Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers, J. H. Hubback [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

An entry in the log of the newly built frigate Triton, under Captain Gore, gives an instance of wholesale, and one would think entirely illegal action.

November 25, 1796, in the Thames (Long Reach).

“Sent all the boats to impress the crew of the Britannia East India ship. The boats returned with thirty-nine men, the remainder having armed themselves and barricaded the bread room.

“26th, the remainder of the Britannia crew surrendered, being twenty-three. Brought them on board.”

So great was the necessity of getting more men, and a better stamp of men, into the Navy, and of making them fairly content when there, that in 1800 a Royal Proclamation was issued encouraging men to enlist, and promising them a bounty.

This bounty, though it worked well in many cases, was of course open to various forms of abuse. Some who were entitled to it did not get it, and many put in a claim whose right was at least doubtful. An instance appears in the letters of the Leopardof a certain George Rivers, who had been entered as a “prest man,” and applied successfully to be considered as a Volunteer, thereby to procure the bounty. He evidently wanted to make the best of his position.

The case of Thomas Roberts, given in another letter from the Leopard, is an example of inducements offered to enter the service.

Thomas Roberts “appears to have been received as a Volunteer from H.M.S. Ceres, and received thirty shillings bounty. He says he was apprenticed to his father about three years ago, and that, sometime last October, he was enticed to a public-house by two men, who afterwards took him on board the receiving ship off the Tower, where he was persuaded to enter the service.”

The difficulty of getting an adequate crew seems to have led in some cases to sharp practice among the officers themselves, if we are to believe that Admiral Croft had real cause for complaint.

“If you look across the street,’ he says to Anne Elliot, ‘you will see Admiral Brand coming down, and his brother. Shabby fellows, both of them! I am glad they are not on this side of the way. Sophy cannot bear them. They played me a pitiful trick once; got away some of my best men. I will tell you the whole story another time.’” But “another time” never comes, so we are reduced to imagining the “pitiful trick.”

The unpopularity of the Navy, and the consequent shorthandedness in time of war, had one very bad result in bringing into it all sorts of undesirable foreigners, who stirred up strife among the better disposed men, and altogether aggravated the evils of the service.

Undoubtedly the care of the officers for their men was doing its gradual work in lessening all these evils. To instance this, we find, as we read on in the letters and official reports of Francis Austen, that the entry, “the man named in the margin did run from his Majesty’s ship under my command,” comes with less and less frequency and we have on record that the Aurora, under the command of Captain Charles Austen, did not lose a single man by sickness or desertion during the years 1826-1828, whilst he was in command. Even when some allowance is made for his undoubted charm of personality, this is a strong evidence of the real improvements which had been worked in the Navy during thirty years.

With such constant difficulties and discomforts to contend with, it seems in some ways remarkable that the Navy should have been so popular as a profession among the classes from which officers wore drawn. Some of this popularity, and no doubt a large share, was the effect of a strong feeling of patriotism, and some was due to the fact that the Navy was a profession in which it was to get on very fast. A man of moderate luck and enterprise was sure to make some sort of mark, and if to this he added any “interest” his success was assured. Success, in those days of the Navy, meant money. It is difficult for us to realise the large part played by “prizes” in the ordinary routine work of the smallest sloop. In the case of Captain Wentworth, a very fair average instance, we know that when he engaged himself to Anne Elliot, he had “nothing hut himself to recommend him, no hopes of attaining influence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions to secure even his farther rise in that profession,” yet we find that his hopes for his own advancement were fully justified. Jane Austen would have been very sure to have heard of it from Francis if not from Charles, if she had made Captain Wentworth’s success much more remarkable than that of the ordinary run of men in such circumstances.

We are clearly told what those circumstances were.

“Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession; but spending freely what had come freely had realised nothing. But he was confident that he would soon be rich; full of life and ardour, he knew that he would soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that would lead to everything he wanted. He had always been lucky; he knew he should be so still.” Later, “all his sanguine expectations, all his confidence had been justified. His genius and ardour had seemed to foresee and to command his prosperous path. He had, very soon after their engagement ceased, got employ; and all that he had told her would follow had taken place. He had distinguished himself, and early gained the other step in rank, and must now, by successive captures, have made a handsome fortune. She had only Navy Lists and newspapers for her authority, but she could not doubt his being rich.”

Such were some of the inducements. That “Jack ashore” was a much beloved person may also have had its influence. Anne Elliot speaks for the greater part of the nation when she says, “the Navy, I think, who have done so much for us, have at least an equal claim with any other set of men, for all the comforts and all the privileges which any home can give. Sailors work hard enough for their comforts we must allow.”

That Sir Walter Elliot represents another large section of the community is, however, not to be denied, but his opinions are not of the sort to act as a deterrent to any young man bent on following a gallant profession.

“Sir Walter’s remark was: ‘The profession has its utility, but I should be sorry to see any friend of mine belonging to it.”

“‘Indeed!’ was the reply, and with a look of surprise.

“‘Yes, it is in two points offensive to me; I have two strong grounds of objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of; and, secondly, as it cuts up a man’s youth and vigour most horribly; a sailor grows old sooner than any other man. I have observed it all my life. A man is in greater danger in the Navy of being insulted by the rise of one whose father his father might have disdained to speak to, and of becoming prematurely an object of disgust to himself, than in any other line. One day last spring in town I was in company with two men, striking instances of what I am talking of: Lord St. Ives, whose father we all know to have been a country curate, without bread to eat: I was to give place to Lord St. Ives, and a certain Admiral Baldwin, the most deplorable-looking personage you can imagine; his face the colour of mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree; all lines and wrinkles, nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top.’

“‘In the name of heaven, who is that old fellow?’ said I to a friend of mine who was standing near (Sir Basil Morley), ‘Old fellow!’ cried Sir Basil, ‘it is Admiral Baldwin.’

“‘What do you take his age to be?’

“‘Sixty,’ said I, ‘or perhaps sixty-two.’

“‘Forty,’ replied Sir Basil, ‘forty, and no more.’

“‘Picture to yourselves my amazement. I shall not easily forget Admiral Baldwin. I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a seafaring life can do; they all are knocked about, and exposed to every climate and every weather till they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral Baldwin’s age.’”