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Rodney. David Hannay
Читать онлайн.Название Rodney
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isbn 4064066168841
Автор произведения David Hannay
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The Rainbow was paid off at Woolwich in 1752. Rodney himself landed at Portsmouth, leaving the vessel to be brought round to the river by his First Lieutenant Du Bois. He had to hand her over to his subordinate on the ground of ill health, being, as he pleaded to the Admiralty, very ill and in charge of a physician. Ill health was destined to be only too common with him for the rest of a long life, and he was probably already suffering from the disease of the century—the gout, which in later years first crippled and then killed him.
CHAPTER III
MARRIAGE, THE PRESS-GANG, AND THE FLAG
After twenty-two years of unbroken sea service Rodney was well entitled to an easy billet on shore, or in a harbour ship. Besides, he now established a kind of moral claim to a stationary post, for in 1753 he married. The rank of the lady shows that he had a better social position than the very great majority of contemporary naval officers. They were largely sons of other officers or middle-class people, and they lived among themselves in the ports, marrying and giving in marriage in their own class. Rodney, who had some of the best blood in England in his veins, lived when ashore in the great society of London. His wife was chosen in this, and not in the naval world. She was a daughter of Mr. Charles Compton, brother of the sixth, and father of the seventh, Earl of Northampton. In Rodney’s life she is little more than a name. No letter to her or from her has come in my way—partly, no doubt, because the evidence about the Admiral’s life only becomes abundant in his later years when she was dead, when he had remarried and begotten a second family. All that can be said about her may be summed up in a few words. Her name was Jane; she married Rodney in 1753, and died in 1757, having borne him two sons and a daughter. The elder of the two sons, afterwards an officer in the Guards, was the ancestor of the present Lords Rodney. The younger went to sea, and was drowned in the wreck of his sloop, the Ferret. The daughter died in childhood.
In 1751, too, Rodney had entered Parliament as member for Saltash, which means that he was put into the seat by a patron. It was the first of five seats which he held, with an interval of exclusion from the House between the fourth and last, until he was made a peer in 1782. His Parliamentary adventures will, however, be more conveniently taken farther on.
With a wife and a seat in Parliament Rodney would have no present wish to go to sea, nor would his political patron wish him to be too much away. It was convenient to have him at hand if a critical division was expected. A guardship at Portsmouth would meet the case exactly, and accordingly he was appointed in 1753 to the Kent, sixty-four. Very soon, in the next year in fact, this vessel was commissioned for service in the East Indies, and then Rodney was moved into the Fougueux; and when she also was commissioned, he moved in 1755 yet again to the Prince George, still on guardship duty. In the earlier part of this time there was little beyond routine to attend to, but in the last-named year began the preparations for the Seven Years’ War. We were strengthening our hands in the East Indies, and Boscawen’s fleet was being got ready for that attack on the French-American fishing fleet which was our not formal, but effective, declaration of hostilities. Under these circumstances it was necessary to raise men for the fleet, and no small part of that duty fell to the captains of the guardships.
The men were procured in two ways—by persuasion and by force. A bounty was offered for seamen; landsmen, of whom a good proportion was carried in every ship, were not then entitled to this advantage. When free enlistment failed to supply sufficient crews, and it always did in war, recourse was had to the press. Even if there had been a reasonable security that enough men would ultimately come in, some quicker process than the volunteer one was needed. The quicker process was compulsion, pure and simple. As the press-gang, though a familiar name enough, is but vaguely known in these days, some little account of Rodney’s share in the working of it may not come amiss. There is no reason to suppose that his activity differed from that of others in nature or degree, but yet some sketch of it will help us to realise the surroundings in which he worked. The letter book, already quoted, supplies some characteristic facts.
His volunteers having first been secured, the captain of the Prince George selects from them and from the sailors who habitually enlisted in the navy, of whom there was always a backbone in the service, certain trusty gangs which he puts under active officers. One of these, a Lieutenant Allon, was sent to London to set up a rendezvous, under the direction of the registering captain, probably in the neighbourhood of Limehouse or Wapping. From this centre of activity the lieutenant went to work, recruiting men freely when he could, or laying hands on them in the fashion described in Roderick Random. Lieutenant Allon’s requests for more “imprest” money were frequent, and were regularly answered with remittances. When he had secured a haul of men he sent them round by tenders to Portsmouth. It is curious to reflect that Lieutenant Allon and, through him, Rodney helped to secure Captain Cook for the navy. The navigator enlisted at this very time in order to escape the “hot press” on the river, deciding, like the long-headed Yorkshireman he was, that he had better go quietly, get the bounty, and likewise secure a chance of promotion, than be seized as pressed man, for whom there would be no bounty and no chance. So it will be seen the press-gang worked indirectly as well as directly. In the meantime other gangs were at work in the fashion indicated by this little order, which is addressed on February 14th, 1755, to Lieutenant Richard Bickorton.
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