The Nutmeg of Consolation

  From fiction, contemporary journalism and subsequent scholarship, therefore, a mass of material is available for the novelist seeking to reconstruct a vanished world. The historian's problem is that in spite, even in some cases because of this wealth of evidence, we still know far too little about the daily life of the officers and men of Jack Aubrey's day. In default of documentary research, scholars must draw on the same materials as the novelist, and there are few who can do so with the imaginative power of Patrick O'Brian. Moreover there are particular dangers in drawing on much of this material to describe relations between officers and men, for many of the memoir-writers and novelists (including Marryat) were explicitly or implicitly participating in a debate on the reform of naval discipline which was taking place in and after the 1830s. Part of their object was to demonstrate how bad things had been, (For Marryat see: Lloyd, Captain Marryat, The later stages of the naval reform movement are dealt with by Eugene L. Rasor, Reform in the Royal Navy: A Social History of the Lower Deck 1850 to 1880). which makes them unreliable witnesses to what things had really been like—but no more unreliable than extrapolation from research on the Navy of fifty years before, which is the best the historian can offer at present.

  It needs to be emphasised that we are dealing with an era of social change, especially in the 1790s. In any other area of British history it would seem absurd to stress something so obvious, but naval history is still technically rather back ward, and many standard works still submerge the developments of periods as long as two centuries under some bland generalisations about the age of sail. The half century from 1750 to 1800 may seem a short time, well within the careers of individual officers and men, and yet it is clear, even in our present state of ignorance, that the social life of the Navy changed greatly during that time. These changes may be divided into the material and the psychological.

  It has been calculated that the total number of seafarers employed in British ships was nearly 130,000 at the height of the Seven Years' War, and over 150,000 during the American War. (David J. Starkey, 'War and the Market for Seafarers in Britain, 1736-1792', in Shipping and Trade, 1750-1950: essays in International Maritime Economic History) At the height of the Seven Years' War the Navy mustered nearly 85,000 officers and men, and during the American War the figure rose to nearly 110,000; by 1800 the Navy required about 125,000; and in 1810 the figure attained 145,000. (Christopher Lloyd, The British Seaman, 1200-1860: A Social Survey) In principle the navy needed most if not all the seafarers who were in peacetime employed in the merchant service—but merchant shipping contracted little if at all in wartime, and the inevitable result was an acute shortage over all. The gap between peacetime supply and the wartime demand of the Navy and merchant service combined was made up by dilution of skills, with a large recruitment of landmen into the Navy, and by widespread employment of foreigners in merchantmen, among other expedients. (Rodger, The Wooden World) The manpower situation had undoubtedly worsened over fifty years. An analysis of the musters of ships commissioning at Plymouth between 1770 and 1779 shows that 62% of the ratings were petty officers, able seamen or idlers against 38% ordinary seamen, landmen or servants. Only 6% had been pressed, 94% had volunteered, not many had been recruited by the Impress Service and virtually none were turned over from other ships. The majority (63%) were Englishmen, with 20% born in Ireland, and only 2% outside the British dominions. (N. A. M. Rodger, 'Devon Men and the Navy, 1688-1815', in The New Maritime History of Devon) A similar analysis of Plymouth ships commissioning in 1805 reveals a very different picture. So large a number of the crews had been turned over from other ships that it is not possible to make a direct comparison of the proportion of volunteers and pressed men, but it is clear that it had changed very much for the worse. Almost all the new recruits came from the Impress Service via the guard-ship, rather than entering for a particular ship. The ratio of skilled to unskilled had virtually reversed; only 35% were rated petty officers, able seamen or idlers, but 65% were ordinary seamen or landmen. Only 47% were English, and only 58% British, while the Irish (four fifths of them unskilled) had risen to 29%, and foreigners to 6%. (Ibid., Table 10. To preserve the comparison, Americans have not been included as foreigners in 1805, but in that year a furthur 5% had been born in the Americas (including Canada and the West Indies). These figures are strong evidence that the Navy's manpower situation was much worse during the 'Great War' against France than it had been in the American War twenty-five years before. Another sample, of man serving on the Leeward Islands station between 1784 and 1812 (but mostly during the Great War) shows 55% English and 30% Irish. (John D. Byrn, Crime and Punishment in the Royal Navy: Discipline on the Leeward Islands Station 1784-1812) Since Ireland was, from the point of view of naval manning, largely a reservoir of unskilled men, this also points to an increasing shortage of seamen. The result was that nightmare of manning with which Jack Aubrey and all officers were familiar, a situation in which the Sophies might be described as 'a very fair crew. A score or two of prime seamen, and a good half of the people real man-of-war's men, which is more than you can say for most line of battle ships nowadays'. (Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander)

  One category of recruit which the Navy had always been reluctant to accept was criminals. An act of 1744 had allowed magistrates to send the Service 'rogues and vagabonds', together with 'idle and disorderly persons', but in practice at that date the Navy was extremely reluctant to take any class of prisoner except smugglers and debtors. To some extent this reluctance was overcome by the pressure of necessity during the American War, and another act of 1795 widened the scope of those who might lawfully be sentenced to naval service to smugglers, embezzlers of naval stores and men with no lawful trade. (N. A. M. Rodger, The Insatiable Earl: A Life of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich) Magistrates in some, though not all, counties made a practice of sending thieves and petty criminals to the Navy, but it is not clear how many of them were actually accepted, and in the present state of our knowledge we should be cautious in accepting at face value con temporary officers' rhetoric about the 'dregs of the jails'. (Rodger, The Wooden World) The same comment applies to the imprisonment of landmen, which was illegal and virtually unknown in the 1750s, but is often said to have been widespread by the end of the century. (Lloyd, The British Seaman) The evidence certainly exists to prove or disprove the statement, but until it has been investigated there is not much we can usefully say.

  A worsening manpower situation was bound to affect life on the lower deck in many ways, mostly adversely. For the professional seafarer, landmen were troublesome messmates and meant more work for the men who knew their business: (Rodger, The Wooden World) A general shortage made it much more likely that men would be turned over from one ship to another without being granted leave. Lack of leave was one of the complaints of the mutineers in 1797, (Conrad Gill, The Naval Mutinies of 1797) but again we lack hard evidence with which to analyse the situation. Leave was certainly given often in the 1750s, and a recent study concludes that some, though not all captains were still giving regular leave at the end of the century, (Rodger, The Wooden World) but it seems probable that the complaints of lack of shore leave, and in particular of turning-over crews without leave when ships paid off, will be found to be justified. One probable cause of the lack of leave is the coppering of the ships of the Navy during the American War. (R. J. B. Knight, 'The Introduction of Copper Sheathing into the Royal Navy, 1779-1786', Mariner's Mirror, LIX) From the military point of view this was an enormous advantage, making ships faster and allowing them to stay out of dock for years at a time. It was certainly one of the reasons why the Navy was able to hold its own during the American War against a coalition of enemies which was greatly superior in numbers. But the necessity of docking several times a year had provided the opportunity for regular leave, and it seems likely that coppering, in a desperate war which called for every effort, had the effect of reducing the opportunities for leave by increasing the 'availability' of the ships.
r />   The bad effects of 'turning-over' men was not simply that it denied them leave, for if the people were divided among several ships in need of men, as usually happened, it broke up the natural social unit of a ship's company. It is clear that, however they had been recruited and whatever their initial feelings, men could and generally did become con tented members of a ship's company after a while—specifically after not more than twelve or eighteen months' service. (Rodger, The Wooden World) Taking men from a settled ship's company and distributing them wherever they were wanted might meet a short-term need, but it acted powerfully to destroy men's loyalty to their ship and their officers. This was always to some extent a necessity of wartime operations, but it seems to have become a serious problem during the American War. As early as 1776 Lord Sandwich observed that:

  it is to be wished that every ship should form a regular ship's company, which will be much broken into if we go on borrowing and lending; (Rodger, The Wooden World)

  and in 1783 Nelson complained that:

  the disgust of the Seamen of the Navy is all owing to the infernal plan of turning them over from Ship to Ship, so that Men cannot be attached to their officers, or the officers care two-pence about them. (Sir N. H. Nicolas, The Despatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson)

  His friend Collingwood thought exactly the same:

  There is one thing in the use of those [men] have which I think is ill judged, the frequent shifting of them from ship to ship, and change of officers so that people do not feel themselves permanently established. To make the best use of all the powers of a body of men it is necessary the officers shou'd know the characters and abilities of their people, and that the people shou'd feel an attachment to their officers, which can only exist when they have served some time together. (C. Collingwood to Dr. A. Carlyle, 20 Mar 1795, in The Private Correspondence of Lord Collingwood)

  The worse the shortage of men, the more difficult it was to avoid this experiment, but it gravely damaged men's loyalty and morale, and was a powerful incentive to desertion. (Rodger, The Wooden World) It made it much harder for men to join or rejoin the officers of their choice, for not all possessed the talent, or luck, of Barret Bonden:

  How did he come to be at liberty at such a time, and how had he managed to traverse the great man-hungry port without being pressed? It would be useless to ask him; he would only answer with a pack of lies. (Patrick O'Brian, Post Captain)

  Tactless as well as useless, for many men deserted from one warship to join another whose officers they preferred. (Rodger, The Wooden World)

  Perhaps the gravest material decline in seamen's conditions between 1750 and 1800 was caused by inflation. The seaman's wage (an able seaman received 22s. 6d. a lunar month net of fixed deductions) had been established as long ago as 1653, but it seems to have remained more or less competitive with peacetime wages in merchant ships for at least a century. In wartime wages rose to levels which the Navy could never match directly, but it had the means to establish loyal cadres of long-serving men who could form the nucleus of wartime expansion. From the 1760s, however, wages in the merchant service rose steadily, and by the out break of war in 1793 the Navy had fallen well behind. How far is difficult to say with precision, for wages in merchantmen varied from trade to trade, port to port and season to season. Recent work suggests that in the first half of the eighteenth century wages averaged about 29s. a calendar month in peacetime and 42s. in wartime. (Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World 1700-1750) The Seamen of the London River (where wages were generally higher than at other ports) successfully struck for 40s. a month in 1768. (Public Record Office, ADM 7/299 No. 40.) In 1792 a seamen in the Baltic trade might earn 30s. a month, but during the war this rose to as much as five guineas. (Simon Ville, 'Wages, Prices and Profitability in the Shipping Industry during the Napoleonic wars: A Case Study', Journal of Transport History) By 1815 merchant seamen's wages in various trades ranged from 35s. to 60s; though in all cases they were subject to heavier and more arbitrary deductions than in the Navy. (Jon Press, 'wages in the Merchant Navy, 1815-54', Journal of Transport History) Probably Captain Pakenham was exaggerating when he told the Admiralty in 1796 that seamen could get four times as much money in the merchant service, but undoubtedly the naval wage by then was much less than merchantmen paid even in peacetime. (Private Papers of George, Second Earl Spencer, ed. by Julian S. Corbett) This, together with the operation of the bounty system which often had the effects of rewarding landmen more highly than seamen, was the principal grievance of the Spithead mutineers in 1797. (Gill, The Naval Mutanies) They secured an increase to 28s. a month net for an able seamen, and in 1806 this was again raised to 32s. net. (Gill, The Naval Mutanies; G. E. Manwearing & Bonamy Dobree, The Floating Republic)

  By the late 1790s there were therefore several 'material disadvantages to life in the Navy which had grown up, or at least grown much worse, since the 1750s. It may be, however, that they were not the only or even the most serious social problems of the Service. It has been argued that the Navy in Anson's day was a product of its times, largely innocent of the tensions of class-consciousness, held together by internal bonds of mutual dependence between patrons and followers which threw officers and their men into close contact. In such a world the distant, and almost feeble authority of the Admiralty counted for much less than the officers' powers to reward, and their need of reliable followers. (Rodger, The Wooden World) As a social system it offered strong incentives to mutual accommodation, and both officers and men were reluctant to push disputes to extremes. If the men had occasion to complain, they generally found senior officers who took them seriously. If complaints were not met, the resulting mutinies invariably conformed to established rules which confined them to the status of a sort of formal demonstration. Only mutinies openly led or covertly incited by officers broke the rules, and only then did authority react with severity. Respectable mutinies conducted in accordance with Service tradition, in pursuit of proper objectives such as the payment of overdue wages or the ejection of intolerable officers, could expect to get what they demanded, and with no question of punishing the mutineers. (Rodger, The Wooden World)

  It is clear that this solidarity, almost intimacy between officers and men was breaking down by the 1790s, and was largely destroyed by the effects of the French Revolution. It is perilous to generalise about changing attitudes, especially on the basis of anecdotal evidence, but there can be little doubt that this was a period of growing class-consciousness and tension between officers and men. It shows in an increasing intolerance of complaint, and a notably harsher attitude to mutinies. As early as 1780 a mutiny at Spithead, on grounds completely justified both by tradition and the letter of the law, was treated with considerable severity, though the incapacity of the admiral commanding may have been a factor in this case. (The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich, ed. by G. R. Barnes & J. H. Owen, Navy Records Society) By the early 1790s even successful mutinies had become extremely risky affairs, (Jonathan Neale, The Cutlass and the Lash: Mutiny and Discipline in Nelson's Navy) and the course of the French Revolution confirmed officers in the idea that any complaint, or even a hint of independent thought, called for harsh repression. Of the 1797 Spithead mutiny, conducted with great moderation and good sense for entirely traditional objectives, one captain remarked,

  . . . the character of the present mutiny is perfectly French. The singularity of it consists in the great secrecy and patience with which they waited for a thorough union before it broke out, and the immediate establishment of a system of terror. (Spencer Papers, II)

  Sir William Hotham thought the concession of cheap postage to the ratings had been a fatal move, since encouraging men to read and write letters was bound to tempt them to think for themselves, (A. M. W. Stirling, Pages & Portraits from the Past, being the Private Papers of Admiral Sir William Hotham, G. C. B. Admiral of the Red) while Collingwood for the same reas
on deprecated even allowing ships' companies to subscribe to patriotic collections. (Oliver Warner, The Life and Letters of Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood) Significantly, it is at this period that officers came to think of the Marines as 'men which we look to in general for protection' in the event of mutiny, (Spencer Papers, II) something quite foreign to the objects of the corps as established in 1755. By 1797 the Admiralty no longer felt that officers' promises to their men needed to be kept if it were inconvenient to do so. (Spencer Papers, II)