KING GEORGE’S NAVY
Unlike the army, where promotion up to and including lieutenant colonel was by purchase, in the Royal Navy it was by examination initially and then by recommendation and selection. A boy might go to sea at the age of twelve or thirteen and eventually become a midshipman, effectively an officer cadet. From then he would study for the examination to lieutenant (there was then no rank of sub lieutenant) which he could take after six years of sea service. The examination covered all aspects of seamanship including navigation, ship handling, mathematics and geography. Further promotion, to commander (again, no rank of lieutenant commander) and captain was theoretically by merit but this could be tempered by conspicuous acts of gallantry, while patronage could also play a part. An officer in command of a ship, whatever his rank, was referred to as ‘the captain’ while the rank was referred to as that of post captain. Once an officer attained the rank of post captain subsequent promotion was strictly by seniority, so provided the man avoided death or disgrace he would eventually become an admiral of the fleet. This is not as iniquitous as it seems, however, for he would only be paid if he was employed, and he would only be employed if the navy thought he was capable.
The pay of a post captain depended on the size of the ship he commanded. Command of a First Rate attracted £722 per annum while in a Sixth Rate it would be £256. An able seaman got £20 a year. To put those sums into perspective, income tax was charged beginning at two old pence in the pound for those earning £60 a year, or less than 1%, rising to two shillings in the pound, or 10% for those earning £200 a year and above. Thus a post captain was well off and a lieutenant comfortable. A seaman was well off compared to his civilian equivalent. While differentials were pretty much as they are today, the big difference is that then a post captain was paid thirty-six times that of an able seaman. Today it is but four and a half times. This latter is no proper reflection of the difference in responsibilities – the sailor goes where the captain sails – but indicative of successive governments’ determination over the years to favour the less well off to the detriment of those considered rich.
There were however opportunities to become very rich indeed, and that was by obtaining prize money. The cruisers and convoys act of 1708 laid down that if an enemy ship, whether naval or merchant, was captured its value and that of any cargo were established by an admiralty prize court, and its value shared out to the government and the captors. The captors share was divided out according to rank from the captain down to the most junior crew member. In May 1762 a Spanish frigate was captured by HMS Active and HMS Favourite. Each captain got £65,000 and each ordinary seaman £482. That was 133 years pay for the captain, and twenty-four years pay for the seaman, or £13,000,000 and £630,000 respectively today. On 16 October 1799 four British frigates captured the Spanish treasure ships Thetis and Santa Brigida and each captain got £40,730 and each ordinary seaman £182. A captain who transported bullion got one percent of its value in ‘freight’, hence when Commander William Parker conveyed £150,000 worth of diamonds from Lisbon to England in 1803 he got £1,500 or seven and a half years’ pay. Although the admiral commanding a squadron or a fleet also got a cut, as did the port admiral if the capturing ship was operating from a port, the real opportunities to make money were held by commanders and junior post captains commanding frigates, faster than the heavier and slower ships of the line, and many great estates in the west country owed their origins to prize money. The prize money system also applied to salvage and remained pretty well unaltered until the First World War when it became evident that it was not only the capturing ship that was responsible but that all manner of other agencies were also involved – the radio operators in coaling stations, spotter aircraft, gatherers of intelligence as to enemy ships movements and the like. From then on prize money was paid into a central Royal Navy welfare fund, and the days of the Royal Navy being a money making machine for its members were over.
A First Rate three decker battleship usually had 100 or slightly more guns, with 12 pounders (which fired a solid iron ball weighing twelve pounds) on the top deck, 24 pounders on the middle deck and 36 pounders on the bottom deck. To have thirty six pounders on the top deck could risk turning the ship over, or at best causing a severe heeling over, if fired all at once in a ‘broadside’ – which was rarely fired in any case.
All guns had a crew of six men per gun. Unlike the army’s guns which were discharged by applying a port fire, or slow match, to the touchhole, naval guns were fitted with flintlocks. The reason for this was that as the army’s guns were sitting on land and not on a moving platform, differences in time from the match being applied to the gun actually firing did not matter, but in the navy a gun had to fire as it brought to bear – too soon and the ball ended in the water, too late and it went over the target. The use of a flintlock meant that the time between pulling the lanyard to ignite the powder in the touchhole and the gun firing was always the same. Visitors to HMS Victory will have noticed that the flintlocks have been removed from the guns as they were being pilfered! Once the gun fired, its recoil forced it back out of its position. The crew then had to sponge out the barrel to ensure that no burning grains of powder were still there, insert a bagged charge of powder and ram it down, insert the ball and ram it down followed by the wad, which prevented the ball rolling out of the gun. The crew then had to heave the gun back into position, using the block and tackle attached, adjust the aim and fire again. The effective range of the guns was 300 yards although of course the ball would carry for a great deal farther. The Royal Navy paid a great deal of attention to gunnery and it was a poor ship that could not maintain a rate of fire of one round every ninety seconds, much more than French or Spanish sailors could achieve.
A French admiral was recently being shown around HMS Victory, a First Rate three decker, Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar and now in Portsmouth harbour, by a very senior chief petty officer. Passing a stack of cannon balls on one of the gun decks, he enquired whether they were original? ‘No sir’, came the reply, ‘you’ve still got those’.
Between 1793 and 1815 the Royal Navy lost 179 ships captured or destroyed in action. The various enemies lost 1,049. Enemies included French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Russian, Turkish, and American (war of 1812) ships. The figure do not include ships that mutinied (five British and one French) nor ships cast or lost not in action. There were mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797, the causes being the usual ones of pay and rations. In each location the mutineers assured the authorities that if the French came they would return to duty. The mutiny at Spithead was settled peacefully, but that at the Nore was more of a problem and once it was put down thirty ringleaders were hanged. Conditions were radically improved and from then on there were few disciplinary problems.
Very soon during the war the Royal Navy had complete command of the seas. In 1808 a convoy of thirty troopships – merchant vessels taken up from trade – delivered soldiers from England to Porto Novo in Portugal. The escort was one frigate of the Royal Navy! In the whole of the war from 1793 to 1815 the Royal Navy and Royal Marines suffered 103,660 deaths, killed in action, died of wounds and missing believed killed. In the same period the army lost 219,430. A total of 323,080 deaths spread over twenty two years may not seem great compared to the 700,000 dead over the four years 1914 – 1918, but it was considered significant at the time, and until 1914-18 people and the press referring to ‘The Great War’ meant the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Brilliant! Thank you