Tis the bold race
Laughing at toil, and gay in danger's face,
Who quit with joy, when fame and glory lead,
Their richest pasture and their greenest mead,
The perils of the stormy deep to dare,
And jocund own their dearest pleasures there.
One common zeal the manly race inspires,
One common cause each ardent bosom fires,
From the bold youth whose agile limbs ascend
The giddy mast when angry winds contend,
And while the yard dips low its pointed arm,
Clings to the cord, and sings amidst the storm,
To the experienced Chief who knows to guide
The laboring vessel thro' the rolling tide;
Or when contending squadrons fierce engage,
Direct the battle's thunder where to rage:
All, all alike with cool unfeigned delight
Brave the tempestuous gale and court the fight.
—Henry James Pye's "Naucratia" (1798).
In the previous narrative of the early development of nautical art, science, and education, we purposely made no mention of contemporaneous English efforts in the same direction. These are more interesting to us who are descended from that great naval power, with an inheritance of nautical skill and commercial instinct that made us in little over half a century from the date of Independence her most formidable rival on the sea. They are also comprehensive enough to be treated in a separate chapter, embracing the period from the first quarter of the sixteenth century, when England began to interest herself in this great naval movement of the age and the organization of her naval service as a distinct profession, until the subject of naval training and education was taken up on this side of the Atlantic. In a preliminary' way, however, it may be appropriate to give a few facts relating to the mixed condition of naval service in England previous to its unification, which are gleaned from the delightful old "Naval Tracts" of Admiral Sir William Monson,' written during his retirement at his seat at Kinnersley in Surrey, in the early part of the seventeenth century, " for the delectation of his friends," and from interesting lectures delivered by J. K. Laughton, Professor of Naval History at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.
Before any ship employed in the King's service was armed as an engine of war, the captain was a soldier, bearing on his lance a single-tailed pennon, which afterwards was lengthened into the regulation pennant of a naval captain. Next above him in rank was the knight, exercising command afloat or ashore, from whose lance floated a swallow-tailed pennon, afterwards the well-known broad-pennant of a commodore; while the highest officer, the knight-banneret, was privileged to wear the square flag which in time became the distinguishing flag of an admiral. The other officers on the King's ships were also soldiers, put in command of the fighting men. But the master—the important possessor of the secrets of navigation—was necessarily a seaman. He was the guide upon whom every soul in the ship depended for safe conveyance from port to port; but his pay of six-pence a day. even in time of war, indicates the low estimate in which his office was then held. In time of peace, he commanded the ship as a merchantman, and, rough tarpaulin that he was, had no ambition of any sort beyond her bulwarks. The pilot's office in Monson's time was confined chiefly to the charge of a ship on entering or leaving a port, and of the relative importance of master and pilot, the doughty English admiral says: "The Pilot's charge is of greater weight than the office of Master; for by reason of our daily experience in long voyages the conduction of a ship is of little difficulty, for it has not been heard that any ship ever went out of England and returned home again without finding the country or place she went for."
It is a singular fact that when these pages were written, years ago, among a very large collection of old works relating to naval history at Annapolis, it is only in a French 2 work that a good specimen of the earliest English sea-language could be found. It is in the form of a quaint sailor song so-called, of Edward the Third's time, describing rather solemnly the getting under way of a pilgrim-ship bound to the Holy Land. The first two verses of the song express the melancholy regrets of the sailors at the necessity of going to sea, which is accounted for by the many drawbacks attending the carrying of pilgrims to Palestine, and by the wretched condition of the English merchant's service of that period. The succeeding verses, as written in old English, are as follows:
Anone the mastyr commandeth fast
To hys shyp-men, in all the hast
To dresse hem sone about the mast
Their takeling to make.
With " howe, hissa," then they cry
Wat howe mate, thou stondyst to ny
Thy fellow may nat hale the by;
Thus they begyn to crake.
A boy of tweyn anone up styen
And overt-whart the sayle-yerde lyen,
"Y how talya!" the remenaunt cryen
And pull with all thyr myght
Bestowe the bote, bote-swayne, anon,
That our pylgryms may pley thereon,
For som ar lyke to cowgh or grone
Or hit be ful mydnyght.
Hale the bowelyne! now, vere the shete!
Coke, make redy anoon our mete,
Our pylgryms have no lust to ete
I pray God yeve hem rest.
Go to the helm; what howe! no nere!
Steward, felow, a pot of bere!
Ye shall have, ser, with good chere
Anone, all of the best.
Y, howe, trussa; hale in the brayles!
Thou halyst nat; be god! thou fayles.
0 se howe well owre good shyp sayles!
And thus they say among.
Hale in the wartake! hit shal be done,
Steward, cover the boorde anone,
And set bred and salt thereone;
And tary nat to long.
Then cometh oone and scyth, be mery,
Ye shall have a storme or a pery.
Holde thow thy pese! thow canst no whery;
Thow medlyst wondyr sore.
Thys mene cohyle the pylgryms ly
And have theyr bowlys fast theym by,
And cry aftyr hote malvesy
Thow helpe for to restore!
And som wold have a saltyd tost,
for they might ete neyther sode ne rost;
A man myght sone pay for theyr cost,
As for oo day or tway ne.
Som layde theyr bookys on theyr kne.
Andrad so long they myght nat se;
Alas! myne hede woll cleve on thre,
Thus seyth another certayne.
Then cometh owre owner lyke a lorde,
And speketh many a royall worde
And dressed hym to the hygh borde,
To see all thyng be well.
Anone he calleth a carpentere,
And byddyth hym bryng with hym hys gere,
To make the cabans here and there,
With many a febyll cell.
A sak of straw were there ryght good,
Ifor some must lyg theym ni theyr hood;
I had as lefe be in the wood
Without mete or drynk.
For when that we shall go to bedde,
The pumpe was nygh our bedde hede;
A man were as good to be dede,
And smell thereof the stynk.
This is thought to be the oldest English sailor song that has come down to us! It is evidently written by a rough sea-poet familiar with the strange nautical jargon of that day, but it has more of the character of a descriptive sea poem than of a sailor song. Even if ever sung, it could not have helped Jack to heave up the anchor, or hoist the topsails, as did the spirited capstanditties of a later date. Nor could it have enlivened his traditional Saturday night at sea, like Dibdin's immortal lyrics. But it reveals at a very early period the existence of the same swearing, drinking skipper still found in the merchant service. Sailors swore so lustily in the Middle Ages that the laws of Alencon prescribed the punishment of cutting out the tongue of him who offended for the second time. The Norman code directed the head of a blasphemous sailor to be shaved, and earlier laws required him to run the gauntlet or have his ears cut off. Venice in the fourteenth century branded such offenders. Jal tells us that Moncenigo punished with flogging every man guilty of blasphemy, and inflicted a penalty of 100 sons on any sailor, of the poop, any statesman, officer, or gentleman, guilty of the like offence. Columbus, the cleanest of men morally and mentally, but a sailor to the backbone, never tolerated swearing. The English, as early as the thirteenth century, punished blasphemers with keel-hauling, and in Queen Elizabeth's time some inhuman devices were employed to curb the blackguard unruly spirit of the sailor. It was not an uncommon thing in the fleet to see an able-bodied seaman tied up in a bag hung at the bowsprit end, he being supplied with a biscuit, a bottle of beer, and a sharp knife, so that when weary of the situation he could put an end to his life. Another unfortunate might have been seen suspended from the yard-arm by the heels, and bumping against the side of the ship every time she rolled. Five hundred lashes were often given to riotous sailors, producing no better effect than 4 dozen inflicted in our day. Doubtless, too, the rough masters of the pilgrim ships in Edward the Third's time had greater provocation to nautical vices than the more polished captains of emigrant ships in our day, and it might be said also, with some truth, that they were better all-around sailors. But the time came at last when the ship herself was converted into an engine of war by arming her with guns, and it was found necessary, in time of war, to put a seaman instead of a soldier in command of her, or to select for that post such a sea-soldier and mariner combined, as is described by Monson, "who knows how to manage a ship and maintain a sea fight judicially, for defence of himself and offence of his enemy." The change was necessary also to enable the captain to exercise proper control over the sometimes presuming master. There were commanders of this type in Queen Elizabeth's fleet, as well as genuine old salts such as Drake, "a master in every branch of navigation, especially in Astronomy and in the application thereof to the art of sailing; "Hawkins and Frobisher, who had nothing of the soldier in them; but no distinction was made, says Schomberg, between the Earl of Essex, the general, and the Lord Thomas Howard, the admiral, in that warlike reign.
It was in the latter part of this reign that the inferior office of lieutenant was created, for the training of young gentlemen destined for command. But when appointed, the lieutenant was merely a landsman, a volunteer from the shore, "to learn what seamanship he could to assist the Captain in command of the men, especially in action, but not to interfere in the navigation of the ship, which remained in the hands of the Master." "The Lieutenant must have a care that he carry not himself proudly or presumptuously, nor that his Captain give him power or authority to intermeddle with the Master's office; for where there is heartburning between the Lieutenant and Master, it will make it burst out into open discontent, and then will follow Mischief and Factions among the Company." The six things requisite in a master were "The Card, the Compass, the Tides, the Time, the Wind, and the Ship's Way," and it is not to be wondered at that so important an officer resented—aye swore lustily at being put under an amateurish lieutenant who, perhaps, did not know the points of the compass. The innovation was not welcome even to Jack, who felt that the tarpaulin master understood him better than the priggish land-lubber, dubbed a lieutenant. Jack would submit with a volley of oaths to be put in the billbows, ducked at the yard-arm, flogged at the capstan or even keel-hauled provided the punishment were ordered by a salt like himself; but he thought it a humiliation to be punished by a young coxcomb who couldn't even talk the lingo of the sea—that strange language "not soon learned, much less understood, being only proper to him that has served his apprenticeship." Moreover, says Monson, "a boisterous sea and stormy weather will make a man not bred on it so sick, that it bereaves him of Legs, Stomach and Courage, so much as to fight with his meat. And in such weather, when he hears the Seaman cry Starboard or Port, or to bide Aloof, or flat a sheet, or haul home a cluling, he thinks he hears a barbarous speech which he conceives not the meaning of." The newly-made, seasick lieutenant, therefore, ignorant of the language and manners of the sea, could exercise no control over the stubborn sailor. But in the year 1620, the lieutenant was created for divers other reasons, with the hope that in time he would make himself felt in the service. "A Lieutenant," says the gallant Monson, writing in that year, "is an employment for a gentleman well-bred, who knows how to entertain Ambassadors, gentlemen and strangers when they come aboard, either in presence or absence of a Captain. A Lieutenant is to be sent on a message either aboard ships or ashore, upon any occasion of service, though it be to great persons—an unfit employment for a Master. A Lieutenant knows how to use gentlemen and soldiers with more courtesy and friendly behavior, and will give better satisfaction than any other mariner or master can do who have not been bred to it but in the rude manner of a mariner." From the beginning, therefore, the lieutenant was recognized as an officer and a gentleman, whose social advantages often hastened his professional advancement. In time, it was from the corps of lieutenants of all navies that were evolved the brilliant naval Chesterfields and swells who were charged with the conduct of nautical feasts and ceremonies afloat, and it must be added that, like the dandies of the army, they were oftentimes the best fighters in the hour of battle. But their time for professional glory was yet to come. There was no distinct naval profession during the reign of James I (1603-25), and for want of the Spanish system of nautical training (says Doyle) England's efforts at sea were frustrated. But great interest was then taken in England in naval affairs. This interest was doubtless stimulated by two very able discourses written by Sir Walter Raleigh, "whose reading made him skilled in all the seas," on the "Invention of Shipping," and on the "Royal Navy and Sea Service"—the earliest treatises upon these subjects. The King himself was given to scientific investigation, and made a special study of naval architecture, with the view of improving the build of his ships. In this work he was aided by Phineas Pett, a Cambridge University scholar and mathematician, who soon became the first scientific naval architect of England. In 1606, Pett was elected First Master of the Shipwright's Company. He was the master builder at Chatham dockyard with the title of captain, and there he launched, in 1610, the Prince Royal of 1400 tons—a noble vessel of war embodying the new ideas of the time. All the cumbrous top-hamper that previously disfigured vessels of this class, was swept away by this bold young architect, to whom is due also the credit of many other radical reforms in naval construction. Another member of the Pett family, in the reign of Charles II, first introduced separate cabins for officers on board of armed vessels. Still another Pett, in the succeeding reign, tried the experiment of sheathing men-of-war with lead as a protection against artillery. Indeed, during a period of nearly 200 years, down to the end of the reign of William III, this family furnished a succession of architects for the Royal Navy, their plans and methods being transmitted from one to another with the profound secrecy then jealously maintained in the profession to which they belonged.
It was in the reign of James I also, that the British claim to the hereditary and uninterrupted right to the sovereignty of the seas, conveyed to them from their ancestors, as Monson states, "in trust for their latest posterity," was insisted upon with the greatest tenacity. Although won by the combined efforts of sailors and soldiers serving afloat, the maintenance of this sovereignty was now mainly committed to the old salts so-called, who knew how to enforce it with peculiar acerbity.
"England truly challenges the prerogative of wearing the Flag as the Sole Commander of our Seas," says Monson, "and so has held it, without contradiction, time out of mind. If a fleet of any country shall pass upon His Majesty's Seas, they are to acknowledge a sovereignty to His Majesty by coming under the lee of the Admiral, by striking their Top-sails and taking in their Flag." Moreover, when Admiral Monson anchored his fleet in the Downs in 1603, he was not satisfied with the triple striking of the flags of the Dutch squadron lying there, but required the enraged Dutchman in command to keep them struck during his entire cruise on the English coast. We can well imagine the depth of this humiliation for the brave Hollanders, who had fought many a good fight with the English, and were fighting the encroachments of the sea itself to preserve existence as a nation. They could "repel the sea, dry the lakes, and imprison the rivers at home: but they had to humble themselves to the bold British seamen." Nor were the haughty Spaniards, even in their best days as a naval power, permitted to sail the seas unchallenged. Schomberg tells us that the Lord High Admiral Howard, cruising in the English Channel, compelled the whole Spanish fleet of 160 sail (escorting King Philip on his way to England to espouse Queen Mary) to strike their colors and lower their topsails in homage to the British flag. These were, indeed, glorious days for the veteran seamen captains of Monson's type, who looked down upon the soldier captains still employed in the naval service, and heeded not the wordy contest waged by Grotius, in his "Mare Liberum" (1629), in opposition to the claim of British supremacy, and by Selden, in his "Mare Clausum," in defence thereof. But it gratified those haughty sea-kings to know that a copy of Selden's book was deposited in the Court of Admiralty by order of Charles I, there to remain "as a just evidence of our dominion of the Sea." It appears, however, that during the Commonwealth, the old salts in command were mistrusted by the Long Parliament, which once more put soldiers such as Blake, Monk, and Popham in command of the fleet. Seamanship, however, did not deteriorate, as these remarkable men acquired great nautical skill; and the inferior commands were left in charge of the younger seamen. Upon the accession of Charles II to the throne, his brother, the Duke of York, was appointed to an active command at sea, which made the service fashionable among the young nobles at court. Many of these, utterly ignorant of the seaman's art, obtained from the too pliant monarch a captain's commission with the command of a ship of war. "It mattered not," says Macaulay,' "that he had never in his life taken a voyage except on the Thames, that he could not keep his fleet in a breeze, that he did knot know the difference between latitude and longitude. No previous training was thought necessary, or, at most, he was sent to make a short trip in a man-of-war, where he was subjected to no discipline; where he was treated with marked respect, and where he lived in a round of revels and amusements." Such were the gentlemen captains of this period, who, says the Naval Secretary Pepys, "depending on the interest of their friends at Court, will venture to do what a plain tarpaulin, if he had no other reason, would never dare." They were autocrats, too, of the most extreme type, keeping their lieutenants at an humble distance. And the lieutenants, whose highest pay until 1700 was only five shillings a day, lorded it in turn over master, purser, surgeon, and chaplain— then not regarded as officers,—even to the point of enforcing an order with an oath or a blow.
Ne'er from the lap of luxury and ease
Shall spring the hardy warrior of the seas—
A toilsome youth the mariner must form
Nurs'd on the wave, and cradled in the storm.
—Pye's Naucratia.
In due time the Duke of York became Lord High Admiral of England, and filled the office most worthily. His previous experience at sea, coupled with the wise counsel of his secretary, the invaluable Pepys, "the greatest and most useful minister that ever filled the same situation in England," brought forth the famous "Sailing and Fighting Instructions for His Majesty's Fleet."
The effect of this stringent body of regulations was seen five years later when the Prince—"the Light and Guide of all the rest"—won a brilliant victory over the Dutch fleet commanded by Opdam and Van Tromp. In this engagement several of the so-called gentlemen-captains, pilloried by Macaulay, were knocked about by the Dutch cannon balls, which must have given them a distaste for the service. But the brave tarpaulin captains were in their true element on these occasions, and fortunately for the honor of England there was a succession of them in her navy at that time, such as Admiral John Benbow, Sir Christopher Myng, once a cabin boy, and his cabin boy, afterwards Sir John Narborough, whose cabin boy Shovel swam through the line of an enemy's fire, carrying dispatches in his mouth to a distant ship, for which exploit he was made a midshipman, and afterwards became Admiral Sir Cloudesly Shovel. This probably is the only such case in naval history.
These famous flag-officers are known in naval history as the "Three Cock Thorpe Admirals," having been born in three hovels of the obscure hamlet of that name, near the village of Burnham Thorpe, which was also the birthplace of Nelson.
Of the three, only Shovel received the honors of burial in Westminster Abbey, and it will hardly be believed that he is represented on his tomb by the figure of an insipid beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state." Surely even a blundering artist might have refused to perpetuate such an absurd, unfit memorial of a great sailor. In the service, however, these men were remembered only in the guise and manner of doughty self-made admirals. To seamen of this type the fighting instructions of 1660 were most welcome on account of their disciplinary effect, which was increased by the later permanent establishment of the first navy board under the Great Seal of Charles II, together with other measures—all looking to the organization of the naval service as a distinct profession. But this was not fully accomplished until James II ascended the throne in 1685. His long experience as Lord High Admiral convinced him of the necessity of a new special commission which was appointed "for settling all things relating to the naval service, and for putting the management thereof into such a method as might need few or no alterations in succeeding times." While this commission was in authority, the King, aided by the ever faithful Pepys, issued a new set of instructions to the officers commanding his ships-of-war, dated July 15, 1686, which were allowed by all seamen "to be as judicious and effectual, and at the same time as gentle and practicable as can be desired." Moreover King James's knowledge of naval architecture, combined with the professional skill of Sir Anthony Deane, a member of the "Special Commission" aforesaid, the best naval architect of his day, produced such a fleet as had never before sailed under the British flag. Deane, like his predecessor, Phineas Pett, modelled the new ships after some captured French men-of-war, then considered the best afloat, although once contemptuously styled by the English "Bundles of laths."
It was therefore in the reign of the sailor King James II (1685-88), acknowledged to be the most learned monarch of his day, that the naval service of England really became a distinct profession in its organization and administration. It is supposed also that the humble grade of midshipman was created about this time, but as yet the most painstaking inquirer has been unable to fix the exact date, by any document or order, of the warrant aforesaid. Certain it is, however, that the question of naval education was not even mooted by the government or admiralty during the rule of the Stuart dynasty.
While the French government was bestowing great care upon the theoretical and practical training of its naval "aspirants," the British midshipman was left to his own resources, without the aid even of a nautical primer to guide his first steps in the profession. No provision was made for his instruction except in so far as the boatswain was capable of teaching him the ropes. A similar course had been adopted by that other whilom champion of the seas, Holland, which is accounted for by a veteran officer of the French navy in the following singular manner: "It is probable that the propensity of the northern nations to meditate profoundly upon subjects to which they attach importance has made their governments apprehensive that if naval officers were required to study abstract science, its attractions might cause them to neglect their practical cunning, and become mathematicians instead of seamen. Such an unlooked for result would be impossible in the case of a versatile Frenchman, but quite probable in the case of a phlegmatic Englishman." If these were the sentiments of French naval officers generally, they utterly failed to comprehend the maritime spirit of their rivals across the Channel. It was conquest, not scientific culture of a professional sort, that occupied the minds of British seamen, and so long as victories afloat were won by rough and ready tarpaulin captains of the Shovel and Benbow type, the question of theoretical instruction did not seem to be of pressing importance.
But it must not be supposed that nautical science was neglected in England while her naval heroes were making naval history. On the contrary, we find in various works treating of the seaman's art, ample evidence of the interest taken in this subject by Englishmen not connected with the marine, as well as by those who followed the sea professionally, and by the government itself.
Of all who have since us'd the open sea,
Than the bold English none more fame have won:
Beyond the year, and out of heaven's high way,
They make discoveries where they see no sun.
—Dryden's " Annus Mirabiles," 1666.
In 1573, only thirty-six years after the appearance of the earliest Portuguese treatise on the art of navigation, William Bourne published "A Regiment of the Sea, containing most profitable rules, mathematical experiences, and perfect knowledge of navigation." In this first navigation book written by an Englishman, and intended as a supplement to the Spanish work of Cortes already noticed, Bourne pointed out divers ways of finding the variation of the compass, exposed the errors of the plane chart, and advised mariners in sailing towards high latitudes, to keep the reckoning by the globe, as there the plane chart was most likely to lead them into trouble. He also published almanacs, with tables of declination. In 1578 Bourne published his "Inventions and Devices, very necessary for all generalles and Captaines or leaders of men, as well by sea as by land." This original book of 99 pages treated of not less than one hundred and thirteen subjects, the twenty-first of which gives the earliest known account of a log and line, and the principle of using them, as practiced by some navigators of his day to determine the speed of their vessels. Burnaby affirms in his "Ancient Geography" that no writer has preserved any account of the mode in which ancient navigators computed distances at sea. Yet the weight of testimony seems to confirm the statement of Samuel Purchas in his "Relations of the World, &c.," (1626) that the log was first used in 1607, the inventor thereof being unknown to this day. Nor was it generally used for a long time subsequent to that date, seamen being at variance not only as to the proper length of a log-line but also as to the length of a mile. Following closely after Bourne's interesting works, came the "Discovery of the dip of the Needle (1576)," by Robert Norman, a nautical instrument maker at Ratcliff. The pamphlet describing his invention was published in 1581 under the title "New Attractive, containing a short Discourse of the Magnet or Loadstone, and among other his vertues of a new discovered secret and subtil propertie concerning the declining of the needle touche, and therewith under the plain of the horizon; now first found out by Robert Norman, Hydrographer." To which was subjoined William Burroughs' "Discourse of the Variation of the Compass." Norman improved the compass, and maintained, in opposition to Cortes, that the variation was caused by some point on the surface of the earth and not in the heavens.
A great admirer of the "New Attractive" was Blundeville, who advised all mariners to read this treatise most diligently "so truly are the secrets of the loadstone, and the variation of the compass deciphered." He also expressed his concurrence in Norman's belief that "the properties of the Stone, as well in drawing Steel as in showing the North Pole are secret virtues given of God to that stone for man's necessary use and behoof, of which secret Virtues no man is able to show the true cause."
In 1585, John Blagrave, besides his "Mathematicall Jewell," wrote other books on navigation and mathematics. In 1586, Richard Polter published what Markham describes as a silly book, "The Pathway to Perfect Sailing," in which he held that different loadstones communicated different degrees of variation to the magnetic needle. In 1587 appeared a rare tract containing the best description of the sea astrolabe then known, the title of which read as follows: "A Mirror of Mathematicians; a Golden Gun for Geometricians; a Sure Safety for Saylers, and an Ancient Antiquary for Astronomers and Astrologians, by Robert Tanner, Gent., Practitioner in Astrologie and Physic, &c." He quaintly Styled the astrolabe of his day "the traveller's joy and felicitie," and demonstrated its great utility by the recital of thirty-two distinct operations performed with it. "We here see," says this enthusiast, "that our forefathers had invented and constructed a very clever and useful instrument, and one which was remarkably portable, and there is probably no one instrument of modern times by which so many operations could be performed, and so much knowledge acquired." In the great year of the Spanish defeat (1588) Sr. Thomas Hood, an expert maker of compasses, constructed on the Norman principle, delivered a course of lectures on navigation, which were doubtless well attended by young mariners of that day. Hood also wrote several books on geometry, the cross-staff, globes, and charts.
In 1594, Captain John Davis, the Arctic navigator, "a most learned mariner and a good mathematician, as well as the first practical seaman of his day," published his "Seaman's Secrets." This was a very popular work, of which eight editions were published in half a century, entirely replacing the translations of Cortes; and in the following year he published the "Worldes Hydrographical Description," both of which books were eagerly read by mariners. This was just six years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, an event which stimulated both seamen and scientists throughout England to develop the great art of navigation. It made every British seaman feel his superiority on the sea, and led bluff Captain Davis to boast in the preface of his book that "as navigators and seamen, we are not to be matched by any nation of the earth," which was quite true. More modest than he, however, were Sir Walter Raleigh and the Gilberts, his contemporaries and friends, who did splendid work in navigation and the art of war. The "Seaman's Secrets" was designed to be a practical handbook for the sailor, giving him also as much scientific information as was necessary for the proper understanding of the art of navigation. And Davis indicates the proper equipment of a navigator as follows: "The instruments necessary for a skillful seaman are a Sea Compasse, a Crossestaffe, a Quadrant, an Astrolobe, a Chart, an instrument magneticall (an azimuth compass) for the finding of the variation of the Cornpasse, an Horizontale plaine Sphere, a Globe, and a paradoxall Compasse, by which instruments all conclusions and infallible demonstrations Hidrographicall, Geographicall, and Cosmographical], are without controlement of errour to be performed; but the Sea Compass, Chart, and Crossestaffe are instruments sufficient for the Seaman's use, the Astrolabie and Quadrant being instruments very uncertaine for Sea observations." (Very interesting cuts of these instruments are to be found in John Davis's book, printed in Vol. 59.1 of Hakluyt Society publications).
It was Davis himself who had improved the cross-staff, or forestaff,—so called because the observer in using it turned his face towards the object—by what was practically a new invention (159o) which he called the back-staff, used for taking the sun's altitude at sea, the observer's back being turned towards the object. Of this handy instrument, which superseded the clumsy astrolabe for taking meridian altitudes at sea, and which was commonly called Davis's quadrant, he says enthusiastically, "the Seaman shall not find any so good, and in all clymates of so great certaintie." It was afterwards improved by Flamstead with glass lens, and by Halley, and continued to be almost the only instrument used for taking altitudes of celestial bodies at sea until 1731, when it was entirely superseded by Hadley's quadrant, "which became as indispensable in navigation as the Mariner's Compass."
Davis, on his return from his Arctic voyage (1587), made a large scale map of the known world, which no longer exists, but his geographical discoveries are shown on the Molyneux globe. "His instructions," says Markham, "about great circle sailing, and his system of using a terrestrial globe fitted with a quadrant of altitude, might even now be studied with profit."
Contemporary with Captain Davis, was the quaint, delightful Nlaister Blundeville, who, in 1594, gave to the nautical world "His Exercises," containing six Treatises, which are very necessary to be read and learned of all young Gentlemen that have not been exercised in such disciplines, and yet are desirous to have knowledge as well as Cosmographie, Astronomie, and Geographie, as also in the Arte of Navigation, in which Arte it is impossible to profite without the helpe of these, or such like instructions. To the furtherance of which Arte of Navigation, the said M. Blundeville speciallie wrote the said Treatises, and of mere good will doth dedicate the same to all the young Gentlemen of this Realme."
Of the six exercises, the first treats of arithmetic; the second of cosmography; the third of globes; the fourth of universal maps of Petrus Plancius ; the fifth of M. Blagrave's Astrolabe; and the sixth of the principles of navigation. It is doubtful whether the young gentlemen of his day profited by the interesting work so handsomely dedicated to them if they resembled those so plaintively addressed in the old sea song—
You, gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease,
Ah ! little do you think upon the dangers of the seas!
Give ear unto the mariners and they will plainly show
All the cares and the fears.
When the stormy winds do blow.
There can be no doubt, however, that Blundeville's popular navigation book was a great boon to the masters of ships, whom he advised in a fatherly way to procure, before entering upon a long sea voyage "a perfect Calendar, the Mariner's Ring or Astrolabe, the Cross-staff, the two globes, celestial and terrestrial, an universal horloge to know the hour of day in every latitude, a Nocturne-labe to know the hour of night, the Mariner's Compass and the Mariner's Card or Chart." To this outfit " some very prudent masters added the universal map of Petrus Plancius, serving for both sea and land, and described as a "Map meete to adorn the house of any Gentleman or Merchant that delighteth in Geography." Thus equipped, the master was considered competent to practice the art of navigation, aptly defined by Blundeville as "An Art which teacheth by true and infallible rules how to govern and direct a ship from one port to another safely, rightly and in the shortest time." This is, in clear language, a brief epitome of the seaman's art which so many minds and pens have labored to elucidate in past centuries.
In 1599, Edward 'Wright, an eminent mathematician, and hydrographer and lecturer on navigation for the East India Company, published his "Haven Finding Art," containing incidentally an account of the log and its uses; also his "Certain Errors in Navigation Detected and Corrected," in which he fully explained the principles upon which the parallels of latitude were constructed in Gerrard Mercator's Universal Map (1569), which principles, as is stated elsewhere, were probably unknown to Mercator himself, as he gave no explanation of them. Wright was a Fellow at Cambridge University when he sent to Blundeville an account in manuscript of the true method of dividing the meridians, together with a specimen chart so divided, and a short table to regulate the division, all of which Blundeville published in his "Exercises" to establish his friend's title to priority of invention. Henceforth rudely constructed globes and erroneous plane charts were no longer used by mariners to estimate courses and distances. Wright also introduced an instrument called the "Sea Rings," by which the altitude of the sun, the hour of the day, and the meridian of the compass might all be determined by inspection, in situations where the latitude was known. He also contrived a mechanical sphere with which he exhibited all the celestial.
Many treatises on globes and instruments appeared at this time (1592) in the brilliant reign of Queen Elizabeth, and famous globes, celestial and terrestrial, were made by skillful hands, those of Molyneux and Sanderson being mentioned in the books with special praise. Sanderson is quaintly described thus in a Harleian manuscript, "Borne a gent, bred a Merchant Adventurer, he invented, made, printed and published the great spheares and globes, both celestiall and terrestriall, being the first soe published in Christendome, for the honor of his countrie, and good of the scholars, gentry, and Mariners of the same." But there was still needed something to simplify the long and intricate calculations used by the sailor to obtain his results, and this was at last supplied by the tables of logarithms, invented and arranged by John Napier, the Lord of Merchiston, who, in 1614, gave to the maritime world his "Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptis." These tables were at once adopted by all seafaring men, and formed the basis of the present system of navigating ships. His friend, Henry Briggs, "who had a genius for numbers," further improved the system of logarithmic tables, and in 1624 Edmund Gunter still further simplified such calculation by his table of artificial sines and tangents, and by his resolution of spherical triangles without the use of secants. Gunter also invented the useful scale known by his name, and introduced the measuring chain.
Napier's great discovery was made known in France by Edmund Wingate in two tracts, thus placing her scientific men under an obligation which they fully discharged at a later period. In 1635 Mr. Gellibrand published his "Discourse Mathematical on the variation of the Magnetic Needle," and in 1637 appeared Richard Norwood's "Seaman's Practice," giving a full account of his measurement of a degree on a great circle of the earth, of his improvement of the log-line and of his method of perfecting a sea reckoning. This treatise and his earlier work on trigonometry were frequently reprinted as the most useful text-books for learning scientifically the art of navigation. An "Epitome of the Seaman's Practice," in many successive editions, was also prepared for the use and instruction of the mariners of the kingdom, of which there was great need. At this time we also hear the commanding voice of Admiral Monson, from the place of his retirement, forcibly advocating the necessity of public lectures on nautical subjects (fourth book of his "Tracts") as follows:
"With pity I speak it, we have not respected the instructing our Mariners, and no marvel that we have sustained so great a loss by shipwreck, for no more our Seamen get by bare Experience, they never endeavor themselves to knowledge." Then, arguing the greater benefit of lectures than books, as a means of keeping the secrets of the art of navigation, after the example of Spain which concealed the situation of rivers and places in the Indies from the English, the gallant admiral philosophizes thus—"It is a question whether a man shall attain to better knowledge by Experience or Learning"—upon which point scholars and mariners even at that early period had many angry controversies. "The scholar accounts the other no better than a Bruit Beast, that has no learning but bare Experience to maintain the Art he professes. The Mariner accounts the Scholar only Verbal, and that he is more able to Speak than to Act. All which is great Arrogance in both, when they ought to reason to assist each other, and especially the Mariner is to receive comfort from the Scholar, for he that has but bare Experience receives that he has by Tradition, and Learning is the Original Ground of all Arts. If we had but a Lecture of Navigation read which Seamen might resort to, they would soon reform their spightful Humours, and confess how needful it is that Learning should be added to Experience. . . . I am of opinion there is no error the Mariner finds at sea, either in Card, Star, Instrument or Compass, but upon his information may be reduced by the skillful Mathematician and made perfect. . . . It is not Art, but Fear and Care that preserves ships, for if the Masters should presume upon their Art to bear in with any Land, the Rocks would devour ten times more ships than they do. . . . But if the Art can be made perfect, and the errors corrected and reduced to a certainty by the painful study of the Learned, it will prove a happy thing to all Seamen, and by consequence to the whole Commonwealth."
These advanced ideas of a self-taught seaman and admiral of the seventeenth century, and especially his frank declaration of the importance of mathematics to the seaman's art probably found but little sympathy among the tarpaulin officers of his own high rank who were not then, nor for a century later, accustomed to receive science in any form as a handmaid of their profession. Monson, however, was as much of an "old Salt" as any of them, which is proven by his deeds and stratagems at sea, and he was perhaps the first British admiral who had the courage to sustain the mathematicians in their efforts for the advancement of nautical science. He probably had read some of the already mentioned nautical works published in his time, which were to contribute not a little to the improvement of his profession; but whatever the inducing cause of his argument, it was most creditable to his intelligence as a sailor and an officer of large experience. We can almost recognize this veteran in Locker's graphic picture of "The Old English Admiral" on the retired list, "wearing his cocked hat somewhat awry, his buttons and scarlet waistcoat trimmed with gold, with a glass of rum at his elbow, and smoking a cigar—the last remnant of a cockpit education—attended by an old tar—his former coxswain—who ruled the other servants with a rod of iron, rehearsed all his old yarns to the admiral nightly, exaggerating the heroism of his chief in many a story of battle, knowing that each yarn would be washed down with a glass of the admiral's best grog. On one of these occasions, the old coxswain reminded the admiral of the five and forty foot rattlesnake that he killed with a blow of his fan, when the admiral said "Avast Boswell, mind your reckoning there, twas but 12 you rogue, and that's long enough in all conscience."
But the lectures on navigation, so warmly advocated by Monson, were not provided in his time, nor was any additional light shed upon nautical science during the succeeding period of Cromwell, although the navigation act of 1651 made greater demands upon the skill and energy of seamen. Some doubtful points in navigation and nautical astronomy had already been cleared up, but the great problem of the longitude, which had puzzled navigators from the time of Columbus, was not yet solved. Mr. Bond believed that he had unravelled the mystery when he hit upon the true theory of magnetic variation, and by special command of Charles II he published, in 1676, an account of his discovery in a pamphlet entitled "The Longitude Found." But, in the following year, an anonymous writer, heedless of the royal approval of Bond's 'demonstration, proved its fallacy in a defiant treatise entitled "The Longitude not Found." While their respective adherents were angrily discussing the question, hundreds of vessels engaged in commerce were lost at sea for the want of proper nautical instruments, which disasters finally brought about the foundation of the Greenwich Observatory in 1676. This was the first step taken by the government looking to the development of nautical astronomy and ultimately to the finding of the longitude at sea. Already in 1663, contemporaneously with the French "Academie des Sciences," the "Royal Society of London" had been established for the encouragement of the arts and sciences in general, with Boyle, Newton, Flamstead, Halley," and other great scientists among its earliest members and most frequent contributors, and soon afterwards (1676) was founded the Greenwich Observatory which gave a stimulus to the study of astronomy and navigation. In 1791 there was formed in London a society for the improvement of naval architecture, which offered prizes for best papers upon that subject. This body gave a great stimulus to the art, and both the theory and practice of shipbuilding were much advanced by means of a special school attached to the Naval College at Portsmouth under Dr. Inman's superintendence. But the problem of finding the longitude at sea had not even then made any headway. It needed the incentive of a large pecuniary award and the skill of a practical mechanician to accomplish the desired result by the aid of timekeepers.
It was Gemma Frisius, a cosmographer of Flanders, who, in 1530, first proposed to ascertain the relative longitude of any place by means of watches, then newly invented, and he is said to have constructed a quadrant for this purpose which was simply a modification of the cross-staff. This crude instrument was a step in the right direction, but almost two centuries elapsed before the goal was reached. As early as 1598 Philip III of Spainoffered a reward of 1000 crowns to the person who would discover the longitude. The States of Holland, following the example of Philip, offered £10,000 florins for the same purpose. The terrible shipwreck of Sir Cloudesly- Shovel's squadron on the Scilly Rocks finally induced the British Parliament to create a board of longitude and to pass an act in 1714, offering a reward of £14,000 for any method of determining the longitude within one degree of a great circle; of £15,000, within the limit of 40 geographical miles; and of £20,000, within the limit of 30 geographical miles, provided such method should extend more than 80 miles from the coast. The French government in 1716 offered a reward of 100,000 livres, and in 1720 and 1747, the Academie des Sciences offered, on its own account, handsome rewards for the discovery of the long-sought longitude. It was a matter of immense importance to every maritime state, but it fell to the lot of English mechanics to invent and make instruments best adapted to the purpose. The most ingenious of them all was John Harrison, who constructed four time-keepers between 1726 and 1763. The board of longitude tested these in various ways, on land and sea, and Harrison was sent to Lisbon in a government vessel to make observations with his time-keeper. He succeeded so far as to correct the dead reckoning a degree and a half. In a subsequent voyage to Jamaica, in 1761, his son William Harrison took with him a better instrument, which on his return was found to be in error less than two minutes. Accordingly the Harrisons claimed the reward of £20,000, which after a second voyage to Jamaica, and additional tests of his invention by Dr. Maskelyne and others, was paid in 1765. Two years afterwards John Harrison published a treatise on his time-keeper which is cited as a proof "that inventive power may belong to a mind incapable of explaining clearly its own conceptions." But his invention was a great one--so great in the eyes of the sailors, during the first years of its employment, that they became panic-stricken whenever the time-keeper was allowed to run down. When ships were wrecked or abandoned at sea, the first thought of the captains was to save the chronometer, and we are told that the commanding officers of French ships-of-war on distant stations, at the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789, sold their ships to subsist the crews, but jealously preserved and carried back to France the chronometers.
Thus the novel expedient of offering pecuniary rewards for the finding of the longitude was attended with considerable success, and it is quite probable that the plain mechanician, Harrison, was much envied by the learned men of the Royal Society. But it must not be forgotten that it was Dr. Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal, who, in 1754, discovered the method of finding the longitude by lunar observations on shore, and, in 1767, originated the Nautical Almanac, the standard navigator's guide, which has been published annually ever since. We know also that Meyer aided in solving the problem of the longitude by the publication of his lunar tables in 1760. It was under the auspices of the Royal Society, too, that Hadley's Quadrant was made known in 1731, and his sextant in 1761. None of these nautical instruments, however, were then furnished by the admiralty to ships of war.. The sailing master was obliged to purchase them out of his meager pay, the cheapest article and the worst being of course obtained for use at sea. Even that delicate instrument, the compass, was not thought worthy of special care, at the end of a cruise being committed to the boatswain, who stowed it away with his tar bucket traps in a dockyard loft with no more concern than if it were a piece of junk.
It might be supposed that, after the discovery of the longitude, the numerous voyages of exploration and discovery conducted by Cook (in the Endeavor, 1772-75), and by other skillful captains, in which some of the best officers of the British navy were trained to deeds of hardihood, would have incited some of them to study the art of nautical surveying, and to become hydrographers. In our day the benefits to young officers from such voyages are immense, but it was not so at the period in question. Indeed the commissioned officers of the British navy had but little knowledge of nautical instruments and no knowledge of hydrography, and even down to 1830—sixty-five years after the discovery of the longitude—"the greatest maritime power in the world labored under the imputation of producing the worst sea charts," says a writer.
With the introduction of chronometers, the operation of "taking the sun" became henceforward one of the most important duties of the day on board of sea-going vessels, but at night the observation of the stars was contrived in the old-fashioned way, with a telescope. Of course oscillations of the ship impeded these observations, and we are told that the novel expedient employed in the sixteenth century to obviate the difficulty by hoisting the observer in a chair between the main and mizzenmasts, was used in the French navy as late as 1770. In the British navy, the duty of "taking the sun" was discharged by the pilots, whose proceedings are thus described in easy flowing rhyme by Falconer, in that wonderful nautical poem "The Shipwreck," which has been styled "a grammar of seamanship, and the only instance of smooth versification of the language of the sea."
The pilots now their azimuth attend,
On which all courses, duly form'd, depend:
The compass placed to catch the rising ray,
The quadrant's shadows studious they survey;
Along the arch the gradual index slides,
While Phoebus down the vertic-circle glides;
Now seen on ocean's utmost verge to swim,
He sweeps it vibrant with his nether limb.
Thus height and polar distance are obtained,
Then latitude, and declination, gain'd;
In chiliads next the' analogy is sought,
And on the sinical triangle wrought:
By this magnetic variance is explor'd,
Just angles known, and polar truth restor'd.
This incomplete record of facts derived from many authentic sources shows that England even anticipated France in her efforts to develop the theory of the seaman's art, although depending upon French savants, to a considerable extent, for text-books upon the subject "
But it is worthy of note that the progress made in navigation and in shipbuilding both in France and England, down to this period, and for many years subsequently, was due quite as much to landsmen of a mathematical turn of mind as to seamen and captains such as Cabota, Drake, Hawkins, Gilbert and Dampier, who so greatly extended the limits of geographical knowledge, and improved the art of navigation. It is quite certain, however, that even if not a single nautical book had been written, nor a single discovery made, by the scientists before Clerk's time, the practical result on the sea would not have been different. And here arises the question much discussed at different periods by philosophers, historians, and magazine writers—In what consisted the superiority of the English.at sea? What were the causes of British superiority at sea? We have elsewhere cited the testimony of Admiral Monson and the philosopher Voltaire upon this subject. When Mr. Clerk stated that "in bringing a single ship to close action, the British seaman has never been excelled," he was quite correct; but he did not live long enough to witness the naval events of the war of 1812 in which American ships and captains practiced this lesson so successfully against British captains. In fact such was the reliance of Monson and other British admirals in the superior pluck and muscle of their seamen, that they readily took any odds of ships, guns and men against them in battle, and so long as there were Spanish and French fleets to be fought the English were pretty sure to win by laying them close aboard, a lesson in which British commanders alone excelled until they met the captains of American ships in the War of 1812. Indeed it was acknowledged in the columns of the British Naval Chronicle of 1799 that "the decided superiority of the British navy is perhaps not more to be attributed to the bravery of her sailors than to the attention which has been paid by the first scientific characters of the country to every circumstance tending to its improvement." The great mass of English naval officers had a thorough contempt for book-learning of a professional kind, as well as for scientific men generally. "Lead, Latitude and Lookout," says an English writer, "the safeguards used in navigating ships in Dr. Halley's time (1680-1730), were preferred down to a later period by commanding officers to the dry rules of Maskelyne; and it was not until the publication of J. Clerk's "Essay on Naval Tactics" in 1782, that the old sea dogs of that day would admit that any useful idea in naval affairs could be derived from books or landsmen. This treatise of a Scotch country squire, who had never made a voyage at sea, revolutionized the prevailing system of tactics and led to the victories of the great commanders who studied and adopted the new tactics." This book was a great surprise to the whole naval profession. It was the first scientific treatise on naval tactics published in Great Britain, all the others being mere translations of French authors. Only a few copies were at first printed and circulated among the author's friends in the Navy, but some other officers copied the whole work in manuscript. "It was printed," says a writer in the British Naval Chronicle, "during the American Revolutionary War (1782), when the nation was depressed by the disasters of our arms and the want of naval success." Strange it was that a man totally unacquainted with the sea should have found out the cause of the disasters and suggested a remedy which led to the subsequent victories of Rodney, Howe, Duncan and St. Vincent. "Admiral Duncan," says the same writer, "handsomely acknowledged the indebtedness of himself and other English admirals to Mr. Clerk." Indeed his book had wrought a revolution, not only in tactics, but also in the naval profession itself, which Admiral Howe describes as "a complex service both by sea and land, which all naval officers ought to be well versed in." He uttered this opinion while in command of the British fleet on the North American station during our Revolutionary War. "In that and the previous wars," says the same writer, "single British ships were more than a match for ships of equal force, of any nation, but the large fleets of England had achieved nothing memorable owing to defective tactics." Another evidence of the growing attention of officers of high rank to the theory of their profession is found in the publication by Sir Alexander Schomburg in 1789 of "A Sea Manual," which was held in high repute. In this connection, too, we have the later testimony of Carlyle, whose virile nature appreciated the strong points of British seamen. Quoting from what he styles "A Singular Constitutional History of England," existing only in his fancy, he drew a comparison between the army and navy of England in the Spanish War, concluded in 1763, describing the army as "totally chaotic in a quiet habitual manner," and the navy in a far different sense both as to its ships and organization, as follows:
"With the Naval branch it is otherwise, which is also habitual there. The English, almost as if by nature, can sail and fight in ships; cannot well help doing it. Sailors innumerable are bred to them; they are planted in the ocean, opulent, stormy Neptune clipping them in all his moods forever; and then by nature, being a dumb, much-enduring, much-reflecting, stout, veracious, and valiant kind of people, they shine in that way of life which requires such . . . . For a ship's crew or even a fleet, unlike a land army, is of itself a unity, its fortunes disjoined, dependent on its own management; and it falls, moreover, as no land army can, to the undivided guidance of one man, who has now and then from of old chanced to be an organizing man, and who is always much interested to know and practice what has been well organized. For you are in contact with verities to an unexampled degree, when you get upon the ocean with intent to sail on it, much more to fight on it; bottomless destruction raging beneath you, and on all hands of you, if you neglect for any reason the methods of keeping it down, and making it float you to your aim."
In 1800, the superiority of the British at sea was attributed by French professional writers in the Moniteur, to the better knowledge of tactics, to the better ships and gunnery of the British, who directed their fire mainly against the hull of the enemy's vessel, dismantling her guns, and decimating her crew, whereas the French directed their fire at the rigging of the enemy. Yet at this very time, the French had reduced naval tactics to a perfect system on paper by the aid of dozens of text-books, and professors of the science in her naval schools, whereas the English had but one text-book upon the subject, and one naval school hardly deserving the name. But unfortunately, says one of the French writers, "the officers of the French navy who have practice, are unacquainted with theory, and those who are acquainted with theory have not hitherto attained practice." In reply to the articles in the Moniteur, British writers pointed out that there was another cause of British superiority "which is as much a property of our nation as fog and beef are the characteristics of our island, viz.: the matchless firmness of our seamen, and that, fire as they may at hull or rigging, the French fleet must always be beaten by laying in close aboard." And while admitting the value of the principles inculcated in the only British text-book (Clerk's), which enabled British admirals to take almost any odds of ships, guns or men of an enemy, they contended that Boscawen, Hawke, Rodney, Howe, Hotham, Jervis, Duncan and Nelson, were all authors upon this subject, and that they were "nervously concise rather than eloquently diffuse in their instructions." "Point your guns well, my lads; don't throw away a single shot; see but their whiskers and you will singe them." Admiral Boscawen, surnamed "Old Dreadnaught" by his men, fought a night action, in his shirt, with two Spanish ships which escaped in the darkness. These lessons the British tars put in practice with the swaggering confidence expressed in the sea-song of Nelson' time:
British sailors have a knack,
Haul away! yeo ho, boys!
Of pulling down a Frenchman's Jack,
'Gainst any odds you know, boys.
Come three to one right sure am I
If we can't beat 'em still we'll try,
To make Old England's colors fly,
Haul away! yeo ho, boys!
Another very spirited song (anonymous) published in 1805, expresses the feeling of British tars at sight of a Frenchman at sea:
A sail on your lee-bow appears
She looms like a French man-of-war
Then pipe up all hands, my brave tars,
And cheerly for chasing prepare.
Set each sail that will draw, ease your reefs and be mute,
Mind how you steer,
Don't let her veer,
She'll lose way if she yare,
So steadily down on the enemy bear,
And give her a British salute.
But now see her top-sails aback,
She seems making ready to fight;
Up hammocks! down chests! clear the deck!
And see all your matches alight!
Now splice the main brace and to quarters away!
Stand every one
True to his gun
'Till the battle be done,
We soon shall compel them to fight, sink or run!
Huzza! for Old England! huzza!
Among the many possible means of improving the personnel of the navy, that of education was the last considered and attempted by the government of England. It was still believed that the best school for educating young naval officers was the quarterdeck of a man-of-war, which was doubtless good doctrine in those fighting days. And so it happened that more than half a century after France had begun to educate her young "aspirants" for the sea service of the state, and even after the adoption of the same policy by Russia the first step was taken in England to educate her midshipmen. In 1729 a "Naval Academy" was established in Portsmouth Dockyard by George II. This institution was started on a voluntary self-supporting basis and with a very liberal programme of studies, comprising the elements of a general education, as well as mathematics, navigation, fortification, gunnery, and small-arm exercises, drawing and French language, together with the principles of ship-building, and practical seamanship in all its branches. But the privilege of admission into this college was limited to a small number of the sons of the nobility and gentry, who for the most part declined the honor, and sent their boys to sea without special preparation. In consequence of this neglect, the college languished, and in 1773 it was found necessary to offer a gratuitous education to twenty sons of officers in order to keep its doors open. The number was consequently increased, but these privileged ones were a mere fraction of the number that annually entered the service, and were so persistently ridiculed on account of their theoretical attainments that they laid aside their books, and strove to emulate the majority of their grade in the acquisition of that practical skill which alone was valued in those fighting days.
The French were better educated in the science of war ashore and afloat than their adversaries, which fact did not concern the latter in the least. For the midshipmen, a cockpit education was still held to be sufficient, for which reason the Academy, even after it was raised to the dignity of "Royal Naval College" in 1806, continued to lack hearty support from the navy itself, was looked upon with distrust by veteran officers, and failed to exercise any influence upon the tone or intelligence of the personnel of the service. In this it differed greatly from the French naval schools which were, in a measure, the outgrowth of a wide-spread interest in nautical science, in and out of the profession, and although this did not save France from defeat on the sea, she is nevertheless entitled to the gratitude of the maritime world for the abundant light which her savants shed upon the theory of the seaman's art.
As might be expected, the effect of the system of training adopted in the French navy, and of the want of such training in the English navy, was apparent in the general conduct and bearing of the junior grade of officers in both services. The young aspirants of the French navy, with all the natural propensities of their years, were brought into easy subjection to naval law and discipline by the influence of education afloat and ashore, whereas the midshipmen sailing in the English ships, without any such wholesome influence, were a sadly demoralized and insubordinate lot. We learn that with the exception of a few lads of good family, serving chiefly in flagships, the British midshipmen of the eighteenth century were of low social standing, and that it was customary to estimate their character according to the size and rate of the vessel in which they served. It is also stated that the age of midshipmen ranged from ten to forty-five years, the oldest ones being promoted from before the mast without hope of further advancement; and that in those days a married midshipman was not uncommon, but "Mrs. Midshipman was probably no better than the wife of any other seaman." On the other hand mere boys were made lieutenants without the six years' experience at sea required by the regulations, and there were captains who entered on the ship's books the name of an infant, to be made a midshipman before he laid eyes on salt water. Under such circumstances, without teacher or text-book, and under the undisputed sway of seamen old in years and vice, the honorable though humble grade of midshipman suffered much degradation. The rough ignorant appointees of tarpaulin captains naturally took the lead in every scene of revelry and insubordination, converting the cockpit or reefer's berth into a veritable pandemonium. Occasionally, the breaches of discipline and propriety were so gross as to bring down upon the offenders the severest forms of punishment of that day, by arbitrary captains, such as deprivation of rank, mast-heading, riding on the spanker-boom, marrying the gunner's daughter, confinement in irons, or being made fast in the rigging with legs and arms distended. These punishments were borne with stolid fortitude by the hardened old sailor-midshipman, but it is related of a high spirited youth sentenced "to marry the gunner's daughter," that he jumped overboard and lost his life rather than submit to that disgrace. There were, of course, youths of high tone and character who escaped the contagion of the cock-pit, by manly self-denial and devotion to their profession. Among these were conspicuous Jervis, Nelson, and Collingwood. Midshipman Jervis (afterwards Earl St. Vincent) who, when unable to pay his mess-bill, lived by himself on the ship's allowance, washed and mended his own clothes, made a pair of trousers out of the ticking of his bed, but preserved his integrity and became a great seaman and officer. Midshipman Nelson was surrounded by similar difficulties, but overcame them all. At the early age of twelve he had his first experience of a naval service in the Raisonnable of 64 guns, which prompted him at the end of the cruise to enter the merchants' service in order to better learn the seaman's art. His opinion of the personnel of the navy was expressed in the brief sentence "Aft the most honor, forward the better man," but his prejudices against the navy were overcome at last and he rejoined one of the king's ships. Even at this early period he had become an excellent pilot for decked navy cutters sailing from Chatham to London, and was familiar with all the difficult navigable channels and passages along the coast. Afterwards, in 1773, he volunteered before the mast as "Cock-astern" on board of captain Ludwidge's bomb-ketch, Carcase, bound to the Arctic Sea on a voyage of discovery, indicating a thirst for varied professional knowledge which he never ceased to extend during his subsequent career. But his main ambition as a young officer was to be a skillful pilot, which carried with it great influence and power.
Young Cuddy Collingwood, as he was called at school, afterwards Admiral Lord Collingwood used to relate of himself that soon after he joined his first ship—the Shannon—at eleven years of age, "the first Lieutenant found him weeping over his forlorn condition, and addressed him in terms of such unexpected kindness that in the simplicity of his heart the youth led the good-natured officer to his chest, and offered him a share of the cake which maternal tenderness had added to his humble outfit." These examples, however, were exceptions to the rule of roughness and severity to midshipmen that prevailed in the British navy. The gruff, stern tones of command greeted the young reefer from the first day of his service afloat, and the prospect in store for him even among his messmates was something like that pictured to Peter Simple by Mr. Trotter when he conducted that young gentleman to the cockpit: "Now youngster, you may do as you please. The Midshipmen's mess is on the deck above this, and if you like to join, why you can; but this I will tell you as a friend, that you will be thrashed all day long and fare very badly. The weakest always goes to the wall there, but perhaps you don't mind that."
Such were the midshipmen who sailed in the king's ships in the eighteenth century. They were not then addressed by the more modern designation of "young gentlemen," simply because they were not expected to act in that capacity. They regarded the absence of refinement as an evidence of seamanlike character; but they disdained the language and manner of the drawing-room, and gloried in serving under such an officer as the famous Jack Larmour, who, while acting as first lieutenant of the Hind, wore the dress of a common sailor, and was found one day setting up his rigging with a marlinspike slung round his neck and a lump of grease in his hand. We are told that "Lieutenant Bowling's dress consisted of a soldier's coat, altered for him by the ship's tailor, a striped flannel jacket, a pair of red breeches japanned with pitch, clean grey worsted stockings, large silver buckles that covered three-fourths of his shoes, a silver-laced hat whose crown overlooked the brims about an inch and a half, a black bob-wig in buckle, a check buckle, a silk handkerchief, a hanger with a brass handle girded to his thigh by a tarnished lace belt, and a good oak plant under his arm." This was the holiday getup of a lieutenant shortly before the first introduction of a naval uniform in 1748; but for long afterwards, it was not unusual for the lieutenant to have only one uniform coat amongst them, which they wore by turns, as they had to go away on duty; whilst on board, they wore such old clothes as circumstances permitted or suggested; a second-hand soldier's red coat being, it is said, that which came most frequently to hand. As a majority of the lieutenants were promoted from before the mast, the gun-rooms of many ships acquired a low tone in manners, morals and dress. Nor did they consider it derogatory to their dignity to be obliged to address the captain humbly, cap-in-hand, or to receive him in a body at the gangway when he came on board drunk as a lord after a midnight debauch. How fallen was the popular lieutenant of the eighteenth century from the high type of Monson's days when he was expected to be at least a gentleman in dress and demeanor, if not an experienced sea-officer, and was called upon to perform only the offices of a gentleman. And what could be expected of the midshipmen, always inclined to outstrip their senior afloat or ashore in deviltry and riotous conduct. It will hardly be believed that, even as late as 1779, an English midshipman was hanged on the charge of murdering his mother on the deck of a man-of-war, and that another midshipman suffered the same penalty for attempting to raise a sedition amongst American and French prisoners on board a ship bound to England from this country. But, at the outbreak of the French revolution, a better class of bcys—some even of noble birth, following the example of the young Duke of Clarence, obtained midshipmen's warrants, which, according to the testimony of some officers "was not an unmixed gain." One ship, in particular, had a great number of these lorcilings, who were placed under the special care of the captain. The younger ones were allowed to reef and furl the mizzen-topsail, and one day when they were aloft awkwardly furling, the captain impatiently sung out to them, "My lords and gentleman, and you right honorable lubbers on the mizzen-topsail yard, roll that sail up and come down." "Of course the order was obeyed by the youngsters, whose favor the diplomatic captain knew how to conciliate. It was among these that the fops and dandies of the navy were found, who, then, as now, had to bear the brunt of much ridicule. A midshipman of this class who had his coat so thickly set with buttons down the lapel that no cloth was visible between them, was once severely reproved by his captain who asked him if his father was not a button maker. "These fops think it the first duty of a naval officer to set off his person to advantage, to spend hours over his chest-lid dressing table, keeping a brother officer on deck beyond the hour of his relief, and giving him a cold breakfast." Another class of young officers is called the "Blood" who "delights in rows, conceals his uniform in a surtout, and with a round hat and cudgel storms the town." There was also much disregard of the uniform and side arm prescribed—"one wears a sword as long as himself, another a dirk so small that you would swear it had been purloined from a lady's head, and not an officer in twenty wearing the sword appointed for him by the regulations of the service. Sometimes ridiculous toys were worn as side arms (1818). There was a better tone, and more strictness in dress and deportment on flagships under the commander-in-chief's eye. But even the highest rank did not always command the outward signs of respect."
When the young Duke of York first joined Admiral Howe's ship, as a midshipman, the former kept on his hat in presence of the captains assembled to pay their respects, which singular occurrence was thus commented upon by a sailor of the same ship,—"Why, how should he know manners, seeing as how he never was at sea before." But whether of royal, aristocratic or plebeian birth, the midshipman was under all circumstances a singular compound of folly and manliness, a puzzle and a plague to commanding officers, and probably he will ever be so. Perhaps the enthusiastic nautical missionary of Dartmouth, John Flavel." Who vainly" attempted to reform seamen about this time, had in his mind also the young reprobates of the cockpit when he wrote his "Navigation Spiritualized; or a New Compass for Seamen, consisting of 32 points." It was a noble effort made in a barren field, but the fault was not with Flavel who devoted many years of his life to the thankless task of saving the souls of seamen.
Through many fears and dangers seamen run,
Yet all's forgotten when they do return.
As yet the able writers of sea stories, such as Scott and Marryatt, had not appeared to set aflame the imagination of youth and send them to sea, but there were thousands of young sailors in all the seaports every one of whom was a story teller—a romancer if necessary—who were the center of admiring groups of youngsters, and they were better and more inspiring than books.
No missionary ever before attempted to spiritualize in flowing rhyme the seaman's art, or to derive from its methods and appliances such pointed lessons of morality and Christianity. To his mind, the world was a sea—"unstable as water and having the same brinish taste and salt gust." In the Scriptures he saw perfectly revealed what he called Spiritual Navigation—the art of arts—whose rules he found "dispersed up and down therein." Unfortunately, this exalted view of the seaman of that day was far above their comprehension, although in some particulars it must have appealed strongly to their nautical sense, as for example, when describing the word of God as a Compass, the missionary launches his figurative conception of this wicked world as follows:
This World's a sea, wherein a numerous fleet
Of ships are under sail. Here you shall meet
Of every rate and size; frigates, galleons,
The nimble ketches and small pickeroons:
Some bound to this port, some where winds and weather
Will drive them, they are bound they know not whither.
Some steer away for heaven, some for hell;
To which some steer, themselves can hardly tell.
The winds do shape their course, which though it blow
From any point, before it they must go—
They are directed by the wind and tide
That have no compass to direct and guide.
But there were captains who exercised fatherly care over their midshipmen, and among these Nelson was pre-eminent. His own professional career is a striking evidence of what a limited education, combined with energy, perseverance and pluck, could accomplish in his time, and in his communications with midshipmen he never failed to encourage them to go and do likewise. Writing to a midshipman just appointed (1784) he thus advised him,—"As you from this day start in the world as a man, I trust that your future conduct in life will prove you both an officer and a gentleman; recollect that you must be a seaman to be an officer; and also, that you cannot be a good officer without being a gentleman. I am always, with sincere good wishes,
"Your true friend, Nelson & Bronte."
Lady Hughes, who was on board the Boreas frigate when commanded by Nelson, testifies to his constant attention to the welfare of the numerous young gentlemen "who had the happiness of being on his quarter deck." "It may reasonably be supposed that among the number (30) there must have been timid spirits, as well as bold; the timid he never rebuked, but always wished to show them he desired nothing that he would not instantly do himself. And I have known him say—' Well, sir, I am going a race to the mast-head, and beg I may meet you there.' No denial could be given to such a request, and the poor little fellow instantly began to climb the shrouds. Captain Nelson never took the least notice in what manner it was done; but when they met in the top, spoke in the most cheerful tones to the midshipman, and observed how much any person was to be pitied who could fancy that there.was any danger, or even anything disagreeable in the attempt." On the same principle he went every day into the school-room, observing the mode in which they pursued their nautical acquirements; and at twelve o'clock he was always the first on deck with his quadrant. No one could then neglect his duty. When invited to dine with the Governor of Barbadoes, he took a midshipman with him, and on presenting him to the Governor said, "Your Excellency must excuse me for bringing one of my midshipmen. I make it a rule to introduce them to all the good company I can, as they have few to look up to besides myself, during the time they are at sea." Lady Hughes enthusiastically adds: "Who is there but must allow that this excellent manner of making his midshipmen feel that the attainment of nautical knowledge and experience was a pleasure instead of a task, proceeded from the genius and astonishing goodness of heart which were so conspicuous in Captain Nelson?" He was often accompanied by as many as ten midshipmen in his barge, when making visits of ceremony, believing it to be beneficial to his young gentlemen in their professional career.
It was Nelson who, when in command of the Agamemnon (1793), 64 guns, in the Mediterranean, instructed the midshipmen of his ship in these memorable words: "There are three things, young gentlemen, which you are constantly to bear in mind: first, you must always implicitly obey orders, without• attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety; secondly, you must consider every man as your enemy who speaks ill of your King; and thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman as you do the devil."
It is singular that Nelson, in one of his letters to a friend, admitted that he never was well in bad weather at sea, which may be an encouragement to some young officers who may contemplate resignation from the service on account of similar weakness.
Many writers of nautical tales and romances, from Dr. Smollett to Captain Marryat and Chamier in England, some of whom passed through the fiery ordeal of a midshipman's life in the olden time, have striven to portray this most bizarre of naval characters. But there is no such life-like picture of him as is limned in "The Orlop," one of the immortal Falconer's lighter poems, descriptive of the cockpit manners of midshipmen and of their dismal abode on the orlop deck of a ship of war—far removed from the cheering light of day. We cannot forego the pleasure of exhuming this almost forgotten poem, which though devoid of poetic merit, is nevertheless delicious to every nautical ear and briny taste, redolent of the pungent atmosphere of the cockpit, and brim full of its eccentricities. Never before had rhymester chosen such a theme, and never since has any nautical bard ventured to compete with Falconer in the treatment of the subject.
THE ORLOP." (About 1762.)
Aid me, kind muse! so whimsical a theme,
No poet ever yet pursued for fame:
Boldly I venture on a Naval scene,
Nor fear the critic's frown, the pedant's spleen:
Sons of the ocean, we their rules disdain,
Our bosom's honest, and our style is plain:
Let Homer's heroes, and his Gods, delight;
Let Milton with infernal legions fight;
His fav'rite warrior, polish'd Virgil show;
With love and wine, luxurious Horace glow—
Be such their subjects; I another choose,
As yet neglected by the laughing muse.
Deep in that fabric, where Britannia boasts
O'er seas to waft her thunder, and her hosts,
A cavern lies! unknown to cheering day;
Where one small taper lends a feeble ray;
Where wild disorder holds her wanton reign,
And careless mortals frolic in her train.
Bending beneath a hammock's friendly shade,
See Aesculapius all in arms displayed:
In his right hand th' impending steel he holds,
The other, round the trembling victim folds,
His gaping myrmidon, the deed attends,
Whilst in the pot the crimson stream descends:
Unaw'd, young Galen bears the hostile brunt,
Pills in his rear, and Cullen in his front;
Whilst, muster'd round the medicinal pile,
Death's grim militia stand in rank and file.
In neighboring mansions, lo! what clouds arise;
It half conceals its owner from our eyes;
One penny light with feeble lustre shines,
To prove the mid in high Olympus dines:
Let us approach—the preparation view!
A cockpit beau is surely something new.
To him Japan her varnish'd joys denies;
Nor bloom for him the sweets of Eastern skies:
His rugged limbs no lofty mirror shows,
Nor tender couch invites him to repose:
A pigmy glass upon his toilet stands,
Crack'd o'er and o'er, by awkward, clumsy hands:
Chesterfield's page polite, the Seaman's Guide,
An half-eat biscuit, Congreve's Mourning Bride
Bestrewed with powder, in confusion lie,
And form a chaos to th' intruding eye;
At length, this meteor of an hour is drest
And rises an Adonis from his chest:
Cautious he treads lest some unlucky slip
Defile his clothes with burgou or with flip:
These rocks escap's, arrives in statu quo;
Bows, dines and bows, then sinks again below.
Not far from hence a joyous group are met,
For social mirth and sportive pastime set;
In cheering grog the rapid course goes round,
And not a care in all the circle's found.
Promotion, mess-debts, absent friends and love,
Inspir'd by hope, in turn their topics prove:
To proud superiors then, they each look up,
And curse all discipline in ample cup.
Hark! yonder voice the mid to duty calls!
Thus summoned by the Gods, he deigns to go,
But first makes known his consequence below:
At slavery rails, scorns lawless sway to hell,
And damns the pow'r allow'd a white lapel:
Vows that he's free! to stoop, to cringe disdains—
Ascends the ladder, and resumes his chains.
In canvass'd birth, profoundly deep in thought,
His busy mind with sines and tangents fraught,
A Mid reclines; in calculation lost;
His efforts still by some intruder crost:
Now to the longitude's vast height he soars,
And now formation of lapscous explores;
Now o'er a field of logarithms bends,
And now to make a pudding he pretends:
At once the sage, the hero, and the cook,
He wields the sword, the saucepan and the book.
Opposed to him a sprightly messmate lolls;
Declaims with Garrick, or with Shuter drolls :
Sometimes his breast great Cato's virtue warms,
And then his task the gay Lothario charms;
Cleone's grief his tragic feelings wake,
With Richard's pangs th' Orlopian Cavern shake!
No more the mess for other joys repine;
When pea-soup entering shows 'tis time to dine.
But think not meanly of this humble seat,
Whence spring the guardians of the British fleet:
Revere the sacred spot, however low,
Which form'd to martial acts—an Hawke! an Howe!"
In striking contrast with this poem as to spirit and expression is the following weak effort of an anonymous writer to picture the discontented midshipman in 1804, entitled—
THE MIDSHIPMAN'S COMPLAINT.
When in the cockpit all was grim,
And not a mid dared show his glim,
A youth was all alone.
He scratched his sconce, survey'd his clothes,
Then took another cheering dose,
And then began his moan:—
When first on board this ship I went
With belly full I was content,
No sorrow touch'd my heart;
I view'd my coat so flash and new,
My gay cockade and hanger too,
And thought me wondrous smart.
But soon, too soon, my cash was spent,
My hanger pawn'd, my coat was rent,
My former friends I miss'd:
And when of hardships I complain,
My mess-mates swear 'tis all in vain,
And ask what made me list?
Shivering I walk the quarter-deck,
And dread the stern lieutenant's check,
Who struts the weather side;
With glass and trumpet in his hand,
He bellows forth his harsh command,
With arrogance and pride.
But hark! I hear the caitiff tread—
Another dose and then to bed,
"Of every joy bereft ;"
He shakes his bottle with a flout,
The poor half-pint was quite strain'd out,
Not one kind drop was left.
The youth with rage indignant burns,
Into his hated hammock turns,
Alas! not long to sleep.
The quarter-master, with hoarse tongue,
Shakes him, says the bell has rung;
He's roused the watch to keep.
Rising he cries "tip us a light,
Old square-toes! here, how goes the night?
Why sir, it rains and blows;
0, damn my eyes, I hear the rout,
D'ye spy a stray great coat about?"
Then swearing up he goes.
It now remains to inquire into the origin of the title and office of "midshipman." with whom we have to deal almost exclusively in the succeeding chapters of this imperfect narrative. It might be supposed that the old naval chronicles of England, extending back to the time when her naval service became a distinct profession, would throw some light upon the subject, but none of the English writers who have had access to those chronicles give us any definite information on this point. Indeed it would seem that the grade of midshipman was too insignificant in its origin to
have attracted the attention of professional writers of that period.
Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty during portions of the
reigns of Charles II and James II, gives the complements of ships
commissioned in his time, but neither in these nor in his memoirs
does he even allude to the title of midshipman We doubt very
much if any allusion to them can be found in Pepys' manuscripts
treasured up in Magdalen College. There is no mention of them
in the "Sailing and Fighting Instructions" of 166o or 1686, nor
in the pay-lists down to the latter year; but they appear for the
first time, so far as we know, in the prize lists of 1688. Even
"Bill Falconer," as he was familiarly called,—a midshipman of
the date of 1757,—then not far distant from the date we are seeking,
and with witnesses of the fact still perhaps living, gives us,
in his "Marine Dictionary" (1769) nothing more definite than
this—" Midshipman, a sort of naval cadet, appointed by the captain
of a ship of war, to second the orders of the superior officers,
and assist in the necessary business of the vessel, either aboard or
ashore. . . . Midshipman is the station in which a young volunteer
is trained in the several exercises necessary to attain a sufficient
knowledge of the machinery, discipline, movements and military
operations of a ship to qualify him for a sea officer." Captain
Glascock, of the British navy, who had facilities for a full investigation
of the subject, is no more definite than Falconer. "It is not exactly known," says he, " how this class of officers came Upon the ships' ratings, for, in the complements of 1620 they are not mentioned. But it is probable that the two services were frequently mixed together in sea fights, and as numbers of volunteers were permitted to embark who did duty both as soldiers and sailors, the title originated as a middle distinction, and afterwards acquired stability in the nautical department." Then, in a sort of despair, he adds—"The office of Master's Mate is ancient; but it came to pass that Midshipmen were established in our men of war."
This is not so satisfactory as the result obtained by an officer of our own navy, Rear Admiral George H. Preble, who during his early career kept a Naval Commonplace Book which he made the repository of such interesting facts relating to his profession as he gleaned from nautical chronicles within his reach. Of the in formation he obtained concerning the origin of naval titles, the following in regard to midshipmen is interesting:
"The larger class of vessels of the old build had immensely high forecastles, quarterdecks and round houses, but no gangways as now. There was, therefore, no means of going from the quarterdeck to the forecastle without descending into the waist; hence, messengers were necessary in order to save the captain and the officer of the watch from the necessity of ever deserting their station. These messengers took the orders from the officer on the quarterdeck and carried them to the forecastle, and likewise brought the various reports from the officers stationed forward, to those in command abaft. Thence, from their station, these messengers were called midshipmen.' It was from this class, and that of quartermasters, that the master's mates were generally taken, as the contact into which they were generally thrown with their superior officers led to this distinction when their conduct was meritorious. The promotions from the class of midshipmen were much more numerous than from among the quartermasters; the former being necessarily selected from active young men, while the latter were taken from the thoroughbred old tars. The patronage invested in the captains of ships of war gradually led to the introduction into these stations of young men of respectable families, who might, with a slight degree of interest, hope for speedy advancement. Later, a set of youngsters were introduced into the service by what was called a King's Letter—these were called King's Letter Boys, and were but little relished by the rougher class of their associates, for having, as they termed it, 'come in at the cabin windows instead of at the hawse holes.' The midshipmen at first messed with the ship's company, having one or more tables given them on the lower deck according to their number; they afterward, in some vessels, had the head of one of the tiers given them as a mess place, the quartermasters and boatswains' mates having the other. Those midshipmen or masters' mates in whom the captain or officers took an interest were occasionally invited to their table, and, in process of time, the custom became general."
But there is lacking here a reference to the source of the information, which we cannot supply, and the admiral evidently failed to discover the year in which the title of midshipman was created. He vouches, however, for the correctness of the above facts, and reiterates the statement that midshipmen were originally rated as "boys" who lived and messed in the "cable tier" amid-ship, and so obtained their title in the British navy.
Failing, therefore, to fix the precise time at which this class of officers first appeared in the ratings of British ships-of-war, we must content ourselves with a knowledge of the fact—which seems undoubted—that they received their title from the station they filled at sea.' Later, the King's Letter-boys were called "youngsters" until- they became "midshipmen," and this appellation was contemporary with the "aspirants" of the French navy. Still later, in the British navy, midshipmen were familiarly called "reefers," which name originated from the fact that it was part of their duty to superintend in the "tops" the operation of reefing sail. Finally, when the general tone of the navy was elevated, they received the more dignified appellation of "young gentlemen," when addressed officially and collectively by their superior officers, and thenceforward they were expected, under all circumstances, ashore or afloat, to be worthy of the distinction. This was in the time of George III, styled the "first gentleman of England," when the navy of England won immortal fame under Howe, St. Vincent, Nelson, Collingwood and others. These titles, short and crisp, are still in use, but in some other navies this class of officers are known by rather pompous, high-sounding titles, corresponding to the genius and language of the nation. The French, always precise in the designation of their officials, styled the junior grade of their navy successively Gardes de la Marine, Eleves de la Marine, and Aspirants de la Marine, the last being now their recognized title. The Spaniards call them Caballeros Guardias Marinas; the Portuguese, Aspirantes a Guardas Marinhas; and we find recorded in the Annales Maritimes of 1842, under the head of foreign naval intelligence, that the " Guarda Marinha graduado Raymundo d'Assumpcao dos Santos," and the " Aspirante a Guarda Marinha Francesco de Campos Sampayo Smith" received orders to join the brig-of-war Tejo bound to the Indies. Fortunately for the safety of the brig, there were but few such names on her books, and how the uncommon one of Smith found its way into the dominion and navy of Portugal is a matter for conjecture.
There was doubtless something inspiring in the old-time titles which gave to mere youths the consideration of men, with all the responsibility attached thereto, and nerved them to gallant deeds in their humble sphere. In the grand fighting days when the waters of Europe were red with the blood of English, French, Dutch and Spanish seamen, every individual in the ship's company carried his life daily in his hands, and none more so than the midshipman, whose station was in the waist, and who in the discharge of his duty had to run the gauntlet of the enemy's fire while bearing orders and messages between poop and forecastle. The waist was then called the "slaughter-house" because the enemy's fire was often directed against it with murderous effect, and it was here doubtless that some of the gallant young fellows who rose so rapidly from the cockpit to the cabin first developed their heroic natures. Elsewhere we have stated the mortality among admirals in command, especially at the battle of Trafalgar, but the comparative loss of midshipmen was also very great. In the action of H. M. S. Nymphc (Captain Pellew), 1793, with the French frigate Cleopatra, there were three midshipmen killed (the only officers lost) and two wounded. In the Battle of the Nile (August 1-2, 1798), won by Nelson with a fleet of fifteen ships, only three midshipmen were killed, but thirteen were wounded, and for the first time perhaps, in the history of naval engagements, a naval schoolmaster (of the Goliath) was wounded. In the Battle of Trafalgar (October 21, 1805), won by Nelson with a fleet of thirty-three vessels of all sorts, we learn from the Vice-Admiral Collingwood's several reports that fourteen midshipmen were killed, forty-six midshipmen wounded, which justified one of the surviving midshipmen in writing that "our class of officers suffered severely." Only two captains of ships were killed, and four wounded, and only eight lieutenants were killed and fifteen wounded in that grand encounter; only among the admirals was there greater mortality than among the midshipmen— two out of the six in various commands being killed, two wounded and two taken prisoners. It mattered not to the midshipmen that they were not mentioned in the early naval regulations, or but seldom mentioned in dispatches for gallant conduct, or that they were not invested with any special charge by the government; they performed manfully such duties as were prescribed by their commanding officers, and literally fought themselves into official notice. Their friend and champion, Falconer, has left us in his "Marine Dictionary" a sketch of the duties and embarrassments of a midshipman in the British navy which is worthy of special notice, as it reveals facts concerning the relations of the officer to the sailor not found elsewhere in the chronicles of that period:
"On his first entrance in a ship of war, every Midshipman has several disadvantageous circumstances to encounter. These are partly occasioned by the nature of the sea service, and partly by the mistaken prejudices of people in general respecting naval discipline, and the genius of sailors and their officers. No character, in their opinion, is more excellent than that of the common sailor, whom they generally suppose to be treated with great severity by his officers, drawing a comparison between them not very advantageous to the latter. The Midshipman usually comes aboard tinctured with these prejudices, especially if his education has been among the higher rank of people; and if the officers happen to answer his opinion, he conceives an early disgust of the service, from a very partial and incompetent view of its operations. Blinded by these prejudices, he is thrown off his guard, and very soon surprised to find amongst those honest sailors a crew of abandoned miscreants, ripe for any mischief or villany. . . . If the Midshipman on many occasions is obliged to mix with these, particularly in the exercise of extending or reducing the sails in the tops, he ought resolutely to guard against this contagion with which the morals of his inferiors may be infected. He should, however, avail himself of their knowledge, and acquire their expertness in managing and fixing the sails and rigging, and never suffer himself to be excelled by an inferior. He will probably find a virtue in almost every common sailor which is entirely unknown to many of his officers; that virtue is emulation. There is hardly a common tar who is not envious of superior skill in his fellows, and jealous on all occasions to be outdone in what he considers as a branch of his duty. Nor is he more afraid of the dreadful consequences of whistling in a storm than of being stigmatized with the opprobrious epithet of lubber. Fortified against this scandal by a thorough knowledge of his business, the sailor will sometimes sneer in private at the execution of orders, which to him appear awkward, improper, or unlike a seaman. . . . Hence the Midshipman who associates with these sailors in the tops, till he has acquired a competent skill in the service of extending or reducing sails, etc., will be often entertained with a number of scurrilous jests at the expense of his superiors. Hence also he will learn that a timely application to these exercises can only prevent him from appearing in the same despicable point of view, which must certainly be a cruel mortification to a man of the smallest sensibility."
After indicating the studies which were then considered essential to the improvement of the midshipman Falconer continues thus: "Unless the Midshipman has an unconquerable aversion to the acquisition of these qualifications, he will very rarely want opportunities of making progress therein. If the dunces, who are his officers or mess-mates, are rattling the dice, roaring bad verses, hissing on the flute, or scraping discord from the fiddle, his attention to more noble studies will sweeten the hours of relaxation. He should recollect that no example from fools ought to influence his conduct, or seduce him from that laudable ambition which his honor and ambition are equally concerned to pursue."
This admirable sketch of the official life and surroundings of the midshipmen of his day may be accepted as Falconer's own experience while serving in that capacity in the British navy, just as his famous poem "The Orlop" may be received as a truthful representation of the daily, unofficial cockpit life of midshipmen of the period in question."
Previously the world outside of the naval service knew nothing of this class of officers, and even down to a much later period, when novelists and magazine writers began to make them the subject of their pens, they were hardly mentioned except in naval orders and regulations. Perhaps, in exposing their follies and temptations to the light of day, Falconer may have been the means of saving some of them from moral and professional shipwreck. It is evident that he was not tainted by the corruption of the cockpit, and remembering the great names it gave to the naval service of England, we must look upon it with the generous forgiving spirit of the old and most prominent midshipman of his day:
But think not meanly of this humble seat,
Whence sprung the guardians of the British Fleet,
Revere the sacred spot, however low,
Which form'd to martial acts an Hawke, an Howe.
Of the better class of midshipmen of this period we find in the "Acadian Recorder" of Haliiax, in 1813 (Vol. 30), the following eulogy written by a friend of the corps in reply to a scurrilous attack by a defamer.
THE MIDSHIPMAN.
1. Of Britain's future hopes I sing,
From which unnumbered chiefs shall spring,
To guard their native land and king;
In short, I sing the Midshipman.
2. When tossing on old ocean's foam,
Perhaps a thousand leagues from home,
No danger can his mind o'ercome
Or daunt the Midshipman.
3. Should hosts of foes appear in sight,
With joy he hails the coming fight,
No hostile fleets can e'er afright
The little fearless Midshipman.
4. When shot like hail fly thick around,
Inflicting many a fatal wound,
Unaw'd he hears the cannon sound;
'Tis music to the Midshipman.
5. The battle o'er, he views with pain,
The deck spread o'er with numbers slain,
Nor pleads a wounded foe in vain,
To move the gallant Midshipman.
6. His faults partake of virtues hue,
For still to king .and country true,
And though temptation may subdue,
Can never change the Midshipman.
7. From thence a Nelson,—Duncan sprung,
Brave Hood, and numbers yet unsung;
Let not then a despiteful tongue
Defame the name of Midshipman.