Stockwin's Maritime Miscellany Page 4

  On 15 May there was a grand celebration in Portsmouth, and the mutineers’ delegates marched in procession up to the governor’s house accompanied by bands playing ‘God Save the King’ and ‘Rule, Britannia’. The delegates were invited inside for refreshments, then appeared on the balcony with the Howes to huzzahs from the multitude, after which they set out together for the anchorage. On board Royal George Howe was given three cheers and the red flag of mutiny was pulled down; the other ships quickly followed. Later that day Lord and Lady Howe hosted a special meal for the delegates before they returned to their ships and reported for duty.

  Nelson called Howe ‘our great master in tactics and bravery’.

  A WOMAN’S TEARS SAVED VICTORY

  England’s most iconic ship already had a long and proud history before her most famous role as Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Although she was well over 40 years old, considerably past the normal life span of a ship of the line, she went on to further service in the Baltic and other areas. Her career as a fighting ship effectively ended in 1812. She was 47 years old, the same age Nelson had been when he died.

  In 1831 she was listed for disposal, but when the First Sea Lord Thomas Hardy told his wife that he had just signed an order for this, Lady Hardy is said to have burst into tears and sent him straight back to the Admiralty to rescind the order. Curiously, the page of the duty log containing the orders for that day is missing.

  Victory was permanently saved for posterity in the 1920s by a national appeal led by the Society of Nautical Research. To this day she is manned by officers and ratings of the Royal Navy and has now seen two and a half centuries of service, proudly fulfilling a dual role as flagship of the commander-in-chief naval home command and as a living museum of the Georgian navy.

  HMS Victory.

  OF UMBRELLAS AND URCHINS

  Jonas Hanway has two claims to fame – for introducing the umbrella to England and encouraging a life at sea for many thousands of men and boys.

  Merchant, philanthropist and social reformer, Hanway travelled extensively. In Persia he was taken with a silk parasol and brought one back to England. It was light green outside, pink inside. Its carved handle had a joint in the middle so that it could fold and go into his coat pocket. Hanway was ridiculed for many years by hackney coachmen who thought it would cause them to lose income. Hanway stubbornly carried an umbrella through London for three decades and lived to see it become the standard accoutrement for a gentleman, even being called a ‘Hanway’.

  In 1756 Britain was facing a severe shortage of men in the navy as she found herself embarked on another war. Concerned about the manning crisis, Hanway called a meeting of London merchants and other interested parties at the ‘King’s Arms’ on 25 June. He proposed that they set up an organisation that would provide practical encouragement to young men to volunteer for service at sea. He also saw this would be a way for the street urchins of London to escape their miserable conditions. Thus the world’s first seafaring charity, the Marine Society, was born.

  It offered sponsorship to ‘all stout lads and boys, who incline to go on board his Majesty’s ships, with a view to learn the duty of a seaman, and are, upon examination, approved by the Marine Society, [they] shall be handsomely clothed and provided with bedding, and… borne down to the ports… with all proper encouragement’.

  By 1763 the Marine Society had recruited over 10,000 men and boys. In 1786 it commissioned the world’s first pre-sea training ship, the sloop Beatty. Admiral Nelson became a trustee of the charity, and at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar 15 per cent of the navy was being supplied, trained and equipped by the Marine Society.

  Today, a little over 250 years after Hanway’s meeting in the ‘King’s Arms’, the Marine Society, now merged with the Sea Cadets, continues to serve seafarers.

  Marine Society boardroom, 1756.

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  BOW AND SCRAPE – being excessively servile. DERIVATION: an officer’s cocked hat was known as a ‘scraper’ after its similarity to the wooden utensil of the same name used by the ship’s cook. When greeting a superior officer it was customary for the junior officer to remove his headgear and bow.

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  OOPS …

  HMS Mutine won lasting fame for bringing news of Nelson’s great victory at the Battle of the Nile. In 1842 Mutine was sold and sailed halfway around the world to Tasmania, Australia, where she became a government powder hulk and was moored in the harbour at Hobart until 1902. In tribute to her illustrious past Tasmanian officials respectfully decked her out with festive flags each year on the anniversary of the battle. However, in the Royal Navy only one ship carries a particular name at one point in time and when a vessel is lost, or sold out of service, the name is freed to be used by another. The Mutine in the Antipodes had not been at the Nile; she was in fact two namesakes down the line.

  ‘THE SWEDISH KNIGHT’

  Sir Sidney Smith was one of the most colourful characters of his time – vivacious, quick, daring and mercurial. He entered the Royal Navy in 1777 and soon distinguished himself in battle. He was made post captain at the age of 18. Between 1789 and 1791 he was an adviser to the king of Sweden in the maritime war with Russia. King Gustavus conferred an order of knighthood upon Smith, earning him the mocking nickname ‘the Swedish knight’ from his contemporaries, most of whom took against his flamboyance.

  In 1799 Smith was given charge of the Turkish naval and military strength assembling to attack a French invasion force. He took command of two British warships at Alexandria, and when he heard that Bonaparte had stormed Jaffa on his way to Syria he quickly made his way to the walled city of Acre that stood athwart Napoleon’s route for his advance into India. There he put 800 seamen and marines ashore and mounted ships’ guns on the ramparts. Over the next six weeks his courage and determination inspired the Turkish defenders against overwhelming odds. Napoleon gave up his ambitions and the siege was raised on 20 May.

  A grateful Britain gave Smith a pension of £1,000 a year, along with the thanks of both houses of parliament. The sultan of Turkey presented him with the chelengk, the plume of triumph, which he delighted in wearing. The magnitude of the defeat for the French was such that years later in lonely exile Napoleon said of Smith: ‘That man made me miss my destiny.’

  After Acre, however, Smith never achieved such accolades again. Although highly intelligent, his career was constrained by a reputation for impulsiveness and unconventionality. One admiral found him ‘as gay and thoughtless as ever’, and Wellington called him ‘a mere vaporiser’.

  Finally, in December 1815, Smith was awarded a British knighthood – he was no longer just ‘the Swedish knight’. He attained the rank of admiral in 1821 and in his later years campaigned vigorously for the release of Christian slaves from captivity in North Africa.

  Sir William Sidney Smith depicted at the Battle of Acre, his greatest triumph. The painting is by John Eckstein, who also recorded the Royal Navy’s incredible achievement in fortifying Diamond Rock in 1804.

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  MAINSTAY – someone of great support and help. DERIVATION: in a sailing ship a stay is part of the standing rigging that supports a mast. Stays take their name from the mast they support; a mainstay is thus a crucial component on any vessel.

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  CHALK AND CHEESE

  Louis Infernet and Jean Lucas were arguably the two most courageous French captains at the Battle of Trafalgar, but they could not have been more different in appearance.

  Infernet stood 1.8 m tall and was built like a prize fighter. He spoke in a rough Provençal dialect; one of his colleagues said of him, ‘Infernet parle mal, mais il se bat très bien’ – Infernet speaks badly, but he fights damn well. Commanding Intrépide, he fought one of the most gallant actions of the battle, at one point under fire from four or five British warships simultaneously.

  Lucas, on the other hand, slightly built and standing under 1.5 m tall, was the smallest officer in t
he French fleet. His ship Redoutable became sandwiched between HMS Victory and HMS Temeraire and endured a relentless pounding from their broadsides. Lucas and his crew fought heroically as decks were torn open, guns shattered. When he eventually surrendered just one mast remained upright. Their butcher’s bill was horrendous – 88 per cent of her crew were either killed or injured.

  SEA-GOING SYMBOL OF PRIDE

  Bluenose was a deep-sea fishing schooner that won a special place in the hearts of all Canadians during the depths of the Great Depression, an admiration that continues to this day. As one newspaper observed: ‘Her name is a household word. She has knit Canada together.’

  It all began with a small item in the sports page of a New York paper in 1919 announcing that the America’s Cup race had been postponed because of a blow that would barely tickle the sails of a saltbank schooner. The men of the fishing fleets of Gloucester in Massachusetts and Lunenburg in Nova Scotia were outspoken in their scorn.

  Competition between the two communities had always been fierce and here was the perfect excuse to have a race between real working schooners. In 1920 the International Fishermen’s Race was organised, and that year the schooner Esperanto out of Gloucester defeated the Delewana of Lunenburg and took the trophy to New England. The cousins in the north were not going to take this sitting down, however, and in the following spring a challenger bearing the name Bluenose was launched, a ‘Bluenose’ being a resident of Nova Scotia.

  She was constructed by traditional methods using local timbers, and had, of course, the sturdy build of a working schooner. Her lines were sweet, however, and she was fast, achieving her best speed under a strong blow beating to windward. In 1921 she raced twice against Elsie in the waters off Halifax. Bluenose took both races with a good margin and even reduced sail to match the American vessel during one race when her opponent temporarily got into difficulty. Bluenose was a ‘witch on the wind’ and nothing could catch her.

  Undefeated in all the International Fishermen’s trophy series held between 1921 and 1938, she became an enduring symbol of Canada’s maritime spirit. In 1929 the Canadian Postal Service issued a distinctive blue stamp to honour the vessel’s racing record, and in 1937 she appeared in full sail on the Canadian dime.

  Bluenose’s fame was not confined to North America and Canada. She officially represented her country at the World’s Fair in 1933 and the Silver Jubilee of King George in 1935.

  Sadly, she met her demise in 1946 when she foundered near Haiti, some say as the result of a voodoo curse. But her name lives on. The reverse side of the Canadian dime still proudly bears an image of the schooner. Meanwhile Bluenose II, a daughter ship launched from the same shipyard and built by many of the same men who worked on the original Bluenose, carries on the tradition of sailing ambassador for Canada.

  The Bluenose, Canada’s favourite stamp. In 2001 a Bluenose first day cover sold for nearly C$4000.

  NOT A MAN LOST

  William Bligh has not had a good press, and is thought of as one of the most tyrannical and cruel captains ever to command a ship. This largely false accusation has overshadowed his achievement of one of the most remarkable feats of seamanship and survival of all time, his near 6,400-km open-boat voyage across the vast and empty western Pacific with scant provisions and only very basic navigation equipment.

  On 28 April 1789 there was a mutiny aboard Bligh’s ship HMS Bounty. Fletcher Christian and the master-at-arms burst into Bligh’s cabin. They had come to the end of their tether after his continuing vicious insults and vowed to cast him and his supporters adrift, thereby condemning them to a lingering death.

  Along with 18 men who remained loyal to him Bligh was forced into the ship’s launch, an open boat 7 m long and 2 m wide. They were allowed some basic navigation equipment (but no charts), a mast, several sails, some food and water and a few empty barricoes or small casks.

  Initially they headed to the nearby island of Tofoa for more food and water, but there one man was killed by natives and they were forced to flee. Some of their provisions were lost in the rush to escape.

  Bligh decided to make for the Dutch trading settlement on Timor, 6,400 km away. From the start he established strong discipline. He divided the men into watches and had them fashion a log line so they could estimate speed. Stormy weather forced them to throw overboard anything that could be spared so that the overcrowded launch did not ride so dangerously low in the waves.

  Food and water was strictly rationed. Using coconut shells Bligh fashioned a pair of scales and used a pistol ball to weigh each man’s meagre rations of one twenty-fifth of a pound of ship’s biscuit, three times a day. This was supplemented on occasion with half an ounce of pork in the evening, and a few spoonfuls of rum or wine. As the voyage progressed the rations were shortened to an issue twice a day. Occasionally they caught a booby, a small sea bird, and divided it between them, giving the blood to the weakest.

  Not one man was lost on the voyage after leaving Tofoa. On 14 June they reached Timor and their epic journey of 47 days was over.

  The National Maritime Museum at Greenwich acquired three relics from this heroic boat voyage – the bullet Bligh used to measure the rations, a horn beaker for drinking water and the coconut shell from which he ate his rations and on which Bligh had carved his name and the following words: ‘The cup I eat my miserable allowance out.’

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  UNDER THE WEATHER – being indisposed. DERIVATION: one of the most uncomfortable lookout positions in a sailing ship was at the bow on the windward or weather side. When the elements got rough the poor unfortunate stationed there was continuously soaked with cold, biting sea spray, and when he finally came off watch he looked a sorry sight.

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  PATENT BRIDGE FOR BOARDING FIRST-RATES

  During the Battle of St Vincent in 1797 Horatio Nelson captured two enemy ships in a manner that was unique in the history of the Royal Navy.

  Although his ship HMS Captain was badly damaged, Nelson was determined to fight to the end. Two Spanish ships San Nicolas and San Josef lay off afoul of each other nearby. Nelson initially ordered Captain put alongside San Nicolas and prepared to lead the boarding party himself. It was extremely unusual for a flag-officer to take such an action, but Nelson was no ordinary commander.

  Captain’s cathead became entangled with the stern gallery of San Nicolas, in effect making a bridge to the ship. Nelson led his men out along the cathead and into the Spanish captain’s cabin. Under fire from the Spanish officers the boarders stormed on to the quarterdeck. There, Nelson received the swords of the Spanish officers in surrender.

  After securing his rear, he then led his boarding party in another furious assault into the main chains and up the sides of San Josef. Leaping over the bulwark and down to the quarterdeck he rapidly took possession of the second ship.

  Then, in a scene immortalised by painters, the Spanish officers came forward in strict order of seniority to hand their swords to Nelson. As he accepted them he passed them to seaman William Fearney, who, Nelson later recorded, ‘put them with the greatest sang-froid under his arm’.

  THE EXECUTION OF AN ADMIRAL

  In April 1756 Admiral John Byng sailed from England with ten ships of the line tasked with assisting in the defence of Fort St Philip in Minorca against the French. After fighting an indecisive four-day action Byng decided that his force was insufficient either to renew the attack or to relieve the fort and he sailed to Gibraltar, in effect leaving Minorca to the enemy. This aroused a storm of protest.

  On his return to England Byng was confined in Greenwich while the government considered its options. An angry populace wanted answers and there were burnings of Byng effigies. For six months a debate raged, and finally a court martial was convened. Under the Articles of War he could face the death penalty.

  The court martial was held in Portsmouth on 28 December 1756 and Byng was charged with failing to do his utmost to save Minorca. On 27 January he was found guilty and, desp
ite the fact that two vice-admirals refused to sign the warrant, he was condemned to death. Clemency lay in the hands of the king, but George II considered Byng a coward, as did popular opinion.

  At noon on 14 March 1757 a great crowd gathered on the ramparts of the town and along the shore. Byng spent the morning calmly surveying the onlookers through a telescope from his flagship Monarch. ‘I fear many of them will be disappointed,’ he said; ‘they may hear where they are, but they cannot all see.’ Dressed in light clothes he walked firmly to the quarterdeck, where a cushion rested on a pile of sawdust. Kneeling there, and refusing a friend’s offer to tie a bandage over his eyes he said, ‘I am obliged to you, sir; I thank God I can do it myself.’ In an act of cold-blooded courage, he dropped a handkerchief himself as a signal to the party of marines to fire.

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  Incentive Scheme

  Byng was the only British admiral ever to suffer this fate. The French writer Voltaire took delight in including it in his satirical tale Candide, published in 1759. The hero, visiting Portsmouth, sees a man being executed on board a ship and, on asking why, is told that in England it is thought a good idea to execute an admiral from time to time – ‘pour encourager les autres’.