England needed good pilots to take the ship of state safely through the troubled waters of the wonderful sixteenth century, and she found them in the three great Royal Tudors: Henry VII (1485-1509), Henry VIII (1509-1547), and Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). All three fostered English sea-power, both for trade and war, and helped to start the modern Royal Navy on a career of world-wide victory such as no other fighting service has ever equalled, not even the Roman Army in the palmy days of Rome. It was a happy thought that gave the name of Queen Elizabeth to the flagship on board of which the British Commander-in-chief received the surrender of the German Fleet. Ten generations had passed away between this surrender in 1918 and the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. But the British Royal Navy was still the same: in sea-sense, spirit, training, and surpassing skill.
Henry VII was himself an oversea trader, and a very good one too. He built ships and let them out to traders at a handsome profit for himself besides trading with them on his own account. But he was never so foolish as to think that peaceful trade could go on without a fighting navy to protect it. So he built men-of-war; though he used these for trade as well. Men-of-war built specially for fighting were of course much better in a battle than any mere merchantman could be. But in those days, and for some time after, merchantmen went about well armed and often joined the king's ships of the Royal Navy during war, as many of them did against the Germans in our own day.
English oversea trade was carried on with the whole of Europe, with Asia Minor, and with the North of Africa. Canyng, a merchant prince of Bristol, employed a hundred shipwrights and eight hundred seamen. He sent his ships to Iceland, the Baltic, and all through the Mediterranean. But the London merchants were more important still; and the king was the most important man of all. He had his watchful eye on the fishing fleet of Iceland, which was then as important as the fleet of Newfoundland became later on. He watched the Baltic trade in timber and the Flanders trade in wool. He watched the Hansa Towns of northern Germany, then second only to Venice itself as the greatest trading centre of the world. And he had his English consuls in Italy as early as 1485, the first year of his reign.
One day Columbus sent his brother to see if the king would help him to find the New World. But Henry VII was a man who looked long and cautiously before he leaped; and even then he only leaped when he saw where he would land. So Columbus went to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who sent him out to discover America in 1492, the same year that they conquered the last Eastern possession in Western Europe, the Moorish Kingdom of Grenada, which thenceforth became a province of Spain. Five years later Henry sent John Cabot out from Bristol in the littleMatthewwith only eighteen men "to sayle to all Partes, Countreys, and Seas, of the East, of the West, and of the North; to seeke out, discover, and finde, whatsoever Iles, Countreyes, Regions, or Provinces, of the Heathennes and Infidelles" and "to set up Our banners and Ensigns in every village, towne, castel, yle, or maine lande, of them newly found." Cabot discovered Canada by reaching Cape Breton in 1497, three years before Columbus himself saw any part of the mainland. But as he found nobody there, not even "Heathenries and Infidelles," much less "villages, castels, and townes," as he lost money by his venture and could not pay the king the promised "royalty" of twenty per cent., we need not laugh too loudly over what the king gave him: "To Hym that founde the new Isle—10 pounds," which was worth more than a thousand dollars would be now. Cabot went again and his son Sebastian after him; but there was no money to be made in this venture. True, Sebastian said the fish off Newfoundland were so thick that he could hardly force his vessels through the water. But fish stories and travellers' tales were as hard to believe then as now; and the English thought America was worth very little after all. Indeed, the general opinion in Europe was that America was more of a nuisance than anything else, because it seemed to block the way to the Golden East. Once people were persuaded that the world was round they wanted to find a short cut to Cathay, the land of fabled wealth in silks and spices, gold and jewels; and they expected to find it by sailing due West till they reached the Far East. So, finding instead that America had no such riches on its own shores and that these shores spoilt the short cut to Cathay, and knowing that fish were plentiful in Europe, most people never bothered their heads about America for another fifty years.
Eddystone Lighthouse, 1699. The first structure of stone and timber. Build for Trinity House by Winstanley and swept away in a storm. Eddystone Lighthouse, 1882. The fourth and present structure, erected by Sir J. N. Douglass for Trinity House.[Illustrations: Eddystone Lighthouse, 1699.The first structure of stone and timber. Built for Trinity Houseby Winstanley and swept away in a storm.Eddystone Lighthouse, 1882.The fourth and present structure, erectedby Sir J. N. Douglass for Trinity House.]
Eddystone Lighthouse, 1699. The first structure of stone and timber. Build for Trinity House by Winstanley and swept away in a storm. Eddystone Lighthouse, 1882. The fourth and present structure, erected by Sir J. N. Douglass for Trinity House.[Illustrations: Eddystone Lighthouse, 1699.The first structure of stone and timber. Built for Trinity Houseby Winstanley and swept away in a storm.Eddystone Lighthouse, 1882.The fourth and present structure, erectedby Sir J. N. Douglass for Trinity House.]
We shall soon see what wonderful changes took place when the Old World at last discovered the riches of the New, and all the European sea-powers began fighting for the best places they could find there.
When Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 his first thought was for the "Broade Ditch," as he called the English Channel. In 1546, only a little before he died, he appointed a Navy Board, which answered its purpose so well that it looked after the pay, food, stores, docks, and ships of the Royal Navy for nearly three hundred years; and then became part of the Admiralty, which now does everything for the Navy that can be done from the land. In one word, this Board took care of everything except the fighting part of the Navy's work. That part was under the Lord High Admiral or a body of men appointed to act for him. This body still exists; and the old Board of Henry VIII works with it under different names. One branch of the Admiralty, as the whole management is now called, supplies the other with the means to fight. This other orders everything connected with the fighting fleets. The fighting fleets themselves are then left to do the best they can.
Henry never forgot for a moment that England could not live a day if she was not a mighty sea-power. He improved the dockyards founded by his father at Deptford and Portsmouth. He founded Trinity House, which still examines pilots and looks after the lights and buoys all round the British Isles. He put down pirates with a strong hand. And he brought the best ship-builders he could get from Italy, where the scientific part of shipbuilding and navigation was then the best in the world, because the trade routes of Asia, Africa, and Europe mostly met at Venice. But he always kept his eyes open for good men at home; and in one of his own shipbuilders, Fletcher of Rye, he found a man who did more than anybody else to make the vastly important change from the ancient age of rowing fleets to the modern age of sailing ones.
From the time when the first bit of a wild beast's skin was hoisted by some pre-historic savage, thousands and thousands of years ago, nobody had learnt how to tack, that is, to sail against the wind. The only way any ship could go at all well was with the wind, that is, with the wind blowing from behind. So long as men had nothing but a single "wind-bag" of skin or cloth the best wind was a "lubber's wind," that is, a wind from straight behind. When more and better sails were used a lubber's wind was not the best because one sail would stop the wind from reaching another one in front of it. The best wind then, as ever since, was a "quartering wind," that is, a wind blowing on a vessel's quarter, half way between her stern and the middle of her side. Ships with better keels, sails, and shape of hull might have sailed with a "soldier's wind," that is, a wind blowing straight against the ship's side, at right angles to her course. But they must have "made leeway" by going sideways too. This wind on the beam was called a soldier's wind because it made equally plain sailing out and back again, and so did not bother landsmen with a lot of words and things they could not understand when ships tacked against head winds.
Who first "tacked ship" is more than we can say. But many generations of seamen must have wished they knew how to sail towards a place from which the wind was blowing. Tacking probably came bit by bit, like other new inventions. But Fletcher of Rye, whom Henry always encouraged, seems to have been the first man who really learnt how to sail against the wind. He did this by tacking (that is, zigzagging) against it with sails trimmed fore and aft. In this way the sails, as it were, slide against the wind at an angle and move the ship ahead, first to one side of the straight line towards the place she wants to reach, and then, after turning her head, to the other. It was in 1539 that Fletcher made his trial trip, to the great amazement of the shipping in the Channel. Thus by 1545, that year of naval changes, the new sailing age had certainly begun to live and the old rowing age had certainly begun to die. The invention of tacking made almost as great a change as steam made three hundred years later; for it shortened voyages from months to weeks, as steam afterwards shortened them from weeks to days. Why did Jacques Cartier take months to make voyages from Europe and up the St. Lawrence when Champlain made them in weeks? Because Champlain could tack and Jacques Cartier could not. Columbus, Cabot, and Cartier could no more zigzag towards a place from which the wind was blowing dead against them than could the ships of Hiram, King of Tyre, who brought so many goods by sea for Solomon. But Champlain, who lived a century later, did know how to tack theDon de Dieuagainst the prevailing south-west winds of the St. Lawrence; and this was one reason why he made a voyage from the Seine to the Saguenay in only eighteen days, a voyage that remained the Canadian record for ninety years to come.
The year 1545 is coupled with the title "King of the English Sea" because the fleet which Henry VIII then had at Portsmouth was the first fleet in the world that showed any promise of being "fit to go foreign" and fight a battle out at sea with broadside guns and under sail.
True, it had some rowing galleys, like those of other old-fashioned fleets; and its sailing men-of-war were nothing much to boast of in the way of handiness or even safety. TheMary Rose, which Henry's admiral, Sir Edward Howard, had described thirty years before as "the flower of all the ships that ever sailed," was built with lower portholes only sixteen inches above the water line. So when her crew forgot to close these ports, and she listed over while going about (that is, while making a turn to bring the wind on the other side), the water rushed in and heeled her over still more. Then the guns on her upper side, which had not been lashed, slid across her steeply sloping decks bang into those on the lower side, whereupon the whole lot crashed through the ports or stove her side, so that she filled and sank with nearly everyone on board.
No, the Royal Navy of 1545 was very far from being perfect either in ships or men. But it had made a beginning towards fighting with broadsides under sail; and this momentous change was soon to be so well developed under Drake as to put English sea-power a century ahead of all its rivals in the race for oversea dominion both in the Old World and the New. A rowing galley, with its platform crowded by soldiers waiting to board had no chance against a sailing ship which could fire all the guns of her broadsides at a safe distance. Nor had the other foreign men-of-war a much better chance, because they too were crowded with soldiers, carried only a few light guns, and were far less handy than the English vessels under sail. They were, in fact, nothing very much better than armed transports full of soldiers, who were dangerous enough when boarding took place, but who were mere targets for the English guns when kept at arm's length.
The actual Portsmouth campaign of 1545 was more like a sham battle than a real one; though the French fleet came right over to England and no one can doubt French bravery. Perhaps the best explanation is the one given by Blaise de Montluc, one of the French admirals: "Our business is rather on the land than on the water, where I do not know of any great battles that we have ever won." Henry VIII had seized Boulogne the year before, on which Francis I (Jacques Cartier's king) swore he would clear the Channel of the English, who also held Calais. He raised a very big fleet, partly by hiring Italian galleys, and sent it over to the Isle of Wight. There it advanced and retired through the summer, never risking a pitched battle with the English, who, truth to tell, did not themselves show much more enterprise.
Sickness raged in both fleets. Neither wished to risk its all on a single chance unless that chance was a very tempting one. The French fleet was a good deal the bigger of the two; and Lisle, the English commander-in-chief, was too cautious to attack it while it remained in one body. When the French were raiding the coast Lisle's hopes ran high. "If we chance to meet with them," he wrote, "divided as they should seem to be, we shall have some sport with them." But the French kept together and at last retired in good order. That was the queer end of the last war between those two mighty monarchs, Francis I and Henry VIII. But both kings were then nearing death; both were very short of money; and both they and their people were anxious for peace. Thus ended the Navy's part of 1545.
But three other events of this same year, all connected with English sea-power, remain to be noted down. First, Drake, the hero of the coming Spanish War, was born at Crowndale, by Tavistock, in Devon. Secondly, the mines of Potosi in South America suddenly roused the Old World to the riches of the New. And, thirdly, the words of the National Anthem were, so to say, born on board the Portsmouth fleet, where the "Sailing Orders" ended thus:—"The Watchword in the Night shall be, 'God save King Henrye!' The other shall answer, 'Long to raign over Us!'" The National Anthems of all the other Empires, Kingdoms, and Republics in the world have come from their armies and the land. Our own springs from the Royal Navy and the sea.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise;This fortress built by Nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war;This happy breed of men, this little world;This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall,Or as a moat defensive to a house,Against the envy of less happier lands;This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.Shakespeare.King Richard II, Act II, Scene I.
To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er;The wanton water leaps in sport,And rattles down the pebbly shore;The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort,And unseen Mermaids' pearly songComes bubbling up, the weeds among.Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar;To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er.
To sea, to sea! our wide-winged barkShall billowy cleave its sunny way,And with its shadow, fleet and dark,Break the caved Tritons' azure day,Like mighty eagle soaring lightO'er antelopes on Alpine height.The anchor heaves, the ship swings free,The sails swell full: To sea, to sea!—Thomas Lovell Beddoes.
Of Neptune's empire let us sing,At whose command the waves obey;To whom the rivers tribute pay,Down the high mountains sliding:To whom the scaly nation yieldsHomage for the crystal fieldsWherein they dwell:And every sea-god pays a gemYearly out of his wat'ry cellTo deck great Neptune's diadem.
The Tritons dancing in a ringBefore his palace gates do makeThe water with their echoes quake,Like the great thunder sounding:The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill,And the sirens, taught to killWith their sweet voice,Make ev'ry echoing rock replyUnto their gentle murmuring noiseThe praise of Neptune's empery.—Thomas Campion.
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,The holy time is quiet as a NunBreathless with adoration; the broad sunIs sinking down in its tranquillity;The gentleness of heaven is on the sea:Listen! the mighty Being is awake,And doth with his eternal motion makeA sound like thunder—everlastingly.—Wordsworth.
Where the remote Bermudas rideIn the ocean's bosom unespied,From a small boat that row'd alongThe listening winds received this song:
'What should we do but sing His praiseThat led us through the watery mazeUnto an isle so long unknown,And yet far kinder than our own?Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks,That lift the deep upon their backs,He lands us on a grassy stage,Safe from the storms' and prelates' rage:He gave us this eternal SpringWhich here enamels everything,And sends the fowls to us in careOn daily visits through the air:He hangs in shades the orange brightLike golden lamps in a green night,And does in the pomegranates closeJewels more rich than Ormus shows:
He makes the figs our mouths to meetAnd throws the melons at our feet;But apples plants of such a price,No tree could ever bear them twice.With cedars chosen by His handFrom Lebanon He stores the land;And makes the hollow seas that roarProclaim the ambergris on shore.He cast (of which we rather boast)The Gospel's pearl upon our coast;And in these rocks for us did frameA temple where to sound His name.O, let our voice His praise exaltTill it arrive at Heaven's vault,Which thence (perhaps) rebounding mayEcho beyond the Mexique bay!'
Thus sung they in the English boatA holy and a cheerful note:And all the way, to guide their chime,With falling oars they kept the time.—Andrew Marvell.
Just as Germany tried to win the overlordship of the world in this twentieth century so Spain tried in the sixteenth; and just as the Royal Navy was the chief, though by no means the biggest, force that has won the whole world's freedom from the Germans now, so the Royal Navy was the chief force that won world-freedom from the Spaniards then.
Spaniards and Portuguese, who often employed Italian seamen, were the first to begin taking oversea empires. They gained footholds in places as far apart as India and America. Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and waded into the Pacific, sword in hand, to claim it for the King of Spain. A Portuguese ship was the first to go right round the world. The Spaniards conquered all Central and great parts of North and South America. The Portuguese settled in Brazil.
While this was going on abroad France and England were taken up with their own troubles at home and with each other. So Spain and Portugal had it all their own way for a good many years. The Spanish Empire was by far the biggest in the world throughout the sixteenth century. Charles V, King of Spain, was heir to several other crowns, which he passed on to his son, Philip II. Charles was the sovereign lord of Spain, of what are Belgium and Holland now, and of the best parts of Italy. He was elected Emperor of Germany, which gave him a great hold on that German "Middle Europe" which, stretching from the North Sea to the Adriatic, cut the rest in two. Besides this he owned large parts of Africa. And then, to crown it all, he won what seemed best worth having in Central, North, and South America.
The Santa Maria, flagship of Christopher Columbus when he discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet. Length of ship proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet. Breadth, 26 feet. Tonnage, full displacement, 233.[Illustration: TheSanta Maria, flagship of Christopher Columbuswhen he discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet.Length of ship proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet.Breadth, 26 feet. Tonnage, full displacement, 233.]
The Santa Maria, flagship of Christopher Columbus when he discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet. Length of ship proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet. Breadth, 26 feet. Tonnage, full displacement, 233.[Illustration: TheSanta Maria, flagship of Christopher Columbuswhen he discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet.Length of ship proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet.Breadth, 26 feet. Tonnage, full displacement, 233.]
France and England had something to say about this. Francis I wrote Charles a pretty plain letter. "Your Majesty and the King of Portugal have divided the world between you, offering no part of it to me. Show me, I pray you, the will of our father Adam, so that I may see if he has really made you his universal heirs." Nor did the two Henrys forget the claims of England. Henry VII claimed most of the eastern coast of what are now Canada and the United States, in virtue of the Cabot discoveries. In the Naval Museum at Madrid you can still see the bullock-hide map of Juan de la Cosa, which, made in the year 1500, shows St. George's Cross flying over these very parts.
But it was not till after 1545, when the mines of Potosi made Europe dream of El Dorado, the great new Golden West, that England began to think of trying her own luck in America. Some of the fathers of Drake's "Sea-Dogs" had already been in Brazil, notably "Olde Mr. William Hawkins, a man for his wisdome, valure, experience, and skill in sea causes much esteemed and beloved of King Henry the Eight." Hawkins "armed out a tall and goodlie ship called the Pole of Plimmouth, wherewith he made three long and famous voyages into the coast of Brasil." He went by way of Africa, "where he trafiqued with the Negroes, and took of them Oliphants' teeth; and arriving on the coast of Brasil, behaved himself so wisely, that he grew into great friendship with those savages"—very different from the vile cruelty with which the Spaniards always treated the poor natives. These voyages were made about 1530; and the writer says that they were "in those days very rare, especially to our Nation."
In 1554 Charles V planned to make all such voyages work for the glory of Spain instead of England. But, thanks chiefly to the English Sea-Dogs, everything turned out the other way. Charles saw that if he could only add England to his vast possessions he could command the world; for then he would have not only the greatest land-power but the greatest sea-power too. Queen Mary seemed made for his plan. Her mother, Katharine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife, was a Spaniard, and she herself cared less for England than for Spain. She was only too ready to marry Charles's heir, Philip, of Armada fame. After this Charles would leave his throne to Philip, who would then be King of England as well as King of Spain.
Philip sailed for England with a hundred and sixty ships, and came up the Channel with the Spanish standard at the main (that is, at the tip top of the main, or highest, mast). Lord Howard of Effingham sailed to meet him and answer Philip's salute. But Philip and his haughty Dons thought it was nonsense for the Prince of Spain to follow the custom of the sea by saluting first when coming into English waters. So the Spanish fleet sailed on and took no notice, till suddenly Howard fired a shot across the Spanish flagship's bows. Then, at last, Philip's standard came down with a run, and he lowered topsails too, so as to make the salute complete. Howard thereupon saluted Philip, and the two fleets sailed on together. But there was no love lost between them. Neither was the marriage popular ashore. Except for the people at court, who had to be civil to Philip, London treated the whole thing more as a funeral than a wedding. Philip drank beer in public, instead of Spanish wine, and tried to be as English as he could. Mary did her best to make the people like him. And both did their best to buy as many friends at court as Spanish gold could buy. But, except for his Queen and the few who followed her through thick and thin, and the spies he paid to sell their country, Philip went back with even fewer English friends than he had had before; while the Spanish gold itself did him more harm than good; for the English Sea-Dogs never forgot the long array of New-World wealth that he paraded through the streets of London—"27 chests of bullion, 99 horseloads + 2 cartloads of gold and silver coin, and 97 boxes full of silver bars." That set them asking why the whole New World should be nothing but New Spain.
But seventeen years passed by; and the Spanish Empire seemed bigger and stronger than ever, besides which it seemed to be getting a firmer hold on more and more places in the Golden West. Nor was this all; for Portugal, which had many ships and large oversea possessions, was becoming so weak as to be getting more and more under the thumb of Spain; while Spain herself had just (1571) become the victorious champion both of West against East and of Christ against Mahomet by beating the Turks at Lepanto, near Corinth, in a great battle on landlocked water, a hundred miles from where the West had defeated the East when Greeks fought Persians at Salamis two thousand years before.
Sir Drake, whom well the world's end knew,Which thou didst compass round,And whom both poles of heaven once saw,Which north and south do bound.
The stars above would make thee known,If men here silent were;The sun himself cannot forgetHis fellow-traveller.—Anonymous.
The daring English sailors who roved the waters to prey on Spanish vessels were given the name of Sea-Dogs because they often used to hunt together like a pack of hounds. Their Norse forefathers were often called sea-wolves; and sometimes there was not so very much difference between the two. War to the knife was the rule at sea when Spaniards and Englishmen met, even in time of peace (that is, of peace between the sovereigns of Spain and England, for there was no such thing as real peace at sea or in any oversea possession). Spain was bound to keep Englishmen out of the New World. Englishmen were bound to get in. Of course the Sea-Dogs preyed on other people too, and other peoples' own Sea-Dogs preyed on English vessels when they could; for it was a very rough-and-tumble age at sea, with each nation's seamen fighting for their own hand. But Spanish greed and Spanish cruelty soon made Spain the one great enemy of all the English Sea-Dogs.
DRAKE[Illustration: DRAKE]
DRAKE[Illustration: DRAKE]
Sea-Dogs were not brought up on any bed of roses. They were rough, and their lives were rougher. They were no gentler with Spaniards than Spaniards were with them when both were fighting. But, except by way of revenge, and then very seldom, they never practised such fiendish cruelty as the Spaniards practised the whole time. "Captain John Smith, sometime Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England" (whom the Indian girl Pocahontas saved from death) did not writeThe Seaman's Grammartill after most of Queen Elizabeth's Sea-Dogs were dead. But he was a big boy before Drake died; so one of hisDirections for the Takying of a Prizemay well be quoted here to show that there was a Sea-Dog code of honour which would pass muster among the rules of war today. What's more, the Sea-Dogs kept it. "Always have as much care to their wounded as to your own; and if there be either young women or aged men, use them nobly."
Some of the otherDirectionsshow that Smith knew how to fight like a lion as well as how to treat his captives well. "Out with all your sails! A steadie man at the helm! Give him (the enemy) chace! Hail him with trumpets! Whence is your ship? Of Spain!—whence is yours? Of England! Be yare at the helm! Edge in with him! Give him a volley of small shot, also your prow and broadside as before! With all your great and small shot charge him! Make fast your grapplings. Board him!" Then, after giving much good advice as to how the rest of a sea fight should be managed, Smith tells his pupils what to do in case of fire. "Captaine, we are foul of each other and the ship is on fire!" "Cut anything to get clear and smother the fire with wet clothes." Here he adds this delightful little note: "In such a case they will presentlie bee such friends as to help each other all they can to get clear; and if they bee generous, and the fire bee quenched, they will drink kindly one to the other, heave their canns overboard,and begin again as before." The duties of a good crew after the fight are carefully laid down: "Chirurgeon (surgeon) look to the wounded and wind up the slain, and give them three guns (volleys) for their funerals" (as we do still). "Swabber, make clean the ship! Purser, record their names! Watch, be vigilant! Gunners, spunge your ordnance! Souldiers, scour your pieces! Carpenters, about your leaks! Boatswain and the rest, repair sails and shrouds! Cook, see you observe your directions against the morning watch!" The first thing in this "morning watch" the captain sings out, "Boy, hallo! is the kettle boiled?"—"Ay, ay, Sir!" Then the captain gives the order: "Boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast." The victory won, and the Spanish ship once safe in the hands of an English crew, theDirectionsend with a grand salute: "Sound drums and trumpets: Saint George for England!" ("Saint George for England!" is what Sir Roger Keyes signalled to the fleet he led against the Germans at Zeebrugge on St. George's Day in 1918, three hundred years after Smith's book was written.)
Sea-Dogs worked desperately hard for all they got, ran far more than the usual risks of war, and were cheated by most of the traders ashore. As for the risks: when Shakespeare speaks of a "Putter-out of five for one" he means that what we now call insurance agents would bet five to one against the chance of a ship's ever coming back when she was going on a long voyage through distant seas full of known and unknown dangers, such as pirates, cannibals, shipwreck, and deadly diseases. As for cheats: Sea-Dogs were not perfect themselves, nor were all landsmen quite so bad as those in the old sailors' song:
For Sailours they bee honest men,And they do take great pains.But Land-men and ruffling LaddsDo cheat them of their gains.
All the same, the "Land-men" often did cheat sailors so much that sailors might well be excused for poking fun at "Land-men" who were seasick. Yet, at a time when even the best crews had no means of keeping food and water properly, a land-lubber might also be excused for being not only seasick but sick in worse ways still. The want of fresh food always brought on scurvy; and the wonder is that any one lived to tell the tale when once this plague and others got a foothold in a ship.
But the Norse blood tingling in their veins, the manly love of wonderful adventure, and, by no means least, the gamble of it, that dared them to sail for strange outlandish parts with odds of five to one against them, these, quite as much as the wish to make a fortune, were the chief reasons why Sea-Dogs sailed from every port and made so many landsmen mad to join them. And, after all, life afloat, rough as it was, might well be better than life ashore, when men of spirit wanted to be free from the troubles of taking sides with all the ups and downs of kings and courts, rebels and religions.
Whether or not the man who wroteThe Complaynt of Scotlandwas only a passenger or off to join the Sea-Dogs is more than we shall ever know; for all he tells us is that he wrote his book in 1548, and that he was then a landsman who "heard many words among the seamen, but knew not what they meant." In any case, he is the only man who ever properly described the daily work on board a Sea-Dog ship. The Sea-Dogs themselves never bothered their heads about what they thought such a very common thing; and whatever other landsmen wrote was always wrong. A page of this quaint old book, which was not printed till two hundred and fifty years after it was written, will show us how much the work aboard a Sea-Dog ship was, in some ways, like the work aboard any other sailing ship, even down to the present day; and yet how much unlike in other ways. Some of the lingo has changed a good deal; for English seamen soon began to drop the words King Henry's shipwrights brought north from the Mediterranean. Many of these words were Italian, others even Arabic; for the Arabs, Moors, and Turks haunted the Mediterranean for many centuries, and some of their sea-words passed current into all the northern tongues. We getCaptainfrom the ItalianCapitano, andAdmiralfrom the ArabicAmir-al-bahr, which means Commander-of-the-sea.
"I shall report their crying and their call," says our author. "Then the boatsman" (who was the officer next to the captain) "cried with an oath: 'I see a great ship.' Then the master (that is, the captain) whistled and bade the mariners lay the cable to the windlass to wind and weigh (that is, heave the anchor up). Then the mariners began to wind the cable in with many a loud cry; and, as one cried, all the others cried in that same tune, as it had been an echo in a cave. 'Veer, veer; veer, veer; gentle gallants, gentle gallants! Wind, I see him! Wind, I see him!Pourbossa, pourbossa! Haul all and one!'" When the anchor was hauled above the water they cried: "Caupon, caupon; caupon, cola; caupon holt; Sarrabossa!" When setting sail they began with the same kind of gibberish. "Hou!Hou!Pulpela, Pulpela! Hard out strife! Before the wind! God send! God send! Fair weather! Many Prizes! Many Prizes! Stow! Stow! Make fast and belay—Heisa! Heisa! One long pull! One long pull! Young blood! More mud! There, there! Yellow hair! Great and small! One and all!" The "yellow hair" refers to the fair-haired Norsemen. What the master told the steersman might have been said by any skipper of our own day: "Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep close!" But what he told the "Boatswain" next takes us back three hundred years and more. "Bear stones and limepots full of lime to the top" (whence they would make it pretty hot for an enemy held fast alongside). The orders to the artillery and infantry on board are equally old and very odd when we remember modern war. "Gunners, make ready your cannons, culverins, falcons, sakers, slings, head-sticks, murdering pieces, passevolants, bazzils, dogges, arquebusses, calivers, and hail shots! Souldiers, make ready your cross-bows, hand-bows, fire-spars, hail-shot, lances, pikes, halberds, rondels, two-handed swords, and targes!" Yet, old as all this was, the artillery seems to have made a good many noises that would have been familiar to those of us who heard the noises of the Great War. "I heard the cannons and guns make many hideous cracks" (like the stabbing six-inchers). "The bazzils and falcons criedtir-duf, tir-duf, tir-duf" (like the anti-aircraft "Archies"). Then the small artillery criedtik-tak, tik-tak, tik-tak(something like the rattle of machine-guns, only very much slower).
The cannons of those days seem like mere pop-guns to those who knew the British Grand Fleet that swept the Germans off the sea. But the best guns Drake used against the Spanish Armada in 1588 were not at all bad compared with those that Nelson used at Trafalgar in 1805. There is more change in twenty years now than there was in two hundred years then. The chief improvements were in making the cannon balls fit better, in putting the powder into canvas bags, instead of ladling it in loose, and in fitting the guns with tackle, so that they could be much more easily handled, fired, and aimed.
The change in ships during the sailing age was much greater than the change in guns. More sails and better ones were used. The old forecastle, once something really like a little castle set up on deck, was made lower and lower, till it was left out altogether; though the name remains to describe the front part of every ship, and is now pronounced fo'c's'le or foxle. The same sort of top-hamper (that is, anything that makes the ship top-heavy) was cut down, bit by bit, as time went on, from the quarter-deck over the stern; till at last the big British men-of-war became more or less like theVictory, which was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, and which is still kept in Portsmouth Harbour, where Henry VIII's first promise of a sailing fleet appeared in 1545, the year that Drake was born.
Drake was a first-rate seaman long before he grow up. His father, also a seaman, lived in a man-of-war on the Medway near where Chatham Dockyard stands today; and Drake and his eleven sturdy brothers spent every minute they could in sailing about and "learning the ropes." With "the master of a barque, which used to coast along the shore and sometimes carry merchandise into Zeeland (Holland) and France" Drake went to sea at the age of ten, and did so well that "the old man at his death bequeathed his barque to him by will and testament."
But the Channel trade was much too tame for Drake. So in 1567, when he was twenty-two, he sailed with Hawkins, who was already a famous Sea-Dog, to try his fortune round the Spanish Main, (that is, the mainland of northern South America and of the lands all round Panama). Luck went against them from start to finish. Hawkins, who founded the slave trade that lasted till the nineteenth century, was attacked this time by the negroes he tried to "snare" in Africa. "Envenomed arrows" worked havoc with the Englishmen. "There hardly escaped any that had blood drawn, but died in strange sort, with their mouths shut some ten days before they died." As everybody who sailed to foreign parts used slaves in those days Hawkins and Drake were no worse than the rest; and less bad than those whites who kept them three hundred years later, when people knew better. But Hawkins' complaint against the negroes for not coming quietly is just the same sort of nonsense as any other complaint against anything alive for being "vicious" when we want to take or kill it. "This animal," said a Frenchman who made wise fun of all such humbug, "is very wicked. When you attack it, it defends itself!"
With what he could get—some four or five hundred negroes—Hawkins did a roaring trade in those parts of the Spanish Main where King Philip's subjects were not too closely watched by Governors and troops. But new troubles began when Hawkins, trying to leave the West Indies, was blown back by a hurricane into Vera Cruz, then known as San Juan de Ulua. Hawkins still had a hundred negroes left; so, hoping for leave from Mexico City to trade them off, he held the Kind's Island, which entirely commanded the entrance to the harbour, where he saw twelve Spanish treasure ships. But it was four hundred miles to the City of Mexico and back again; and meanwhile a great Spanish fleet was expected out from Spain. Hawkins had this fleet completely at his mercy; for it could no more get past the King's Island if he chose to stop it than the fleet inside could get out. Moreover, the stormy season was beginning; so the fleet from Spain might easily be wrecked if Hawkins kept it at bay.
The very next morning the fleet arrived. Hawkins was terribly tempted to keep it out, which would have made his own fleet safe and would have struck a heavy blow at Spain; for all the Spanish vessels together were worth many millions. But he feared the wrath of Queen Elizabeth, who did not want war with Spain; so he let the Spaniards "enter with their accustomed treason" after they had agreed not to attack him.
For a few days everything went well. Then suddenly the Spaniards set on the English, killed every Englishman they could catch ashore, and attacked the little English fleet by land and sea. Once the two Spanish fleets had joined they were in overwhelming force and could have smothered Hawkins to death by sheer weight of numbers. But he made a brave fight. Within an hour the Spanish flagship and another vessel had been sunk, a third was on fire, and every English deck was clear of Spanish boarding parties. But the King's Island, to which Hawkins had moored his vessels, now swarmed with Spaniards firing cannon only a few yards off. To hearten his men he drank their health and called out, "Stand by your ordnance lustily!" As he put the goblet down a round shot sent it flying. "Look," he said, "how God has delivered me from that shot; and so will He deliver you from these traitors." Then he ordered his own battered ship to be abandoned for theMinion, telling Drake to come alongside in theJudith. In these two little vessels all that remained of the English sailed safely out, in spite of the many Spanish guns roaring away at point-blank range and of two fire-ships which almost struck home.
Drake and Hawkins lost each other in the darkness and gale outside. Drake's tinyJudith, of only fifty tons, went straight to England, with every inch of space crowded by her own crew and those she had rescued from the other vessels. Hawkins was so overcrowded in theMinion(which then meant "darling") that he asked all who would try their luck ashore to go forward, while all who would stand by theMinionstayed aft. A hundred went forward, were landed south of the Rio Grande, and died to a man, except three. One of these walked all round the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic sea-board, till he reached the mouth of the St. John in New Brunswick, when a Frenchman took him home. The other two were caught by the Spaniards and worked as slaves, one in Mexico, the other as a galley-slave in Europe. Both escaped in the end, one after fourteen, the other after twenty-two, years. The Spaniards found their own hostages all safe and sound aboard the flagship that Hawkins had abandoned at the King's Island. This surprised them very much; for they had kept all the English hostages Hawkins had sent them in exchange for theirs when they had made the agreement never to attack him, and they knew that by the laws of war he had the right to kill all the Spaniards who were in his power when the other Spaniards broke their word.
The treason of Ulua took place in 1568, just twenty years before the Great Armada. During those fateful twenty years the storm of English hatred against the Spanish tyrants grew and grew until it burst in fury on their heads.
Nothing daunted, Drake and his dare-devils went, three years running, to the Spanish Main. The third year, 1572, brought him into fame. He had only two tiny vessels, thePashaand theSwan, with seventy-three men, all told. But with these faithful few he sailed into a secret harbour, intending to seize the whole year's treasure chest of Spain. To his surprise the found this letter from a scout on the coast: "Captain Drake! If you fortune to come to this port, make haste away! For the Spaniards have betrayed the place and taken away all that you left here." The date was fourteen days before. He soon saw that others knew his secret harbour; for in came Rance, an Englishman, who then joined forces. Stealing quietly along the coast, the hundred and twenty English lay in wait off Nombre de Dios, the place on the Atlantic coast of the Isthmus of Panama where the treasure was put aboard for Spain. An hour before dawn Drake passed the word along the waiting line: "Shove off!" Bounding into the bay he saw a Spanish rowboat, which at once saw him and pulled hard-all for the shore. The English won the desperate race, making the Spaniards sheer off to a landing some way beyond the town. Then they landed and tumbled the Spanish guns off their mountings on the wharf, to the amazement of the sleepy Spanish sentry, who ran for dear life.
No time was to be lost now; for the news spread like wildfire, and the alarm bells were ringing from every steeple in the town. So Drake made straight for the Governor's palace, while his lieutenant, Oxenham, (the hero ofWestward Ho!), went by a side street to take the enemy in flank. The Spaniards fired a volley which killed Drake's trumpeter, who had just sounded theCharge! On went the English, swords flashing, fire-pikes blazing, and all ranks cheering like mad. When their two parties met each other the Spaniards were in full flight through the Treasure Gate of Panama, which Drake banged to with a will. The door of the Governor's Palace was then burst open, and there, in solid gleaming bars, lay four hundred tons of purest silver, enough to sink thePashaand theSwanand all Drake's boats besides. But Drake would not touch a single bar. It was only diamonds, pearls, and gold that he had room for now; so he made for the King's great Treasure House itself. But a deluge of rain came on. The fire-pikes and arquebusses had to be taken under cover. The immensely strong Treasure House defied every effort to break it in. The Spaniards, finding how very few the English were, came on to the attack. Drake was wounded, so that he had to be carried off the field. And the whole attack ended in failure, and dead loss.
The game seemed up. Rance and his men withdrew, and Drake was left with less than fifty. But he was determined to be revenged on Spain for the treachery to Hawkins at Ulua (the modern Vera Cruz); and equally determined to get some Spanish treasure. So, keeping out of sight for the next five months, till the rainy season was over and the next treasure train was ready, he went wide of Nombre de Dios and made for Panama (the Pacific end of the trail across the Isthmus). He had nineteen picked Englishmen and thirty-one Maroons, who, being the offspring of Negro slaves and Indians, hated Spaniards like poison and knew the country to a foot.
On the 7th of February, 1573, from the top of a gigantic tree that stood on the Divide, Drake first saw the Pacific. Vowing to sail an English ship across the great South Sea he pushed on eagerly. Three days later his fifty men were lying in wait for the mule train bringing gold from Panama. All had their shirts on over their coats, so as to know one another in the night attack. Presently the tinkle of mule bells told of the Spanish approach. When the whole line of mules had walked into his trap Drake's whistle blew one long shrill blast and his men set on with glee. Their two years of toil and failure seemed to have come to an end: for they easily mastered the train. But then, to their intense disgust, they found that the Spaniards had fooled them by sending the silver train this way and the gold one somewhere else.
Without losing a moment Drake marched back to the Atlantic, where he met Têtu, a very gallant Frenchman, who, with his own seventy men, gladly joined company; for Spain hated to see the French there quite as much as she hated to see the English. The new friends then struck inland to a lonely spot which another Spanish train of gold and jewels had to pass on its way to Nombre de Dios. This time there was no mistake. When Drake's whistle blew, and the leading mules were stopped, the others lay down, as mule trains will. Then the guard was quickly killed or put to flight, and all the gold and jewels were safely seized and carried to the coast. Here again disaster stared Drake in the face; for all his boats were gone, and not one of the men left with them was in sight. But once more Drake got through, this time by setting up an empty biscuit bag as a sail on a raft he quickly put together. With one other Englishman and two Frenchmen he soon found his boats, divided the treasure with the French, put the English share on board ship, and, after giving many presents to the friendly Maroons, sailed for home. "And so," says one of his men, "we arrived at Plymouth on Sunday, the 9th of August, 1573, at what time the news of our Captain's return did so speedily pass over all the church that very few remained with the preacher, all hastening to see the evidence of God's love towards our Gracious Queen and Country."
The plot kept thickening fast and faster after this. New Spain, of course, was Spanish by right of discovery, conquest, and a certain kind of settling. But the Spaniards wanted to keep everyone else away, not only from all they had but from all they wished to have. Their Governor-General plainly showed this by putting up in his palace the figure of a gigantic war-horse pawing at the sky, and by carving underneath, "The Earth itself is not enough for Us." Nor was this the worst. No whites, not even the Germans, have ever been so fiendishly cruel to any natives as the Spaniards were to those they had in their power. They murdered, tortured, burnt alive, and condemned to a living death as slaves every native race they met. There were brutal Belgians in the Congo not so very long ago. American settlers and politicians have done many a dark deed to the Indians. And the British record in the old days of Newfoundland is quite as black. But, for out-and-out cruelty, "the devildoms of Spain" beat everything bad elsewhere. Moreover, while English, French, and Spaniards all wanted gold when they could get it, there was this marked difference between the two chief opponents, that while Spain cared mostly for tribute England cared mostly for trade. Now, tribute simply means squeezing as much blood-money as possible out of an enslaved country, no matter at what cost of life and liberty to the people there; while trade, though often full of cheating, really means an exchange of goods and some give-and-take all round. When we consider this great difference, and remember how cruel the Spaniards were to all whom they had made their enemies, we can understand why the Spanish Empire died and why the British lives.
One day Queen Elizabeth sent for Drake and spoke her mind straight out. "Drake, I would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries"; and, said Drake, "she craved my advice; and I told Her Majesty the only way was to annoy him by the Indies." Then he told her his great plan for raiding the Pacific, where no outsider had ever been, and where the Spaniards were working their will without a thought of danger. Elizabeth at once fell in with Drake's idea and "did swear by her Crown that if any within her Realm did give the King of Spain to understand hereof they should lose their heads therefor." The secret had to be very well kept, even from Burleigh, who was then more or less like what a Prime Minister is now. Burleigh was a very cautious man, afraid of bringing on an open war with Spain. Elizabeth herself did not want open war; but she was ready to go all lengths just short of that. In those days, and for the next two centuries, a good deal of fighting could go on at sea and round about oversea possessions without bringing on a regular war in Europe. But for Elizabeth to have shown her hand now would have put Philip at least on his guard and perhaps spoilt Drake's game altogether. So the secret was carefully hidden from every one likely to tell Mendoza, the lynx-eyed ambassador of Spain. That Elizabeth was right in all she did is more than we can say. But with enemies like Philip of Spain and Mary Queen of Scots (both ready to have her murdered, if that could be safely done) she had to hit back as best she could.
"The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the South Sea, and therehence about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the Yeare of our Lord 1577" is the greatest raid in history. His fleet was small enough, compared with what we know of fleets today. But it did wonderful work for all that. The flagshipGolden Hindwas of only a hundred tons. The four others were smaller still. There were less than two hundred men, all told. Yet with these Drake sailed off to raid the whole Pacific seaboard of New Spain. He took "great store of wildfire, chain-shot, harquebusses, pistols, corslets, bows, and other weapons. Neither had he omitted to make provision for ornament and delight, carrying with him expert musicians, rich furniture, and divers shows of curious workmanship, whereby the magnificence of his native country might amongst all nations be the more admired."
Sou'sou'west went Drake until he reached the "Land of Devils" in South America, northeast of Montevideo. Terrific storms raised tremendous seas through which the five little vessels buffeted their toilsome way. The old Portuguese pilot, whom Drake had taken for his knowledge of that wild coast, said the native savages had "sold themselves to the Devil, because he was so much kinder than the Spaniards; and the Devil helped them to keep off Spanish vessels by raising these awful storms." The frightful Straits of Magellan (through which the British shipOrtegaled the Germans such a dance of death) took Drake seventeen squally days to clear. But he was out of the frying-pan into the fire when he reached the Pacific, where he struck a storm fifty-two days long. One of his vessels sank. Two others lost him and went home. But theGolden Hindand the little pinnaceBenedictremained safe together off Cape Horn, which Drake was now the first man to discover.
Carried too far south of his course, and then too far west by trusting the bad Spanish maps, Drake only reached Valparaiso in the north of Chili at the end of 1578. Thinking he must be a Spaniard, as no one else had ever sailed that sea, the crew of theGrand Captain of the Southopened a cask of wine and beat a welcome on their drums. Before the Spaniards knew what was happening gigantic Tom Moone had led the English boarders over the side and driven the crew below. Half a million was the sum of this first prize. The news spread quickly, scaring the old Governor to death, heartening the Indians, who had just been defeated, and putting all Spanish plans at sixes and sevens. Messengers were sent post-haste to warn the coast. But Drake of course went faster by sea than the Spaniards could by land; so he overhauled and took every vessel he met. Very few showed fight, as they never expected enemies at sea and were foolish enough not to be ready for those that were sure to come sooner or later. Even ashore there was little resistance, often, it is true, because the surprise was complete. One day some Spaniards, with half a ton of silver loaded on eight llamas, came round a corner straight into Drake's arms. Another day his men found a Spaniard fast asleep near thirteen solid bars from the mines of Potosi. The bars were lifted quietly and the Spaniard left peacefully sleeping.
Sailing into Lima Drake cut every single Spanish ship adrift and then sailed out again, leaving the harbour a perfect pandemonium of wrecks. Overhauling a ship from Panama he found that the King's great treasure ship,Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion, the "chiefest glory of the whole South Sea," had such a long start of him that she might unload at Panama before he could come up with her. The Spaniards, a lubberly lot, brave soldiers but never handy sailors, were afraid of the Straits of Magellan and knew nothing of Cape Horn; so they always sent their treasure across the Isthmus of Panama.
Drake set every stitch of canvas theGolden Hindcould carry, taking four more prizes by the way and learning that he was gaining on the treasure ship. After clearing the prizes he sent them back with no one on board hurt, plenty to eat and drink, and presents for all ranks and ratings—very much to the amazement of the Spaniards. "Only a day ahead," was the news the last prize gave him. But they were nearing Panama; so Drake strained every nerve anew, promising a chain of solid gold to the first look-out who saw the chase. Next midday his cousin, young Jack Drake, yelled out "Sail-ho!" and climbed down on deck to get the golden chain.
Panama was now so close that Drake was afraid of scaring the treasure ship into making a run for it; so he trailed twelve empty wine casks over the stern to slacken the speed of theGolden Hindand make her look more like a lubberly Spaniard. As the evening breeze came up and reached him first he cut the casks adrift, set every sail, and presently ran alongside. "Who are you?" asked the Spanish captain. "A ship of Chili!" answered Drake. But when Don Anton looked down on theGolden Hindhe saw her decks crowded with armed men from whom a thundering shout of triumph came—"English! English! Strike sail!" Then Drake blew his whistle, at which there was perfect silence while he called, "Strike sail, Señor Anton! or I must send you to the bottom!" Anton, however, was a very brave man, and he stoutly replied, "Strike sail? Come and do it yourself!" At once the English guns cut down his masts and rigging, while a perfect hail of arrows prevented the Spaniards from clearing the wreckage away. Don Anton's crew began running below, and when, in despair of making sail, he looked overside, there was gigantic Tom Moone, at the head of the boarders, climbing out of the pinnace. Then Anton struck his flag, was taken aboard theGolden Hind, and, with all his crew, given a splendid banquet by his English foes. After this the millions and millions of treasure were loaded aboard theGolden Hind, and the Spaniards were given handsome presents to soften their hard luck. Then they and their empty treasure ship were allowed to sail for Panama.
Throwing the Spaniards off the scent by steering crooked courses Drake at last landed at what is now Drake's Bay, near the modern San Francisco, where the Indians, who had never even heard of any craft bigger than canoes, were lost in wonder at theGolden Hindand none the less at the big fair-haired strangers, whom they took for gods. Drake, as always, was very kind to them, gave them rich presents, promised them the protection of his Queen, whose coins he showed them, and, pointing to the sky while his men were praying, tried to make them understand that the one true God was there and not on earth. They then crowned him with a head-dress of eagle's feathers, while he made them a speech, saying that he would call their country New Albion. California thus became the counterpart of Cape Breton, over which John Cabot had raised St. George's Cross eighty-two years before.
Leaving the Indians in tears at his departure Drake crossed the Pacific to the Moluccas, where a vile Portuguese, with the suitable name of Lopez de Mosquito, had just killed the Sultan, who was then his guest, chopped up the body, and thrown the pieces into the sea, to show his contempt for the natives. Drake would have gladly helped the Sultan's son, Baber, if he had only had a few more men. But having no more than fifty-six left he could not risk war with the Portuguese among their own possessions. He did, however, make a treaty with Baber which was the foundation of all the English Far-Eastern trade. And here, as everywhere, he won the hearty good-will of the natives.
After a narrow escape from being wrecked on an unknown reef, and other escapes from dangers which alone would fill a story book, the gallantGolden Hindsailed into Plymouth Sound with ballast of silver and cargo of gold. "Is Her Majesty alive and well?" asked Drake of a fishing smack. "Ay, ay, that she is, my Master." So Drake wrote off to her at once and came to anchor beside what is now Drake's Island. He wished to know how things were going at Court before he went to London. The Queen wrote back to say she wished to see him, and that she would "view" some of the wonderful things he had brought back from foreign parts. Straight on this hint he went to town with jewels enough to soften any woman's heart. The Spanish ambassador was beside himself with rage; but in London "the people were swarming daily in the streets to behold their Captain Drake and vowing hatred to all that misliked him."
To crown everything, theGolden Hindcame round to London, where she was the wonder of the day, and when the Queen herself went aboard to a state banquet at which she knighted the hero of the sea: "I bid thee rise, Sir Francis Drake!"