The War of Wars

by Robert Harvey

  In the West Indies there were the Jamaica and Windward Island Squadrons: the Jamaica Squadron had seven ships of the line and fifteen frigates by 1797. The Leeward Islands Squadron had twelve ships of the line and sixteen frigates. There were also two small squadrons to the north based at Halifax in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The substantial East India Squadron consisted of thirty-two ships, including ten of the line and seventeen frigates in 1797.

  These formidable fleets and the 120,000 seamen that manned them faced a French fleet of some 241 ships, including eighty-three of the line and seventy-seven frigates, and some 60,000 seamen, based principally at Brest, Rochefort, L’Orient and Toulon. The British merchant marine was colossal in size, consisting of some 16,000 ships, employing nearly 120,000 men.

  For a young midshipman joining a British navy schooner, for example, it proved an exciting world of professionalism, occasional cruelty, and self-contained claustrophobia amid the almost familial intimacy of a ship’s company. It could be hard going at first, although the navy was hardly the sink of institutionalized brutality that is popularly conceived. The sloop was a small, fast ship. It had two masts, each rigged with fore and aft sails. Its twenty-eight 9-pound guns were assembled on a single deck. The quarters for the midshipmen were damp and dark, below the gun-deck, though more spacious than for the seamen, and were only dimly illuminated by candles and the few cracks of light that showed from the decks above. The lonely midshipman, on his first few nights aboard, would have found the quarters stiflingly close, hunched in a ‘cot’ – a hammock of canvas stretched across a frame – with only a shelf for his possessions. In port the seamen’s cots actually touched each other. At sea there was much more room, as men took turns to take the watch.

  About half of the crew would have been ‘impressed’ – most of them merchant seamen. More than four-fifths of ordinary seamen, and half of able seamen, were aged under twenty-five. Only about a fifth were married. Boys of between six and eighteen were to be found aboard ship, many of them engaged simply in playing as well as learning the ropes. There were also plenty of animals aboard, including the inevitable rats, but also such livestock as cattle, sheep, pigs and goats, for food. British ships were however, kept rigorously clean.

  The damp below the decks could be pervasive, depending on the condition of the timbers. In summer, especially in the tropics, the heat and stench could be overpowering, although in winter the cramped conditions meant that men rarely suffered from the cold. As a midshipman became accustomed to being awoken at 6 a.m. to hurry about his new duties, he would quickly have understood the no-nonsense approach to naval discipline, although its harshness varied enormously from ship to ship. Such discipline and inflexible routines were considered essential to keeping order among so many men at such close quarters.

  In less well-ordered ships, young midshipmen were at the mercy of ‘oldsters’ – men passed over for preferment who would probably have to spend the rest of their lives in their jobs. Even young midshipmen could be venomous. As one seaman observed:

  We had a midshipman on board of a wickedly mischievous disposition, whose sole delight was to insult the feelings of seamen and furnish pretexts to get them punished . . . He was a youth of not more than twelve or thirteen years of age; I have often seen him get on to the carriage of a gun, call a man to him, and kick him about the thighs and body, and with his feet would beat him about the head; and these, though prime seamen, at the same time dared not murmur.

  ‘Cobbing’ – being beaten by a stockingful of wet sand – was a frequent form of physical abuse. The men’s routine sexual needs were usually accommodated in port by allowing prostitutes on board, a practice the vast majority of captains turned a blind eye to, and even regulated to reward the deserving. The cry ‘show a leg’ in the morning derives from the need to check whether a man or a woman was in a cot, the latter being allowed to sleep on undisturbed. The ‘cockpit’ of a ship derived its name from the place where the all-too-frequent brawls between the working girls or ‘port wives’ occurred.

  As for the quality of the food aboard ships, much depended on the climate, whether the ship was close to port, and whether the food was properly stored. Without refrigeration or canning the possibilities for deterioration were much greater. The purser, whose job it was to provide the food, was one of the ship’s company, and he too was liable to be judged by his peers.

  The rations were the subject of strict written regulations: a packet of biscuits each day for every seaman, which in practice was often sodden and weevil-ridden; and a gallon of small beer, a very weak version of the real drink, no more really than water flavoured with hops. The beer ration was often changed to a pint of wine or half a pint of rum, the latter usually being mixed with water and called grog, the seaman’s favourite drink. Each seaman was also entitled to 4 pounds of salt beef, 2 pounds of salt pork, two pints of peas, 3 pounds of oatmeal, 6 ounces of butter and 12 ounces of cheese a week. Flour, suet, currants and raisins were also issued. Where possible cabbage and greens were provided, along with the lime and lemon juice that had largely conquered the most dreaded disease, scurvy.

  Although in practice particular items often went short and food often went bad, these were substantial enough rations – as they had to be to keep the crew strong and able-bodied. The threats to food were legion, according to one purser. Biscuit was endangered:

  by its breaking and turning to dust; of butter, by that part next to the firkin being not fit to be issued; of cheese, by its decaying with mould and rottenness and being eaten with mites and other insects; of peas, oatmeal and flour, by their being eaten by cockroaches, weevils and other vermin, and by that part at the top, bottom and sides of the cask being so often damaged, as not being fit to be issued; besides the general loss sustained in all these provisions by rats, which is very great . . .

  Punishment was a fact of life, but flogging was not all that frequent, except on a minority of ships. A typical average was some fifteen floggings per ship in nine months, usually of between twelve and twenty-four lashes, although occasionally far more. This made severe punishment a significant part of navy life, but hardly a daily occurrence. Captain Frederic Chamier describes the first flogging he witnessed as a young midshipman:

  The Captain gave the order ‘Give him a dozen.’ There was an awful stillness; I felt the flesh creep upon my bones, and I shivered and shook like a dog in a wet sack. All eyes were directed towards the prisoner, who looked over his shoulder at the preparations of the boatswain’s mate to inflict the dozen: the latter drew his fingers through the tails of the cat, ultimately holding the nine ends in his left hand, as the right was raised to inflict the lash. They fell with a whizzing sound as they passed through the air, and left behind the reddened mark of sudden inflammation . . .

  At the conclusion of the dozen I heard the unwilling order. ‘Another boatswain’s mate!’ The fresh executioner pulled off his coat. The prisoner had said nothing during the first dozen, but on the first cut of his new and merciless punisher, he writhed his back in acknowledgement of the pain; the second stripe was followed by a sigh; the third by an ejaculation; and the fourth produced an expression of a hope of pardon. At the conclusion of the dozen, this was granted, and the prisoner released.

  Another observer remarked that after two dozen lashes: ‘the lacerated back looks inhuman; it resembles roasted meat burnt nearly black before a scorching fire.’ This was undoubtedly very harsh, but not more so than many punishments ordinary people could expect on land. Provided punishment was meted out fairly, and not excessively, it was probably supported or at least accepted by the majority of the men, who disliked their fellows getting away with serious offences, particularly major theft, for which the cat-o’-nine tails was prescribed, or less serious ones, such as malingering.

  There were lesser forms of beating for more minor offences – such as minor stealing, always deeply unpopular on board ship, for which a man could be made to walk a gauntlet with his shipmates hitting
him with knittles or small ropes. Liars were publicly humiliated by being made to clean the heads (latrines) for several days. Other punishments included ducking or a public scrubbing – usually for a dirty man – or wearing the cangue, a wooden collar with a cannonball attached, for several hours.

  The terrifying ordeal of being flogged around the fleet, applied only in the most serious cases of mutiny, was extremely rare, although performed with sadistic precision to ensure the victim did not die – for example 200 lashes would be applied at a time on three successive fortnights. Keelhauling – being dragged under the length of the ship – is believed to have died out in the seventeenth century, when it was also extremely rare. Only desertion at sea, murder, sodomy, and extreme cases of theft were punishable by death. Mutiny was often not punished at all if non-violent and the purpose was the removal of a hated officer.

  Chapter 25

  THE FLOATING WORLD

  The ships of the British Navy ranged in size from the minuscule gunboat to the magnificent first-rated three-deckers that provided admirals and their officers the space to live in state. In 1808 a first 120-gun three-decker was built. There were also 90-gun second-rate three-deckers, whose hulls were tall and short, and therefore sailed badly; these were being phased out, as were the still more unwieldy 80-gun three-deckers (although 80-gun two-deckers were more manoeuvrable). The bulk of the line-of-battle ships were, however, 74-gun two-deckers; 65-gun two-deckers were a cheaper version of these, and regarded as very poor quality; they were being phased out. Smaller 50-gun two-deckers were short, but of slightly better sailing quality.

  Frigates, with their speed, manoeuvrability and gunpower, were the real stars, acting in flotillas or single-ship actions. The 38-gun frigate was the most popular of these, with some eighty in service, compared with the increasingly obsolete 44-gun frigates, the still popular 40-gun frigates and the smaller 28-gun ships. The cheap, quickly built and even more nimble sloops (of which there were about 200 in 1801) also performed a major role. Bomb vessels had been created to act as mortars capable of firing explosive shells at enemy ports. Brigs (with fourteen 24-pound carronades), schooners (with four to six guns), cutters (with ten 18-pound carronades), and gunboats with a single gun made up the complement.

  On some ships there were only two masts but on a larger ship three. The sails on the latter were divided into the jibs at the front of the ship, the foresails on the foremast, the staysails also on the foremast but behind them, the mainsails on the mainmast, the staysails also on the mainmast but behind them, and the mizzen sails on the mizzen (rear) mast, with the spanker billowing out behind. In turn, the sails were on three horizontal levels, main, topmast and topgallant. The topmen, whose work was the most dangerous and skilled, were the strongest and bravest of the men, and respected as such aboard ship. Their main job was to loose sail or furl it or, more commonly, ‘reef’ it, that is shorten it by gathering a section up to the ‘yard’ and tying it with lengths of ropes sewn into the sail called reef points or let out reefs. The yard was the spar or the crossbeam to which the sail was secured.

  Next in the pecking order came the fo’c’s’lemen, who were usually older, often former topmen who had lost their agility. They had charge of the jib sails at the front of the ship as well as the anchor there and the guns. The third group of seamen, also usually older, were the after-guard, handling the spanker, the guns at the stern and, most importantly, the braces, the ropes to which all the sails in the ship were attached. The waisters were usually the dullest-minded in the middle of the ship, handling the foresail and mainsail, as well as pumping the bilges. Lowest in the hierarchy were the idlers, not because they were idle but because they did menial tasks. They included the carpenter and his mates, the cook and the officers’ servants, usually ship’s boys. In addition each ship usually had around fifty marines, to fight on land and enforce order.

  The men were divided into two watches for each side of the ship, the larboard (the left or, in today’s term, port) and starboard (the right). There were inflexible routines aboard ship – the 4 a.m. call with the idlers being called to scrub the decks and prepare the galley, the off-watchmen being woken at around 6 a.m., the stowing of cots and tidying of quarters. Breakfast was at 8 a.m., divisions at 9.30, when the men went on parade, followed by the various ships’ tasks and drilling at 10.00. At 11.30 there was a break to ‘up spirits’ – have a ration of beer or grog – with lunch at noon. After the afternoon work, the day ended at 4 p.m. with another up spirits and evening meal. The two main drills were gun practice and setting sail, which most well-ordered ships could do all at once in from four to six minutes, a remarkable achievement for around 15,000 square foot of sail in a medium-sized 31-gun frigate.

  Ships would practise zigzagging into the wind or away from it, tacking from one side to the other because they could not sail directly into it, no more in fact than 67.5 degrees on either side of the wind direction. Tacking was a skilful and difficult manoeuvre, which involved briefly facing the wind and risked missing stays and falling astern on the original tack or being unable to catch the wind on either side. The equivalent manoeuvre away from the wind – wearing – was much easier and faster, although more dangerous in heavy seas or before a strong wind because of the speed of the ship. A ship tacking into the wind travelled, of course, much more slowly than one wearing away from it.

  Ships would average a speed of around 6 knots, but they could go as fast as 14 knots for short stretches, which was essential when a smaller ship was being chased. James Gardner, a lieutenant aboard ship, described sailing in a gale and under chase from two French battleships:

  We should have been captured for a certainty if the Frenchman had possessed more patience. And so it happened: for a little before six, when he was within gunshot, the greedy fellow let another reef out of his topsails, and just as he had them hoisted, away went his foreyard, jib-boom, foretopmast, and maintopgallant mast . . . We immediately let two reefs out of the topsails, set topgallant sails and hauled the main tack on board, with a jib a third and the spanker. It was neck or nothing. For my part I expected we should be upset and it was with uncommon alacrity in making and shortening sails between the squalls that we escaped upsetting or being taken.

  The ship had covered 120 miles in twelve hours before getting away. By such superb seamanship as this were ships won or lost.

  In gun drill powder and shot was rarely used because captains were anxious to conserve this as they were responsible for its costs as a contemporary naval officer observed: ‘It is customary in many ships in a general exercise to go through the motions without loading or firing once in a year, and in others to exercise a few guns every day, and seldom to have a general exercise or to fire the guns.’

  The twenty-eight guns of most sloops were on a single deck, and the crew was trained to clear for action in five minutes (fifteen minutes on a ship-of-the-line because the lower deck had to be stripped of more cumbersome material) and fire three broadsides in ninety seconds, although this varied according to the pitch of the sea, because the cannon had to be rolled forward from the recoil. The guns were the smallest large ones, 9-pounders (that is they fired cannonballs (shot) weighing 9 pounds). These went up to 12-, 18-, 24-, 32- (the most common, 9½ feet long) and 42-pounders (then almost obsolete). Carronades were increasingly in fashion as both shorter and with a larger ball.

  The heaviest guns on a battleship were mounted on the lower deck. Doors covered the gun ports when not in use, to keep out spray. The guns could be moved slightly to right or left and raised or depressed, but could not be aimed, except by judging the roll or pitch of the sea in relation to the enemy ship. The first broadside of all the guns on one side of the ship was usually fired together: then firing was at will, depending on the speed and skill of the gun crews, usually at least eight men.

  Round shot was the most common type, and was used by the guns on the lower deck against the enemy’s hull. Double-headed or chain shot was used against the enemy’s
rigging. Grapeshot from the upper deck was used against the men on the enemy’s deck. Roundshot was extremely effective at close range. A 24-pounder was capable of penetrating a wooden hull 2 foot 6 inches thick. But the ranges fell away sharply. Such a gun had a range of 200 yards, or 2,200 yards if elevated before falling to the ground; at these distances it would do little damage. A carronade had a range of around 340 yards. The ship thus had to get in close to fire effectively, and sometimes collided with the enemy.

  Accuracy was, of course, extremely limited, rendered more so by the smoke of battle and the effect of reloading under fire. The British were traditionally believed to aim during the downroll of the ship at the enemy’s hull, to kill their gunners. The French traditionally fired high, to disable the masts and rigging, which would inhibit the enemy’s manoeuvring and allow them to move in for the kill, or get away. In practice these decisions were taken on the spur of the moment, as circumstance dictated. The British were certainly much more effective, the number of ships they captured or disabled being vastly higher than the French score.

  After each shot the hot gun had to be sponged out to remove debris. A cartridge of powder in cloth was then rammed down, followed by the shot, and then a wad of ripe yarn to fix it. A priming iron was then inserted into the touch-hole on top of the gun along with a quill of powder which was lit by a flammable wick.

  There were two standard types of small arms – long-barrelled muskets used to fire across at enemy ships, and pistols used in hand-to-hand combat when the ship was boarded. Boarders would be issued with cutlasses. An officer wrote: ‘According to the custom prevailing from the earliest period of naval history to the present day, in boarding or opposing boarders, the pistol is held in the right hand, and in the attempt to board is fired and thrown away to enable the boarder to draw his cutlass, which yet remains in the scabbard or left hand.’