The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

which was kept up in England at the beginning of

the year 1685 consisted, all ranks included, of about seven

thousand foot, and about seventeen hundred cavalry and dragoons.

The whole charge amounted to about two hundred and ninety

thousand pounds a year, less then a tenth part of what the

military establishment of France then cost in time of peace. The

daily pay of a private in the Life Guards was four shillings, in

the Blues two shillings and sixpence, in the Dragoons eighteen

pence, in the Foot Guards tenpence, and in the line eightpence.

The discipline was lax, and indeed could not be otherwise. The

common law of England knew nothing of courts martial, and made no

distinction, in time of peace, between a soldier and any other

subject; nor could the government then venture to ask even the

most loyal Parliament for a Mutiny Bill. A soldier, therefore, by

knocking down his colonel, incurred only the ordinary penalties

of assault and battery, and by refusing to obey orders, by

sleeping on guard, or by deserting his colours, incurred no legal

penalty at all. Military punishments were doubtless inflicted

during the reign of Charles the Second; but they were inflicted

very sparingly, and in such a manner as not to attract public

notice, or to produce an appeal to the courts of Westminster

Hall.


Such an army as has been described was not very likely to enslave

five millions of Englishmen. It would indeed have been unable to

suppress an insurrection in London, if the trainbands of the City

had joined the insurgents. Nor could the King expect that, if a

rising took place in England, he would obtain effectual help from

his other dominions. For, though both Scotland and Ireland

supported separate military establishments, those establishments

were not more than sufficient to keep down the Puritan

malecontents of the former kingdom and the Popish malecontents of

the latter. The government had, however, an important military

resource which must not be left unnoticed. There were in the pay

of the United Provinces six fine regiments, of which three had

been raised in England and three in Scotland. Their native prince

had reserved to himself the power of recalling them, if he needed

their help against a foreign or domestic enemy. In the meantime

they were maintained without any charge to him, and were kept

under an excellent discipline to which he could not have ventured

to subject them.46


If the jealousy of the Parliament and of the nation made it

impossible for the King to maintain a formidable standing army,

no similar impediment prevented him from making England the first

of maritime powers. Both Whigs and Tories were ready to applaud

every step tending to increase the efficiency of that force

which, while it was the best protection of the island against

foreign enemies, was powerless against civil liberty. All the

greatest exploits achieved within the memory of that generation

by English soldiers had been achieved in war against English

princes. The victories of our sailors had been won over foreign

foes, and had averted havoc and rapine from our own soil. By at

least half the nation the battle of Naseby was remembered with

horror, and the battle of Dunbar with pride chequered by many

painful feelings: but the defeat of the Armada, and the

encounters of Blake with the Hollanders and Spaniards were

recollected with unmixed exultation by all parties. Ever since

the Restoration, the Commons, even when most discontented and

most parsimonious, had always been bountiful to profusion where

the interest of the navy was concerned. It had been represented

to them, while Danby was minister, that many of the vessels in

the royal fleet were old and unfit for sea; and, although the

House was, at that time, in no giving mood, an aid of near six

hundred thousand pounds had been granted for the building of

thirty new men of war.


But the liberality of the nation had been made fruitless by the

vices of the government. The list of the King's ships, it is

true, looked well. There were nine first rates, fourteen second

rates, thirty-nine third rates, and many smaller vessels. The

first rates, indeed, were less than the third rates of our time;

and the third rates would not now rank as very large frigates.

This force, however, if it had been efficient, would in those

days have been regarded by the greatest potentate as formidable.

But it existed only on paper. When the reign of Charles

terminated, his navy had sunk into degradation and decay, such as

would be almost incredible if it were not certified to us by the

independent and concurring evidence of witnesses whose authority

is beyond exception. Pepys, the ablest man in the English

Admiralty, drew up, in the year 1684, a memorial on the state of

his department, for the information of Charles. A few months

later Bonrepaux, the ablest man in the French Admiralty, having

visited England for the especial purpose of ascertaining her

maritime strength, laid the result of his inquiries before Lewis.

The two reports are to the same effect. Bonrepaux declared that

he found everything in disorder and in miserable condition, that

the superiority of the French marine was acknowledged with shame

and envy at Whitehall, and that the state of our shipping and

dockyards was of itself a sufficient guarantee that we should not

meddle in the disputes of Europe.47 Pepys informed his master

that the naval administration was a prodigy of wastefulness,

corruption, ignorance, and indolence, that no estimate could be

trusted, that no contract was performed, that no check was

enforced. The vessels which the recent liberality of Parliament

had enabled the government to build, and which had never been out

of harbour, had been made of such wretched timber that they were

more unfit to go to sea than the old hulls which had been

battered thirty years before by Dutch and Spanish broadsides.

Some of the new men of war, indeed, were so rotten that, unless

speedily repaired, they would go down at their moorings. The

sailors were paid with so little punctuality that they were glad

to find some usurer who would purchase their tickets at forty per

cent. discount. The commanders who had not powerful friends at

court were even worse treated. Some officers, to whom large

arrears were due. after vainly importuning the government during

many years, had died for want of a morsel of bread.


Most of the ships which were afloat were commanded by men who had

not been bred to the sea. This, it is true, was not an abuse

introduced by the government of Charles. No state, ancient or

modern, had, before that time, made a complete separation between

the naval and military service. In the great civilised nations of

antiquity, Cimon and Lysander, Pompey and Agrippa, had fought

battles by sea as well as by land. Nor had the impulse which

nautical science received at the close of the fifteenth century

produced any new division of labour. At Flodden the right wing of

the victorious army was led by the Admiral of England. At Jarnac

and Moncontour the Huguenot ranks were marshalled by the Admiral

of France. Neither John of Austria, the conqueror of Lepanto, nor

Lord Howard of Effingham, to whose direction the marine of

England was confided when the Spanish invaders were approaching

our shores, had received the education of a sailor. Raleigh,

highly celebrated as a naval commander, had served during many

years as a soldier in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland. Blake

had distinguished himself by his skilful and valiant defence of

an inland town before he humbled the pride of Holland and of

Castile on the ocean. Since the Restoration the same system had

been followed. Great fleets had been entrusted to the direction

of Rupert and Monk; Rupert, who was renowned chiefly as a hot and

daring cavalry officer, and Monk, who, when he wished his ship to

change her course, moved the mirth of his crew by calling out,

"Wheel to the left!"


But about this time wise men began to perceive that the rapid

improvement, both of the art of war and of the art of navigation,

made it necessary to draw a line between two professions which

had hitherto been confounded. Either the command of a regiment or

the command of a ship was now a matter quite sufficient to occupy

the attention of a single mind. In the year 1672 the French

government determined to educate young men of good family from a

very early age especially for the sea service. But the English

government, instead of following this excellent example, not only

continued to distribute high naval commands among landsmen, but

selected for such commands landsmen who, even on land, could not

safely have been put in any important trust. Any lad of noble

birth, any dissolute courtier for whom one of the King's

mistresses would speak a word, might hope that a ship of the

line, and with it the honour of the country and the lives of

hundreds of brave men, would be committed to his care. It

mattered not that he had never in his life taken a voyage except

on the Thames, that he could not keep his feet in a breeze, that

he did not know the difference between latitude and longitude. No

previous training was thought necessary; or, at most, he was sent

to make a short trip in a man of war, where he was subjected to

no discipline, where he was treated with marked respect, and

where he lived in a round of revels and amusements. If, in the

intervals of feasting, drinking, and gambling, he succeeded in

learning the meaning of a few technical phrases and the names of

the points of the compass, he was thought fully qualified to take

charge of a three-decker. This is no imaginary description. In

1666, John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, at seventeen years of

age, volunteered to serve at sea against the Dutch. He passed six

weeks on board, diverting himself, as well as he could, in the

society of some young libertines of rank, and then returned home

to take the command of a troop of horse. After this he was never

on the water till the year 1672, when he again joined the fleet,

and was almost immediately appointed Captain of a ship of

eighty-four guns, reputed the finest in the navy. He was then

twenty-three years old, and had not, in the whole course of his

life, been three months afloat. As soon as he came back from sea

he was made Colonel of a regiment of foot. This is a specimen of

the manner in which naval commands of the highest importance were

then given; and a very favourable specimen; for Mulgrave, though

he wanted experience, wanted neither parts nor courage. Others