At 6.30 A.M. in these East Indiamen the crew began to wash down decks, and an hour later the hammocks were piped up and stowed in the nettings round the waist by the quartermasters. At eight o’clock was breakfast, and then began the duties of the day.E The midshipmen slept in hammocks also, but the chief mate and the commander were the only officers in the ship to have a cabin of their own.
In no other ships outside the navy, excepting perhaps some privateers, was discipline so strict. The seamen were divided into two watches, the officers into three. The crew had four hours on duty and four hours off. There was always plenty of work to be done. After saying good-bye to the English coast cables had to be put away and anchors stowed for bad weather. Sails were being set, men were sent aloft to take in sail, and sheets and braces required trimming. The East Indiamen from the latter part of the eighteenth century had all been steered by wheels, and the accompanying illustration shows the wheel on board the East Indiaman Triton.
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The rigging also had to be set up occasionally, and among the confidential signals to be used by these ships when proceeding in a convoy, you will find one which asks permission of the commodore to be allowed to heave-to and set up rigging. In addition, ballast sometimes required shifting, sails had to be repaired, leaks stopped, masts greased, new splices made and so on. This was in normal voyages: but in the case of bad weather there was much more besides.
DECK SCENE OF THE EAST INDIAMAN “TRITON.”
This contemporary sketch shows the wheel and mizzen mast and two gun carriages of an East Indiaman of 1792, and is used as a decorative heading to the ship’s list of signals employed when convoying.
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On Wednesdays and Saturdays the ‘tween decks were cleaned and holystoned. The origin of the word “holystoned” has been variously derived. To “holystone” is to rub the decks with sandstone or “prayer-books.” When ships, both of the East India Company, his Majesty’s navy and other craft, used to anchor in St Helen’s Roads (off Bembridge, Isle of Wight, facing Portsmouth) the place was found convenient for two reasons. There was a convenient dip-well close to the shore, which still exists to-day: and this water kept in wooden butts used to keep so well, and unlike much other water did not turn putrid when the ships had been at sea some time, that East Indiamen were actually known to have brought back some of it home quite fresh after being out to the East and remaining in the ship about a twelvemonth. But besides the excellent water, the men used to be sent ashore here to obtain sand for scrubbing the decks. One day it was discovered that there was nothing so good as a piece of the stone of the old St Helen’s Church, which had recently been abandoned, the relic of which survives to-day only as a sea-mark. In those sacrilegious days there was little respect for hallowed267 things, such as churches or graves, and before long every ship that came to these roads would send men ashore as a matter of course to fetch bits of the church and even gravestones in small blocks. The suggestion is that thus when the decks were rubbed with them the work was known as “holystoning,” and the blocks themselves called “Bibles” or “Prayer-books.”F
The men in these East Indiamen were divided into messes, of eight men, their allotted space being between the guns, where the mess-traps were arranged. The ‘tween decks had to be kept scrupulously clean, and were inspected by the commander and surgeon. No work was allowed to be performed on Sunday except what was necessary, though manuscript journals rather show that this regulation was not much respected. The crew were mustered in their best clothes, and then everyone that could be spared was present at prayers. Dinner was served at noon, and the passengers were given three courses and dessert, but without fish. There was plenty of wine and beer, and there was also grog at 11 A.M. and 9 P.M. Champagne was drunk twice a week. There was a cow carried, and later on the calf, which was always brought on board with its mother, became veal when the ship had crossed the line and was nearer India. In addition there were also ducks and fowls, sheep and pigs, so that the ship’s boats and decks were often mildly suggestive of a farmyard. The crew had grog served out to them at dinner-time and on Saturday nights, when the time-honoured custom of “sweethearts and268 wives” had not begun to die out. As we have seen from Addison’s journals the ceremonies of crossing the line were kept up, and Eastwick has instanced dances: and in addition theatricals were also given on board to relieve the monotony of the long voyage.
The men often employed their dog-watches to “make and mend,” or going through their sea-chests, games or amusements. On Saturday nights there would be songs and dancing. When they reached their Eastern port, the men would unload the ship themselves without the assistance of natives. And a ship in those days was far more independent of the shore than even a sailing ship is to-day. There were no better riggers in the world, and steel rope had not taken the place of hemp. We have seen from Addison that in China the crews of the Company’s ships rowed guard on Sundays among the ships in the harbour. The number of guns which these ships carried has been mentioned at various dates throughout these pages, and the men were drilled with about as much persistency as in the Royal Navy of that time. The medi?val boarding-pike was still in use, and they were drilled also in musket, cutlass and other small-arms. Also quite naval fashion was the custom of holding courts martial on board, the members being composed of the captain and the four senior officers, the latter having always been sworn when the captain took his oath prior to the ship’s sailing from London. Discipline was strict even to harshness and cruelty, and punishments were sometimes inflicted for the merest trivialities. At the same time these crews were not as mild as a porcelain shepherdess, and they were a tough, virile, desperate class as a whole. The reader will recollect269 Addison’s entry in his journal that such and such a seaman was punished “with a dozen” for insolence or neglect. This punishment was inflicted over the bare back and shoulders by the brawny boatswain’s mate armed with a cat-o’-nine-tails, the victim being triced up by the thumbs. And when it was all over a bucket of salt water washed the blood away. Yes, these men were reckless, they were a coarse lot of dare-devils, they were ever ready to break all the laws and regulations which concerned them. They would desert or cheat his Majesty’s customs, knock a man down, drink far more than was good for them, yet for all that they were true seamen to their finger-tips, who could be relied upon to go aloft in all weathers, and the very fellows on whom you could rely when it was a question of nerve and pluck. In battle, stripped to the waist, they would fight with the utmost courage: and when punishment was whacked out to them they bore it like true sons of Britain.
They were kept fairly busy on board, yet as there were so many hands no one could justly complain of being overworked as in the case of the modern man-of-war. They had always plenty of food and grog, and they knew that if they were killed in the Company’s service their wives and dependents would be looked after.
As for the ships themselves, they were of course all built of wood. From roughly 1775 to well on into the nineteenth century they were not only rigged, fitted out, manned and handled like the contemporary frigates of the Royal Navy, but they were, in the first place, built after their model, with one exception. The East Indiamen were a fuller-270bodied type, but the naval frigates, inasmuch as they were built for speed and not for cargo, could afford to have finer lines. A great deal of valuable room had to be wasted in the excessive amount of pig-iron ballast which these ships had to carry. To call them fast would not be truthful, but then there was no competition before the year 1814, and so there was little need to hurry, and they certainly were not driven. At the approach of night they snugged down, for there was no premium awaiting them, however fast they made the voyage. If, however, they endangered the ship or damaged the cargo they would not only incur the East India Company’s displeasure, but detract from their own privileges.
Therefore before darkness overtook them these ships would always take in their royals and fine-weather sails, and the royal yards would be sent down on deck. If bad weather threatened them t’gallantsails and mainsail would also be stowed, and a precautionary reef tucked in the topsails. Thus these vessels never made record-breaking runs, and were never given the opportunity of showing their fullest speed. Caution was the dominating factor, and not speed. In other words, the policy was the exact opposite of the clipper ships which were to follow: but then the clippers were built for speed, and not for fighting. There was in essentials very little difference between the hulls of the time of James I. and of the early nineteenth century, if we omit the somewhat elaborate external decoration which was peculiar to the Stuart times, and give the ships their later triangular headsails, staysails and a spanker instead of the old lateen mizen. The cumbrous hull was really but little modified. Built271 of English oak, elm, and Indian teak, copper-fastened throughout, the later ships of the Company were strong and well-found, with good spars, stout rigging and canvas. Sometimes they were built by the very men and on the very yard that had witnessed the building of the King’s ships.
One of the finest ships ever built for the Company was the famous East Indiaman Thames. Happily that great marine artist of the early nineteenth century, E. W. Cooke, sketched her in all her beauty, and the accompanying illustration shows how she appeared in the year 1829. This was a vessel of 1424 tons, with her general, massive appearance, the strength of her gear, the gun-ports, the decorative stern with its windows—the East Indiaman with all her striking characteristics of picturesque power. A boat hangs in davits on either quarter, the topsails are still single and very deep, with plenty of reef-points, but the hull is certainly unnecessarily cumbrous and clumsy—impressive rather than beautiful, strong rather than fine. But in any case she would have been a pretty tough proposition for a contemporary hostile ship to tackle, especially with such crews as she carried. Compared with her contemporary, the West Indiaman Thetis (which is here shown in the act of getting under way off the Needles), the Thames is a more powerful fighting ship. But the West Indiamen were essentially more suited for trade, and their capacity for cargo was very great. They were mercantile craft pure and simple.
One of the greatest disasters which ever befell any of these East Indiamen was the loss of the Kent. This was a fine new ship which had left the272 Downs on the 19th of February 1825. She was of 1350 tons, so very similar to the Thames. She was bound out to China, calling first at Bengal, and in her were travelling officers, troops, women and children of the 31st Regiment, as well as twenty private passengers and a crew of 148 officers and men.
Favoured with a fine north-east wind the Kent made, for her class of vessel, a quick passage down the English Channel, and on the 23rd was out in the Atlantic pitching to the swell. Interrupted occasionally with bad weather the stately ship pursued her way across the Bay of Biscay for another five days, when a heavy gale from the south-west sprang up, and the following morning the weather got worse: the fair wind which had brought them down Channel now headed them and tormented. The bigger sails were taken in, and others were close reefed. Topgallant-yards had to be struck, and so violent was the gale that by the morning of the 1st of March the vessel had to be hove-to under a triple-reefed main-topsail only. In other words, there was only the merest patch of canvas allowed on her.
THE WEST INDIAMAN “THETIS” (CAPTAIN BURTON).
This shows an Early Nineteenth Century first-class ship employed in the West Indian trade.
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She was rolling very badly, and life-lines were run along the deck for the whole watch of soldiers to hang on by. For the women and children below, matters were alarming and unpleasant in those cooped-up quarters. So heavily did the Kent roll that at every lurch her main chains were well below the water. Things were bad enough on deck, but below the furniture and other articles had broken away from their cleats and were being violently dashed about both in the cabins and the cuddy. In order to see whether everything was all right below in the273 hold, one of the ship’s officers went down with a couple of seamen, in case anything might have broken adrift and be endangering the hull. He took with him a patent safety lantern, but as the lamp was burning dimly he handed it up to the orlop deck to be trimmed. He then discovere............