THE COMMAND OF THE OCEAN

‘Monumental… Rodger is our finest naval historian’ Saul David, Daily Telegraph

‘Exciting and original… Here is that rarest of all historians, the expert with the generalist’s approach’ Geoffrey Moorhouse, Guardian

‘A great work of history… A truly satisfying book that one puts down with regret… Nothing written during the past century, perhaps ever, approaches N. A. M. Rodger’s ambitious and masterly three-volume Naval History of Britain… it is likely to be regarded as one of the great works of historical scholarship of our age’ Paul Kennedy, Sunday Times

‘Riveting… lucid, challenging… highly original… the second volume of Rodger’s history can only elicit the chorus of praise that greeted the first’ Richard Ollard, Country Life

‘Truly in a class of its own… at turns witty, provocative and incisive… you finish it wishing for more’ F. J. M. Scott, History Today

‘Scholarly and erudite, but also a thrilling story, told with wit and verve’ Economist, Books of the Year

‘Splendid… There is plenty of old-fashioned narrative in this encyclopedic blockbuster… the writing advances across the pages like a squadron of dreadnoughts’ John Parfitt, Spectator

‘An enterprise of truly stupendous scope and erudition… Even the annotated bibliography, with its deadpan, often savage comments, is a pleasure to read’ Brendan Simms, Evening Standard

‘N. A. M. Rodger is the doyen of naval scholars… This is an excellent book’ Frank McLynn, New Statesman

N. A. M. Rodger is Professor of Naval History at Exeter University and a Fellow of the British Academy; he was formerly Anderson Senior Research Fellow at the National Maritime Museum. He is the author of The Wooden World and The Admiralty as well as the highly acclaimed first volume of his naval history of Britain, The Safeguard of the Sea.

THE COMMAND OF THE OCEAN

The publishers and author gratefully acknowledge the Society for Nautical Research and the Navy Records Society for their help and assistance with the publication of this volume.

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‘To pretend to UniversalMonarchy without Fleets was long since looked upon, as a politick chimaera… whoever commands the ocean, commands the trade of the world, and whoever commands the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, and whoever is master of that, commands the world itself.’

John Evelyn, Navigation and Commerce,
their Origin and Progress (London, 1674), pp. 15–17 and 32–3.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

All illustrations are reproduced by courtesy of the National Maritime Museum. The relevant NMM reference number appears in square brackets.

1a The sailmaker of the frigate Pallas, November 1774, sketched by Gabriel Bray [PT1992]

1b A seaman of the Pallas leaning on a bowchaser, sketched by Gabriel Bray [PT1999]

1c A marine and a sailor of the Pallas, Senegal Road, lanuary 1775, sketched by Gabriel Bray [PT 2013–2]

2a John Crawford nailing Admiral Duncan’s flag to the maintopgallant masthead of the Venerable, by Daniel Orme [PU 3447]

2b The wardroom officers of the Gloucester at dinner in 1812, painted by the chaplain Edward Mangin [D7689–3]

2c The quarterdeck and poop of the Venerable, drawn by Benjamin Turner in 1799 [PW7977]

3a Young Master William Blockhead on his first day afloat. One of a series of satirical prints by George Cruikshank after sketches by Captain Frederick Marryat [PU4722]

3b Another of the Cruikshank/Marryat series, showing Mr Midshipman Blockhead experiencing the delights of the middle watch in hard weather, without a greatcoat [PAD 4732]

4a A grisaille of the battle of the Gabbard, 2 June 1653, by Heerman Witmont [BHC 0276]

4b The battle of Scheveningen, 31 July 1653, by Willem van de Velde the elder [BHC 0277]

5a The surrender of the Royal Prince, 3 June 1666, during the Four Days Battle, by Willem van de Velde the younger [V288]

6a The battle of Solebay, 28 May 1672, by Willem van de Velde the younger [BHC0303]

6b The battle of Quiberon Bay, 20 November 1759, by Dominic Serres the elder [BHC0400]

7a The capture of Newport, Rhode Island, in December 1776, by Robert Cleveley [2891]

7b Barrington’s defence of the Grand Cul de Sac, St Lucia, 15 December 1778, by Dominic Serres the elder [BHC 0422]

8a The battle of the Dogger Bank, 5 August 1781, engraved after Engel Hoogerheyden [5625]

9a The Brunswick fighting the Vengeur du Peuple and the Achille during the battle of the First of June 1794, by Nicholas Pocock [BHC 0471]

9b The frigate Mermaid driving the French corvette Brutus ashore on the coast of Grenada, 10 October 1795, engraved after Nicholas Pocock [C627]

10a The inshore squadron of St Vincent’s fleet drying sails at anchor off Cadiz during the blockade following the battle of St Vincent, 1797, by Thomas Buttersworth [3833]

10b The opening of the battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798, painted by Cooper Willyams [D8619-C]

11a The battle of Copenhagen, 2 April 1801, engraved after Nicholas Pocock [PU 5662]

11b Commodore Dance’s convoy fighting Linois off Pulo Aor, 15 February 1804, painted and engraved by William Daniell [PZ6125]

13a The floating out of the eighty-gun three-decker Cambridge, 21 October 1755, by John Cleveley the elder [BHC 3602]

13b Portsmouth Harbour from the Gunwharf, 1770, by Dominic Serres the elder [BHC 1920]

15a The Adventure, 44, being launched at Blackwall Yard, 17 July 1784, by Francis Holman [BHC 1866]

15b A perspective of Deptford Dockyard in the 1790s, by Nicholas Pocock [BHC1874]

16b The Admiralty Boardroom, 1807, by Augustus Pugin, with the figures added by Thomas Rowlandson [PU1358]

17a Jamsetjee Bomanjee, Master Shipwright of Bombay Dockyard 1792–1821, engraved after G. Bragg [PX6494]

19b Rear-Admiral Sir John Jervis (the future Lord St Vincent), by Sir William Beechey [BHC 3001]

19c A group of officers serving under Commodore Sir Samuel Hood in the Leeward Islands early in 1805, by John Eckstein [2066]

20a The Fourth-Rate Adventure of 1646, drawn by Willem van de Velde the younger about 1675 [VV442]

20b The Charles Galley of 1676, painted by Willem van de Velde the elder [BHC 3254]

22a George III reviewing his fleet at Spithead, 22 June 1773, by John Cleveley the younger [D 441]

22b A homeward-bound West India convoy in September 1782, by Robert Dodd [B4622]

23b The wreck of the Magnificent on the Boufoloc Rock off Brest, 25 March 1804, by J. C. Schetky [BHC 0534]

24a The frigate Triton getting her convoy under way from St Helen’s in 1808, by Nicholas Pocock [B5501]

24b The ‘ship Harriet James Baillie Commander’, by Nicholas Cammillieri, 1815 [6747]

FOREWORD

‘The ultimate view of an indigent historian is profit,’ declared a candid writer who preferred to remain anonymous. ‘It is not expected that he will consume his years in laborious researches after truth. His subsistance depends on the immediate sale of his labours. Hence he compiles in haste the errors and contradictions of former historians, and perpetuates error from want of time to investigate truth.’¹ Anyone who sets out to write a history largely based on the work of others must be conscious that there is something in this warning. If I have in any measure succeeded in investigating truth, it is thanks to the generous financial support which I have received during the years of writing this book from the Oxford Maritime Trust, the National Maritime Museum, the Society for Nautical Research and the Navy Records Society. I am profoundly grateful to them all.

I have received a great deal of practical help from my former colleagues in the National Maritime Museum and the Public Record Office, and from my present colleagues in the University of Exeter. In addition I thank Professor Daniel Baugh, Dr Michael Duffy, Professor Roger Knight, Miss Sarah Lenton, Mr Richard Ollard and my parents, who read part or all of the manuscript and corrected some of its errors. I am grateful to Miss Moira Bracknall, Dr Randolph Cock and Dr Oliver Walton, who at various times acted as my research assistant. Dr Jonathan Dull generously allowed me to read his book The French Navy and the Loss of Canada in manuscript, and Dr Ann Coats, Dr Philip MacDougall and Dr Roger Morriss allowed me to use unpublished notes and papers of theirs. For references, advice, copies of articles and other offices of scholarly friendship I am indebted to Mr and Mrs Derek Ayshford, Dr Alan Booth, Dr Philip Carter, Captain Peter Hore, Dr C. S. Knighton, Dr Robert Smith, Dr David Starkey, M. Etienne Taillemite, Dr Roger Tomlin and Dr C.O. van der Meij. I am especially grateful to the authors and custodians of the many unpublished university theses and dissertations referred to in the notes and bibliography: much of the originality of this book derives from their work. Most of all I owe to my wife and children, who supported a distracted and querulous author through long years of research and writing.

Note

1. Proposals for a Temple of Fame containing the History and Portraits of Celebrated Men from the Age of Richard the Third to the Conclusion of the Present Century (London, 1789), p. vi.

A NOTE ON CONVENTIONS

During the period covered by this book, the majority of European countries followed the Gregorian Calendar, first promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, which restored and maintained a close connection with astronomical reality. England, Wales and Ireland, however, retained the older Julian Calendar, which was ten days behind until 1700, and thereafter eleven. They also continued to date the New Year officially from the Lady Day (25 March) after 1 January. English Old Style dates were therefore ten or eleven days behind Continental New Style, while the year between 1 January and 24 March was one year behind. Scotland retained the Julian Calendar, but from 1600 until the Union of 1707 dated the new year from 1 January. The whole of the British Isles adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, by omitting the dates from 3 to 13 September (adjusting all civil and financial obligations accordingly),¹ and from 1753 dating the New Year from 1 January.

Calendars are a notorious trap for the unwary. In documents it is often uncertain which calendar a writer is using, while modern authors or editors sometimes spread confusion by being unaware of the problem, or by silently adjusting dates without warning their readers. In this book, following the usual convention among modern British historians, all dates up to 1752 are Old Style unless otherwise indicated, but the year is taken to begin on 1 January throughout.

Conventions on the naming of battles have varied a good deal. In English various actions are or have been named from the date (‘the First of June’),² the commander-in-chief (‘Calder’s action’) or the nearest point of land. It is most common now to take a point of land, but there is no agreement between writers of different nationality on which to take, so that the unwary reader of naval history may not realize, for example, that the English battle of Scheven-ingen and the Dutch battle of Ter Heide are the same. The following table is offered as a modest contribution to the reduction of confusion. In each case the phrase ‘battle of’ or its equivalent is to be understood, and C. stands for Cape, Cabo, Cap, etc. according to the language.

In the later seventeenth century the rate of the French livre against sterling varied from is 5¾d to is 7¾d (i.e. 12.6–13.75 livres to the pound). From 1697 its sterling value declined, and at the worst point of the Law crisis in 1720 it was only 5½d (43.7 to the pound), but by 1727 its value had been stablized at nd, and it remained in the range 10d–11d (21.8–23.8 to the pound) until the runaway inflation of the 1790s.

The Spanish silver dollar, the pieza de ocho reales or ‘piece of eight’, first minted in 1497, was worth one peso or piastre of eight reales. Its silver content and intrinsic value (4s 2d sterling) remained almost unvaried in 400 years of issue. The real coin, however, was progressively debased, which led to the invention of a notional peso de cambio worth eight debased reales. This peso de cambio steadily declined in value against sterling, though the original peso de plata antigua, corresponding to the dollar, did not. It is therefore essential to know which of the two Spanish units of account is meant in order to calculate exchange rates.

The Dutch guilder remained steady throughout this period at approximately is 9½d, or just over 11 to the pound sterling.³

I have left all foreign ranks and titles in their original languages (and explained them in the foreign glossary) unless there were more or less exact English equivalents. I have not translated titles of nobility, even though many of them have notional equivalents, considering, for example, that a French comte or a Dutch Graaf were so unlike an English earl in social and political standing that to translate their titles would be thoroughly misleading. The obvious case where foreign titles can in many cases be translated more or less exactly is naval commissioned officers’ ranks, which can be set out in a table as they stood in the eighteenth century. Note that this expresses equivalent ranks, not literal meanings, so ‘Lieutenant-Général des Armees Navales’ and ‘Schout-bij-Nacht’ are translated Vice-Admiral and Rear-Admiral respectively, not ‘Lieutenant-General of Naval Forces’ and ‘Night Watchman’. Each of these navies also had other ranks, not directly translatable.

Readers often ask for historical money values to be translated into modern values. This is a difficult, indeed impossible, task, because of what economists call the ‘index number problem’, the fact that both the prices and the economic significance of different things change at different rates, and in different directions, so that all attempts to relate prices over long periods are intrinsically misleading. In the sixty years from 1770, for example, the price of cotton fell by one-third, and that of iron by more than two-thirds, but the price of beer increased by 156 per cent.⁷ Which, if any, of these commodities is more meaningful as the basis of a price index, and by what criteria could they be ‘weighted’ against one another? In practice even to attempt to answer such questions is frequently impossible, for few items have been traded continuously over long periods of history, and fewer still have left evidence allowing price series to be compiled. Most of those used by economic historians are based on the price of grain or the wages of artisans, neither perfectly relevant to naval history. But a naval shipbuilding price index running just from the eighteenth century to the twentieth would have to face the fact that the principal material of shipbuilding has changed in that time from oak to wrought iron and then mild steel, and that none of the three has been continuously traded in large volumes throughout the period, so that it is impossible to compare their prices.⁸

The only component of naval power which has not essentially changed over time is people, and this indicates a crude solution to the problem. Certain officers’ ranks already existed in 1649, with established rates of pay, and still exist today. On the heroic assumption that a post-captain’s pay has retained broadly the same real value over 350 years, we may construct a simple naval price index:⁹

This suggests that for most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the ratio of contemporary to current money values was about 600:1. It is obvious, however, that captains’ pay, like seamen’s, had declined in real value by the end of the eighteenth century, and then caught up after the Napoleonic War (which was in addition a period of falling retail prices). Taking the 1817 pay scale reduces the ratio to about 180:1. In any case the calculation is very crude, and greatly affected by underlying assumptions. Adding servants’ pay, which was arguably a normal part of a captain’s income, at least in wartime, and became an automatic addition in 1794, would reduce the ratio in 1817 to 145:1.

Every direct quotation has its own reference, but with that exception, in most of this book I have thought it sufficient to support passages of general description or argument, drawing on secondary sources and dealing with matters known to history, with a single composite note for each paragraph. Wherever I felt that the argument was too complex or too novel, however, I have provided references more densely.

English quotations in the text are given in modern English spelling, capitalization and, if necessary, punctuation, except for verse, and a few other cases where it seemed valuable to give a sense of the degree of literacy of the original writer. Unambiguous abbreviations and contractions have been silently expanded. Editorial omissions are indicated thus…, additions [thus] and the original wording [thus]; other words in italics are emphasized in the original. Quotations from other languages are translated in the text (by the author unless otherwise indicated), with the original wording given in the note. Where no original wording is given, the quotation has been taken already translated from the source cited.

English warships had been classified into five or six ‘Rates’ since the late sixteenth century.¹² A scheme of six Rates defined by the size of their crews was adopted in 1653.¹³ There followed a number of different schemes, mostly based on numbers of guns. As overhauled and standardized by Pepys in 1677 and 1685 the classification stood thus:

First and Second Rates had three gun decks, Third and Fourth Rates two, and these four Rates were reckoned fit to fight in the line of battle. They were therefore ‘ships of the line’ or ‘line of battleships’, in the terminology which became standard.¹⁵

The scheme of Rates remained in force until 1817, with continual minor adjustments as warship design developed.¹⁶

From 1756 Fourth Rates with fewer than sixty guns were not regarded as fit to lie in the line of battle. When carronades were adopted they were not treated as proper guns nor included in ships’ official armament, with the result that by the time of the Great Wars British ships, especially frigates, tended to be more heavily armed than their official rating and number of guns would indicate.

There are many methods of calculating ships’ tonnage. Most of them were in the period covered by this book, and still are, measures of the internal capacity or volume of the ship, or the weight of the cargo. The only system of ship tonnage which directly expresses the weight of the ship is displacement, which was not widely used in Britain before the nineteenth century. It calculates the weight of water displaced by the underwater body of the ship, and hence (by Archimedes’ rule) the weight of the ship herself. It is only useful for warships (with no weight of cargo to distort the calculation), and only then if their state of loading is exactly defined, but it is the most precise measure for technical purposes, and it was, and is, sometimes calculated for eighteenth-century warships. The formulae used for calculating the ‘burthen’ or tonnage of ships in this period varied in different countries and contexts, but for a fully stored warship, they would yield figures very roughly half the displacement. In this book ships’ tonnage is given in tons burthen unless otherwise indicated, and the spelling ‘tun’ is used for the cask.

Unless otherwise indicated, the weights, measures and currencies in this book are the current or recent British standards, the ‘Imperial’ system of the 1820 Weights and Measures Act. The following may be unfamiliar:

barrel (bb.): A cask, of varying capacity according to commodity. The barrel of beer contained 36 gallons to 1688 and thereafter 34; the barrel of wine contained 311/2 gallons.

bushel (bus.): The Winchester bushel of 8 gallons was the standard English dry measure, though there were very many local variations.

gallon (gal.): The standard English capacity measure, equivalent to 4 quarts or 8 pints. The beer gallon contained 282 cubic inches, the grain gallon 268.8 cubic inches, the wine gallon, 231 cubic inches. In the Imperial system of 1820 the gallon was fixed at 277.42 cubic inches for all commodities.

guinea: An English gold coin, whose sterling value varied with the state of the silver coinage, but was fixed at 21s in 1717.

hogshead (hhd.): A cask, containing half a pipe, 1½ barrels (beer), or 2 barrels (wine).

hundredweight (cwt.): An English standard weight, normally of 4 quarters, 8 stone or 112 lbs, but varying extensively for different commodities and in different places.

last: A capacity measure for various commodities, normally equivalent to 12 barrels. The last of pitch and tar was 12 barrels each of 32 gallons wine measure.

league: A distance, 3 miles. The mile itself varied from country to country; the nautical mile is properly one minute of arc of latitude or 6,080 feet, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries most navigators preferred to take an average or conventional figure for a minute of longitude, often 5,000 feet.

livre [tournois]: The principal money of account in France. Like the pound sterling it was divided into twenty shillings (sous) each of twelve pence (deniers). In 1795 it was renamed the franc, and divided into 100 centîmes.

Note that these definitions apply to the contexts occurring in this book; most of these have many other possible values for other commodities in other circumstances or periods.

Notes

1. This is why the British Treasury, no enthusiast for wanton innovation, still dates the tax year from Old Lady Day, 6 April.

3. John J. McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978).

8. Cf. Philip Pugh, The Cost ofSeapower: The Influence of Money on Naval Affairs from 1815 to the Present Day (London, 1986).

9. This is based on the gross pay of the most junior post-captain; i.e. of a Fifth Rate until 1713, thereafter of a Sixth Rate, or from first promotion.

10. In this year captains of Sixth Rates were made post, but the pay for the Rate remained unchanged, so the lowest rate of captain’s pay fell.

11. From this year ‘command pay’ was payable to virtually all captains in employment. I have included the minimum rate, 5s a day, up to 1919, by which time a significant proportion of captains were employed other than in command of ships or shore establishments.

12. Glete, Navies and Nations, I, 80–81. Rodger, Safeguard, pp. 500–503.

14. These are war establishments; the number of guns was reduced for peacetime and overseas commissions.

15. CPM I, 234–42; IV, cv–cvii, 425–6 and 527. Fox, Great Ships, p. 20.

16. Derrick, Memoirs, pp. 111–112, 124–5,128, 146–7, 166–7 and 209–10.

17. Ronald E. Zupko, A Dictionary of Weights and Measures for the British Isles: The Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1985).

MAPS

INTRODUCTION

Writing in the Preface to his Naval History of England in 1735, Thomas Lediard lamented the unaccountable neglect of his subject.

I know not by what fatal mistake, or blind neglect, no part of English history has been so little the care of our ablest writers, of ancient as well as modern times; though materials need not have been wanting to those who had the capacity, and would have been at the pains of enquiring after them.¹

It is not necessary today to deplore the total neglect of naval history, but there is still some work to be done to install it in its proper place. In a recent work comparing the development of government in eighteenth-century Germany and Britain, for example, Britain is treated as a military power directly comparable to Prussia.² None of the distinguished contributors to the book seem to be aware that Britain’s contribution to warfare, and warfare’s contribution to British history, were rather unlike those of Prussia. To describe the eighteenth-century British state, in war or peace, without mentioning the Royal Navy is quite a feat of intellectual virtuosity; it must have been as difficult as writing a history of Switzerland without mentioning mountains, or writing a novel without using the letter ‘e’.

The purpose of this, the second of three volumes of a Naval History of Britain, is to put naval affairs back into the history of Britain. It is not to write a self-contained ‘company history’ of the Royal Navy, but to describe the contribution which naval warfare, with all its associated activities, has made to national history. That certainly includes the history of the Royal Navy as an institution, but it is broader; the intention is to link naval warfare to the many other aspects of history in which it was involved. As far as the limitations of a single work and a single author will allow, this is meant as a contribution to political, social, economic, diplomatic, administrative, agricultural, medical, religious and other histories which will never be complete until the naval component of them is recognized and understood. By the same token it is an attempt to spread the meaning of naval history well beyond the conduct of war at sea and the internal history of the Royal Navy, and to treat it instead as a national endeavour, involving many, and in some ways all, aspects of government and society.

It follows that this is a book which tries to make connections, some of which have not been explored or even noticed, and about which we know too little as yet to reach definite conclusions. Specialists in the many areas of national history on which this book trespasses will doubtless deplore the author’s ignorance of them: his hope is that they will be stimulated to do better what he has done first. Readers whose primary interest is in war at sea may be disappointed that almost half the book is devoted to the background rather than the foreground of naval history, but this is quite deliberate, for there is no understanding battles and campaigns otherwise. In practice the book is arranged in four parallel ‘streams’: policy, strategy and naval operations; finance, administration and logistics, including all sorts of technical and industrial support; social history; and the material elements of sea power, ships and weapons. Chapters are devoted to each in turn, but they are not meant to be read in isolation. The author’s intention is to unite rather than to divide.

The same observation applies to the national scope of the work. ‘Britain’ in the title is shorthand for the whole British Isles, but it is not intended to ignore or submerge the national histories of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. In the period covered by this volume, however, unlike the first, naval warfare became a semi-professional business, dominated by the English and later British Royal Navy. Scottish warships make only a brief appearance, and there was no Irish naval establishment. The three kingdoms therefore figure distinctly mainly in the chapters on social history. This is a ‘national’ history, therefore, in reference to the British state rather than its component nations. It is also an international history, as all maritime history must necessarily be, for the sea links nations in peace or war. There can be no naval history of Britain which is not also a naval history of her neighbours and enemies. I have therefore tried to deal as fully as space would permit with the relevant parts of the naval histories of France, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States and other naval powers of whom the British were friends or foes.

All this is largely based on printed sources, as it must be in a work on this scale, very much enriched by unpublished theses and dissertations, and garnished in places with my own researches. Most of the facts and many of the ideas will be known to specialists. Nevertheless it is over a century since the publication of Sir William Laird Clowes’s History of the Royal Navy, the last work to tackle the subject on a comparable scale, and it does not seem too soon to stand back from the subject and take a fresh look at it. The first volume of this work, The Safeguard of the Sea, dealt with the naval history of the British Isles from 660 to 1649. Much of it was a history of failure – failure to understand and exploit the facts of geography. It is still easy to find deterministic histories which assume that being an island somehow made Britain ‘invasion-proof, and removed the necessity to go to any trouble or expense to defend against foreign enemies. Readers of The Safeguard of the Sea will know that England was successfully invaded by sea eight times, and Scotland once, between 1066 and 1485, while on numerous other occasions enemy forces large and small were put ashore in various parts of the three kingdoms. The sea is a broad highway, easier and faster than most of those available ashore until modern times, and provides no safeguard whatever to those who have not learned how to use it. In spite of several promising starts, notably under Richard I, Henry V and Elizabeth I of England, and James IV of Scots, it cannot be said that people had really mastered the use of the sea for national defence before 1649. It is in the 166 years covered by this volume that state and nation finally gained the real sovereignty of the seas around the British Isles. To do so they had to overcome numerous strictly professional challenges of seamanship and sea warfare, but it was even more essential to construct administrative systems capable of keeping fleets at sea for long periods, and equally they had to confront questions of ideology, policy and politics without which it would have been impossible to maintain public support. Success in this great national undertaking was not simply important for its obvious fruits, security at home and wealth abroad. Naval dominance of European waters was the largest, longest, most complex and expensive project ever undertaken by the British state and society. Few aspects of national life were unaffected by it, and no history of Britain can be complete which ignores it.

ONE

A Mountain of Iron

The English Commonwealth which executed its former king Charles I on 30 January 1649 was in principle a republic governed by a sovereign Parliament, but the Parliament was the ‘Rump’ remaining of the Long Parliament (originally elected in 1640) after Colonel Thomas Pride’s troops had purged it of all remaining opponents of military rule in December. Supreme power was held by the Council of State, made up of the senior officers of the New Model Army, and senior Parliamentarians of their mind. In all essentials, England was a military dictatorship, which ruled by force without law, executing troublesome opponents by the use of tribunals without juries. Crudely summarizing a complex and fluid political situation, we may say that this government, like the army officers who stood behind it, was radical in politics and Independent in religion – meaning that its members belonged to ‘gathered congregations’ outside the now-Presbyterian Church of England. Not only Royalists but the vast majority of those who had supported Parliament during the first Civil War were excluded from political life. Nevertheless the Rump represented a faction within the pre-war governing classes, men of property and education, and it feared the yet more radical voices among the common people and the common soldiers of the army; groups like the Levellers, who wished to replace the existing social order with Utopian communism, and the Fifth Monarchists, who looked forward to sweeping away all ecclesiastical order in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ.¹

The Rump government did not pretend to have, or to desire, the support of the people at large. On the contrary, it gloried in being a godly remnant which had crushed all its enemies with the help of God alone. The new regime was presently to build a formidable fleet of warships named after English victories: the victories the New Model Army had won over its domestic enemies. The new flagship the Naseby (unofficially nicknamed the ‘Great Oliver’) bore a figurehead of the army’s commander-in-chief General Cromwell on horseback, trampling six nations underfoot: England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain and the Netherlands.² This was not a government of national unity. Nor was it building warships because the military regime was warmly disposed towards the English Navy. On the contrary, the Navy had long been more moderate in politics than the army, and it had played a leading part in the 1648 rebellion which had helped to provoke the army’s coup d’etat. In the aftermath of that a large part of the fleet had deserted to the Royalists in Holland, and the loyalty of the remainder was doubtful.³

The soldiers did not like or trust the Navy, but in their situation they could not do without it. In the spring of 1649 the English Commonwealth was completely isolated. Scotland and Ireland, the Channel Isles, the Scillies, the Isle of Man and the colonies were all in Royalist hands. All Europe stood aghast at the murder of an anointed king, and the Peace of Westphalia had freed the powerful armies and fleets hitherto engaged in the Thirty Years’ War for operations against England. A Swedish expedition was known to be preparing to support the Stuarts in Scotland, and others were feared.⁴ Private men-of-war with commissions from the exiled Prince of Wales, now proclaimed by his friends as King Charles II, sailed from ports in Ireland, Scotland, the Channel Isles, France and Flanders to capture English merchant ships, financing the Royalist cause, cutting sharply into the Customs revenue which formed a major prop of the Commonwealth’s shaky finances, and undermining its claims to be an effective government.⁵ There was nothing the army by itself could do to deal with any of these threats; a powerful fleet was essential to the survival of the military regime.

In this crisis the Commonwealth’s first priority was to correct ‘the manifold distempers of the Navy, and the great decay of Customs, occasioned by evil, malignant, unfaithful and supernumerary officers, employed both by sea and land, to the great prejudice of the Commonwealth’⁶ – that is, to eject all those not certainly loyal to the new regime, which meant the great majority. Of those who had managed and commanded the Parliamentary naval cause during the first Civil War, only those were left whose Independent credentials were impeccable.⁷ Even so, the army trusted no one connected with the Navy, and ensured that the command of the fleet was put in safe hands. An Act of February 1649 established the new office of General at Sea, having the powers of seagoing command formerly held by the Lord High Admiral without his administrative and legal responsibilities. It is a common misunderstanding to speak of three Generals at Sea: there was but one single General (in the old sense of commander-in-chief’), but the office was put in commission among three colonels, Edward Popham, Richard Deane and Robert Blake, ‘to hold, and execute by yourselves, or any two of you, the place of Admiral and General of the said fleet’. All three were reliable regimental officers, but they were unequivocally junior in rank to the senior officers of the army, and two signatures were required for their orders; none of them was trusted to act alone. Though all three had some relevant experience, and Popham had been a pre-war officer in the Royal Navy, they were chosen entirely for political reasons, to rivet the army’s control on the Navy.⁸

The State’s Navy, as it was now formally known, flying the new ‘cross and harp’ jack in place of ‘the disunion flag or late king’s colours’,⁹ had thirty-nine ships, four more than Charles I had had in 1642, but its situation was in every other respect much worse: its experienced officers and administrators mostly removed, its morale shaky, its finances disastrous, and its enemies very numerous.¹⁰ The Council of State encouraged the three colonels with the thought that ‘our own forces are such at sea as our enemies looked not for, and ourselves could scarce have hoped, consisting of so many good ships and faithful and able commanders as have not formerly been set out in any one year. But’, they continued, ‘that it was difficult to have so many set out and furnished you very well know, and how this Commonwealth will be able to continue the same in successive years is not easy to evidence.”¹¹ In short there was possibly one season only in which to defeat the Royalists at sea.

Date	British Admiral	English Name	French Name	Spanish Name	Dutch/Danish Name
19/29 May 1652	Blake	Dover			Dover
16/26 Aug 1652	Ayscue	Plymouth			Plymouth
28 Aug/6 Sep 1652	Baddiley Christi	Monte			Elba
28–29 Sep/8–9 Oct 1652	Blake	Kentish Knock			Duins
30 Nov/10 Dec 1652	Blake	Dungeness			Dungeness, Singels
18/28 Feb–20 Feb/2 Mar 1653	Blake	Portland		Driedaagse
4/14 Mar 1653	Baddiley	Leghorn			Livorno
2/12–3/13 Jun 1653	Monck and	Deane	Gabbard		Nieuwpoort
31 Jul/10 Aug 1653	Monck	Scheveningen, Texel			Ter Heide
3/13 Jun 1665	York	Lowestoft			Lowestoft
2/12 Aug 1665	Teddiman	Bergen			Bergen
1/11–4/14 Jun 1666	Albemarle	Four Days			Vierdaagse
25-26 Jul/4–5 Aug 1666	Albemarle	St James’s Day			Tweedaagse
9/19–14/24 Jun 1667		Medway Raid			Tocht naar Chatham
25 Jun/5 Jul 1667	Harman	Fort St Pierre	Fort Saint Pierre
28 May/7 Jun 1672	York	Solebay	Solebay		Solebay
28 May/7 Jun 1673	Rupert	1st Schooneveld	Schooneveldt		1e Schooneveld
4/14 Jun 1673	Rupert	2nd Schooneveld	Walcheren		2e Schooneveld
11/21 Aug 1673	Rupert	Texel	Texel		Kijkduin
1/11 May 1689	Herbert	Bantry Bay	Bantry		Bevesier
30 Jun/10 Jul 1690	Torrington	Beachy Head	Béveziers		Barfleur
19/29 May 1692	Russell	Barfleur	Barfleur		Barfleur
22-24 May/1–3 Jun 1692	Russell	La Hogue	La Hougue		La Hougue
17/27 Jun 1693	Rooke	Smyrna Convoy	Lagos		Lagos
18/29 Aug-25	Benbow	Last Fight	Santa Marta
Aug/4 Sep 1702
12/23 Oct 1702	Rooke	Vigo	Vigo	Vigo	Vigo
13/24 Aug 1704	Rooke	Malaga	Velez Malaga		Malaga
31 Jul/11 Aug 1718	Byng	C. Passaro		C. Passaro
11/22 Feb 1744	Mathews	Toulon	Toulon, C. Side	C. Side, Tolon
25 Jun/6 Jul 1746	Peyton	Negapatam	Négapatam
3/14 May 1747	Anson	1st Finisterre	C. Ortégal
14/25 Oct 1747	Hawke	2nd Finisterre	C. Finisterre
20 May 1756	Byng	Minorca	Port Mahón
28 Feb 1758	Osborn	Moonlight	C. Palos
29 Apr 1758	Pocock	Cuddalore	Gondelour
3 Aug 1758	Pocock	Negapatam	Karikal
18–19 Aug 1759	Boscawen	Lagos	Lagos, C. Sta. Maria
10 Sep 1759	Pocock	Pondicherry	Porto Novo
20 Nov 1759	Hawke	Quiberon Bay	Cardinaux
27 Jul 1778	Keppel	Ushant	Ouessant
10 Aug 1778	Vernon	Pondicherry	Pondicherry
15 Dec 1778	Barrington	St Lucia	Saint Lucie
6 Jul1779	Byron	Grenada	Grenade
16 Jan 1780	Rodney	Moonlight		C. Sta. Maria
17 Apr 1780	Rodney	Martinique	Martinique
16 Mar 1781	Arbuthnot	C. Henry	Chesapeake
16 Apr 1781	Johnstone	Porto Praya	La Praya
29 Apr 1781	Hood	Martinique	Fort Royal
5 Aug 1781	Parker	Dogger Bank			Doggersbank
5 Sep 1781	Graves	Chesapeake	Chesapeake
25-26 Jan 1782	Hood	St Kitts	Saint Christophe
17 Feb 1782	Hughes	Sadras	Sadras
12 Apr 1782	Rodney	Saintes	Saintes
12 Apr 1782	Hughes	Provedien	Provedien
6 Jul1782	Hughes	Negapatam	Negapatam
3 Sep1782	Hughes	Trincomalee	Trincomali
20 Oct 1782	Howe	C. Spartel	C. Spartel	Espartel
20 Jun 1783	Hughes	Cuddalore	Gondelour
1 Jun 1794	Howe	First of June	Prairial
13–14 Mar 1795	Hotham	C. Noli	C. Noli
23 Jun 1795	Bridport	He de Groix	Groix
13 Jul 1795	Hotham	Hyères	Fréjus
14 Feb 1797	Jervis	C. St Vincent		C. San Vicente
11 Oct 1797	Duncan	Camperdown			Kamperduin
1 Aug 1798	Nelson	Nile	Aboukir
2 Apr 1801	Nelson	Copenhagen			Reden
6 Jul1801	Saumarez	Algeçiras	Algésiras	Algeçiras
12 Jul 1801	Saumarez	Straits	Cadiz	Estrecho
14 Feb 1804	Dance	Pulo Aor
22 Jul 1805	Calder		Quinze-Vingt
21 Oct 1805	Nelson	Trafalgar	Trafalgar	Trafalgar
4 Nov 1805	Strachan		C. Ortegal
6 Feb 1806	Duckworth	San Domingo	Santo Domingo
11 Apr 1809	Gambier	Basque Roads	Ile d’Aix

English	French	French (from 1791)	Dutch	Spanish
Lieutenant	Lieutenant de Vaisseau	[same]	Luitenant ter Zee	Teniente de Navío
Commander	Capitaine de Frégate⁴	[same]	Kapitein-Luitenant	Capitan de Fragata
Post-Captain	Capitaine de Vaisseau	[same]	Kapitein	Capitan de Navio
Commodore	[none]	Chef de Division⁵	Kommandeur	Brigadier⁶
Rear-Admiral	Chef d’Escadre	Contre-Amiral	Schout-brj-Nacht	Jefe de Escuadra
Vice-Admiral	Lieutenant-Général des Armées Navales	Vice-Amiral	Vice-Admiraal	Teniente General
Admiral	Vice-Amiral	[none]	Luitenant-Admiraal	Almirante

1649	=	100
1694		200
1700		133
1713¹⁰		100
1807		200
1815		261
1817		321
1844		366
1856		412
1862¹¹		418
1864		450
1870		459
1918		475
1919		1,086
1955		1,336
2003		58,254

First Rates	90–100 guns¹⁴
Second Rates	64–90 guns
Third Rates	56–70 guns
Fourth Rates	38–62 guns
Fifth Rates	28–38 guns
Sixth Rates	4–18 guns.

Rate	1697	1714	1721	1760	1782	1801
First	94–100	100	100	100	100	100–120
Second	90–96	90	90	90	90 and 98	90 and 98
Third	64–80	70 and 80	70 and 80	64–80	64–80	64–84
Fourth	44–64	50 and 60	50 and 60	50–60	50–62	50–60
Fifth	26–44	30 and 40	30 and 40	30–44	30–44	30–44
Sixth	10–24	10 and 20	20 and 24	20–30	20–28	20–28

THE COMMAND OF THE OCEAN

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREWORD

Note

A NOTE ON CONVENTIONS

Notes

MAPS

INTRODUCTION

ONE

A Mountain of Iron