French ship L'Orient

“ The more ships a nation builds, the more they sail to other ports—seeing other kinds of ships, comparing them with their own, and adopting whatever is worth while—so much the faster does the ship improve. This, indeed, has been the custom throughout the history of the English nation. When she sent her ships to the Mediterranean at the time of the Crusades, her sailors returned home with new ideas. Thus, the ships in which Richard, with his large fleet, voyaged to Palestine in 1190 would be still of the Viking type. ”

“ Past Mosul and Bagdad they went, through Persia, where brocades are woven and merchants bring caravan after caravan of treasures, to Hormuz, on the Persian Gulf, into which port put the ships from India, laden with spices, drugs, scented woods, and jewels, gold tissues and elephants' teeth. Here they meant to take ship, but they desisted, perhaps because they feared to trust themselves to the flimsy nailless vessels in which the Arabs braved the dangers of the Indian Ocean. So they turned north again and prepared to make the journey by land. ”

“ True of all people, this is truer still of us; for the sea has been the very breath of British life and liberty ever since the first hardy Norseman sprang ashore on English soil.
Nobody knows how the Egyptians first learnt ship-building from the people farther East. But we do know that they were building ships in Egypt seven thousand years ago, that their ninth king was called Betou, which means "the prow of a ship", and that his artists carved pictures of boats five hundred years older than the Great Pyramid. ”

“ It was proposed that there should be a fleet of three hundred ships, of which two hundred were to be galleys and a hundred navi, that is full-rigged sailing-ships. It was the first time that the sailing-ship had been given so important a place in naval projects in the Mediterranean, and this shows the change that was rapidly coming into naval methods. The allies were jointly to raise a force of 50,000 fighting-men, including 500 gunners. ”

“ They were dismasted very soon after the action began; and so much damaged that, it is to be presumed, they could not hold out any longer against an enemy so superior by an advantageous position, in placing several ships against one. At a quarter past nine o'clock, L'Orient caught fire in the cabin; it soon afterwards broke out on the poop. Every effort was made to extinguish it; but, without effect; and, very soon, it was so considerable, that there was no hope of saving the ship. ”

“ Yet, though the practicability of the Red Sea voyage during the north-east monsoon was now demonstrated, it was not certain that the passage could be made irrespectively of the seasons; nor could any argument be drawn from the performances of [Pg 355] this pioneer ship, as her construction and power were not suited to contend against the south-west monsoon between Ceylon or Bombay and the Arabian Gulf. ”

“ The movement was maritime and affected the nations in the extreme west of Europe rather than those nearer Asia, who were under the Turkish yoke. Also the parts of Asia affected were chiefly India and the extreme East. The countries west of India, being less exposed to naval invasion, remained comparatively untouched. It will thus be seen that European (excluding Russian) power in Asia is based almost entirely on improved navigation. ”

“ This line is of great strategical importance, as strengthening the Turkish hold on the Red Sea provinces. But the principal means of commercial communication for a country like Arabia must always be by sea. Bahrein, Kuwet and Muscat are in steam communication with India, and the Persian Gulf ports; all the great lines of steamships call at Aden on their way between Suez and the East, and regular services are maintained between Suez, Jidda, Hodeda and Aden, as well as to the ports on the African coast, while native coasting craft trade to the smaller ports on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. ”

“ And she paid for her temerity in engaging a ship so tremendously her superior in number of guns as the Orient, which mounted 120 to her 74, the disparity in weight of metal being almost double as great. But she held on to the Orient like the British bull-dog that she was, till her masts and cables having been entirely shot away, she drifted out of line to the lee side of the Bay, and was saved in spite of herself. ”

“ Add to this the fact that other men as gunners were required in great numbers—for practically every British merchant ship became defensively armed—and one can see how important to our island nation and the overseas Empire is the existence of peace-time shipping, with all that it connotes—steamships, liners, tramps, colliers, trawlers, drifters, yachts, fishing smacks, it does not matter. From all these, and from the few full-rigged ships and sailing coasters, we had to draw our supplies of personnel, and it still takes longer to train a man into a sailor than into a military unit. ”

“ Arab dhows and “grabs” from the Persian Gulf; English-captained, Lascar-manned trading vessels from Calcutta and Madras; fishing schooners from the Torres Straits and Sydney, laden with cargoes of sea-slugs, for Chinese consumption; besides merchant ships from every port in Europe—although, I noticed that the British and American flags were decidedly in the ascendant.
All this heterogeneous collection of vessels, of every known nationality and rig, come hither at all seasons, but the Chinese junks mostly when the north-east monsoon sets in to blow them along with their favourite stern wind. ”

“ The same year (1801) that saw the French surrender in Egypt saw Nelson win his second victory, this time in the north. Napoleon (victorious, as usual, on land, and foiled, as usual, at sea) had tried to ruin British shipping by shutting it out of every port on the continent of Europe. This was his "Continental System." It hurt the Continent; for British ships carried most of the goods used in trade not only between Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, but also between the different ports on the European continent itself. ”

“ The substantial advantage of the oceanic passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, as seen at the time, was to enable European trade with the East to escape from the Moors, Algerines, and Turks who now swarmed round the shores of the Mediterranean, and waged a predatory war on ships and cargoes which would have been a formidable obstacle even if traffic, after running this danger, had not to be further lost, or filtered into the smallest proportions, in the sands of the Isthmus, and among the Arabs who commanded the navigation of the Red and Arabian Seas. ”

“ The bigotry and fanaticism of the population added, and still add, weight to the limitations which Nature has imposed upon the country. At the present time, three centuries after the visit of the first English ship to the Red Sea, the difficulty of establishing direct trading relations by Europeans at the Arabian ports is still considerable.
It was to this unpromising corner of the East that in the spring of 1608 the Company dispatched the ships of its fourth voyage, which, as we have seen, consisted of the Ascension and the Union, commanded by Captain Alexander Sharpeigh. ”

“ So accustomed are we in these days to peace and plenty that we have need to remind ourselves constantly that there were no trade routes kept open, no policing of the seas, no international treaties nor diplomatic relations to prevent a peaceful merchant ship from disappearing altogether on the high seas, or staggering into port with the loss of her cargo and most of her crew. ”

“ Now that navigation has made such amazing progress, now that the establishment of steamboats on the Euphrates and the Red Sea, is a solved problem, and the cost of freight by sea is exceedingly reduced, we think there is no longer a chance for Russia to divert the course of the Indian trade, and make it pass through her own dominions. ”

“ So vast is British sea-power of every kind, compared with the sea-power of any other people, that foreign fleets and joint expeditions generally have to get British shipping to help them through their troubles when the British are either neutral or allied. The Russian fleet could not have gone to the Far East in 1904-05 without the supply ships of the British. ”

“ A dozen ships of the kind would not be too many. A fleet of smaller ships, fit for use as naval colliers, might well be maintained to gather and distribute cargo along the Asiatic coast and among the islands. We have undertaken the work of developing civilization in the Far East, and we need to do everything [337] possible to prevent an attack upon our position there. After squadrons of war-ships nothing will create a higher respect for our flag among the people of that region than a fleet of superior merchantmen avowedly maintained for diplomatic and military reasons. ”

“ In a lighter moment, I could say that it had once been a second-class cruiser, and now stood for a witness to an age which added raking masts to its warships and eyed askance the supremacy of steam. The Jew, it might be, had purchased his ship from a Government that had no further use for it. He had gone to Chili or the Argentine—a second thought said to Italy, for this vessel had more than a smack of Italian design and practice as we knew it in the last days of canvas and the first of steel. ”

“ The British India Steam Navigation Company employs on its main and auxiliary routes a fleet of264 over 100 vessels, large and small, that traverse about 3,000,000 miles a year.
If the traveller has reached Port Said from Marseilles, he has doubtless come in the Messageries Maritimes steamer. This great French undertaking began its first over-sea contract in 1851, carrying mails as far as Egypt. The next extension of operations was a line to Brazil and the Rio de la Plata. Finally a mail contract established the route to India, China, and Australia. ”

“ If his flagship should be at Manila, Shanghai, or any other port at the time of your arrival, you will follow him to that port without delay, and report as above. In view of the present critical state of affairs in the East, and the attitude of Russia and Japan, the Osprey should proceed with all possible dispatch. The crew is to be constantly drilled, the passage of the ship not to be delayed thereby. You will follow the usual route by way of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, and will call at Malta (Valetta) for further instructions. ”

“ Not only did the bold and adventurous spirit of the Arabian sailors lead them to the extreme Orient, but their coasting vessels regularly visited the shores of the Persian Gulf and the bays and inlets of the African coast; undertakings far more hazardous, if not more lucrative, than voyages to distant Hindustan. ”

“ The Asiatic Fleet was no more, but its heritage of courage and selfless dedication helped spur our Navy to victory in World War II. Since then, the Seventh Fleet has carried on the Asiatic Fleet's duties, earning honor in Korea and Vietnam and helping to preserve peace and stability in East Asia. The men and women of our Naval services who saw the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion and won victory in Operation Desert Storm are worthy descendants of the sailors and Marines who earned glory in the Java Sea. ”

“ An engineer-lieutenant who started to reminisce about a winter cruise he had once made in the Arctic was peremptorily hushed up with a request to "talk about something warmer." A yarn about chasing the Königsberg in the lagoons of East Africa was more kindly received, and an R.N.R.'s account of how his ship carried Moslem pilgrims from Singapore to Jeddah on their way to Mecca brought a genial glow of warmth with it. ”

“ All kinds of British sea-power did magnificent work in the war, whether building ships, sailing them with passengers and cargoes, or fighting them. The Navy and Mercantile Marine gained eleven million tons during the war, exactly half each. But as the Mercantile Marine lost nine millions sunk, it ended three-and-a-half to the bad, a terrible handicap in the race with the shipping of countries which, like the United States have made stupendous fortunes by the war, besides gaining enormously in shipping and oversea trade. ”

“ They had the real ship-love, which is the foundation of all true seamanship; they were in sympathy with the life and work, and they knew how to build a ship well. They furnished themselves with the finest timber from Lebanon and surpassed the Egyptian inland sailors by making their craft stronger, longer, more seaworthy, and more able to endure the long, daring voyages which it delighted the Phœnicians to undertake. Similarly, their crews were better trained to sea-work, were more daring and skilful than the Nile-dwellers. ”

“ Even in the early seventeenth century the men on the Spanish warships used to cook each for himself, in contradistinction to the English seamen, who had their meals prepared by the ship’s cook. Though154 the Venetian ships up till the fifteenth century did not dare to venture out into the “Green Sea of Darkness,” as the Arabs termed the Atlantic, yet we cannot afford to despise ships and men who regularly traded between the Adriatic and the Levant. ”

“ For a few moments it seemed that already the Persians were assured of victory, for, seeing the enormous mass of the ships of Asia crowding the strait from shore to shore, and stretching far away on the open sea outside it, not a few of the European leaders lost heart for a while. The rowers began to backwater, and many of the ships of the first line retired stern foremost into the narrows. The rest followed their example, each one fearing to lose his place in the line, and be exposed in isolation to the attack of a crowd of enemies. ”