THE AMERICAN NAVY
THE AMERICAN NAVY
CHAPTER I
WhenGreat Britain attempted to reduce to obedience the rebellious colonies which were to form the United States of America she was dealing with a people who in the North at least had long been conversant with the building and sailing of ships. A New England built ship entered the Thames in 1638, only eighteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The New England men, with a sterile coast, with limitless fishing grounds and unsurpassed harbors, turned as naturally to the sea for livelihood as did the South, more kindly treated by nature, to agriculture. In 1670 it was estimated that two thirds of the British shipping was employed in the American trade. The Dutch, who had been great carriers on the sea, were excluded from this trade by the navigation laws of the period. Scotland was not admitted to the trade of the American plantations until her union with England in 1707, and Ireland not until 1780, while in 1670 nothingcould be imported into the American colonies but what was laden in England in English-built ships. But while none of their products could be carried anywhere (except to other of the plantations) till they were first landed in England, the ships built in America were reckoned as English, and this fact gave great impetus to American shipbuilding. American shipping prospered amazingly. But while thus prospering, it was the attempted repression of our commerce afloat and ashore (which included such things as forbidding the exportation of hats, restricting the manufacture of iron, and forbidding commerce with the foreign-owned islands of the West Indies) which did much more to develop the idea of independence than did the Stamp Act. But the net result of conditions was to foster shipping, and our competition had so increased by 1725 that in that year “the shipwrights of the river Thames came up to Whitehall with a complaint that their business had declined and their workmen emigrated because the plantations furnished England with ships.”
On the register of the underwriters at Lloyd’s for 1775, comprehending the shipping of the three preceding years, there were 3,908 British-builtvessels of 605,545 tons, and 2,311 of American build with a tonnage of 373,618 tons. The average size of the ship of the time was about 400 tons displacement. One 100 feet in length and 26 to 28 feet broad was a good-sized ship. They were but cockle boats in comparison with the vast ships of to-day, many of which are full a hundred times 400 tons displacement.
The foregoing will show that when there came a time to dispute the sea with Great Britain there was no difficulty in supplying the ships, and the many ironworks which had been established, particularly in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, despite Great Britain’s restrictions, could furnish guns in the manufacture of which our foundries were adepts before the war.
The larger men-of-war of the period were greater in size than the largest merchantmen. The greater ships-of-the-line (by which expression is meant those which could take their place in the line of battle, the formation of which was in a single extended column) varied from 4,000 to 3,000 tons displacement. The larger of these, which carried guns on three main decks and some light guns on the upper deck, to the number altogether of 100, or even 120, were 180to 190 feet on the gun deck, with about 53 feet beam. The most usual size, however, was the “74,” carrying nominally that number of guns, but usually six or eight more, on two main decks (and thus known as a two-decker). This class was about 168 feet long on the gun deck and 47 feet broad. Below this class there were many ships of sixty, fifty, or even forty-four guns, with two gun decks. Such, for a long period, formed part of the line of battle.
The frigates had but one covered gun deck. They varied in length from 115 to 130 feet on the gun deck, and were from 32 to 36 feet beam, roughly a fourth of their length. They formed no part of a line of battle, their duty when accompanying a fleet being to remain clear of the line and repeat the admiral’s signals. There was also a small class of ship called a sloop-of-war, which carried guns on only the upper, or spar, deck as it came to be called. These vessels were ship-rigged; that is, they had three masts with square sails on each. They were usually about 100 feet long and about 27 feet beam.
The three-deckers, or 100-gun ships, carried about 900 men; the 74’s about 600; the frigates about 160. The guns of the period were of course all smooth-bores and muzzle-loaders.In the large ships, the heavier guns, usually 32-pounders, were carried on the lower gun decks to give stability to the ship; 18’s or 24’s were carried on the middle deck, 9’s and 12’s on the upper, 9’s and 6’s on the quarter deck, which was the part of the upper deck aft of the mainmast, and on the forecastle, which was the part of the upper deck forward of the foremast; the space between the two was called the waist. The larger frigates usually carried 18’s on the gun deck; the smaller, 12’s or 9’s. The sloops carried 9’s or 6’s. The greatest range of even the heavier guns was but little over 2,000 yards, as the ports rarely allowed more than 8° or 9° elevation. Such guns were but toys compared with modern ordnance, but they were common alike to all nations, and all were thus on the same footing.
An immense difference between that day and this was in the motive power which then and for two and a half generations later consisted of lofty wooden masts, reaching skyward in the greater ships about 200 feet, crossed by “yards,” the larger of which were about 100 feet long, the former supported by a great mass of rigging known as shrouds and stays, the latter moved by “braces” and the sails worked by a maze ofrunning rigging. All this, of course, was subject to being shot away, and ships were thus frequently completely dismasted or disabled in action. The same result was often, too, produced by a gale of wind, it being no uncommon thing for a fleet to be thus completely incapacitated for the continuance of a voyage.
Weeks or fortnights were spent in a voyage now done in days. Of certainty as to time of reaching port, there was none. And amid all there was the danger from enemies, legal or piratical, for the world was only slowly ridding itself of the latter; and from the inherent dangers of the sea itself to the clumsy ships which slowly worked their way across it. How great these last were, through the ignorance at that time of the law of storms, may be known by the fate of a great fleet which in 1782 left the West Indies under Admiral Graves, with ten line-of-battle ships convoying nearly a hundred merchantmen. Among the former were six of the prizes taken in Rodney’s great naval battle of April 12, 1782. Caught in a fierce gale southeast of Nova Scotia, five of the battleships foundered with nearly all on board. One of those which went down with every soul was theVille de Paris, which had been the flagship ofthe unfortunate Count de Grasse. The total loss of men was estimated at 3,500.
Such was the setting of the period which saw the birth of the first American navy, which was to have an existence of but eight short years, to be succeeded, however, nine years after (1794) by the modest beginnings which have grown into the great fleet of to-day, and whose history is one of uninterrupted success and honor.