E. Keble Chatterton

“ And this fine spirit will be found to be confined to no special century nor to any particular ship: but rather to pervade the whole of the East India Company’s merchant service. The days of such a monopoly as this corporation’s trade and shipping are much more distant even than they seem in actual years: but happily it is our proud boast, as year after year demonstrates, that those qualities, which composed the magnificent seamanhood of the crews of these vessels, are no less existent and flourishing to-day in the other ships under the British flag that venture north, south, east and west. ”

“ There is a continual clashing of shield and sword, a slatting of canvas and a splashing of oars, as the long-ships leap over the cold, silvery seas. The air is full of the deep-throated shouts of the sea-kings; the horizon is bright with the coloured sails and the gilded prows. Every man is a picked fighter and seaman; every craft a thing of beauty and of strength. ”

“ Mediæval manuscripts both English and foreign have happily preserved to us not merely actual facts, but [130] exquisitely coloured illustrations of ships. We see the vessels in every conceivable way—in course of construction, ashore, afloat, with sails spread, with sails stowed. We see them on rivers and seas, embarking and disembarking. We see them in peace and in war, bound for the Crusades, or ramming each other, grappling, hurling darts and arrows from their elevated fore-castles and stern-castles, or casting destruction down on to one another’s decks from the fighting top above. ”

“ How frequently indispensable is the tug to the big steamship, both when entering and leaving the comparatively narrow harbours! You see her at Southampton, for instance, pulling the great steel hull away from the quay; you see her at Liverpool hauling ahead to get the mighty, towering bows of the liner clear of the landing-stage out into the river. You see them in New York when the mammoth comes to enter the narrow opening alongside the pier, pressing their noses on to the mammoth’s stern and compelling her giant dimensions to move round. ”

“ No one can fail to admire the consummate cleverness with which a modern mercantile captain brings a gigantic liner through a narrow, twisting channel in a strong tideway and berths his ship so quietly as not to break the proverbial eggshell. ”

“ From one hour to another no man knew whether he would be alive or dead, and the one essential thing consisted in absolute preparedness and mental alertness. To be surprised by the enemy was almost criminal; to escape narrowly from shipwreck, to remain unmoved under shell-fire, to see the spars crashing down and your shipmates laid out in great pain, to be hit and yet refusing to hit back until the right moment, to keep a clear head and a watchful eye, and all the time handle your ship so that the most was got out of the wind—all this was a part of your duty as a Q-ship man. ”

“ The rest is merely a narrative of collisions between ship and ship, with masts and sails falling, chains and grapnels straining, the hurling of stones and iron bars from the castle at the masthead, the felling of one another’s masts, the cutting adrift of the enemy’s halyards and shrouds, the heaving overboard (a favourite and regular habit in war) of every man and boy of the enemy they could lay their hands on, and finally victory to the English. ”

“ Do you not constantly hear shipbuilders and designers refer to the planking that covers a ship’s ribs as her skin? Thus we have still in common use the very words which our sires employed in reference to the sewn hides of their primitive craft. Indeed, when one considers that all through history, even until now, shipbuilding has been an industry apart from ordinary occupations, and that both ships and seamen are, as we said in our introductory chapter, the most conservative of all peoples or created things, this survival is not so unnatural as might seem at first. ”

“ PIRACY IN THE EARLY TUDOR TIMES
The kind of man who devotes his life to robbery at sea is not the species of humanity who readily subjects himself to laws and ordinances. You may threaten him with terrible punishments, but it is not by these means that you will break his spirit. He is like the gipsy or the vagrant: he has in him an overwhelming longing for wandering and adventure. ”

“ Among the gifts to humanity there is not included that of taming the sea. She is tyrannical in her strength, untamable, dominant; and when you launch into her bosom heavy masses of iron or steel, and deceive yourself with high-sounding names—call them Great Easterns, Majestics, Indomitables, Titanics, and the rest—the Sea only laughs at you, for she knows perfectly well that a blow or two from her mighty arm will end their days and settle their fate for all time. ”

“ Thus we must go to the East, the birthplace of civilisation, to trace the beginnings of our subject. We shall for this reason start from Egypt and Phœnicia, and, tracing the development through Greek and Roman times, advance to Northern and Western Europe and further west still to America. And in covering a period of roughly 8000 years, in spite of the enormous difference in time, in nations, in geographical and other conditions, we shall find that no feature is more amazing than the extraordinary spirit of conservatism which has spread itself universally over both ships and their sailors. ”

“ And when Davis ended his days by death in action, the pirate crew decided to choose Roberts as their skipper. “It is my advice,” said one of these at the time of the election, “it is my advice, while we are sober, to pitch upon a man of courage, and one skilled in navigation—one who, by his prudence and bravery, seems best able to ward us from the dangers and tempests of an unstable element, and the fatal consequences of anarchy, and such a one I take Roberts to be: a fellow in all respects worthy of your esteem and favour.” ”

“ Think of the subsequent effects on the history of the world—the establishment of new trade routes consequent on the discovery of new continents, the impetus to enterprise, the peopling of new lands, the rise of young nations, the growth of sea-power, the spread of Christianity, the accumulation of fortunes and the consequent encouragement given to the arts and sciences. It is indeed a surprising but unhappy fact that humanity, because normally it has its habitation on land, forgets how much it owes to the sea for almost everything that it possesses. ”

“ Any Q-ship captain will bear testimony to the wonderful effect wrought on a crew by the first encounter with an enemy submarine. The average seaman has much in him of the simple child, and has to be taught by plain experience to see the use and necessity of monotonous routine, of drills and discipline; but having once observed in hard battle the value of obedience, of organization and the like, he is a different man—he looks at sea-life, in spite of its boredom, from a totally different angle. Perfect discipline usually spelled victory over the enemy. ”

“ One wonders, indeed, how often those London merchants realised how dearly these big percentages had been bought—how only the dogged determination of the captains and masters, the sufferings of the crews in the leaky, ill-found ships could provide fortunes and luxuries for those who stayed at home in ease. However, little though they knew it at the time, it was these ill-faring mariners who were really building up the foundations of England’s Eastern wealth and her Eastern Empire. Human lives in those harsh days were rated low enough, and a poor, common sailor was not slobbered over. ”

“ It is one of the most striking characteristics of our nature that we proceed along that road offering the least resistance and requiring the smallest amount of endeavour. Not more true is this assertion to-day than in the ages which have sunk into oblivion, and but for this human instinct, or failing, the progress of the world would have been impossible. The prehistoric man found the action of paddling his dug-out so irksome and wearying that he invented the sail as a means of harnessing the wind to do his work, and, as a result, what does the world not owe to his apparent laziness? ”

“ If we should be accused of arguing at times by inference without actual facts before us, let us be allowed to say this much: there are signs in a ship’s lines and rigging which, to the landsman, are devoid of meaning, but to the man who has been wont to handle ships, and perhaps to design and build them, they are full of significance. Generally speaking, to the former a model is a nicely-carved piece of wood, adorned with a maze of complicated strings. Curves of hull, the position of the masts, the amount of sail area aft or forward, go for nothing. ”

“ The occupation of a pirate was deemed no less worthy than a man who gained his living by fishing on the sea or hunting on land. Just as in the Elizabethan age we find the sons of some of the best English families going to sea on a roving expedition to capture Spanish treasure ships, so in classical times the Mediterranean pirates attracted to their ships adventurous spirits from all classes of society, from the most patrician to the most plebeian: the summons of the sea was as irresistible then as later on. ”

“ Just as the monastic finds it desirable to withdraw from the hurly-burly of his age; just as the scientist in search of some new invention applies himself to no other study and lets every other consideration slide, so Prince Henry the Navigator, as he came to be called, thrust aside the attractions of Court life and wedded himself to a work which has benefited humanity to an extent that it does not yet and perhaps never will appreciate. ”

“ THE HOUR AND THE NEED All warfare is merely a contest. In any struggle you see the clashing of will and will, of force against force, of brain against brain. For the impersonal reader it is this contest which has a never-ending interest. A neutral is just as keenly entertained as the playgoer who sits watching the swaying fortunes of the hero in the struggle of the drama. No human being endowed with sympathetic interest, who himself has had to contend with difficulties, fails to be moved by the success or disaster of the contestants in a struggle of which the spectator has no part or lot. ”

“ With the appreciation of what could be attained by a combination of stout ships, sturdy seamen, navigation, seamanship, gunnery and high hopes that refused persistently to be daunted, the most farsighted began to see that success was for them. Honours, wealth, the founding of families that should treasure their names in future generations, the acquisition of fine estates and the building of large houses with luxuries that exceeded the Tudor pattern—these were the pictures which were conjured up in the imaginations of those who vested their fortunes and often their lives in these ocean voyages. ”

“ Some of them go out into the world far beyond the horizon and vanish until a few weeks or months later they come returning homewards proud of their achievements as the safe carriers of mails and passengers. But there are other members of the same family whose duty keeps them close to the home where they first saw the light; who rarely venture out of sight of land. There are others who, though they never carry any passengers but their crew, nor an ounce of cargo, are yet as useful to the human race as those great speed-makers which go rushing through night and day across the ocean. ”

“ The present moment sees us at a stage in the history of ships when the Royal Navy as a whole, and the Merchant Service almost entirely, have no longer any convenience for sail. There is a dire need in the latter for both officers and men, whilst on shore the conditions of employment are exactly the reverse. Surely it is only by a mutual adjustment of the two that both problems, on sea and land, can possibly be overcome; and it is only by winning the enthusiasm of the boy who is to become father of the [ix] man that the sailor’s love for the sea can be handed on from generation to generation. ”

“ It is not so much the greed for gain which prompts the pirate, any more than the land tramp finds his long marches inspired by wealth. But some impelling blind force is at work within, and so not all the treaties and agreements, not all the menaces of death could avail to keep these men from pursuing the occupation which their fathers and grandfathers had for many years been employed in.
Therefore piracy was quite as bad in the sixteenth century as it had been in the Middle Ages. The dwellers on either side of the English Channel were ever ready to pillage each other’s ships and property. ”

“ Are you going to keep on the bluff of pretending you are an innocent merchantman, or are you going to run up the White Ensign, let down the bulwarks, and fire your guns the moment the enemy comes within range and bearing? How much longer is it possible to play with him in the hope that he will be fooled into doing just what you would like him to do? If your ship is sinking, will she keep afloat just long enough to enable you to give the knock-out blow as the inquiring enemy comes alongside? ”

“ It is obvious that the growth of the arts of the sea—by which is meant ship designing and building, seamanship and navigation—can only occur among seafaring people. You cannot expect to find these arts prospering in the centre of a continent, but only along the fringe where land meets sea. And, similarly, where you find very little coast, or a very dangerous coast, or a more convenient land route than the sea, you will not find the people of that country taking to the awe-inspiring sea without absolute necessity. ”

“ The East India Company rose from being a private venture of a few enterprising merchants to become a gigantic corporation of immense political power, with its own governors, its own cavalry, artillery and infantry, its own navy, and yet with its trade-monopoly and its unsurpassed “regular service” of merchantmen. The latter were the largest, the best built, and the most powerfully armed vessels in the world, with the exception only of some warships. ”

“ Just as the house was at first merely a thing of utility, becoming in the course of time adorned with carvings and decoration, so the ship, from being the rough, clumsy dug-out, with the advance of civilisation becomes adorned at first with animals’ heads, with eyes, with a human head, with coloured hull, and at a subsequent stage with sails bearing devices of high artistic merit. ”

“ And so, arriving at Münden, the watermen, either through fear that this new self-propelling craft would take away their livelihood through inaugurating a fresh era, or, being envious of a success which no man had ever before obtained, they attacked this steamboat, smashed it to pieces, and Papin himself barely escaped with his life. Thus, a craft and its engines, which to-day would be welcomed by any museum in the world, was annihilated by the men who had the privilege of witnessing the first steamship. ”

“ PAUL JONES, PIRATE AND PRIVATEER
We come now to consider the exploits of another historical character whose life and adventures will ever be of unfailing interest on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet, perhaps, this amazing Scotsman is to-day better known in America than in Great Britain. Like many another before him he rose from the rank of ordinary seaman to become a man that was to be had in great fear if not respect. His fame has been celebrated in fiction, and very probably many a story of which he has been made the hero had no foundation in fact. ”

“ Quite apart from the bad weather, the uncomfortable quarters on board, the constant trimming of sheets and alteration of course off an unlit coast, there was always the possibility that some U-boat’s crew would, after sinking the schooner, cut the throats of these British seamen. The Q-ship crews knew this, and on certain occasions when U-boat prisoners were taken by our ships the Germans did not conceal this fact. Life in these sailing craft was something quite different from that in a battleship with its wardroom, its cheery society, and a comfortable cabin to turn into. ”

“ INTRODUCTION In this volume I have to invite the reader to consider a special epoch of the world’s progress, in which the sailing ship not only revolutionised British trade but laid the foundations of, and almost completed, that imposing structure which is to-day represented by the Indian Empire. It is a period brimful of romance, of adventures, travel and the exciting pursuit after wealth. It is a theme which, for all its deeply human aspect, is one for ever dominated by a grandeur and irresistible destiny. ”

“ We shall see the ships, at last afloat, having their masts stepped and their rigging set-up, their inventory completed, and then finally, we shall watch them for the first time spread sail, bid farewell to the harbour, and set forth on their long voyages to wage war or to discover, to open up trade routes or to fight a Crusade. And then, when once they have cleared from the shelter of the haven we are free to watch not merely the ship, but the ways of ship and men. We are anxious to note carefully how they handled these various craft in the centuries of history ”

“ And the designers and builders of the Mauretania and Lusitania to-day would be among the first to admit that such achievements as these mammoth ships are but the results of all that has gone before: in other words, it is evolution rather than sudden invention.
Genius is the exclusive possession of no particular nation, still less of any particular age: but it needs just that happy condition of opportunity which means so little or may mean so much. ”

“ Everywhere in the ancient world, from remote ages until a century or two before the Incarnation, Phœnician ships were as numerous in the waters of the Mediterranean, as British vessels in all parts of the world are to-day. Possessing a genius for trade, a keen love for the sea and for travel, they had the complete mastery of the commerce and fisheries of the Ægean Sea, until as late as the eighth century B.C. They dragged up from the waters its shell fish to make purple dies; they burrowed into the earth to extract silver ”

“ A distinguished British admiral remarked the other day that it was his experience that the best naval officers were usually those who as boys were most frequently getting into disfavour for their adventurous escapades. It is, at any rate, still true that unless the man or boy has in him the real spirit of adventure, the sea, whether as a sport or profession, can have but little fascination for him.
International law and the growth of navies have practically put an end to the profession of piracy, though privateering would doubtless reassert itself in the next great naval war. ”

“ As Columbus, by believing in the sea, was enabled in looking for India to open up the Western world, so was da Gama privileged to unlock the East. And since the sea connotes the ship we arrive at the standpoint that it is this long-suffering creature, fashioned by the hand of man, which has done more for the civilisation of the world than any other of those wonderful creations which the human mind has evolved from the things of the earth. ”

“ Passengers and freights were in a hurry to get from shore to shore, and, later, perishable food supplies could not be entrusted to the sailing ship. And so, when once the steamship had appeared, even though not as a pronounced success, yet the spirit of the times was such that she should be encouraged as being likely to satisfy the cravings of an active, restless age.
In the history of human progress we find everywhere exemplified a continuous effort through centuries and centuries of change to obtain an end with the least expenditure of labour. ”

“ But whether sailing or rowing boats, they all bear unmistakable traces of the influence of the Phœnician, Greek and Roman war-galleys. Almost every craft shows an effort, not altogether successful, to break away from the design that had dominated the Mediterranean so long, for we must not forget that it is an historical fact that the Romans, though they brought the war-galley as near perfection as possible, did this at the expense of the merchant ships, which they sadly neglected. It is only natural, of course, that a nation that is always at war has no time to expand its merchant shipping. ”

“ OF FORTUNE
“In an honest service there are commonly low wages and hard labour: in piracy, satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it at worst is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.”
Such was the remark which a certain Captain Bartholomew Roberts, a notorious seventeenth-century pirate, was said to have made, and no doubt there was a certain amount of truth in this statement. ”