean, 187.
15 For example, his comment on Captain William Parker’s letter, describing his action before 1 June 1794, notes: ‘Let him [i.e. Parker] know it [has] been communicated to their Lships who have great satisfaction in the account he has given of the exemplary conduct of the officers and ship’s company on the occasion.’
1. The Glorious First of June
1 N. Hampson, Prelude to Terror: The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus 1789–1791 (Oxford: 1988), x.
2 The Task by William Cowper, 1785. For more on this see E. Royle, Revolutionary Britannia? Reflections on the Threat of Revolution in Britain 1789–1848 (Manchester: 2000), ff.13.
3 H. Gough, The Terror in the French Revolution (Basingstoke: 1998), 54.
4 O. Warner, The Glorious First of June (London: 1961), 63.
5 R.J.B. Knight, ‘Richard, Earl Howe, 1726–1799’. In Precursors of Nelson: British Admirals of the Eighteenth Century, edited by P. Le Fevre and R. Harding (London: 2000), 285.
6 Knight, ‘Earl Howe’, 292.
7 J.B. Bourchier, ed., Memoir of the Life of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, vol. 1 (London: 1873), 18.
8 The French fleet consisted of 26 ships.
9 Nelson to Howe 8 Jan 1799, N.H. Nicolas, ed., The Dispatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, vol. 3 (London: 1845), 230.
10 Bourchier, ed., Memoir, 18–22.
11 R. Bevan and W.G. Kemble, ‘Narrative of the Engagement between the Brunswick and the Vengeur, 1 June 1794,’ in The Naval Miscellany, vol. III, ed. W.G. Perrin, (London: NRS Vol. 63, 1927), 163; Also see NMM: STT/3.
2 St Vincent
1 N.H. Nicolas, ed., The Dispatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, vol. 1 (London: 1845), 309.
2 J.S. Corbett, ed., Private Papers of George, Second Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1794–1801, vol. 2 (London: NRS Vol. 48, 1914), 58.
3 S. Howarth, ed., Battle of St Vincent 200 Years: Selected Papers from the Bicentennial International Naval Conference (Shelton: 1998), 72.
4 John Jervis, Earl of St Vincent, ODNB.
5 Nicolas, ed., Nelson Letters, vol. 2, 229.
6 The ships which came from the home fleet were Prince George, Orion, Namur, Irresistable, and Colossus.
7 The three-decked Principe de Asturias captured at Passaro in 1718 does not count because she was not a First Rate; in fact she was a captured British Third Rate, the Cumberland; and the First Rate destroyed on the stocks at Havana in 1762 never made it to sea.
8 Nicolas, ed., Nelson Letters, vol. 2, 335.
9 Ibid., 325.
10 Ibid., 313.
11 J. Sugden, Nelson: A Dream of Glory (London: 2005), 709.
12 J. Ross, Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, vol.1 (1838), 173.
13 Howarth, ed., Battle of St Vincent 200 Years, 15.
14 Nicolas, ed., Nelson Letters, vol. 2, 337.
15 C. White, 1797: Nelson’s Year of Destiny (Stroud: 1998), 75.
16 E.A. Hughes, ed., The Private Correspondence of Admiral Lord Collingwood (London: NRS Vol.98, 1957), 81.
17 Nicolas, ed., Nelson Letters, vol. 2, 337.
18 R.J.B Knight, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson (London: 2005), 230.
19 J.S. Tucker, Memoirs of Admiral the Right Hon. The Earl of St Vincent, vol. 1 (London: 1844), 254.
20 Rodger, Command of the Ocean, 439.
21 S. Howarth, ed., Battle of St Vincent, 42.
22 C.C. Lloyd and R.C. Anderson, St Vincent and Camperdown (New York, 1963), 63–4.
23 Knight, Pursuit, 221.
24 Sugden, Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 690.
25 Hughes, ed., Collingwood Correspondence, 49.
26 Described in Jervis’s first biography, J. Tucker’s Memoirs of Admiral the Right Hon. The Earl of St Vincent (1844
).
27 Though he later received ￡500 from the ‘Patriotic Fund’, a charity established by members of Lloyd’s Coffee House for the relief of injured sailors and their dependants.
28 Sugden, Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 707.
29 T. Sturges Jackson, ed., Logs of the Great Sea Fights, 1794–1805, vol.1 (London: NRS Vol.16, 1981), 233.
30 Knight, Pursuit, 219.
31 John Jervis, Earl of St Vincent, ODNB.
3 Camperdown
1 T.W. Tone, Memoirs of Theobold Wolfe Tone, vol. 2 (London: 1827), 231.
2 R. Camperdown, Admiral Duncan (London: 1898), 111.
3 C.C. Lloyd and R.C. Anderson, St Vincent & Camperdown (New York: 1963), 118.
4 Camperdown, Admiral Duncan, 92.
5 Lloyd and Anderson, St Vincent & Camperdown, 129.
6 Ibid., 141.
7 Sir Richard Onslow, ODNB.
8 L. Brockliss, J. Cardwell, and M. Moss, Nelson’s Surgeon: William Beatty, Naval Medicine and the Battle of Trafalgar (Oxford: 2005), 113; Lloyd and Anderson, St Vincent & Camperdown, 147.
9 B. Vale and G. Edwards, Physician to the Fleet: The Life and Times of Thomas Trotter, 1760–1832 (Woodbridge: 2011), 28.
10 J. Ralfe, The Naval Biography of Great Britain, vol. 4 (London: 1828), 160.
11 The bottoms of British warships were covered in copper, which reduced the growth of weed and barnacles, increased speed and performance and reduced the frequency of hull repair and maintenance.
12 Nicolas, ed., Nelson Letters, vol. 6, 216.
13 Nicolas, ed., Nelson Letters, vol. 2, 446 n.
4 The Battle of the Nile
1 A.T. Mahan, The Life of Nelson, vol. 2 (London: 1897), 154.
2 See Gentleman’s Magazine, lxxi, 659; and lxviii, 104.
3 A true lightning conductor not only provides a route to earth when struck but also reduces the probability of a strike by discharging the cloud before it has become sufficiently charged to arc and strike.
4 J.S. Corbett, ed., Private Papers of George, Second Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1794–1801, vol. 2 (London: NRS Vol. 48, 1914), 446.