PAST NAVY DAYS

Evening Star, Issue 18158, 26 December 1922, Page 2

PAST NAVY DAYS

A COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS,

FROM QUEEN ELIZABETH TO NELSON.

Two masters. at the Royal Naval Col* lege at Dartmouth, Messrs H. W. Hodges and E. A. Hughes, have had the happy notion of compiling a prose anthology of documents and fugitive writings illustrative of many phases of naval custom, organisation, and administration. The work is arranged chronologically from the Tudor period to that of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and treats, among other matters, of such varied subjects as strategy, tactics, _ fighting instructions, signals, gunnery, victualling, discipline, and the entry and training of officers. Incidentally, Queen Elizabeth is exhibited as an armchair tactician, complaining at the abandonment hy tha English of boarding tactics. From a little book on the duty of a gunner wa learn that every gunner “ ought to know that, as it is a wholesome thing for him to drink and eat a little meat before ha doth discharge any piece of artillery, because the fume of saltpetre and brimstone will otherwise be hurtful to his brains, so. it is very unwholesome for him to shoot in anv piece of ordnance while his stomach is Ml.” EARLY MYSTERY SHIPS. In 1596 Essex reminded the Council that an army is no less necessary to England than a navy. An early reference to mystery ships is found among the stratagems used at sea in Monson’s ‘ Naval Tracts/ where he says: “It may as well servo for a man-of-war to stow his men, save so many as may sail the ship, in hold and embolden the other to come near him.’ 1 The following amusing anecdote occurs in a seaman’s complaint in 1634 of “gentleman captains”;—“l will give you an emblem of a late captain, better known to others than to himself, who, being a fresh-water soldier, was sick with the savor of the sea; and his men pumping the ship'in their watch, it gave a noisome smell (which notwithstanding is a good sign of a tight ship), whereof this young .Neptune in a fume demanding the reason, reply was made that it was the pump. ‘ Why,’ quoth ho, ‘ cast it overboard, for if it stink so I will have none in my ship!”’ _ . . On the same Topic, here is Pepys s view of the qualities of a, good sea officer s-pi “I did some time since write to Captain Kiliigrew for a character of this gentleman, who in answer tells mo that he apprehends him fit for a sea officer, by reason ho hath been with him a whole year at sea and in threo engagements, where h© saith ho behaved himself like a gentleman and an understanding man, a character which I confess wants a good deal of that which must lead mo to think a man fit to make a sea officer of; I mean downright diligence, sobriety, and seamanship, without which no man can servo His Majesty as he ought, or at. least'will ever be so thought by me to do.” A section on eighteenth-century victuals contains this gem, from a pamphlet of 1761 That seamen in (he King's Ships have made buttons for their Jackets and Trowscrs with the Cheese they were served with, having preferred it, by reason of its tough and durable quality, to buttons made of common metal ?_ and that Ckrpentors in llio Navy-Service have made Trucks to their Ships’ llagstalfs with whole Cheeses, which have stood tho weather equally with any timber.”

THE VICTORY’S GUYS, Of particular interest at the moment, in connection with the movement for proserving the Victory, is a request Captain Koppel, commanding tho ship in 1778, for guns carrying a ball of 521 b weight on the lower deck in preference to the 42-pounders then fitted. Evidently the request was granted, for the smaller weapons were used at Trafalgar. As showing how slowly naval reforms came about in tho old days, there are two documents in which uniform for tho seamen is advocated. Admiral Kempenfelt wrote in 1779 that the appearance of the men was a disgrace to the service, and uniform clothing would help them to keep sober, orderly, aud clean, and would contribute something to check desertion; and Sir Gilbert Blanc, tho surgeon, wrote in 1782 that it would certainly be for tho benefit of tho service that a uniform should be established for tho common men, as well as for tho officers. Yet seventy-four -years elapsed before this was done.