Part 9 (2/2)

On the 23rd July Sir W. Coventry talks to him of the ”_Loyal London_ (which, by the way, he commends to be the best s.h.i.+p in the world, large and small) hath above eight hundred men. The first guns made for her all bursted, but others were made, which answered better.”

Speaking of the late battle, he remarks that ”the _Resolution_ had all bra.s.s guns, being the same that Sir John Lawson had in her in the Straights. It is to be observed that the two fleets were even in number to one s.h.i.+p.”

Sir W. Coventry ”spoke slightingly of the Duke of Albemarle, saying, when De Ruyter come to give him a broadside--`Now,' says he (chewing of tobacco the while), `will this fellow come and give me two broadsides, and then he shall run;' but it seems he held him to it two hours, till the duke himself was forced to retreat to refit, and was towed off, and De Ruyter staid for him till he come back again to fight. One in the s.h.i.+p saying to the duke, `Sir, methinks De Ruyter hath given us more than two broadsides.' `Well,' says the duke, `but you shall find him run by-and-by,' and so he did, but after the duke himself had been first made to fall of.”

From the accounts he gives of the condition of the navy, it is surprising that our s.h.i.+ps were not everywhere beaten. On the 20th of October he writes: ”Commissioner Middleton says that the fleet was in such a condition as to discipline, as if the devil had commanded it; so much wickedness of all sorts. Enquiring how it came to pa.s.s that so many s.h.i.+ps had miscarried this year, he tells me that the pilots do say that they dare not do nor go but as the captains will have them; and if they offer to do otherwise, the captains swear they will run them through. That he heard Captain Digby (my Lord of Bristoll's son, a young fellow that never was but one year, if that, in the fleet) say that he did hope he should not see a tarpawlin have the command of a s.h.i.+p within this twelve months”--tarpaulin being the common name applied to a sailor in those days.

On the 19th: ”Nothing but distraction and confusion in the affairs of the navy.”

On the 28th he adds: ”Captain Guy to dine with me. He cries out of the discipline of the fleet, and confesses really that the true English valour we talk of is almost spent and worn out; few of the commanders doing what they should do, and he much fears we shall therefore be beaten the next year. He a.s.sures me we were beaten home the last June fight, and that the whole fleet was ashamed to hear of our bonfires.

The _Revenge_ having her forecastle blown up with powder to the killing of some men in the river, and the _Dyamond_ being overset in the careening at Sheerness, are further marks of the method all the king's work is now done in. The _Foresight_ also and another come to disasters in the same place this week in the cleaning.”

On the 2nd of November he describes the _Ruby_, French prize, ”the only s.h.i.+p of war we have taken from any of our enemies this year. It seems a very good s.h.i.+p, but with galleries quite round the sterne to walk in as a balcone, which will be taken down.”

News of the Dutch having been seen off the mouth of the Thames alarms every one; and on the 24th of March, 1667, he writes: ”By-and-by to the Duke of Yorke, where we all met, and there was the king also; and all our discourse was about fortifying of the Medway and Harwich; and here they advised with Sir G.o.dfrey Lloyd and Sir Bernard de Gunn, the two great engineers, and had the plates drawn before them; and indeed all their care they now take is to fortify themselves, and are not ashamed of it.”

On the 9th of June he writes: ”I find an order come for the getting some fire-s.h.i.+ps presently to annoy the Dutch, who are in the king's channel, and expected up higher.”

The next day: ”News brought us that the Dutch are come up as high as the Nore; and more pressing orders for fire-s.h.i.+ps. We all went down to Deptford, and pitched upon s.h.i.+ps and set men at work, but, Lord! to see how backwardly things move at this pinch, notwithstanding that by the enemy being now come up as high as almost the Hope.”

Anxiety and terror prevailed in the city, and people were removing their goods--the thoughtful Mr Pepys making a girdle to carry 300 pounds in gold about his body. The alarm is further increased when a neighbour comes up from Chatham, and tells him that that afternoon he ”saw the _Royal James_, the _Oake_, and _London_ burnt by the enemy with their fire-s.h.i.+ps; that two or three men-of-war come up with them, and made no more of Upnor Castle's shooting than of a fly; that the Dutch are fitting out the _Royal Charles_.”

s.h.i.+ps were to be sunk in the river, about Woolwich, to prevent the Dutch coming up higher.

”The masters of the s.h.i.+ps that are lately taken up, do keep from their s.h.i.+ps all their stores, or as much as they can, so that we cannot despatch them, having not time to appraise them, nor secure their payment. Only some little money we have, which we are fain to pay the men we have with every night, or they will not work. And, indeed, the hearts as well as the affections of the seamen are turned away; and in the open streets in Wapping, and up and down, the wives have cried publickly, `This comes of not paying our husbands; and now your work is undone, or done by hands that understand it not.'”

Some of the men, ”instead of being at work at Deptford, where they were intended, do come to the office this morning to demand the payment of their tickets; for otherwise they would, they said, do no more work; and are, as I understand from everybody that has to do with them, the most debauched, swearing rogues that ever were in the navy, just like their prophane commander.”

”Nothing but carelessness lost the _Royal Charles_, for they might have saved her the very tide that the Dutch came up. The Dutch did take her with a boat of nine men, who found not a man on board her; and presently a man went up and struck her flag, and jacke, and a trumpeter sounded upon her, `Joan's placket is torn;' they did carry her down at a time, both for tides and wind, when the best pilot in Chatham would not have undertaken it, they heeling her on one side to make her draw little water, and so carried her away safe.”

”It is a sad sight to see so many good s.h.i.+ps there sunk in the river, while we would be thought to be masters of the sea.”

He also examines the chain which had been carried across the river, ”and caused the link to be measured, and it was six inches and one-fourth in circ.u.mference.”

He commends the Dutch ”for the care they do take to encourage their men to provide great stores of boats to save them; while we have not credit to find one boat for a s.h.i.+p.” The English mode ”of preparing of fire-s.h.i.+ps,” he observes, ”do not do the work, for the fire not being strong and quick enough to flame up, so as to take the rigging and sails, lies smothering a great while, half-an-hour before it flames, in which time they can get the fire-s.h.i.+ps off safely. But what a shame it is to consider how two of our s.h.i.+p's companies did desert their s.h.i.+ps.

And one more company did set their s.h.i.+p on fire and leave her; which afterwards a Feversham fisherman came up to, and put out the fire, and carried safe into Feversham, where she now is. It was only want of courage, and a general dismay and abjectness of spirit upon all our men; G.o.d Almighty's curse upon all that we have in hand, for never such an opportunity was of destroying so many good s.h.i.+ps of theirs as we now had.”

To replace the _Royal Charles_ carried away, a new s.h.i.+p was launched on the 4th of March, 1668, called the _Charles_; ”G.o.d send her better luck than the former.”

At a Privy Council which he attended, ”to discourse about the fitness of entering of men presently for the manning of the fleet, before one s.h.i.+p is in condition to receive them,” the king observed, ”`If ever you intend to man the fleet without being cheated by the captains and pursers, you may go to bed and resolve never to have it manned.'”

At another council he speaks of ”a proposition made to the Duke of York by Captain Von Hemskirke, for 20,000 pounds to discover an art how to make a s.h.i.+p go two feet for one what any s.h.i.+p do now, which the king inclines to try, it costing him nothing to try; and it is referred to us to contract with the man.” He afterwards says that the secret was only to make her sail a third faster than any other s.h.i.+p.

On the 25th of March, 1669, a court-martial was held about the loss of the _Defyance_. The sentence was, ”That the gunner of the _Defyance_ should stand upon the _Charles_ three hours with his fault writ upon his breast, and with a halter about his neck, and so be made incapable of any service.” The s.h.i.+p was burnt by the gunner allowing a girl to carry a fire into his cabin.

Whatever our shortcomings in regard to naval affairs, it is pleasant to believe that they cannot possibly be so great as in the days of Mr Samuel Pepys.

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