Chapter 5

The Navy of Pepys

The Revenge that took part in the Battle of Schooneveld was not the veteran of the Four Days’ Battle and St James’s Day but a new and larger ship: a 1,065-ton Third Rate of 70 guns, 150 feet in length and 40 feet in width, built at Deptford in 1699.

In 1671, as part of a squadron of six ships under Vice Admiral Sir Edward Spragge (known as ‘Old Trekky’) despatched to the Mediterranean to suppress piracy, Revenge took part in an attack on Bugia Bay (Port de Bougie), in which seven warships and three Algerine Corsairs were burned, and the town and castle were bombarded, killing about 400 people. Old Trekky was wounded in the action.

In 1673, James Duke of York, who was a Catholic, resigned from his post of Lord High Admiral as a result of the Test Act. Rupert took over command and made two attempts to destroy the Dutch fleet off the Schooneveld in May and June 1673, but de Ruijter managed to foil both attempts through brilliant handling of his ships and also succeeded in opening Dutch ports once again to incoming convoys.

The final battle of the war took place off the Texel on 11 August 1673. The Dutch managed to separate the French van from the main body so that it took no part in the battle in the rear between Sir Edward Spragge and Tromp, in which Spragge was killed. The battle was a stalemate, but de Ruijter had succeeded in preventing an invasion and Charles had little choice but to end an unpopular war at the Treaty of Westminster in February 1674.

So ended an extraordinary episode in naval warfare, which was full of implications for the future of the Royal Navy. The Revenge and the Navy in which she sailed was at the centre of myriad influences, personalities and events, each of which could have had a decisive influence on the course of subsequent history.

The tenure of James, Duke of York, as overall commander of the Royal Navy was a fruitful one, as the issue of the fighting instructions bears witness, but it was limited in duration by matters that had little to do with naval tactics. The Catholic Duke of York was also married to a Catholic, Mary d’Este. His wife’s Chaplain was Claude de la Colombière, a highly gifted French Jesuit who had previously been spiritual director to Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitandine nun and visionary of the Sacred Heart, at the convent in Paray-le-Monial.

So great was Claude de la Colombière’s influence that Protestants began to convert back to the Old Faith. This inevitably caused jealousy and both Titus Oates and Israel Tonge went to great lengths to discredit the Jesuits as plotters on the life of the King. Claude de la Colombière was imprisoned as a result of the scandal and his life was only saved through the direct intervention of Louis XIV.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart is said to have had far-reaching implications for the Roi Soleil. After a holy revelation in 1689, Margaret Mary Alacoque wrote to her Superior to tell her that the French King should arrange for public reverence to the Sacred Heart and that its symbol should appear on the Royal coat of arms.

According to the Cavalier Parliament, by helping to bring the Dutch to their knees, the Duke of York’s navy was participating in a global Catholic plot in league with the Jesuits and the French King. The Test Act of 1673, which barred Catholics from high office, put an end to this alleged scheme.

Revenge, which at the Armada had been the scourge of Catholic Spain, had now become the agent of the Catholic Church in a navy commanded by a Catholic Duke under a King with distinctly Catholic sympathies allied to a French monarch who, by all accounts, had been designated by Jesus Christ Himself as the Catholic nemesis, empowered, should he obey the requests of the Sacred Heart, to avenge himself upon his Protestant foes. But it was not to be. Louis XIV was too distracted by his court and mistresses to comply with the request of an eccentric mystic. The Protestant nations remained bloodied but unbowed and the English Parliament took steps to ensure that a Catholic future should be the last thing that would await them. The sun began to set on the Roi Soleil.

These were not the only troubled waters on which Revenge had to sail. The seventeenth century was a period of important developments for the Navy: it saw the development of the tactical arts in the ‘Fighting Instructions’; the crystallization of the administration of the Navy in the Navy Board and the Admiralty; and the emergence of some startling personalities, such as Blake, Monck, Prince Rupert, the Duke of York and, of course, Samuel Pepys.

Born in London on 23 February 1633, Pepys came into a comparatively humble family that had left behind greater things when the family had lived in the countryside. After St Paul’s School and Magdalene College, Cambridge, he found his way into the service of Edward Montagu, later to become a General-at-Sea. When Montagu sided with Monck at the Restoration, Pepys found himself elevated beyond his wildest dreams, first as Admiral’s Secretary and Treasurer to the Fleet, and later Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board. In 1673 he was to join the Admiralty, after the departure of the Duke of York, as Secretary to the Commission. In 1679 he was made Secretary for Admiralty Affairs.

Initially Samuel Pepys’s dealings were with the Navy Board, otherwise styled ‘the Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy’. The board had a wide remit that included: the production and supply of naval requirements in both peace and war; the building and repair of ships; the procurement of all equipment and stores; and the management of the dockyards.¹

As Clerk of the Acts, Samuel Pepys was the Navy Board’s chief administrative officer and was immersed in every detail pertaining to ships such as Revenge, from the commissioning of the ship itself to the detail of how blocks were purchased.

Being at Deptford today, among other things, to inform myself in the business of blocks, of which [we] are now to buy great quantity to send to Portsmouth for the ships now going forth – I inquired of Mr [Sh] how they were measured, for we buy them at so much for all above that diameter. He told me that he measures them always the breadth way. By and by, when Edgehill the blockmaster comes and I asked him the like, he told me that we measure them and take them from him always the length-ways and never otherwise anywhere.²

This attention to detail extended to almost every other item, including ship’s lanterns: ‘Measuring of lanterns ill regarded … Fletcher [timber measurer] … tells me plainly, that he never measured one in his life – nor knows how they are to be measured.’³

It was clear that, under the supervision of Samuel Pepys, no stone was to be left unturned and that every kind of irregularity, anachronism and oversight would be levelled off and planed down until the system was as smooth as a well-turned mast. In doing so, he was carrying out to the letter the injunction to principal officers: ‘Take care that no provision of any considerable quantity or price be served into His Majesty’s store without contract made for the same at a public meeting, where both the provisions in quantity and goodness, dimensions and price may be maturely scanned and accordingly specified in the contract.’⁴

Pepys’s large capacity for work, allied to his eagle-eyed attention to detail, was applied to essentials such as masts, hemp, tar and pitch, as well as the supply of anchors. Reliable in small things, he was also responsible for large ones, and as member for Castle Rising he was instrumental in gaining approval for a major shipbuilding programme in 1677, for which £600,000 was voted for the building of thirty ships, including one First Rate, nine Second Rates and twenty Third Rates.

The fourth Revenge would have been commissioned according to a contract similar to that made for another famous Royal Navy ship, HMS Warspite, also a Third Rate, in 1665: ‘one good and substantial new ship or frigate of good well seasoned timber and plank of English oak and elm … [at £7.00 per ton] as measured and calculated according to the accustomed rule of Shipwrights Hall.’⁵

This apparently innocuous order concealed a larger problem that Pepys wrestled with for a large part of his career – the shortage of English oak to build the ships. While supply was generally equal to demand up to the time of the First Dutch War, the switch to specially commissioned ships for the Royal Navy, as opposed to the extensive reliance on converted merchantmen, of which the second Revenge is an example, heightened demand not only for English oak, which was regarded as superior to other varieties, but also oak of the correct shape.

Due to the difficulties in shaping timber to meet the norms of naval architecture – as Fred T. Jane said, ‘The limitations of the tree proved the limitations of the ship’ – a great deal of care and time was expended in finding trees of the correct size and shape. This special timber, known as ‘curved’ or ‘compass’ timber was usually sourced from trees that stood apart from the main forest growth, as these isolated trees were likely to grow their branches in the required shape.⁶

The unique properties of oak allowed it to resist enemies that were more likely to put a ship out of service or send it to the bottom than enemy cannon balls: the teredo navalis, or sea worm, which attacked the ship’s timbers from the outside, and dry rot, which attacked them from the inside. Oak was rich in tannic or gallic acid that deterred the sea worm, adding to the demand for this particular wood, when shortages might otherwise have easily been resolved by the use of alternative trees.

Nevertheless, if not properly attended to and not sufficiently aired, dry rot would eventually penetrate the wood with macabre white fibres, weakening the supporting frame timbers in the area of the waterline and causing the ship to collapse under its own weight and founder. The problem was exacerbated by insufficient seasoning which in turn was caused by limited supply and urgent demand, especially in time of diplomatic tension or war.

The scale of the problem faced by Pepys and the Navy Board can easily be gathered from a report on the state of ships in 1666, the year of the Four Days’ Battle. The defects of the third Revenge are described as follows:

Many of her sister ships were described as ‘very leaky’ (Henrietta, Portsmouth, Newcastle, Old James, Delft) or, in the case of the Antelope, ‘Extremely leaky underwater’.

Many of the ships in the list also had defective main masts, foremasts or mizzen masts. Since there were fifty-three ships listed, all of them requiring substantial attention to hulls and/or masts, not to mention sails and cordage, it is not difficult to imagine the pressure the Navy Board must have been under to provide not only sufficient quantities of replacement materials, but at the right price and at the right time.

Oak, elm, beech and fir were the main timber woods used in the King’s ships up to 1804 and, although many of these could be obtained from abroad, foreign timber tended to be more susceptible to dry rot by the time it reached its destination and was ready for use by the Royal Navy. This was due to the simple fact that the process of rot infestation was likely to have already begun in the manky and poorly ventilated holds of the ships that were transporting them. But, these factors apart, ‘To an English shipwright there was not wood in the world superior to English oak … The solution of the timber problem was now strongly affected by the stupid and conservative partiality for certain woods, and an equally unjustifiable discrimination against others. This tended to exhaust the supply of the favoured timbers when the drain could have been relieved by using the others.’⁷ This preference was not due to sentimental patriotism, however. There something about English oak that made it a genuinely better raw material.

Quercus robur, otherwise known as pedunculate or English oak, grows to a height of between 30 and 40 metres, and can reach an age of 1,000 years or more. Its ideal habitat is in fertile soils with a pH of between 4.5 and 7.5. The oak has an immensely strong close-grained heartwood that is ideal for shipbuilding or house building, and also has numerous other uses including the manufacture of oak casks. Although commonly associated with England, the tree grows widely across Europe, from Scandinavia down as far as Sicily and across to the Urals. Supply of this material should therefore in theory have been relatively straightforward. The soil and climate, however, affected the quality of the timber and, in the opinion of English shipwrights, the native soil and climate produced the best quality of wood. Trees from Sussex were a particular favourite.

This choosiness in itself limited the supply, but there were other factors at play. Whereas England had once been superabundant in this muscular tree, the incursions of agriculture, the profit-seeking of new landowners and the competing demands from such areas as the housebuilding trade combined to make the problem of limited supply more acute.

An appropriately sized English oak was not an easily renewable resource – it was not an option to put the country’s political and naval ambitions on hold for the 100 years that it took for an oak to mature. Sensibly managed plantations would, however, relieve the headaches of future generations.

A plan to bring the Royal Forests into the equation met with little success and private individuals were encouraged to do their bit by replanting and maintaining the trees that would be used to protect the nation and their own interests.

The Navy Board worked out a scheme to cover timber districts, including Berkshire, Essex, two parts of Suffolk, Sussex, Salisbury, Winchester environs, Chichester and neighbourhood, Norfolk, Nottingham, Yorkshire and Staffordshire. A typical purchase was from Sir William Warren of 4,000 loads of oak timber and fifty loads of knees. The price of timber varied between £3 2s 6d and £2 13s per load, depending on the quality and whether it was straight timber or the more highly prized and rare ‘compass’ or curved timber. Knees were normally purchased at between £4 10s per load and £3 10s. Home supply was not enough: ‘The Navy Board had early on contracted for substantial quantities of timber from Scandinavia and the Baltic. The first purchases were made on 23 May 1677 and were for 1,000 loads of oak timber and plank, 300 loads of drawn timber and 10,000 deals.’⁸

Due to likely interruption of supply, especially when England was at war, the Navy Board switched supply of masts from the ‘East Country’ to North America, though in due course this would also prove to be a problem due to the American Revolution, though this was still some time hence. On 10 September 1663, Pepys had the satisfaction of closing a deal with Sir William Warren for the supply of masts from Gottenburg, Norway and New England.

In 1691 a new Massachusetts Charter was signed whereby all pine trees suitable for masts of a diameter of 24 inches and more from 12 inches above the ground would be reserved for the English Crown.

The abundance of nature often leads to careless overuse by man. It is also not always in the nature of men to plan for succeeding generations when faced with immediate problems in the present. The timber shortage experienced by Pepys, the Navy Board and the English Navy in the seventeenth century was, sadly, not to be resolved. It is a testament to the strength of Quercus robur, the English oak, that it would one day rule the seas, despite desperate shortages in supply for the building of new ships and for repairs.

Pepys’s frustration with the inadequate supply not only of oak but a whole range of other essentials is evident from his correspondence:

By this means in general, I may observe, it is very true that our many demands at this day made from every yard for the dispatch of twelve ships now going forth with all imaginable dispatch in expectation of a Dutch war, there is not sufficient stores of all sorts in any one of his Majesty’s yard to set forth one ship – without borrowing of some other ship that possibly may be in the River or of the rigging that lies by belonging to another ship, and these are but few too, God knows.⁹

Hemp was one of these necessities, a product that was a prerequisite for a fully functioning ship, and which had to be obtained far and wide, including Italy and Russia, the best-quality hemp coming from the Baltic. In order to obviate the complications of importing supplies, efforts were made to develop the domestic industry.

Canvas for sails was another necessity and, again, the best-quality materials came from abroad, this time from Brittany. Good canvas could also be found in the Netherlands, known as Holland Duck canvas, but with England at war with the Netherlands supply was obviously curtailed from that quarter. Although English canvas could be sourced from areas as diverse as Suffolk and the West Country, it was not considered strong enough for heavy sails.

Tar was also required and had to be imported – as it was used for caulking it was therefore an essential. International tensions could easily limit the supply from the ‘East Country’, namely Russia and the Baltic, and so Pepys and the Navy Board endeavoured to ensure enough reserves were built up to provide in time of war and to avoid the commercial blackmail that could take place when a few contractors had a monopoly on the supply of essential materials:

Tar … had to be imported … it was desirable, if funds were available, to buy forward and stockpile against a possible emergency. This trade again was largely in the hands of a group of City merchants. Pepys hoped he had broken one of these rings (Bowyer, Hill and Stacy) by doing a private deal with Stacy’s office, but when it came to the point Stacy would not implement the agreement.¹⁰

Deptford, where Revenge was built, was frequented by Samuel Pepys and the fourth Revenge was a result of the considerable surge in shipbuilding that took place in the first decade of the eighteenth century.

A Third Rate was a two-decker ship, and one of the most common ships in the Navy. The most famous of these was the 74-gun Third Rate. Not a great deal had changed since the days of Elizabeth I, though the fourth Revenge had a less racy design than her successor. The fourth Revenge was effectively a frigate, comparatively light on the water, though heavier, due to the greater weight of guns, and not as manoeuvrable as her more famous ancestor. The guns were comparatively unchanged, including the short-barrelled, medium-range culverin.

With the arrival of William of Orange in England in 1688, Pepys’s star began to wane, having collaborated with George Legge, Lord Dartmouth’s unsuccessful attempt to intercept William’s fleet. Pepys, whose work for the Navy had contributed to the creation of a national naval force that would one day dominate the oceans of the world, allowed himself to be mixed up in a disastrous muddle that resulted in a change in the monarchy.

William’s accession meant a radical change in foreign policy and whereas the third Revenge appeared to be the agent of a Catholic revival, the fourth Revenge was once again the servant of Protestantism ranged against the French. War was declared on France on 5 May 1689 and negotiations for co-operation with the Dutch fleet were wrapped up, turning the naval arrangements of the previous few years completely on their head.

The fourth Revenge sailed almost immediately into the cauldron that was the War of the Spanish Succession. Carlos II having died heirless, the succession went to Philippe of Anjou which in turn precipitated French military advances in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy.

With the death of William, the war against France proceeded under Queen Anne and the major historical emphasis switched to the exploits of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, who proceeded to unravel French ambitions with the help of Prince Eugene of Savoy.

Sir George Rooke had unsuccessfully attacked Cadiz in order to repeat Drake’s singeing of the King of Spain’s beard, but the attempt was badly organized and failed to achieve the intended result.

Sir George Rooke (1650–1709) was born near Canterbury and entered the Navy as a volunteer. He commanded a squadron at the siege of London in 1689 and became a Rear Admiral in 1690, when he participated at the Battle of Beachy Head. He made his mark at the Battle of La Hogue, when he contrived to burn six enemy ships and was rewarded for his action with a knighthood. He served in various posts in the Channel and in the Mediterranean until 1702, when he led the expedition against Cadiz, followed by the conspicuously successful raid on the Spanish and French fleet at Vigo. He was accompanied by Sir Cloudesley Shovell on the attack on Gibraltar on 21 July 1704, which received popular acclaim and which proved to be a milestone in British maritime history. On 13 August he commanded the fleet in an attack on the French off Malaga. The battle was inconclusive, with neither side losing a ship, and Rooke was subject to criticism for the poor preparation of the English fleet at the battle – the ships’ hulls had not been careened and the guns were short of ammunition after the extensive barrage at Gibraltar. On this negative note, he retired from the Navy in 1705 and died in 1709.

After the failure at Cadiz, Rooke’s face was saved when he got wind of some Spanish treasure ships in Vigo Bay. At a council of war held on the Royal Sovereign on 17 October 1702 it was decided to sail to Vigo and ‘insult them immediately with our whole line, in case these be enough’.¹¹

On arrival at Vigo on 18 October, Rooke sent in two boats to scout which reported back that there were about twenty-two Spanish galleons and eighteen French men-of-war. The ships had unloaded some of their treasure and were secured in an inlet above Vigo, near Redondella, protected by a boom made up, according to Captain Nathaniel Uring, thus:

They having unrigged their ships, laid their Masts and Yards abreast each other, and lashed them securely together which spread the whole breadth of the Channel, with their cables stretched out a length upon them and well fasten’d; and their Top and other chains were stapled down to the Mast, to prevent them being out by our Men. They moored it without Side and within, with several anchors and cables; it was 8 or 10 foot broad, which altogether made it so strong, that they thought it impossible to be forced.¹²

The Allied fleet anchored near the boom and another council of war was held in which it was decided that it was too risky to attempt to enter the enemy’s lair in full strength, due to the lack of sea space, and it was decided instead to send in a detachment of fifteen English and ten Dutch ships along with fireships, backed up by frigates and bomb vessels, with the major ships watching for any opportunities at the back.

The population of Vigo, having been visited upon years before by the legendary Drake, were understandably alarmed, as a French historian recounts:

L’inquietude puis la panique gagnerent toute la region; le vieux racontaient de terrible histoires du temps de leurs grandsparents; c’etait l’attaque de la ville en 1589 par Francis Drake qui brula les maisons, profana les eglises et laissa le pays ruine pour trent ans, c’etait la mise a sac de Cangas en 1617 par les pirates barbariques qui ne laisserent pierre sur pierre, qui massaeraient enfants et viellards et mutilaient les prisonniers a grand coups de cimeterre, qui couperent les seins de femmes don plusieurs nonnes.¹³

On Monday, 22 October, having landed troops in a bay ‘about a league above Vigo’ [Rooke], Vice Admiral Topsonn in the Torbay was ordered to make an attempt on the boom, which he succeeded in making. The Swiftsure accompanied the Berwick and the Essex under Rear Admiral Fairborne. Meanwhile the Marines attacked and took the forts, putting them out of action while the Allied ships passed beneath them.

What ensued was effectively a turkey shoot, with every French and Spanish ship being either burnt (16), sunk (8) or captured (12). On the Allied side, the Torbay came off worst, having been attacked by a fireship which then blew up.

Carlos di Risio has little doubt about the reasons for the crushing victory: the English gunners were better trained and could fire faster than either the French or Spaniards, and these two fleets were in any case a shadow of their former selves. Just over a hundred years later, at Trafalgar, the English would once again defeat a Franco-Spanish fleet, with once again a bold strategy and superior gunnery.

Following this victory, England made an alliance with Portugal and some Portuguese soldiers were present in the attack that took place on Gibraltar on 24 July 1704. Joined by Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Rooke held a council of war on 16 June in which the best possible targets were debated, the onus being on them to make good use of the considerable naval resources at their disposal, including the Swiftsure, a 70-gun ship built in 1673 which would be renamed Revenge in 1716. At a second meeting, on 17 June, Gibraltar was finally settled upon as the best option, though it is unlikely that the strategic impact of that decision for the next two centuries would have crossed the minds of those in attendance. It seemed to them to be a useful place to hold for the purposes of the war and it was also relatively lightly defended in comparison with ports such as Cadiz, on which Rooke had already burnt his fingers.

On 21 July, the Anglo-Dutch fleet arrived in Gibraltar Bay and 1,800 English and Dutch marines landed under the command of the Prince of Hesse, cutting the town off from the mainland. They received a barrage of cannon fire the next day, after the governor refused to surrender, but the marines took the fortifications and the governor of the town eventually surrendered on the 24th.

Leaving the Prince of Hesse in charge, the fleet then withdrew and some days later, on 9 August, spotted a French fleet and gave chase. By the 14th, the French had formed for action off Málaga and consisted of fifty-two ships and twenty-four galleys. The Anglo-Dutch fleet was fifty-two ships. The ensuing action was sporadic, with the enemy disinclined to stand and fight, eventually disappearing into the mist.

The Swiftsure was part of a division commanded by Sir Cloudesley Shovell, which also included the Barfleur, Eagle, Orford, Assurance, Warspite, Nottingham, Tilbury and Lenox. The English lost 691 men, the Dutch 400 killed and wounded and the French 3,048 men, along with one rear admiral, five captains, six lieutenants and five ensigns. The French, however, contrived to portray the battle as a victory – an early example of propaganda.

The Swiftsure remained under her original name for another decade, during which the Duke of Marlborough and Eugene fought a series of victorious campaigns over the French, prefaced by the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, with Ramillies and Oudenarde following in 1706 and 1708 respectively. When the war eventually drew to a close, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, which set the seal on Rooke’s capture of Gibraltar in perpetuity. This great lump of igneous rock was henceforth to be a lynchpin of British naval strategy in the Mediterranean and a stone in the shoe for Spain. Flying the Union Jack, it was emblematic of the rise in fortune of the British colonial empire and the relative decline of Spain and France.