Chapter 8

Interlude

The next Revenge to be commissioned was a Sixth Rate, built at the Port of Bombay in 1755, headquarters of the East India Company. As a Sixth Rate, the new Revenge was typical of the growth in the cruiser force which had risen to 30 per cent of total British warship tonnage in 1760.¹ Ships of this size were useful for fast patrolling and for keeping a check on interlopers.

In 1750, Bombay acquired a dry-dock and the ships were built by naval shipwrights. Revenge would have been used to patrol the Indian Ocean.

Bombay had originally been a Portuguese possession, a relic of the discovery route to India via Cape of Good Hope by the early Portuguese navigators, notably Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese had named it Bom Bahia (literally Good Bay), in recognition of its ample proportions. In 1661, as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to Charles II of England, Bombay was ceded to England and later leased by the East India Company in 1668.

Bombay provided a deep-water port and the East India Company made sure that they took full advantage of the natural features of building up their own facilities, including causeways, forts and a castle. By 1687, the Company had turned Bombay into its Indian headquarters. Later it would even develop its own navy, the Bombay Marine, which would form the basis of the future Indian Navy. The Bombay Marine played an important role in fighting off marauding ships from rival European nations, namely Portugal, France and Holland, but also a range of pirates and other unwelcome guests. This Revenge foundered in 1782. A brig was named Revenge in 1778 and was captured by Americans in 1779.

The next Revenge was a Third Rate of 74 guns, laid down at Chatham in 1800 and launched on 13 April 1805. The order for the Revenge, among seven other ships, was in response to the growing threat to Britain, not only from France, but from Holland and Spain as well.

Although built in 1805 and thus a brand-new ship when she sailed at Trafalgar that same year, Revenge did not represent a significant change in design from ships that had been launched half a century earlier – ‘The methods of construction used in 1805 did not permit any great expansion of the two-decker.’² The materials used, largely comprising oak and other timbers, had numerous advantages, but also limitations, and no radical design had been developed that would change the shape, capacity or handling of ships of a particular weight designed to carry a particular number of guns. This is not to say there had been no innovations in the preceding period – far from it. There was a constant urge to refine methods of ship design and a consequent pressure on relevant departments to adapt so as to enable new systems to function more efficiently. Shipwrights became more and more specialized and the fulcrum of other sub-trades. The Surveyors’ Office took on a new prominence in the last years of the eighteenth century, although it was too early for science to make a significant contribution to the design of a ship’s hull or her superstructure. In both cases, experience and wisdom handed down over centuries was the most important factor, notwithstanding the frequent recourse to French designs, which were considered superior. The ship’s displacement had to be balanced against its potential speed through the water. As far as the superstructure was concerned, space had to be found for stores, men and guns, and there was the knotty problem of how to deploy guns effectively through open gun ports when the ship was heeling in a high wind. Guns that were placed too high above the waterline, on the other hand, were likely to seriously destabilize the ship.

Chatham

By the time Revenge was laid down, Chatham had diminished in its importance as a naval base, its heyday having been the period of the Dutch Wars, for which for obvious geographical reasons it was strategically well placed. After this golden age, the emphasis at Chatham was on its less glamorous but still strategically vital role of building, repairing and maintaining the fleet.

The increasingly rare oak having been ordered and the ship’s design received at the yard, the wood would be cut to shape to form the various parts of the ship, the first and most fundamental being the keel. Other parts included the floor timbers and various shapes and sizes of ‘futtock’ that were cut over templates to produce the shape of the ship. At either end there was a sternpost and stem-post. The ship was then framed, leaving spaces for the gun ports.

Once the main structure of the hull had been completed, the ship was left to stand for a period of several months or even years to allow the wood to season, a process which would be complete when the sap had drained from the wood. Once the seasoning was complete, the planking would be added to the frame. Deck beams were then added which provided essential structural strength and bracing, as well as providing support for men, guns and stores. Depending on the size of the ship, there might be an orlop deck, a gun deck, a middle deck and an upper deck. Added to these were the forecastle, quarterdeck and poop deck. The decks were supported by ‘knees’ – L-shaped pieces of timber which were sometimes difficult to obtain due to the relative scarcity of trees of the right type and shape from which they could be cut. Once all these processes were complete, Revenge would have been ready to be launched into the Medway prior to fitting out.

The next essential for the new Revenge was her masts. These would probably have been sourced from either the Baltic or New England, and finished by shipwrights in England. There were three masts in a 74 – the main mast, the foremast and the mizzen mast. The other masts were positioned in such a way as to minimize their interference of and from the sails of the main mast. In addition to the vertical masts, there was the angled bowsprit in the bows of the ship which had a number of uses, including part of the bracing of the main mast and an anchor for the forestays. Although the bowsprit had traditionally carried sails, known as spritsails or later staysails, the Revenge of 1805 broke new ground and carried neither. Instead, the gaff mizzen, which hung diagonally off the back of the mizzen mast, was extended on Revenge in comparison with earlier designs.

In order to carry the weight of sails, which typically would include a lower sail, topsail, topgallant and loyal, the masts were constructed from several sections. By virtue of the huge natural forces to which they would be exposed, the masts, particularly the main and foremasts, ran through all of the decks of the ship and were secured at their base in the keelson. On each deck, the masts were also secured to deck beams. Where the lower mast met the upper mast, constructions known as trestletrees and tops were built. These allowed shrouds to support the topmast and provided a platform to be used for tactical shooting and so on.

Rigging was an art in itself and rope was often made in the Navy’s own yards. The rigging both supported the masts themselves, with an emphasis being placed on holding the mast from the rear against the forward pull of the sail, and it was also used for pulling sails into position and keeping them trimmed. The rigging that went forward from the mast was known as the forestays, whereas the shrouds were angled to the rear.

Shrouds were designated according to the mast they served, namely ‘the main, fore and mizzen shrouds, the main top-mast, fore-top-mast, or mizzen top-mast shrouds, and the main top-gallant, fore top-gallant or mizzen top-gallant shrouds.’³ The shrouds would stretch under the force of the sails and would need to be tensioned. This was achieved through a system of lanyards and blocks, one attached to the shroud and the other to the deck.

Running rigging can be broken down into braces, sheets, haliards, clue-lines, brails and so on. The sheet, for example, was a rope fastened to the corner of a sail in order to keep it in a particular position. The yard was a piece of horizontal timber which supported the sail. This was designed to be turned according to the direction of the wind. It could also be lowered and raised. The brace was a rope that was used to pull the yards into the required position and they were attached for this purpose to the ends of the yards.

The sail was so called due to a derivation of the Dutch word ‘seyhel’ or ‘seyl’. It was made up of several pieces of cloth stitched together, the individual pieces being known as cloths. The sails of a 74 would consist of ‘courses, or lower sails, the top-sails, which are next in order above the courses; and the top-gallant sails, which are expanded above the top-sails. The courses are the main-sail, foresail, and mizzen, main-stay-sail, forestay and mizzen-stay-sail; but more particularly the three first.’⁴

The sails were hauled up to the yards by means of lines. When the sail was furled it was attached to the yard by ropes known as gaskets. These could only be tied by men who had gone aloft and worked their way along the foot ropes suspended under the yard. The brave men who did this work in all weathers were known as topmen.

The forces that would be exerted on the sails would be counterbalanced by the weight of the ship, including the ballast in the hold, weight of provisions and armament, and other stores on top of that. The ballast for a 74 normally consisted of a mixture of iron and shingle, on which provisions such as barrels of water, beer and rum would lie. Proper ballasting was a skilled job as it would have a direct effect on the ship’s trim and speed through the water, and also on her stability in rough seas and strong winds. It was the responsibility of the master of the ship to find the right balance, so that the ballast was neither too high nor too low, too far forward or aft. In calculating the trim, the master would be aware of the gravitational forces pulling downwards and the contrary flotation forces pushing in the opposite direction. A correct trim would mean that the centre of gravity was neither too high so as to cause the ship to capsize, nor too low so as to cause her to be unwieldy in the water, or for her masts to break due to the over-weight of the ship.

British designers tended to build heavier ships than the French, whose ships were comparatively lighter, more buoyant and with guns set higher.

Seamen

Once built and fitted out with masts and rigging, and with ballast and preliminary stores on board, the Revenge would start to receive her crew.

The skills of the seamen of large sailing ships are still celebrated today in mast drills at tournaments. The seaman was a highly skilled individual who had to demonstrate considerable courage and physical prowess to be able to scramble up the rigging, often in rough and stormy weather, and work his way along the yardarms at great heights, his feet only supported by a rope and his arms over the yard itself, leaving hands free to haul in unpredictable, wind-lashed sail cloth. A wrong move meant certain death.

In addition to his physical aptitude, the seaman had to learn how to tie a host of knots and to recognize myriad styles of rigging and ropes, with associated blocks and tackle. Not surprisingly, such men were both prized and relatively scarce. It was not enough to send an ordinary landlubber aloft in the hope that he would learn the trade through experience. The seaman, and particularly the topman, had to be carefully trained as the efficiency of the ship and his own life depended on it.

Seamen for ships such as Revenge were largely impressed men and there was always a danger of desertion. Leave was therefore limited to reduce the likelihood of seamen opting for an easier life ashore.

The official ship’s complement for HMS Revenge was 640, though the actual number aboard was probably typically around 630.

Stores

The stores that were taken on included 478 casks of water, 32 casks of beer, 4 tons of wine and 16 tons of spirits. Food included 13 tons worth of beef, about the same weight of pork and a list of additional supplies including oatmeal, bread and cheese.

The armament of seventy-four guns included: twenty-eight 32lb guns for the lower deck; thirty 24lb guns on the main deck; and sixteen 9lb guns and carronades on the upper deck and poop. The guns were supplied by the Ordnance Board and, once taken aboard, they were supervised by the master gunner, who was responsible for their maintenance, for their correct fitting with tackles and for their supply with a variety of shot and powder. Under the master gunner there was a crew consisting of mates and a quarter gunner who would be attached to a group of four guns.

A typical 32lb gun was a smoothbore of just over 9 feet in length. It was tapered towards the muzzle and was moulded with trunnions on each side to fit into a gun carriage, and a mounting at the rear for attaching the breeching tackle. When the gun was loaded, a cartridge of gunpowder would first be rammed down the barrel via the muzzle. The ball would then be inserted, followed by a wad. The wad was required due to the disparity between the size of the ball and the bore of the cannon, known as windage. This was due to the inaccuracies in boring cannon which meant that extra room for error had to be built in. The end result was loss of efficiency when firing as a significant proportion of the expelling force of the explosion would be lost round the sides of the ball.

The gun carriage was a simple construction with four wheels which was typically fitted with tackle on each side fed through two blocks, attached to the side of the gun carriage and to the side of the gun port. The tackle was designed to facilitate the rolling out of the gun but, even so, it required at least thirteen men to roll out a 32lb gun. The extent of recoil of the gun was defined by the breeching rope which was fed round the back of the gun via the cascabel and attached with ring bolts to the hull. Another piece of tackle, known as the train tackle, was designed to stop the cannon rolling forward when it was being loaded.

The projectile was normally a round cannon ball but could also include chain shot (two balls joined by a chain), which was designed to destroy rigging, or a thin-cased grapeshot canister which could be fired at enemy personnel, or the less commonly used bar shot.

Gunpowder was stored in barrels in the magazine. In view of the obvious dangers of a spark igniting such a large concentration of gunpowder, which could blow the ship apart, the barrels were rested on leather skins to prevent sparks caused by friction, especially in bad weather or when the barrels were being moved. The magazine was lined with copper so as to prevent rats getting in and trailing gunpowder around the ship. Lighting for the magazine was kept in a separate room, the light penetrating through thick glass. Gun charges or cartridges were made ready in the filling room and laid on racks prior to use.

The traditional method of firing a cannon had been to put a lighted match on a touch hole. This had disadvantages due to the delay that sometimes ensued before the charge ignited. British cannon were increasingly fitted with a flintlock mechanism which made firing more efficient and accurate – it was one of the contributory factors to the greater efficiency of British gun management at Trafalgar and elsewhere. The other factor was training. The gun deck of a British man-of-war, once cleared for action, was an efficient space in which every man was highly trained in his role. The rate of fire of British ships was greater than that of their enemies and their aim was generally more accurate.

The first captain of the new Revenge was Robert Moorsom, born at Whitby, Yorkshire in 1760 to a family of seafarers. He joined the Royal Navy in 1777 and, after seeing action at the Siege of Gibraltar and Cape Spartel, as well as against a French convoy, he was made a lieutenant in 1784. As war loomed, he was made up to post captain in 1790. Moorsom’s association with Revenge was to prove the highlight of a career which might otherwise have gone unremarked.

Moorsom’s new command – like her ‘race-built’ ancestor of Armada fame – was significantly sleeker and faster than many other ships of the line, qualities that would contribute to her significant role in what was to be the most important battle ever fought by the Royal Navy.

Revenge’s first station was with the Channel fleet and here, as William Robinson narrates in his personal account of his experiences on board Revenge, the ship was worked up into full fighting order and the watches were set up – starboard and larboard.⁵ The starboard watch went on duty at eight o’clock at night, and the larboard watch at twelve o’clock. The half hours on board were marked by bells which were sounded as the hour glass was turned. The period of channel watch would have allowed some of the less experienced men to become accustomed to the rigours of naval life and for the crew to learn to work together as a team, which was essential for the efficient running of the ship. Soon HMS Revenge was ordered to sail for the Bay of Biscay and down the Spanish coast towards Cadiz.