Naval store

“ This was done by the carpenters of the ship, under the direction of the captain: the advantages soon became so apparent, that many captains followed the good example; and government, receiving into its counsels some of the most active and influential officers in the navy, adopted the mode of fitting store-rooms throughout the service, and great are the benefits derived from it. ”

“ On one side is the respectable element—the admirals, captains, and other naval officers, and their families, who are parting from wife and children with a tender embrace at the door of the Ship Tavern; and many a gallant naval hero is draining his last bowl of punch on shore. On the opposite side such rougher contrasts are exhibited as common sailors, lodging houses, outfitting emporiums, cast clothes marts, and ship-store shops, Moses Levy—Money Lent, and similar tempting emporiums, where customers are inspecting second-hand apparel. ”

“ In these vessels are clothes, ready made, for thirty thousand men, besides arms, cloths, linens, and naval stores to a great amount, bought up by us and Mr Ross. The private adventures will also be very considerable. ”

“ This at different times, has been the source of infinite trouble and vexation, and of much expence of canvas, ruined by their giving way. I wish also, that I did not think there is room for remarking, that the cordage and canvas, and, indeed, all the other stores made use of in the navy, are not of equal goodness with those, in general, used in the merchant service.
It seems to be a very prevalent opinion, amongst naval officers of all ranks, that the king's stores are better than any others, and that no ships are so well fitted out as those of the navy. ”

“ They were chiefly inhabited by persons engaged in the production or sale of naval stores, and boat-builders, fishermen, and sailors employed in managing the craft upon the river. In some places there are wharves for merchandise, in others for coals; here was a factory for the produce of canvass, there an establishment of engineers who sent steam vessels to every sea that flows. ”

“ But, if we are insistent in our search, we may borrow from the naval charters, and read that not all the glory of our sea-history lies with the thunder of broadsides and the impact of a close boarding. Engagement with the elements—a contest with powers more cruel and implacable than keen steel—efforts to further able navigation, the standard of our seamanship—drew notable recruits to the humbler sea-life. The small crews and less lavish gear on the freighters brought the essentials of the sea-trade to each individual of the ship's company. ”

“ When stores are to be conveyed to foreign stations in ships of war, they are shipped in sailing lighters in a few hours by the dock-yard people, who are accustomed to the business; but the delay, confusion, and inconvenience incident to the warrant-officers drawing stores are so various, that they will most properly appear in Reference No. ”

“ Statistics show that good results as regards mercantile ship production were not obtained under either the Board of Trade or the Shipping Controller, one reason being that the supply of labour and material, which were very important factors, was a matter of competition between the claims of the Navy and those of the Mercantile Marine, and another the fact that many men had been withdrawn from the shipyards for service in the Army. ”

“ As so much more expedition would be used by the stores being entirely shipped by dock-yard people, there is reason to believe that no more lighters, or decked boats, would be required; at all events four, of about twenty tons each, to convey present-use stores to the large ships, and sea and foreign stores to the smaller vessels, would be sufficient. ”

“ Lone voyages and encounters with the sea and storm are minor enterprises to the sack of cities and the clash of arms at sea. Unlike the Naval Service, we merchants' men hold few recorded titles to our keystone in the national fabric. The deeds and documents may exist, but they are lost to us and forgotten in the files of musty ledgers. The fruits of our efforts stand in the balances of commercial structure, and are perhaps more enduring than a roll of record. ”

“ An additional and not unimportant, although secondary, reason for fostering and enlarging the Navy may be found in the unquestionable service to the expansion of our commerce which would be rendered by the frequent circulation of naval ships in the seas and ports of all quarters of the globe. ”

“ Three hundred steamships, employing fifty thousand men earning a million and a half of dollars monthly; these men supporting and educating families, and themselves becoming reserves for their respective countries to call upon for naval service in time of war! Look at the ports from which these vessels wherever built, now hail, and which they enrich by the capital they distribute. ”

“ Anywhere in the immediate vicinity there might be seen pictures of ships speeding away full sail to all parts of the world; outfitting warehouses ready to pack off anybody anywhere, fully equipped in half an hour; and little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally employed outside the shop doors of nautical Instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney coaches. ”

“ Parted from the need to draw arms, secure in the knowledge of adequate naval protection, the Merchants' Service developed their ships and tackle in the ways of a free world trade. By shrewd engagement and industry in the counting-house, diligence and forethought in the building-yards, keen sailing and efficiency on the sea, the structure of our maritime supremacy was built up and maintained. ”

“ Often it happened, however, that a party of jolly mariners sitting over their pipes and grog in the snug parlor of some seashore tavern, spinning yarns of the service they had seen on the gun-decks of his Majesty's ships, or of shipwreck and adventure in the merchant service, would start up and listen in affright, as the measured tramp of a body of men came up the street. ”

“ With a fleet considerably less than half the size of that of the British navy, we have shipyards more than double the number, and there are several of these shipyards, expensively equipped with modern machinery, which after investigation the Secretary of the Navy believes to be entirely useless for naval purposes. ”

“ If you would imagine our base as it was in the great days, better forget the port entirely and try to think of a great British and American naval base crammed with shipping flying the national ensigns, of waters thrashed by the propellers of oil tankers, destroyers, cruisers, armed sloops, mine layers, and submarines even. A busy dockyard clangs away from morning till night; a ferry boat with a whistle like the frightened scream of a giant's child runs back and forth from the docks to the Admiralty pier, little parti-coloured motor dories run swiftly from one destroyer to another. ”

“ There are140 among these several ships which should be paid off as soon as possible, being absolutely of no fighting value. And there are, further, several ships having trained naval crews doing the work usually performed by small merchant tramps. Further still, there are in our Home Ports many ships taking up valuable berthing space, requiring maintenance and repair, which never under any circumstances whatever would be used in war time.
The above useless vessels being in commission means awful waste of money. ”

“ More attention should be given to merchant ships as an auxiliary of the Navy. The possibility of including their masters and crews in the Naval Reserve, with some reasonable compensation, should be thoroughly explored as a method of encouraging private operation of shipping. ”

“ I have another suggestion to make, which is meant not for those only, who are officially interested in the condition of the navy, but for all who love and value it. The merchant service, the fisheries, and the coasting trade are the nurseries of the navy. Every shipmate and every boatman on the sea and on the river ought, therefore, to come in for a share of our sympathy, because he belongs to a class to which the Queen's ships must look for a supply of men. ”

“ Again; economy of time and of cost of production are conditions which largely govern the methods followed in mercantile practice. Short methods of calculation, or of tentative approximation, for the purpose of enabling tenders to be made for proposed vessels, and of quickly proceeding with the work when secured, form no inconsiderable feature in the training required by mercantile naval architects. These, however, do not as a rule enter to any extent into Admiralty modes of procedure. ”

“ For some time it seemed that the exertions of the sailors were to be of no avail. Not a sail was to be seen, and the chances for prize-money seemed to be small indeed. But on the 29th of March three merchant-vessels were made out in the offing; while a heavy-built, square-rigged, trim-looking craft that hovered about them was evidently a man-of-war. The strangers seemed to have sighted the (p. 573) American vessel; for the merchantmen were seen to hastily haul up and run off to the north-east, while the man-of-war edged away for the American ship. ”

“ After dismissal the midshipmen rushed into their working clothes and dispersed into different shops, and great was the hammering in the blacksmith and boiler shops as the Board marched through. In this week of each year the Naval Academy is on official exhibition for this wise Board. And for its benefit sham battles are fought, young men scramble aloft on antiquated sailing ships and feverishly loose and make sail, haul on buntlines, clewlines, sheets and braces. ”

“ We seamen, naval or mercantile, are a stout unmovable breed. Tenacity to our convictions is deeply rooted. The narrow trends of shipboard life give licence to a conservatism that out-Herods Herod in intensity, unreason—in utter sophistry. We extend this atmosphere to our relationships, to the associations with the beach, with other sea-services, with other ships—to the absurd pretensions of the other watch. "A sailorman afore a landsman, an' a shipmate afore all," may be a useful creed, but it engenders a contentious outlook, an intolerance difficult to reconcile. ”

“ The large amount of space occupied by the ballast, cables, ammunition, and other necessaries left but little room for other things, and a ship had only provisions on board for three or four weeks, although theoretically she was expected to carry more. The presence of a fleet of transports was therefore necessary with all naval expeditions.
The attention given to maritime matters bore fruit in other inventions, many of them far in advance of their time. Centre board boats, paddlewheels, a diving dress, and fireships, were all recommended and perhaps used. ”

“ Among other boat services in which he participated, we find him, June 13th, 1814, assisting in the destruction of the ship Fair Trader, of 444 tons, quite new, built for a letter of marque, and intended to mount eighteen long 12-pounders; the brig Independent, of 300 tons, pierced for fourteen guns, and about to be launched as a privateer; 1778 tons of merchant shipping; and a cotton manufactory, lately built, near Wareham, in Buzzard’s Bay, the value of which, with the stores it contained at the time, was estimated by the principal inhabitants at half a million of dollars. ”

“ In the throes of our exertions the Merchants' Service repeated a tradition. The stout aged tree shot forth another worthy limb—a second Navy—not less ardent or resourceful than the first offshoot, now grown to be our guardian. ”

“ Decade after decade, as that struggle waxed and waned but went remorselessly on, the Navy grew in ships, the ships in tonnage and weight of metal, and with their growth the demand for men, imperative as the very existence of the nation, mounted ever higher and higher. ”

“ On board of a merchant vessel it matters not how long a sailor desires to keep his clothes on deck, no one cares where he puts them or what is done with them, so long as they are forward and below the rail of the ship, but on a war ship it is different. A man-of-war’s man owns a clothes bag in which he keeps his clothing, a hammock containing his mattress and bedding, his ditty box for his sewing gear, and pipe and tobacco. ”

“ The horizon has cleared a trifle since I looked into that store-room.’
‘How big is this store-room?’
[241] ‘A good size,’ he answered. ‘Seven feet high; the beam I don’t know.’
‘And the forecastle hatch is within reach of my hand to thump at if I want to get out?’ I exclaimed. ‘It will be the one place in the whole ship for me, Will!’
‘There’s no other place, and that’s a fact.’
‘The stores’ll be clean and sweet enough, I dare say—bolts of canvas, casks of stuff, spare lines and such things. I’ll be able to put myself out of sight if your bo’sun or any other man should come down with a light. ”

“ Glancing for a moment in retrospect at the long line of naval progress, one sees it pass from the ancient row-galleys, to the sailing ship of the early Modern Age, and from thence to the steamships of to-day. The motive power has changed from human muscle to wind, and from wind to steam. Placed beside the iron-clad battleships, the light, wooden frigates of the Revolution look almost as antiquated as the Greek galley with its figured prow. Smart, trim, beautiful vessels were the Revolutionary craft, but how small, simple, and crude they now appear. ”

“ A sloop detaches from the flotilla and rounds-to off the landing-stage. Her decks are crowded by men not of her crew. Merchant seamen are grouped together at the stern, and a small body of Uncle Sam's coloured troops line the bulwarks in attitudes of ease and comfort. They are a happy crowd, and roar jest and catchword to the passengers on the crossing ferries. The merchantmen are less boisterous. They watch the preparations of the bluejackets for mooring at the stage with a detached professional interest; some of them gaze out to the nor'ard where the transports of the convoy are approaching. ”