A Short History of the Royal Navy, 1217 to 1688 - David Hannay

Скачать книгу

The distribution of the guns in the ships remained very much what it had been during the reign of Henry VIII.; that is to say, cannon of the most various sizes were mounted side by side on the same deck. A few specimens taken from a list attested by the auditors of the Prest and the officers of the Ordnance in 1599, printed by Derrick, will show how far this practice was carried.

Names. Arke White Bear Triumph
Cannon. 4 3 4
Demi-Cannon. 4 11 3
Culverins. 12 7 17
Demi-Culverins. 12 10 8
Sakers. 6 … 6
Mynions. … … …
Falcons. … … …
Falconets. … … …
Port-piece Halls. 4 2 1
Port-piece Chambers. 7 … 4
Fowler Halls. 2 7 5
Fowler Chambers. 4 … 20
Curtalls. … … …
Total Number of Pieces of Ordnance 55 40 68

      A large proportion of the pieces named here were very small, and it is doubtful what is to be understood by some of the terms. They apply doubtless often to small "murdering pieces," of about the size of a duck-gun, mounted on the cobridge heads and bulwarks, for the purpose of repelling or driving out boarders. Therefore we must not suppose that the 68 guns of the Triumph represented anything like what that figure would have meant two hundred years later. It must not be forgotten that if Elizabeth did less to increase the strength of the navy than her father, she did not inherit a treasure as he did, and neither had she the spending of the plunder of the Church. He spent his capital. She had to confine herself to income.

      No administrative changes in essentials were made by Elizabeth in the organisation of the navy. The function of the officers of the Navy Office, which had not as yet been strictly defined, were settled by instructions issued by the queen in 1560. What her Government did do was to attend to the navy with enlightened care, and to select the officials with judgment. It is known that for years the business of building, refitting, and taking care of the ships of the navy, and of superintending the purchase of stores, was carried on by Sir John Hawkins, who held the posts of Treasurer and Comptroller of the Navy. Hawkins was the successor of his father-in-law, Benjamin Gonson, in the office of Treasurer. It appears that he held his post under an agreement with the queen, by which he undertook to discharge the ordinary duties of caretaking for £5714 a year, he meeting all the common charges and supplying part of the stores, while heavier and exceptional expenses, whether for building new ships or for fitting out the fleet for sea, fell to the Crown. His remuneration for the work was apparently to be derived, in addition to the fees of his offices of Treasurer and Comptroller, from what remained over and above after paying for the work, and from the privilege of disposing of condemned ships and stores. The openings for fraud in such a system are many and obvious. If his enemies are to be believed, Hawkins did not miss the opportunities afforded him. It is said that he robbed the queen directly, and that, being partner in a shipbuilding yard on the Thames, he made use of his official position to forward his private interests. But Lord Howard of Effingham bears witness that Hawkins had the ships of the queen's navy in admirable order in the Armada year, and he is undoubtedly entitled to the credit of having done much to introduce into the navy the improvements in construction and rigging detailed by Sir Walter Raleigh.

      Such in its main outlines was the instrument of which the great queen, her ministers, and her captains made magnificent use. It was but modest and even weak in itself; but in truth the Royal Navy was only part of the naval force at the disposal of Elizabeth. During the forty-four years of her reign, we constantly find that the vanguard in all actions, and a great part of the main body of the queen's sea power, was formed of adventurers. In the following century, and from the time of the first Dutch war, it is possible to tell the history of the navy with rare references to the action of those volunteers who fought for their own hand as privateers. But this was by no means the case with the navy of Queen Elizabeth. The most famous of her captains gained their reputation by privateering voyages, and were only taken into her service when they were already known leaders. To the end of her long war with Spain the private ship is found fighting alongside the queen's. The most successful of her expeditions against the Spaniard, whether in Europe or in the New World, were carried out by what, according to modern practice, would be a very strange partnership between the Crown and speculators, who, no doubt, had patriotic motives, but who had also very direct interest in the pecuniary results of the campaign. In fact, the word adventurer in the language of Elizabeth's time was commonly applied, not to the sea-captains, mariners, and soldiers who assailed the Spaniard in the West Indies, but to the shipowners and capitalists who found the money for fitting out the expedition, and who claimed two-thirds of the prize as their reward.

      The privateer may be said to have made his first appearance during the last naval war of the reign of Henry VIII. The king had issued what were called letters of marque, that is, a species of commission authorising anybody who could fit out an armed ship to plunder the French and to keep a large share of the booty. His invitation to this form of private enterprise was eagerly accepted, especially by the seamen and country gentlemen of the West of England. They fitted out ships in large numbers, and cruised with profitable results against the French trade. The experience of 1545–46 seems to have thoroughly established the taste for privateering in the western counties, and it endured without any visible sign of abatement for generations. During the reigns of Edward and Mary and the early years of Elizabeth the western sea rovers continued as busy as ever, even when the country was at peace. They had an excellent pretext in the religious dissensions which were now beginning to swallow up, or at least to colour, the political conflicts of the European powers. In Mary's reign, Devonshire gentlemen of strong Protestant sympathies betook themselves to the pious work of plundering Spaniards and the other subjects of the queen's husband. The considerable traffic between Flanders and the Basque Ports of Spain supplied them with an irresistible motive for embracing the cause of pure religion. When the Low Countries revolted against the persecuting despotism of Philip II., the Protestants, who had been for a time crushed on land, appeared on blue water under the well-known name of "The Beggars of the Sea." These landless and desperate men found sympathy and help in

Скачать книгу