A four-masted warship of her reign was not a handy creature to control. She could fight and she could ride out an Atlantic gale, but she was clumsy; she was—even the best of her class—much addicted to rolling, owing to the fact that she possessed such immense weights above the water-line. She was certainly an improvement on the ships of Henry VII and VIII, but she was too cumbrous to be considered in any degree satisfactory. Before we proceed to discuss the way they were handled, let us briefly survey the principal types of vessels on board which the men of this reign had to serve.
Sixteenth-Century Four-Masted Ship.
By a Contemporary Artist.
Elizabethans Boarding an Enemy’s Ship.
There was, firstly, the “high-charged” man-of-war with her lofty poop and forecastle. A contemporary illustration shows such a vessel with guns protruding187 from the stern and two tiers of guns running along either side of the ship. There were light guns in the forecastle as well. That portion on the main deck between the break of the poop and forecastle was the waist, where the crew moved about and the ship’s boats were stowed. In those days, when so much of188 the fighting was done at close quarters, and the enemy endeavoured so to man?uvre his ship as to come alongside and pour his men on the other’s deck, dealing out slaughter to all who should bar his way, it was the aim of the attacked ship to catch the invaders between two fires. The poop and forecastle being so well guarded and, by reason of their height, so difficult to assault, the enemy might possibly board the ship at the waist. But inasmuch as the after bulkhead of the forecastle and the forward bulkhead of the poop were pierced for quick-firing guns, the boarding party was likely to meet with a warm reception. As an additional obstacle to boarding, it was customary before a fight to stretch long red cloths over the waist. These cloths were edged on each side with calico, says an Elizabethan writer, and were allowed to hang several feet over the side all round the ship, being sometimes ornamented with devices or painted in various colours. Wooden barriers, called “close-fights,” were also built across the ship’s deck for repelling boarders, and were loopholed like the bulkheads. Furthermore, nettings were stretched across the ship to prevent any falling spars from dealing death to the crew.
The tumble-home on these ships was excessive, but since they carried so many decks it was essential that the topmost should be as light as possible. But just as on a modern steamship the master can survey everything forward from the eminence of his bridge, so the Elizabethan captain, standing on the poop, was able to command the whole ship, to see ahead and to keep an eye on his men. There was no uniform colour for painting the Elizabethan hulls, Mr. Oppenheim says. Black and white, the Tudor colours green and white, red, and timber colour were all used. Sometimes a dragon or a lion gilded was at the beak-head, with the royal arms at the stern. On either side of the stern189 was a short gallery, on to which the captain could emerge from his cabin under the poop. The long tiller from the rudder came in under the poop, and was controlled by a bar or whipstaff attached to this same tiller. “The roul,” says James Lightbody in his “Mariner’s Jewel,” published in 1695, “is that through190 which the whipstaff goeth, which is a piece of wood the steersman holdeth in his hand to steer withal.” The man received his orders, as a rule, from the master of the ship, but when entering port the pilot would instruct him how to steer.
Illustration to show an Elizabethan Helmsman Steering a Ship by means of Whipstaff.
(Sketched on board the replica of the Revenge at Earl’s Court.)
There was not very much room in the fo’k’sle—just enough to sleep a few of the crew and for stowing coils of rope and the like. The galley was erected at the bottom of the hold on a brick floor. Below the upper deck came the main deck. Here were disposed the heavier guns, and here the crew were berthed. Between this and the hold was a false orlop, where the bread-room and the cabins of the petty officers were placed. But what was perhaps especially noticeable about these ships was the extent to which the poop and the beak projected away from the hull. Consequently, not only did these craft roll, but they pitched considerably as well. The interiors of the cabins were painted green, and there was a certain amount of carving externally both at beak and stern. So much for the “high-charged” type of ship.
But there was also the pinnesse or flush-decked species, such a craft as brought home to England the body of Sir Philip Sidney, and such a craft as often formed a unit in those long, perilous transatlantic voyages of discovery. These craft had no raised forecastle other than a small platform, and only a short quarter-deck. There was no such thing as triangular sails on the full-rigged ships of those days. There was, indeed, a spritsail, which was a squaresail set on a yard depending from the long, steeved bowsprit, and this was the only headsail. The foremast and mainmast each set a course and topsail, while the mizzen and bonaventure each carried a lateen fore-and-aft sail. The fore-topmast and main-topmast could be struck if necessary. Elizabethan prints show, situated just above191 the lower yard on the bigger ships, a round top or platform from which quick-firing guns and arrows could be fired. At the yard-arms were sometimes fitted hooks, which, catching the enemy’s rigging and sails, would do him considerable damage.
Sixteenth-Century Ship Chasing a Galley.
By a Contemporary Artist. The lead of the ropes, the parrals round the masts, the rigging and other details are here most instructively shown.
The following represent the different types of “great ordinance” carried by a ship of war at this period:—
Armament of an Elizabethan Ship
Ordnance. Weight
in lbs. Shot
in lbs.
Cannon 8000 63
Demi-cannon 6000 32
Culverin 5500 18
Demi-culverin 4500 9
Saker 3500 5?
Minion 1500 4
Falcon 1100 2?
Falconet 500 1?
But it was seldom that any ordnance greater than a demi-cannon was used on board ship.
The guns were made of brass or iron, and were mounted on wooden carriages which had four wheels. They could be run in and out by means of tackles. In his interesting little book, “The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnance,” by William Bourne, published in 1587, the author significantly speaks of “this barbarous and rude thing called the Art of Shooting in great Ordnaunce.” This was the period, you will remember, when arrows, bills, and pikes had not yet lost their admirers. He tells you in his preface that he has written this book because “we English men haue not beene counted but of late daies to become good Gunners, and the principall point that hath caused English men to be counted good Gunners hath been for that they192 are hardie or without fear about their ordnaunce: but for the knowledg in it other nations and countries haue tasted better therof, as the Italians, French, and Spaniardes, for that the English men haue had but little instruction but that they haue learned of the Doutchmen, or Flemings in the time of King Henry the eight.”
Waist, Quarter-deck, and Poop of the “Revenge.”
(Elizabethan period.)
Sixteenth-Century Three-Masted Ship.
By a Contemporary Artist. The date on the stern is 1564. Notice the man in the maintop dowsing maintopsail.
He goes into the subject with great thoroughness and points out that allowance must be made for the wind, and how to secure good aim. The cannon are to be placed so as to be right in the middle of the ports of the ship, and care is to be taken that the wheels of the gun-carriage are not made too high. He advises that when shooting from one ship at another, if there is any sea193 on it is essential to have a good helmsman “that can stirre steadie.” The best time to fire at the other vessel is when the latter is “alofte on the toppe of the sea,” for then “you have a bigger marke than when she is in the trough.” If the ship rolls, “then the best place of the ship for to make a shotte is out of the head or sterne.” The shorter ordnance is to be placed at the side of the ship because they are lighter, and if the ship should heave “wyth the bearyng of a Sayle that you must shutte the portes,” then you can easily take the guns in.
“In lyke manner,” he proceeds, “the shorter that the peece lyeth oute of the shyppes syde, the lesse it shall annoy them in the tacklyng of the Shippes Sayles, for if that the piece doe lye verye farre oute of the Shyppes syde, then the Sheetes and Tackes, or the Bolynes wyll alwayes bee foule of the Ordnaunce, whereby it maye muche annoy them in foule weather.” Therefore the long guns are best placed so that they are fired from the stern. But a gun so placed must be “verye farre oute of the porte, or else in the shooting it may blowe up the Counter of the Shyppes sterne.”
In another equally delightful volume entitled “Inventions or Devises,” the same author tells his reader how to “arme” (i.e. protect) a “ship of warre.” You are to keep your men as close as you may, and have the bonnet off the sail or other canvas stretched along the waist and decks, as I have shown on an earlier page. The forecastle and poop, Bourne says, you may “arm” with “manlets or gownes” “to shaddow your men”; so also the tops, “but now in these daies,” he adds, “the topfight is unto little effect, since the use of Calivers or Muskets in Ships,” for the latter could do so much damage. He therefore advises against having many men in the tops. After alluding to the netting, which I explained just now, Bourne suggests194 that the captain must send the carpenter “into the holde of the Ship” “to stop any leake if any chance. And also to send downe the Surgion into his Cabin, which ought and must be in the holde of the ship.”
The supreme head of the ship was the captain, who was not necessarily a navigator nor even a seaman; but he was the wielder of authority and discipline. He it was who had to keep under control a crew that was prone to swearing, blasphemy, violence, mutiny, and other sins. Sir William Monson has left behind in his most interesting “Naval Tracts” many an entertaining detail of sea life during the Elizabethan period, and tells that a captain might punish a man by putting him in the “billbows during pleasure,” ducking him at the yard-arm, hauling him from yard-arm to yard-arm under the ship’s keel (otherwise known as keel-hauling), fastening him to the capstan and flogging him there, or else fastening him at the capstan or mainmast with weights hanging about his neck till his poor heart and back were ready to break. Another brutal punishment was to “gagg or scrape their tongues for blasphemy or swearing.”
Elizabethan captains, says Monson, “were gentlemen of worth and means, maintaining their diet at their own charge.” In a fight the lieutenant had charge of the forecastle. It was not till the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign that the rank of lieutenant was created for the training of young gentlemen destined ultimately for command. He came aboard quite “green” in order to learn what seamanship he could, and to assist the captain in the discipline of the ship; but he was not allowed to interfere with the navigation, which was entirely the work of the master. Not unnaturally there was a good deal of friction between the lieutenant and the master. Even the common seaman had an ineradicable contempt for this landlubber, more especially195 in the seventeenth century during the Anglo-Dutch wars.
Riding Bitts on the Gun Deck of the “Revenge.”
(Elizabethan period.)
In his “Accidence, or The Path-way to Experience necessary for all Young Seamen,” written by Captain John Smith, the first Governor of Virginia, we have a great deal of information which tells us just what we should wish to know. Of the captain and master we have already spoken. The latter and his mates are to “commaund all the Saylors, for steering, trimming, and sayling the Ship.” The pilot takes the ship into harbour, the Cape-merchant and purser have charge of the cargo, the master-gunner was responsible for all the munitions, while the carpenter and his mate looked after the nails, pintles, saws, and any caulking of seams as well as the splicing of masts and yards. The boatswain had charge of the cordage, marlinespikes, and sails, etc., while his mate had command of the longboat for laying196 out kedge anchors and warping or mooring. The surgeon had to have a certificate from the “Barber-surgeons Hall” “of his sufficiency,” and his medicine-chest must be properly filled. The marshal was to punish offenders, and the corporal was to see to the setting and relieving of the watch. Every Monday the boatswain was to hear the boys box the compass, after which they were to have a quarter can of beer and a basket of bread.
The men messed in fours, fives, or sixes, and the steward’s duty was “to deliuer out the victuall.” The quartermasters had charge of the stowage, while a cooper was carried to look after the casks for wine and beer, etc. The large ships had three boats, viz. (1) the boat, (2) the cock, and (3) the skiff. These were respectively put in charge of (1) the boatswain, (2) the cockswain, and (3) the skiffswain. Hence the origin of these designations. A cook was carried, and he had his store of “quarter cans, small cannes, platters, spoones, lanthornes,” etc. The swabbers’ duties were to wash and keep clean the ship. But the first man that was found telling a lie every Monday was indicted of the offence at the mainmast and placed under the swabber to keep the beak-head and chains clean. The sailors were the experienced mariners who hoisted the sails, got the tacks aboard, hauled the bowlines, and steered the ship; while the younkers were the young men called “foremast men,” whose duty it was to take in topsails, furl and sling the mainsail, and take their trick at the helm.
Longitudinal Plan of an Early Seventeenth-Century Ship.
This contemporary design conveys an excellent idea of the interior of an ocean-going vessel. Notice the pilot’s place at the stern; the tiller and whip-staff; the capstan; the lower deck; the holds, etc.
In those days the custom of dividing a ship’s company into watches was already in vogue. “When you set sayle and put to sea, the Captaine is to call up the company; and the one halfe is to goe to the Starreboord, the other to the Larboord, as they are chosen: the Maister chusing first one, then his Mate another,197 and so forward till they bee diuided in two parts.” In those days the reckoning by tonnage was far from reliable as indicating the true size of a ship. Columbus, after his second voyage across the Atlantic, writes to Captain Antonio de Torres of the ship Marigalante, and refers to the freighting of ships by the ton “as the Flemish merchants do,” and this, he suggests, would be a better and less expensive method than any other mode. But when after the capture of a prize the division of shares was made, it was to the advantage of198 the crew to make the tonnage as big as possible. The custom was to allot the share in proportions. The ship took a third, the victualler took another third, and the remaining third was divided up among the crew. Of this latter third the captain received nine shares, the master seven, and so on down to the boys who had one share, and there was a reward given to the man who first descried the sails of the ship ultimately captured. A reward was also paid to the first man who rushed on board the enemy.
According to Monson, every man and boy was allowed 1 lb. of bread a day and a gallon of beer a day, viz. a quart in the morning, a quart at dinner, a quart in the afternoon, and a quart at supper. On flesh-days each man could have 1 lb. of beef or else 1 lb. of “pork with pease.” Flesh-days were Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. The other days were fish-days, and on these every mess of four men was allowed a side of salt fish, “either haberdine, ling, or cod,” 7 oz. of butter, and 14 oz. of cheese. Fridays were excepted, for on these days they had but half allowance. Monson was naturally prejudiced against the Spanish ships, which he accused of being badly kept—“like hog-sties and sheep-coats”—and of giving an allowance of diet far too small. Every man cooked for himself and there was no discipline, although they carried more officers than the English ships. In the latter the captain inspected his ship twice a day to see that she was kept sweet and clean “for avoiding sickness,” but the holds were so badly ventilated, dark, and smelly, the beer was so frequently bad, the food so often putrid, and the crew themselves so lacking in habits of cleanliness, that scurvy, dysentery, and other diseases frequently broke out and men died in large numbers. One has only to look through the logs of some of the Elizabethan voyages of discovery to see this for oneself.
A Sixteenth-Century Warship at Anchor.
By a Contemporary Artist. Showing method of embarkation and many fascinating details.
199 In addition to the officers already mentioned must be given two more. These were first the ship’s chaplain, who celebrated the Holy Communion on Sundays, read prayers two or three times on week-days, preached, and visited the sick and wounded. And secondly a trumpeter, who blew on his silver instrument when the ship went into action, at the changing of the watches, and at the coming and going of a distinguished guest. His place was on the poop, and it was customary for “himself and his noise to have banners of silk of the admiral’s colours.” The watch was set at eight, and so on through the night and day. When on these occasions the trumpeter sounded his blast he was to “have a can of beer allowed for the same.”
And now that we have got some idea in our minds of the details of the seaman’s life on board an Elizabethan ship, let us be rowed off from the shore in one of her three boats which is bringing water and wood and provisions. The good ship is lying to her anchor in the roadstead about to get underway. Transport yourself, then, in imagination to that epoch when England’s seamen made such wonderful history, and endeavour to believe that the cock-boat actually bumps up alongside the English galleon. You clamber up the ship’s side and find yourself on her deck, where the crew are standing about ready to hear the commands of the master. And now let us watch them get under way. I shall quote not from fiction of to-day, but from an account written by an Elizabethan, this same Captain John Smith, as he wrote it for the edification of young seamen.
“Bend your passerado to the mayne-sayle, git the sailes to the yeards, about your geare on all hands, hoyse your sayles halfe mast high, make ready to set sayle, crosse your yeards, bring your Cable to the Capsterne. Boatswaine, heave a head, men into the tops,200 men upon the yeards. Come, is the anchor a pike? Heave out your topsayles, hawle your sheates. What’s the Anchor away? Yea, yea. Let fall your fore sayle. Who’s at the helme there? Coyle your cable in small slakes. Hawle the cat, a bitter, belay, loufe (= luff), fast your Anchor with your shanke painter, stow the boate. Let falle your maine saile, on with your bonnets and drablers, steare study before the wind.
“The wind veares, git your star-boord tacks aboord, hawle off your ley sheats ouerhawle the ley bowlin, ease your mayne brases, out with your spret-saile, flat the fore sheat, pike up the misen or brade (= brail) it. The ship will not wayer, loure the maine top saile, veare a fadome of your sheat. A flown sheate, a faire winde and a boune voyage! The wind shrinks. Get your tacks close aboord, make ready your loufe howks (= luff hooks) and lay fagnes, to take off your bonnets and drablers, hawle close your maine bowline.
“It ouervasts. We shall have wind. Sattle your top sailes, take in the spret sayle. In with your topsayles. Lower your main sayles, tallow under the parrels, in with your maine sayle, lower the fore sayle. The sayle is split, brade up close all your sayles, lash sure the Ordinances, strike your top masts to the cap, make them sure with your sheepes feete. A storme, hull,47 lash sure the helme a ley, lye to try out drift.48 How capes the ship? Cun the ship, spoune before the winde. She lusts, she lyes under the Sea. Trie her with a crose jacke, bowse it up with the outlooker. She will founder in the Sea, runne on shore, split or billage on a Rocke, a wracke. Put out a goose-winge, or a hullocke of a sayle.
Drake’s “Revenge” at Sea.
“Faire weather! Set your fore sayle. Out with all your sailes. Get your Larboard tackes aboord, hawle201 off your Starboord sheats, goe large, laske, ware yawning. The ship’s at stayes, at backe-stayes. Ouer-set the ship, flat about, handle your Sayles, or trim your sayles. Let rise your tacks, hawle of your sheats. Rock-weede, adrift, or flotes! One to the top to looke out for Land. A ship’s wake, the water way, the weather bow, weather coyle. Lay the ship by the Ley, and heave the lead, try the dipsie (= deep-sea) line.202 Bring the ship to rights, fetch the log-line to try what way shee makes. Turne up the minute glasse, observe the hight. Land, to make land, how beares it. Set it by the Compasse. Cleare your leach-lines, beare in, beare off, or stand off, or sheare off, beare up.
“Outward bound, homeward bound, shorten your Sailes, take in your Sailes, come to an Anchor under the Ley of the weather shore, the Ley shore, nealed too, looke to your stoppers. Your anchor comes home, the ship’s a drift, vere out more Cable. Let fall your sheat Anchor, land locked, mo(o)re the ship. A good Voyage, Armes, arme a skiffe, a frigot, a pinnace, a ship, a squadron, a fleete. When you ride amongst many ships, pike your yards.
“To the boat or skiffe belongs oares, a mast, a saile, a stay, a halyard, sheats, a boat-hook, thoughts (= thwarts), thoules (thole-pins), rudder, irons, bailes, a trar-pawling or yawning, carlings, carling-knees, for the David (davit), the boates-wayles, a dridge. To row a spell, hold-water, trim the boate, vea, vea, vea, vea, vea, who saies Amen, one and all, for a dram of the bottle?”
Impressionist-writing you describe all this? Yes, certainly. But it has the effect, has it not, of conveying just what we are attempting, a general idea of the life of Elizabethan sailors at sea? “Many supposeth,” writes this same author, “any thing is good enough to serve men at sea, and yet nothing sufficient for them a shore, either for their healthes, for their ease, or estates, or state.” ... “Some it may bee will say I would have men rather to feast than fight. But I say the want of those necessaries occasions the losse of more men than in any English fleet hath bin slaine in any fight since (15)88: for when a man is ill sicke, or at the poynt of death, I would know whether a dish of buttered Rice, with a little Cinamon and Sugar, a little203 minced meate, or roast beefe, a few stewed Prunes, a race of greene-ginger, a flap Jacke, a can of fresh water brued with a little Cinamon, Ginger and Sugar, be not better than a little poore John, or salt fish, with oyle and mustard, or bisket, butter, cheese or oatemeale pottage on fish dayes, salt beefe, porke and pease. This is your ordinary ship’s allowance, and good for them are well, if well-conditioned, which is not alwayes, as seamen can too well witnesse: and after a storme, when poore men are all wet, and some not so much a cloth to shift him, shaking with cold, few of those but will tell you a little Sacke or Aquvit? is much better to keepe them in health, then a little small beere or cold water, although it be sweete.”
The sea literature of the Elizabethan period is rich in illustrations of the ways employed. Shakespeare, whom some critics verily believe to have been a sailor—so unfailingly accurate are his numerous sea terms—here and there, and especially in “The Tempest,” reflects a good deal of the life on board ship. In such logs as the voyages of the great Arctic explorer John Davis, there is many a nautical expression that cannot fail to arrest our attention. And in order to complete the impressionistic sketch of Captain John Smith, permit me here to bring to the reader’s notice some of the phrases which I have collected from other sources of this period.
There were various expressions used to mean heaving-to: thus “strake suddenly ahull” to signify “suddenly hove-to.” So also “tried under our maine course, sometimes with a haddock of our sail,” as Davis has it, or “a hullocke of a sayle,” as Smith expresses it. Perhaps it was thus that the synonym “try-sail” originated, signifying a small handkerchief of canvas with which to lie comfortably hove-to. “The third day being calme, at noone we strooke saile, and let204 fall a cadge anker.” “Cadge” is spelt “kedge” nowadays. They used to “let slippe” their cables—made of hemp—from the “halse” or hawse-pipe. But sometimes “the cable of our shut (= sheet) anker brake.” “For the straines (= strands) of one of our cables were broken, we only road by an olde junke!” (Junk is still sailor’s slang for worn-out rope.) In those days when there was no such thing as telegraph or post, when ships traversing the ocean were so few as unlikely to meet except rarely, months and years went by without news of mariners. But sometimes when an outward-bound English ship met a fellow-countryman homeward-bound, an effort was made to send letters back. There was an instance of this during Davis’s third voyage when two days out from Dartmouth. They met the Red Lion of London sailing home from Spain. So they hailed the latter and asked her master to carry letters back to London. “And after we had heaved them a lead and a line, whereunto wee had made fast our letters, before they could get them into the ship, they fell into the sea, and so all our labour and theirs was also lost.”
Happily there still exists the “Traverse-Booke,” which Davis made during his third voyage, when he set out to discover that north-west passage which was only found in the present decade by Captain Roald Amundsen, who also was the first to reach the South Pole. And I cannot believe that even a brief extract of Davis’s sailing will fail to be of the greatest interest to modern seamen, whether amateur or professional. I have therefore thought fit to append the following, which covers the first nine days beginning from the time when his little fleet of three, consisting of the “barke” Elizabeth, the “barke” Sunneshine, and the “Clincher” Helene, weighed their anchors and set sail from Dartmouth.
205
A Traverse-Booke made by M. John Davis in his third voyage for the discoverie of the North-West passage, Anno 1587.
Moneth.
May. Dayes. Houres. Course. Leagues. Elevation
of the Pole. The Winde. The Discourse.
Deg. Mins.
19 W S W Westerly 50 30 N E This day we departed from Dartmouth at two of the clocke at night.
20
21 35 W S W Westerly 50 50 N E This day we descried Silly N W by W from us.
22 15 W N W 14 N E by E This day at noone we departed from Silly.
22 6
Join or Log In!
You need to log in to continue reading
(Left Keyword <-) Previous:
CHAPTER IX THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD
Back
Next:
CHAPTER XI THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
(Right Keyword:->)