Portuguese Navy

“ Indeed, one of the most significant changes since Nelson's time, when we found it indispensable that we should deal with the battleships of the Portuguese and Danish navies, is that the business of owning battleships has become far too expensive for any but the seven great maritime Powers, and of these Italy, in spite of spasmodic programmes, tends to drop out of the race. ”

“ One, Bernard d'Ongressill, a merchant of Bayonne—then part of Edward's dominions—was the owner of a vessel—the St. Mary—belonging to that port, which, while on a passage from Barbary to England laden with almonds, raisins and figs, had been driven by stress of weather into Lagos, on the south coast of Portugal. At anchor there, she had been boarded by some armed Portuguese, who had robbed D'Ongressill and the crew and carried ship and cargo into Lisbon, where the King of Portugal had received one-tenth of the spoil, leaving the rest to be divided among his piratical subjects. ”

“ There is no large demand upon our credulity in supposing voyagers driven by storm to Madeira. Unless the tradition had been widely prevalent at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries the national pride of the Portuguese historians would surely have prompted them to suppress it. We may take it that some trace of civilised inhabitants, who had come and gone, was found by the Portuguese, and that the rumour of English discovery was current. ”

“ No French vessel was taken on the 18th except the Centaure. During the night two, the Guerrier and the Souverain, turned to the west, and escaped in the dark. Both reached Rochefort. The four remaining with the admiral took refuge in the waters of Portugal at Lagos. The flagship L’Océan and the Redoutable ran ashore, the Téméraire and the Modeste anchored some distance out, in reliance on Portuguese neutrality. But Boscawen would not allow that to be any protection. ”

“ His first piece of service was not against the French. The Royal Navy was now beginning to take permanent hold on the Eastern seas. No more pressing duty awaited it than to put a stop to piracy. This had always flourished on the western or Malabar coast of [140] India, and had never been effectually checked by the Portuguese, the Dutch, or by ourselves. By far the most formidable of these pirates belonged to a branch of the Mahrattas, which had gained possession of the island of Geriah, had become independent, and had transferred its native practice of robbery from the land to the sea. ”

“ The principal naval establishment is at Rio de Janeiro, near the landing dock. The naval yards here are quite extensive, and a couple of thousand men are usually employed. Several small cruisers and some river boats have been constructed there, but all the large boats have been built abroad, and the most of them in British yards. At the present time the boats listed in the Brazilian navy number about fifty. This includes every vessel, large and small, many of which are practically useless from the modern view point of practical war values. ”

“ A considerable detachment of the Allied Navy, scouts and armored cruisers, together with four of the older battleships, was cruising to the eastward of the Azores and approaching near enough to the coast of Portugal to make things look very interesting. Intercepted messages and radio-compass bearings taken on their signals by the shore stations at Vigo, Lisbon, and Gibraltar told the story, leaving no chance of mistake as to the actual approach of ships to the coast. Such a force as this, if cut off from the rest of the Allied fleet, would be easy prey for the Mediterranean Navy ”

“ The officer who had charge of the navigation of the ship, who in the English service is called the master, more correctly denominated by the Portuguese the pilot, at that moment came up to the captain, taking off his hat respectfully, as he pointed out the dark clouds in the horizon. “We shall have a gale before long, Senhor Captain,” said the veteran, who was a fine specimen of the sailor of times long, alas! passed by in the annals of Portugal, during her palmy days of naval supremacy. “’Twill be a breeze which will make us look sharp after our sticks. ”

“ There were desperate men on either side, and mighty stories are told of their deeds of valor. There were Pierre François, who, with six and twenty desperadoes, dashed into the heart of a Spanish fleet, and captured the admiral's flag-ship; Bartholomew Portuguese, who, with thirty men, made repeated attacks upon a great Indiaman with a crew of seventy, and though beaten back time and again, persisted until the crew surrendered to the twenty buccaneers left alive ”

“ In 1591, also, an effort, somewhat similar to that of 1590, to capture the treasure ships was made by a squadron of seven vessels [155] of the Royal Navy, with six victuallers and some pinnaces, under Lord Thomas Howard, [156] who sailed to Flores, in the Azores, and remained in the neighbourhood for six months. He narrowly escaped being surprised there by Don Alonso de Bazan, who had been sent out with a fleet of fifty-three ships to meet and convoy home the expected carracks. ”

“ It is necessary that you should also inform Mr Hervey and Mr Phillips that in the Portuguese Service very frequently a first and second Captain of the Fleet sail in the same ship, and that when this occurs it is always the senior in rank who commands; consequently a Captain of the Fleet should be always prepared to sail, whether it be in a ship of the line or in a frigate, and, in either case, to be first or second in command, according to the age of his Commission. ”

“ He urges a powerful fleet in order to be able to show sufficient force to the natives, and to punish those who killed Magalhães. He cites the example of the Portuguese who send large fleets to the east, and gain respect through fear, "for if the King of Portugal has prestige in the Indies, it is because he has always tried to demonstrate his power there, sending as large a fleet as possible each year. ”

“ Wherever maritime trade exists it must defend itself against pirates; and piracy was rife on all the Indian and Chinese shores. Hence the larger vessels, both on the Malabar coast and on that of China, were usually manned with fighting men, and those of the Arabs and Rumes occasionally carried large guns. The Oriental fleets, if assembled in one place, would have immensely outnumbered the ships capable of being sent against them by Portugal. But in regard to construction, equipment, and the art of navigation the Portuguese had greatly the advantage. ”

“ She was carried by her captor into Lisbon to be refitted, and was added to the British Navy under the same name. Proverbially thoughtless as are British seamen, they have ever shown themselves equally kind and generous to those in distress. On this occasion the French crew being found destitute of means for their support when at Lisbon, a subscription was raised on board the Bellona and Brilliant, as well as among the merchants on shore, to enable them to return to France. ”

“ Command of the sea could not be maintained—least of all in the monsoon months—while the Portuguese fleets were based on Lisbon, which could only be reached after a six months' voyage; and experience had proved that almost every Portuguese factory required a fortress for its defence when the fleets were absent. Portugal, like every great maritime trading community from Carthage to Venice, discovered that the ideal of “sea power and commerce” led directly to empire. ”

“ During this year Don Pedro carried his threat into execution, of attempting to recover the throne of Portugal from his brother by force of arms. He had been permitted to levy men, and to purchase vessels and shipments of arms and ammunition, both in England and France, and the naval part of the expedition was placed under the command of a British officer, who became a Portuguese admiral. ”

“ Upon this Coast our Rovers cruiz’d for about nine Weeks, keeping generally out of Sight of Land, but without seeing a Sail, which discourag’d them so, that they determined to leave the Station, and steer for the West-Indies, and in order thereto, stood in to make the Land for the taking of their Departure, and thereby they fell in, unexpectedly, with a Fleet of 42 Sail of Portuguese Ships, off the Bay of los todos Santos, with all their Lading in for Lisbon, several of them of good Force, who lay too waiting for two Men of War of 70 Guns each, their Convoy. ”

“ The only naval arsenal is at Lisbon, where is also located the naval college, a sort of polytechnic institute in which all the officers of the navy are educated—even the medical officers having a final course there. ”

“ He had barely recovered his breath when he saw two of his bluejackets struggling for their lives. He at once dived in and rescued both at the very great risk of his own.
From East to West, from the Tropics to the Poles, the Navy has gone everywhere and done nearly everything that mortal man can do. Think of the Admiralty "rating" Newfoundland, a country bigger than Scotland and Wales put together, as one of His Majesty's Ships and putting a captain in command! ”

“ The sailors, who are much to be seen in Lisbon, where the great naval barracks are situated, look smart enough, and as the Portuguese have always been good sailors, it may safely be predicted that, in case of necessity, they will make the most of the limited means at their disposal, or of such of them as have not been utterly ruined by official indifference or worse. ”

“ The bases at the Azores and at Gibraltar, where we maintained a considerable naval force, were provided with all the necessities for our cruisers, destroyers, submarines, chasers and other small craft which joined the Allied navies in the policing of the Mediterranean and the adjacent Atlantic waters where we coöperated in the hunting of the undersea enemy and the protecting of transport and merchant craft. Several of our battleships and cruisers worked with the Italian Navy in Mediterranean waters. ”

“ Meantime, on the day of the Constitution-Java fight, the American ship William, that the Java had taken, tried to make port at Bahia, and fell into the hands of Captain Lawrence who took out her prize crew and sent her on her way under her own.
However, having been driven off at last by a line-of-battle ship sent from Rio Janeiro for the express purpose of raising the blockade, the Hornet cruised to the north along the coast of South America, and having rounded Cape St. Roque, continued to keep along shore. ”

“ To the smaller vessels were allotted patrol-duties at the mouth of the Mediterranean, local convoy work, and convoy work with vessels bound to and from the Azores. Far less sea-worthy than the larger vessels, and, as regarded the yachts, not intended for war-service, theirs were, perhaps, the hardest tasks of all and as little dramatic as those of the others. Precisely in the same spirit, however, of cheerful grumbling as that of their sea-loving British brethren, the officers and men of these heterogeneous vessels set themselves to compass their various tasks. ”

“ A tall merchant ship unarmed, well laden with goods of which I shall have received notice, sails very stately out of the port, say, of Lisbon. She has a barrel or two of money in her lazarette for the planters of the Portuguese settlements. She has forty men before the mast, and twenty in officers and idlers abaft it. Presently a white gleam is seen by the light of the moon. No notice [Pg 120] is taken. Why should notice be taken? There are no pirates in those western seas so close aboard the coast. ”

“ In the twinkling of an eye Gibraltar was full of British blue-jackets racing down to their ships, leaping on board, and turning their skilful hands to the first job waiting to be done. Within two hours Boscawen was off hotfoot after the French, hoisting in boats, stowing the last of the lumbering stores, and clearing decks for action. Overhauling La Clue near Lagos, off the coast of Portugal, he ranged up alongside, flagship to flagship. ”

“ List of the Portuguese Fleet that came out of the Tagus on the 29th of November, 1807.
Of these vessels, the Martin Freitas is now the Pedro Primero. The Principe Real is the receiving ship at Rio. The Rainha de Portugal is at Lisbon, as well as the Conde Henrique. The Medusa is the sheer hulk at Rio. The three other line-of-battle ships either broke up or about to be so. Of the frigates, the Minerva was taken by the French in India. The Golfinho is broken up, and the Urania was wrecked on the Cape de Verde Islands. The Voador is now a corvette. ”

“ The French fleet of the Consular and Napoleonic period was now not only ill-officered, but through the constant blockades of the British had but little of the sea habit by which only a navy can be efficient. The Spanish navy had no real organization or other qualities of success under circumstances of even much worse neglect. The British ships, well officered, well manned, and with constant sea practice, had no real antagonists, for it is absurd to compare in efficiency such organizations as that which fought under Nelson at Trafalgar and those under Villeneuve and Gravina in the same battle. ”

“ As this narrative is published for the advantage of future navigators, particularly those of our own nation, it is also necessary I should observe, that the Portuguese here, carrying on a great trade, make it their business to attend every time a boat comes on shore, and practise every artifice in their power to entice away the crew: if other methods do not succeed, they make them drunk, and immediately send them up the country, taking effectual care to prevent their return, till the ship to which they belong has left the place ”