FAMOUS SHIPS AND THEIR CAPTAINS.*
THE author of this book has got hold of a capital subject, and it is matter of some regret that he should have made a rather indifferent use of it. The idea of giving a ship a continuous history, like that which is possessed by a regiment, is an excellent one from every point of view ; and Mr. Woods might have helped largely in promoting it had he proved more suc- cessful in recording the past history of the dozen famous war- ships that he has chosen from the roll of the British Navy. Unfortunately he does not seem to possess the historical capacity, and his chronicle is of a confused and unsatisfactory character which rather tends to accentuate than clear away the difficulties of naval history. However, with all its drawbacks, his book deserves to be commended, for, at least, it makes a new departure and sets an example which, we hope, may be followed. British naval history is not nearly enough studied by the general public. For the most part it has to be gleaned from the lives of famous Admirals, or from the scanty data given by historical works of more general import. Much has been done of late years in the way of military history by those officers who have undertaken to record the services of particular regiments, but as yet no effort has been made to treat of naval history in the same fashion. It may be objected fairly enough that a ship and a regiment hardly stand on the same footing. A regiment is a corporate body, in which traditions can be handed down from generation to generation, both men and officers, as a rule, remaining in it the whole length of their service, and forming direct links between the past and the future. The ship, on the other hand, is nothing but a name. Take, for example, the 'Swifteure.' The 'Swiftsure ' of to-day, if we turn to the Naval List, is described as a screw battleship of the third class. What relation can • Paramus British Warships and their Commanders. By Walter Woods. London : Hunt and Blaekett. she be said to bear to the Swiftsures ' which fought against the Armada in 1588, and from that date took part in at least a dozen famous engagements, until the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 ? There were many different Swift- sures ' between the old Elizabethan ship and the present armoured battleship, and each was manned by many different crews ; the only link between them is the name. Moreover the personnel of the battleship, unlike that of a regiment, is continually being changed, so that a sailor may serve under a dozen names in the course of his career. Is the history to be written, then, of a mere name P For our part, we do not see
why it should not be. There is a great deal more in a name than their Lords of the Admiralty appear to think—to judge from the somewhat careless system of nomenclature which they pursue—and it is better that traditions should cluster round an empty name than round nothing at all. The men of H.M.S. ' Revenge ' would fight none the worse to-day if they fancied they were upholding the reputation and adding to the glorious history of the little 'Revenge' whose last fight off the Azores will live to all time. It is true that the constant change of a whole ship's crew rather militates against the impression that past traditions might otherwise make. Still, sailors are easily accessible to sentiment of this kind ; and an effort to impress them with such traditions, even if only applicable to two out of their many years of service, cannot but be attended with good results. There are few men in the Black Watch who have not some inkling of their regimental history, and do not cherish a lively idea of the honour which they have to maintain ; and there is no reason, when a modern battleship, as many of them do, bears an old and famous name, why its sailors should not be animated by the same feeling.
The author of the work before us has selected some thirteen ships, and coupling them with the names of their most famous
commanders, has given us the history of their chief exploits.
First on the list, by right of priority if not by any other right, is the story of the fight of the 'Revenge' under Sir Richard Grenville. It is by far the best told of the collec- tion, though Mr. Woods's prose falls lamentably short of the stirring verse of Lord Tennyson. And next in order of merit, as well as next upon the author's list, is the history of the cruise of the 'Centurion' under Lord Anson. The author remarks that " Vanderdecken and his spectral band on board the Flying Dutchman,' battling for ever with the wind and sea, form a picture not less fearful than that which has been given to us of Anson, with his rotten ship and scurvy-smitten crew, lumbering on his
course in Southern seas, taking here a ship and there a ship, and at the end of all his tribulation coming up with and
smiting sorely the Spanish captain with the sonorous name
and carrying off his galleon with her precious freight." For our part, we think the condition of Anson's ship the more fearful of the two—which perhaps was what the author in- tended to say, only he expressed it wrongly—for at least the crew of the Flying Dutchman' were not rotting with
scurvy. Anson sailed from England with the ' Centurion ' and two other ships, their crews numbering altogethes nine hundred and sixty-one men ; his expedition lasted three years and nine months, and he returned with the 'Centurion' alone and three hundred and thirty-five men. He had captured
several ships of the enemy and treasure to tho value of over 000,000, bathe had lost two ships of his own, and six hundred and twenty-six men by the most terrible of diseases. The glamour of the booty—the pieces of eight, the plate, and the virgin silver—is rather apt, as the author says, to obscure on eyes to the sacrifice by which it was acquired. The mortality on board these ships was not only due to the inevitable attacks of scurvy :— "When be was almost ready to sail he applied for three hundred seamen, the number by which he was short, who were to be furnished at Portsmouth. When he asked for them, however, he was told that only one hundred and seventy could he spared. Of these one hundred and seventy, thirty-two were received out of hcspital, three officers and thirty-seven men came from Low thees Regiment, and ninety-eight were soldier-marines. Anson had also been promised three hundred men from Colonel Bland's Regiment of Foot, to be employed as land forces in the operations against the Spanish settlements. These troops, also, he never got, but received in their stead some out-pensioners of Chelsea Hospital. He was to have had five hundred of these poor old creatures, but every pensioner who had the strength to get away deserted from Portsmouth, and only two hundred and fifty-nine appeared on board the ships of Anson's squadron. All
:hese were invalids, some of them being more than seventy years old, while most were turned sixty."
Not one of these pensioners returned alive. One shrinks from reflecting upon the horrible cruelty of sending these men to their certain death at sea,—men who had already seen suffering and service enough to entitle them to a hardly earned repose ; but is it not extraordinary that ships, ill- found in nearly every particular and manned by such crews as these, should have done what they did under Anson and other contemporary commanders P On reading such a book as this, one is impressed with an almost superhuman idea of the naval captain of old days. To turn to a commander of another kind, Mr. Woods has included in his list the un- fortunate Admiral Byng, and his ship, the 'Ramillies,' upon which he suffered death as a condemned traitor to his country. History has long ago done Admiral Byng justice, and there is no longer any need to protest against the pitiless verdict which his colleagues passed upon him. Justice, too, of a rather tardy kind, has been done to that erratic genius, Lord Cochrane, who in his life had almost as much cause to complain of the ingratitude of his country as Byng had in his death. His exploits with the 'Speedy' form not the least interesting of Mr. Woods's chapters. We have not space to refer to more of the author's sea-heroes and their ships. The 'Victory' figures twice on the list, under Lord Nelson and Lord St. Vincent, and as a single ship, affords the most splendid record of all, if we except the heroic suicide of the 'Revenge.'
We have derived just that amount of pleasure from reading Mr. Woods's book which makes us a little chary of blame. Still, we must honestly confess that, as a literary work, it leaves much to be desired. To use a familiar expression, the author seems to us incurably muddle-headed. He cannot tell a plain tale in a plain, straightforward fashion. For choice he generally begins at the end, and when he gets to the middle of it he works backwards and forwards with perfect indif- ference and the most tiresome repetitions. He often repeats a whole page of information over again, as if it were some- thing that he had accidentally omitted to mention before. Nevertheless, as we have already said, there is much interest- ing and suggestive matter in his book, and the main idea of it is one we would willingly encourage.
Previous page
