both bad and given in an oppressive way. The pay of a seaman
was 22s. 6d. a month for able seamen, the rate fixed in the reign
of Charles II., and 19s. for ordinary seamen. This sum was not
paid at fixed dates, but at first only at the end of a commission,
and after 1758 whenever a ship which had been a year in commission
returned home—up to six months before the date of her
arrival, the balance being kept as a security against desertion,
which was then incessant and enormous. As men were often
turned over from ship to ship they had a sheaf of pay notes to
present on reaching home. The task of making up accounts
was slow, and the men were often driven to sell their pay notes
to low class speculators at a heavy discount. Discipline was
mainly enforced by the lash, and the abuse of their power by
captains was often gross.
These grievances led to a long series of single ship mutinies, which culminated in the great mutiny of 1797. The fleets at Spithead, the Nore, Plymouth, the South of Ireland and Cape of Good Hope mutinied one after another. The government had aggravated the danger by drafting numbers of the United Irish into the fleet, and the quotas from the counties contained many dangerous characters. The crisis which seemed to threaten the country with ruin passed away. Concessions were made to the just claims of the men. When political agitators endeavoured to make use of the discontent of the sailors for treasonable ends, the government stood firm, and the patriotism of the great bulk of the men enabled it to restore discipline. The “breeze at Spithead,” as the mutiny was nicknamed in the navy, was the beginning of the reforms which made the service as popular as it was once hateful.
The administration of the navy throughout the 18th century, and in a less degree after 1806 up to 1832, was in many respects slovenly, and was generally corrupt. The different branches, military and civil, were scattered and worked in practical independence, though the board of admiralty was supposed to have absolute authority over all. The admiralty was at Whitehall, the navy office in Seething Lane near the Tower, and after 1780 at Somerset House. The victualling office was on Tower Hill, the pay office in Broad Street, where also was the Sick and Hurt office. In 1749, when the state of the navy excited just discontent, the admiralty first established regular visitations of the dockyards which in a time of general laxity had become nests of corruption. These visitations were, however, not regularly made. By the end of the century, and in spite of sporadic efforts at reform, the evil had become so generally recognized that Earl St Vincent, then first lord, persuaded parliament in 1802 to appoint a parliamentary commission of inquiry. Its reports, thirteen in number, were given between 1804 and 1806. They revealed much waste, bad management and corruption. The tenth report showed that money voted for the navy was used by the then treasurer, Henry Dundas (Lord Melville), for purposes which he refused to reveal. In 1806 another commission was appointed to revise and digest the civil affairs of the navy, and a considerable improvement was effected. Much remained to be done. There was no strict appropriation of money. Accounts were kept in complicated, old-fashioned ways which made it impossible to strike a balance.
In 1832 Sir James Graham, first lord in Earl Grey’s administration, obtained the support of parliament for his policy of sweeping away the double administration of the navy, by admiralty and navy office, and combining them into one divided into five departments. With this great organic change the navy entered on its modern stage.
Subject to the warning that for the reason given above, the figures do not deserve absolute confidence, the material strength of the British navy from the death of Queen Anne to the fall of Napoleon was:—
| Ships. | Tons. | |
| At the death of Queen Anne, 1714 | 247 | 167,219 |
| ,,,,George I., 1727 | 233 | 170,862 |
| ,,,,George II., 1760 | 412 | 321,104 |
| In 1783 | 617 | 500,781 |
| In 1793 | 411 | 402,555 |
| In 1816 | 776 | 724,810 |
The figures for 1783, and for 1816, are swollen by prizes and worn out ships. All the figures include vessels unfit for service, or useful only for harbour work, or ordered to be built, but not actually in existence. The number of men varied enormously from a peace to war establishment. Thus in 1755 on the eve of the Seven Years’ War parliament voted 12,000 seamen. In 1762 the vote was for 70,000 men, including 19,061 marines—the corps having been created in the interval. In 1775, on the eve of the American War of Independence, the vote was for 18,000 men for the sea service, including 4354 marines. At the close of the war in 1783 the vote was for 110,000 men, including 25,291 marines, from which it fell in 1784 to 26,000 (marines 4495 included) and in 1786 to 18,000 men, of whom 3860 were marines. In 1812, when the navy was at the highest level of strength it reached, the vote was for 113,000 seamen and 31,400 marines. From this level it fell in 1816 to 24,000 seamen and 9000 marines. These figures represent paper strength. Owing to the prevalence of desertion, and the difficulty of obtaining men, the actual strength was always appreciably lower.
The French Navy.
Before the French monarchy could possess a fleet, its early kings, whose rule was effective only in the centre of the country, had first to conquer their sea coast from their great vassals. Philip Augustus (1180–1223) began by expelling King John of England from Normandy and Poitou. The process was not completed until Louis XII. (1498–1515) united the duchy of Brittany to the crown by his marriage with the duchess Anne. Long before the centralization of authority had been completed the French kings possessed a fleet, or rather two fleets of very distinct character. Her geographical position has always compelled France to draw her navy from two widely different sources—from the Channel and the coast of the Atlantic on the north and west and on the south from the Mediterranean. This separation has imposed on her the difficult task of concentrating her forces at times of crisis, and the concentration has always been hazardous. Like their English rivals, the French kings of the middle ages drew their naval forces from the feudal array, the national levy and their own ships. But the proportion of the elements was not the same. Many of the great vassals owed the service of ships, and their obedience was always less certain than that of the Cinque Ports. The trading towns were less able, and commonly less willing, than the English to supply the king with ships. He was thus driven to trust mainly to his own vessels—and they were drawn at first exclusively, and always to a great extent, from the Mediterranean seaboard. His own territories in the south were insufficiently provided with seamen, and the French king had therefore to seek his captains, his men and his vessels by purchase or by subsidies from Genoa, or in a less degree from Aragon. When Saint Louis (1226–1270) sailed on his first crusade in 1249, he formed the first French royal fleet, and created the first French dockyard at Aigues Mortes. Ships and dockyard were bought from, or were built by, the Genoese at the king’s expense. His admirals, the first appointed by the French crown, Ugo Lercari and Jacobo di Levante, were Genoese. Saint Louis created the office of admiral of France. When in later times Aigues Mortes was cut off from the sea by the encroachment of the land, Narbonne and Marseilles were used as ports of war. This fleet was purely Mediterranean in character. It consisted of galleys, and though the sail was used it was dependent on the oar, and therefore on the “turma” (chiourme) of rowers, who in earlier times were hired men, but from the middle of the 15th century began to be composed of galley slaves—prisoners of war, slaves purchased in Africa, criminals and vagabonds condemned by the magistrate to the chain and the oar. Philip IV. le Bel (1285–1314) was led by his rivalry with Edward I. of England to create a naval establishment on the Channel. He found his materials in the existing Mediterranean fleet. A dockyard was built for him at Rouen, again by the Genoese Enrico Marchese, Lanfranc Tartaro and Albertino Spinola. It was officially known as the Tersenal or Dorsenal, but was commonly called the clos des gallées or galley yard, and it existed from 1294 to 1419. The French navy has always suffered from alternations of attention and neglect. In times of disastrous wars on land it has fallen into confusion and obscurity. Except when Francis I. (1515–1547) made a vigorous attempt to revive it at the very close of his reign, the French navy languished till the 17th century. Its very unity of administration disappeared in the 15th century, when
