Chapter IX: Mercantile Supremacy at Sea

The end of the seventeenth century saw the British Mercantile Fleet as the world’s leading traders. The disappearance of their Spanish and then Dutch rivals in sea commerce was brought about not by battle, but by the steady pressure of sea-power, as in the recent European War the continuous pressure of the Grand Fleet throttled the Germans. Just as the Battle of Jutland failed to bring about the downfall of our late enemies, so the defeat of the Armada did not succeed in breaking Spain; so, too, no single battle in the Anglo-Dutch wars brought the maritime progress of the great Dutch Republic to a dead stop.

[_By courtesy Messrs. T. H. Parker._

CAPTAIN THOMAS FORREST.

Navigator and Surveyor, who formed in 1770 for the H.E. India Company a new settlement at Balambangan.]

This sea pressure having fulfilled its purpose, the English merchantmen were able to scoop up from exhausted nations the world’s maritime commerce; and the voyages of discovery, notably those of Dampier, Anson and Cook, together with the enterprising penetration of the East Indiamen, and to a smaller extent the West Indiamen (who enjoyed the benefits of free trade), opened up fresh avenues of commerce. The fighting fleets had opened up the oceans for the mercantile ships to bring home riches. By the year 1688 the annual clearance outwards from Great Britain was 191,000 tons of English shipping and 95,000 tons of foreign shipping. In a hundred years the nation had become supreme, simply because our forefathers, like any great business man, had possessed the imagination to see that the ocean was the road to wealth, and they had also not lacked the courage to put their maritime belief to the test.

Thus in the year 1701-1702 its Mercantile Marine consisted of 3281 vessels of 261,222 tons, armed with 5660 guns and giving employment afloat to 27,196 men. During the eighteenth century wet docks had to be made both in the Thames and the Mersey, the first Marine Insurance Company came into being, and Lloyd’s Register of Shipping was started. The history of Lloyd’s is indicative of the progress of the Mercantile Marine. In the seventeenth century a number of underwriters used to meet in Edward Lloyd’s coffee-house in Tower Street for their business. In 1692 this coffee-house was removed to Lombard Street, and then, in 1774, Lloyd’s gave up the coffee-house and went to their premises in the Royal Exchange, where they have remained ever since.

It is clear from Lloyd’s Register of Shipping that from 1764 to the end of that century most of the British ships were of not more than 300 tons; but we have to bear in mind two important facts. Firstly, the East Indian monopoly prevented competition, and therefore any stimulus to build anything larger; and secondly, from 1775 to 1815, with only small patches of peace, there was a long series of wars. These hostilities naturally caused the tonnage of commercial shipping to drop, but every time that peace was restored the figures began to go up again; so that in 1793, when war broke out with France, Great Britain possessed 16,079 merchant ships as compared with the 3281 at the commencement of the century. It was therefore an amazingly live industry, which required only a fair opportunity for its development.

This development was, as might be expected, accurately reflected at the Blackwall yard, in spite of the fact that the slips and shipwrights had largely during those forty years to be employed for building men-of-war for the Navy. By the middle of the century this yard had a wet dock, three dry docks and a number of slips. It was the biggest private dockyard in the country, and only the Royal yards could rival it. Here the East Indiamen continued to be built, the direct ancestors of the great liners of to-day. In the period 1750-1752 was here constructed the East Indiaman _Falmouth_. She was a fine three-masted, full-rigged ship of 668 tons burthen, measuring 108 feet 9 inches on the keel, and having a beam of 34 feet. She carried topsails and t’gallant sails and, with her large figure-head and rather wasteful, ornate design at bow and stern, maintained her close connection with the ship architecture of the seventeenth century.

[_By courtesy Messrs. T. H. Parker._

BRUNSWICK DOCK, BLACKWALL.

Built especially for the use of the H.E. India Company’s ships, and begun in 1789. It could accommodate sixty of these vessels.]

During the next thirteen years were launched such East Indiamen as the 642-ton _Osterley_, the 642-ton _Tilbury_, the _Valentine_ and _Ajax_, each of 655 tons. In 1768 no fewer than five such ships of 670 tons were constructed and fitted out, and then, a couple of years later, ships of 700 tons began to be built. The East India Company used to charter such ships practically as long as they were seaworthy; and Blackwall in those days was able to do everything that the monopolists required; for here not only were the ships built, rigged and laid up, but ashore the houses were the homes of seafaring families, shipwrights, caulkers and every trade concerned in the building of these craft. And then in 1789 was launched from this yard the big 1612-ton _Bombay Castle_, a powerful vessel of seventy-four guns, which the East India Company presented to George III. There is a picture by Dodd which shows as many as four other big ships on the slips at this time, together with four or five similar craft fitting out in the stream. It is comparable only to the Clyde in the height of its twentieth century shipbuilding.

With the increase in the number of these ships came, of course, the greater need for docks where the vessels could lie in tiers in safety and convenience; so in 1789 the Brunswick Basin was begun in the east end of the Blackwall yard. Two years later the first ship was masted here. This was the _Lord Macartney_, and you may guess of the keenness and smartness of the men when you learn that her bowsprit and all her masts were raised and fixed in the remarkable time of three hours and forty minutes. To-day, with all the modern appliances of cranes and labour-saving devices, this record is worth noting. Two years later was launched from this yard the famous East Indiaman _Warren Hastings_, which, as will be seen presently, was destined to become famous for her achievement in 1806.

These East Indiamen, the backbone and beauty of the British Marine, were frigate-built, and stately rather than fast sailers, badly designed, requiring much ballast, and essentially but little improved since the sixteenth century. For during the latter part of the eighteenth century it was the French who were the finest naval architects. But two names become associated with the history of this yard before the close of the eighteenth century, and it is with these two families that the golden age of the sailing ship will ever be remembered. In another chapter we shall see how much the Wigrams and Greens did to make the British ships unique in the annals of sail. It is therefore worth mentioning that in the year 1764 comes the first mention of Robert Wigram. His father had been master of a privateer. After his death the young Robert came to London and was apprenticed to a surgeon. Two years later Wigram took his surgeon’s diploma and then sailed in that capacity in one of the East India Company’s ships. This was the _Admiral Watson_. Subsequently he also served in the _Duke of Richmond_, but about 1770, after acquiring valuable knowledge of the Eastern trade, he became a merchant, and later one of the proprietors of this yard, his son William afterwards becoming one of the directors of the East India Company. It was in 1782 that George Green was apprenticed to the yard, and owing to his ability and other circumstances, was destined also to become later one of the partners. It is interesting also to mention that young Wigram, during his voyage in the _Admiral Watson_, formed a friendship with the second officer, whose name was W. T. Money. We thus see the first association of those three names, Money, Wigram and Green, which are inseparable from the finest fleet of sailing ships in its most historic period.

But the time has not arrived to discuss the Victorian ships. The Mercantile Marine of the eighteenth and the first part of the nineteenth century had first to go through most trying times before the blessings of permanent peace should arrive. We who are now alive have not forgotten that for four years during the recent Great War the merchant shipping of the Allies was subject to the attacks of our enemies. But in the past it was for forty years, as we have already seen, the British mercantile vessels had to endure this danger, and it is our duty to observe how our seafaring forefathers carried on during those trying times. The fighting spirit was by no means confined to the Navy, and even apart from those forty years, there hardly seemed a long period when the trading ship could proceed upon her lawful occasions without fear of being attacked. If it was not a pirate, it was a privateer or a warship of some kind. But the merchantman still went about her business all the same, undaunted and undismayed.

We are familiar with ancient works on naval tactics, but there is in the British Museum a rare and somewhat damaged volume, printed in the year 1702, called _The Art of Seafighting_, written by a retired merchant mariner named Robert Park of Ipswich. It was undertaken on behalf of the Merchant Service at a time when the privateers were so active. Park was a “whole-hogger,” who knew no difference between foolhardiness and courage. He was a real “hard-case” sailorman, typical of his time, who had no use for luxury, but was a firm believer in trade and liberty. In this volume he tells his readers how to prepare the ship for close-fighting, by making the bulkheads musket-proof, and so on. He tells them how a ship can be worked under fire without showing a man on deck, gives valuable hints on gunnery and the importance of sobriety in the duties of a gunner. In the third part of the book he gives the very same advice which the British Admiralty in the recent war used to issue to the steamship captains. Park sensibly reminds his brother seamen that they are merchantmen, that they are sent to sea not to fight, but to get their cargoes to port, and if possible they are to avoid engagement. Nevertheless it was a wicked crime to leave an attacked consort to become a prey to the enemy.

He gives seamanlike hints on how a three-masted ship should escape. He shows the ship stations and duties when preparing for battle, where the master is to take up his position, where the gunner is to be stationed, what the mate and the carpenter are to be doing. He gives the best tactics with regard to the enemy’s boarding, and even discourses on the handling of a fleet of merchantmen, incidentally maintaining that for them the weather-gauge is not usually advantageous. He prefers having a fleet in double, treble or even quadruple line, and gives diagrams. It is a quaint book, of human as well as practical interest, and well indicates the fine spirit of our eighteenth century merchantmen. Those who read it must have found it extraordinarily useful.

It may be as well, before proceeding further, to make quite clear the meaning of the two expressions “privateer” and “Letter of Marque.” Legally there was no difference, but in practice a privateer was a vessel which took out a licence for the purpose of cruising against the enemy’s merchant ships. In order to send the prizes into port she necessarily carried a large crew. A “Letter of Marque” was a merchant ship with a cargo bound for her port in the usual manner, but possessing this licence which exempted her from convoy, nominally protected her crew from being impressed, and gave her the right to attack an enemy merchantman without having to wait until the latter attacked her. In a word, she was primarily a merchantman, whereas the privateer was a fighting merchant cruiser.

But these British merchant captains were as clever as they were brave. Take the following incident, which occurred at the end of January 1797 off the east end of Java. Here the French Rear-Admiral Sercey, with a squadron of six frigates, was at sea when five homeward-bound British East Indiamen came in sight. These five were all richly laden, and their first duty was certainly to get their cargoes to England and fight only if inevitable. The names of the British ships were the _Woodford_, _Ocean_, _Taunton Castle_, _Canton_ and the _Boddam_. These five were in charge of the senior officer, Captain Charles Lennox. The latter took the situation in at once, and realised that it would be useless to run away. Moreover the mere act of so doing would indicate the inferiority of his squadron; so he did a very smart thing. He hoisted the flag of Rear-Admiral Rainier at the mizzen, and made the other four ships hoist pendants and ensigns as if they were men-of-war. Furthermore, in order to maintain this gigantic piece of bluff, he actually detached two of his ships to give chase and reconnoitre the French squadron, and as these daring craft approached the _Cybèle_, the latter crowded on sail to join her consorts and made the signal at her masthead: “L’ennemi est supérieur aux forces Françaises.” Thereupon the French Admiral also made sail. He certainly thought it curious that when another of his frigates, the _Forte_, carried away her maintopmast the British did not continue the chase, but the captain of _Cybèle_ hailed him, whilst passing, that he had made out the enemy to consist of two line-of-battle ships and four frigates! Admiral Sercey therefore continued his retreat, and the East Indiamen were never engaged. It was not till a month later that he realised how he had been fooled.

The mere fact that a French naval officer should have taken East Indiamen for line-of-battle ships is at once a proof of the stateliness and formidable appearance which the company’s ships possessed. It shows the great similarity which existed at that time between the ships of war and of commerce. But finer even than this exploit was the following brilliant achievement, which is one of the brightest incidents in the whole story of the Merchant Service. It was on January 31, 1804, that sixteen East Indiamen set forth from Canton for Europe. They were all of a size of from 1200 to 1500 tons register, their names being the _Earl Camden_, _Warley_, _Alfred_, _Royal George_, _Coutts_, _Wexford_, _Ganges_, _Exeter_, _Earl of Abergavenny_, _Henry Addington_, _Bombay Castle_, _Cumberland_, _Hope_, _Dorsetshire_, _Warren Hastings_, and _Ocean_. The senior officer present was Captain Nathaniel Dance, in the _Earl Camden_, and so was Commodore of all these ships. But it was a fleet rather than a squadron, for, in addition to the above sixteen, forty more vessels were also put under his charge to convoy them as far as their courses remained the same. A convoy of forty sailing ships! What a magnificent sight they presented, most of them carrying royals and staysails, and the massive hulls with their stern galleries and ornate figure-heads and painted ports heeling over gracefully to the wind!

A commanding officer in the H.E. India Company, who was wrecked in
the company’s ship “Antelope.” About 1788.

CAPTAIN HON. RICHARD WALPOLE,

Who commanded the H.E. India Company’s ship “New Houghton.” About 1805.

COMMODORE SIR NATHANIEL DANCE, 1804.

A very gallant mercantile officer. (See p. 98.)

SIR WILLIAM JAMES, BART.,

Commodore in the H.E. India Company, Chairman of the Court of
Directors, etc. About 1805.

(_By courtesy Messrs. T. H. Parker._)]

For Commodore Dance it was a most responsible task. This fleet was carrying many thousand pounds’ worth of goods. There was the danger of pirates and the possibility of falling in with the French men-of-war; and there was the ever-present danger of collision. But those were the days of seamanship, and where would you find to-day any mercantile or naval officer who could handle a fleet of forty sail? We know all too well how difficult it was to handle much smaller convoys of steamships during the recent war; and with engines it is mere child’s play compared with dependence on wind and sail. To Commodore Dance, then, I suggest the greatest compliment is due for his leadership and tactical seamanship alone. But that was not all.

Through night and day for a fortnight he kept his fleet under way without mishap, and then at daybreak one February day when the fleet was E.N.E. of Pulo-Auro, which was visible, the _Royal George_ made a signal that she had sighted four strange sail to the south-west. Commodore Dance therefore signalled the _Alfred_, _Royal George_, _Bombay Castle_ and _Hope_ to go down and examine them. It happened that in the Commodore’s ship there was a passenger named Lieutenant Robert Fowler, R.N., lately in command of a ship that had been wrecked. He now offered to go in the fast-sailing brig _Ganges_, which was in the convoy. The Commodore assented, and she went away also to examine the strange vessels. Before long the look-out ships signalled that the strangers were actually a French squadron consisting of a line-of-battle ship, three frigates and a brig.

At 1 p.m. the British Commodore signalled his scouts to return, and formed the line of battle in close order. Admiral Linois, who was in command of the French squadron, as soon as he could fetch in the wake of the East Indiamen, put about. The Commodore expected his rear to be attacked, but at nightfall the enemy, preferring a daylight action, hauled close to the wind. The British ships lay-to all night, the men at their quarters, ready for action, and at daybreak the enemy were seen also lying-to, but were three miles to windward. Both forces now hoisted their colours, and as the whole of the China fleet had been only recently painted, they presented a wonderful sight with their clouds of canvas. Admiral Linois’ flag was in the 74-gun ship _Marengo_, his other units being the 40-gun frigate _Belle-Poule_, the 36-gun frigate _Sémillante_, the 22-gun _Berceau_, and the 16-gun _Aventurier_. It was no chance meeting, for the French Admiral was on the look-out for this China fleet, of whose strength and time of departure he had been informed.

At 9 a.m., as the enemy showed no intention of engaging, Dance formed the order of sailing and continued his course, his fleet being under easy sail on the starboard tack; whereupon the French filled and edged towards the merchantmen. Four hours later, as it was obvious that Linois was trying to cut off the rear of the fleet, Dance signalled his fleet to tack in succession, bear down in line ahead, and engage on arriving abreast of the enemy. This manœuvre was perfectly carried out, the _Royal George_ leading, all of them in close order and under t’gallant sails.[4] At 1.15 p.m. Linois opened fire upon the _Royal George_ and leading ships, but this was returned in a very determined manner. For about three-quarters of an hour the two enemies blazed away at each other. The brunt was borne by the _Royal George_, but the _Ganges_, _Earl Camden_, _Warley_ and _Alfred_ were all hotly engaged. These five ships gave the French such a hot time that by two o’clock _Marengo_ and her consorts ceased firing, hauled their wind, broke off the engagement and stood away under all sail to the eastward. The French warships had been beaten by British merchantmen and especially by clever tactics. But that was not all.

Dance now made the signal for a general chase, and for two hours these merchant ships chased the warships; and then, remembering that his first duty was to his ships and their valuable cargoes, Dance feared that further pursuit would take his fleet too far from the mouth of the Malacca Straits, so ordered his fleet to tack, and eventually entered the straits. The _Royal George_ had one man killed, one wounded, and she received some shot holes in her hull and sails; the other British ships were practically untouched. The sixteen East Indiamen carried from thirty to thirty-six guns each, though not one of these ships was armed better than the _Aventurier_, and this point is to be remembered, that a warship is always more or less ready to fight, whereas these East Indiamen were full of cargo and the decks were greatly lumbered. The Commodore by his determination and promptitude had saved the whole fleet, and it is to the credit of these sixteen merchantmen that their smart appearance, the regularity of their manœuvres, and their bold advance made the French Admiral wonder whether, after all, these were not British men-of-war escorting the others.

For this remarkable victory the Commodore, officers and crews were liberally rewarded. The Patriotic Fund Committee, which had originated in Lloyd’s coffee-house in 1803, presented the Commodore with a sword of the value of £100 and a silver vase of the same worth. Captain Timmins of the _Royal George_ also received a sword, as did the other captains and Lieutenant Fowler. The directors of the East India Company set aside about £50,000, and rewarded their Commodore with 2000 guineas and a piece of plate valued at 200 guineas. Captain Timmins received 1000 guineas and plate, the other captains receiving 500 guineas each and a piece of plate. The chief officers each received 150 guineas, the second officers 125 guineas, and so on through the ship, each seaman receiving six guineas.

Dance was given also £5000 by the Bombay Insurance Society. He was offered a baronetcy, but declined it and accepted a knighthood, and thus concludes one of the finest incidents in the history of the Merchant Service. This action showed that the ships and men were not merely magnificent for their own particular job, but that they could tackle any emergency that came along.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] For list of an East Indiaman’s sails, see Appendix.