Captain Cook's Merchant Ships E-Book

Stephen Baines

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 461

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

While the story of Endeavour is widely known, Captain Cook sailed with eight ships, which began their lives as merchant vessels. This detailed illustrated history tells the story of these vessels and the people who sailed in them. In placing these ships and people in the personal, political, social, financial, scientific and religious contexts of their times, this book provides a comprehensive and readable account of the 'long eighteenth century'. Using contemporary sources, this gripping narrative fills a gap in Cook history and attempts to catch something of the exciting, violent, gossipy but largely untaught and unknown period through which these vessels and their people sailed literally and figuratively between the old world and the new.

Leseprobe

You are a King by your own Fire-side, as much as any Monarch in his Throne: You have Liberty and Property, which set you above Favour or Affection, and may therefore freely like or dislike this History, according to your Humour.

(Cervantes, Don Quixote, from the Author’s Preface, English Translation, 1725)

In memory of Peter Frank, author of Yorkshire Fisherfolk, academic, lover of Whitby, and a man of great humanity, charm and wit.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to numerous institutions which have given me help, especially The National Archives at Kew, the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, the Whitby Pannet Park Museum, Library and Archive, and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office. I am also indebted to the libraries of Cambridge University and the University of Essex, and to the public libraries of Colchester and Lancashire.

Anyone who writes history owes a deep debt of gratitude to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and all those who have made information available on the internet. Noteworthy are Internet Archive, Gutenberg, Open Library and British Newspaper Archive; but my especial gratitude goes to the Gale Group for their digitisation of the Burney Collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century newspapers (held in the British Library), and for their Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) which is an impressive source for historians of this period.

So many people have been helpful to me in the writing of this book that I cannot list them all, but the following need a mention: D.K.Abbass, Rosalin Barker, Ian Boreham, Roger Dalladay, Margaret Holmes, Dave King, Yvonne Leck, Amy Miller, Robert and Jane O’Hara, Waldemar Ossowski, John Robson, Ann Thirsk and Cliff Thornton. Also my four favourite people: my wife Susan and our daughters Claudia, Eleanor and Philippa, without whom I would probably never have finished this book.

Contents

Title

Quote

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

1    

Present Succession

2    

Liberty

and

Property

3    

Brotherly Love

4    

The Prospect of Whitby

5    

Good Agreement

and

Truelove

6    

Peace and Plenty

7    

Fair Trader

8    

Mars

9    

Enterprise

10    

Freelove

11    

Three Brothers

12    

Flora

13    

Mary

14    

Friendship

15    

Earl of Pembroke

16    

Marquis of Rockingham

and

Marquis of Granby

17    

Endeavour

18    

Diligence

19    

Freedom

and

Adventure

20    

Lord Sandwich

and

Leviathan

21    

Liberty

Appendix: The Measure of Things

Bibliography

Illustrations

Copyright

Preface

There have been numerous books about James Cook, the first being the Life of Captain James Cook published in 1788 by the Presbyterian minister Andrew Kippis, which concentrated almost exclusively on the voyages, and was not the result of any great thoroughness of research, though it was much copied. The next biography of Cook worthy of note appeared in a fourteen-page entry in Volume II of A History of Whitby by George Young, in 1817. Although brief, it corrected some existing errors, and Young had done his research thoroughly even though he was not in Whitby at all in the eighteenth century. He contacted Henry and John, the sons of Cook’s master and lifelong friend John Walker (1706–85), and persuaded them to lend him the letters Cook sent to their father, which he transcribed into the biography. Young was not only a historian but also the Scottish Presbyterian minister of Whitby, and he could not refrain from condemning Cook for ‘the general neglect of divine service, too apparent from his journals’ and for ‘permitting the inhabitants of Owhyhee [Hawaii] to adore him as a god’; but his final opinion of Cook was favourable because he ‘opened up’ for the South Sea islanders ‘the door of real bliss’, asserting that ‘The Society isles are now becoming happy isles indeed, rescued from absurd idolatries and abominable vices, and enriched with the blessings of Christianity and of civilization, through the arduous labours of faithful missionaries’ – an evaluation of Cook’s journeys which now finds few supporters.

Many books followed, some clarifying, some copying, some confusing; but it was not until the publication in 1974 of The Life of Captain James Cook by the New Zealander J.C. Beaglehole that a definitive, comprehensive and thoroughly researched account was available.

Much has been written since then about Cook on both the macro and micro scales; but the most popular format has been to tell the story of Cook’s life, concentrating mainly on the three voyages. Although most of these included a brief account of Cook’s childhood, this was a largely neglected area until Cliff Thornton’s Captain Cook in Cleveland. Similarly, Cook’s early years in the Royal Navy were overlooked until John Robson’s Captain Cook’s War and Peace: The Royal Navy Years 1755–68.

This book also seeks to fill a gap. Rather than tell the story of Captain Cook in which the ships have bit parts, I thought it would be interesting to tell the story of the ships in which Cook has a bit part. Cook sailed in or with eight ships which had begun as merchant ships: four in his earlier nautical career (Freelove, Friendship, Three Brothers and Mary), and four on the three voyages (Endeavour, Resolution, Adventure and Discovery). These ships have been written about before, but mainly sketchily and sometimes erroneously. Recently, some excellent work has been done on these ships, for example, John F. Allan’s article ‘Cook’s Ships – A Summary Update’ in Cook’s Log (Vol 25, 2002), the magazine of The Captain Cook Society.But the real star in this sphere is Dr D.K. Abbass, director of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeological Project (RIMAP), who identified the transport Lord Sandwich as the terminally aged Endeavour, scuppered in Newport Harbour, where the ship probably lies still among the wrecks which RIMAP has discovered and which are currently undergoing thorough underwater archaeological excavation.

This book has a broader scope, covering the lives of Cook’s eight merchant ships and those who owned them and who sailed in them. I have omitted retelling the story of Cook’s three voyages for the same reason Young did not write a ‘detailed account’ of the voyage of the Endeavour: ‘it is unnecessary … having been long known to the public’. However, what I think is necessary is placing these ships and people in the context of their times; so this book is also a story of trade, science, liberty and belief – vital themes in that exciting, violent, gossipy but largely untaught and unknown period through which these vessels and their people sailed literally and figuratively between the old world and the new. Kippis’ biography of Cook was criticised because it omitted ‘the appropriate philosophical perspective’, and Young regretted he did not have space in his biography of Cook to discuss matters of ‘commerce, science, civilization and religion’. I have attempted to remedy these omissions.

There are a lot of genealogies in this book – for which I make no excuses. In a society where business and family life were inseparable it was often the tangled webs of familial loyalty which made history. Historical genealogy is also interesting in itself, as Horace Walpole wrote: ‘People don’t know how entertaining a study of ancestors can be. Who begot who is a most amusing kind of hunting.’

Where contemporary sources have been quoted the spelling and punctuation are original, with occasional editing for clarification. Biblical quotations are from the 1611 Authorised Version (King James’ Bible). The titles of the chapters use the names of contemporary Whitby ships, and the epigraphs are quotations from people who were alive in or before the eighteenth century. For information about money, weights, measures and the calendar, see the Appendix. Footnotes appear throughout; endnotes indicate sources, and are after the Appendix.

Stephen Baines

1

Present Succession

Trade, like Religion, is what every Body talks of, but few understand.

(Daniel Defoe, A Plan of the English Commerce)

When James Cook was born in 27 October 1728 Britain was a successful trading nation with a large number of Royal Navy ships and a larger number of merchant ships. Britons prided themselves on being a strong nation of free people, ruled by a Protestant monarch, governed by Parliament, with a state religion which was remarkably tolerant of other (Protestant) groups. It was noted for its free press, its freedom of speech and for its scientific achievements. How had all this come about?

In 1534, when the Catholic Henry VIII broke with the Pope in Rome and declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, he was freed from the authority, expense and interference of the Vatican; but it was not clear what form the state religion would be. Henry persecuted both Catholics and Protestants. His son Edward VI was a Protestant, but he died young and was followed by his Catholic sister Mary. She sought to return England to the Roman Catholic fold, and her five-year reign was marred with hideous persecutions of Protestants. When Elizabeth I came to the throne she established a broad-based Church of England with the help of Thomas Cranmer; it was designed to be an inclusive religion to which a wide range of believers could assent: it was the nation’s own brand of Christian belief tailored for England. There were many Catholics who simply wanted to practice their religion in peace and quiet; but the persecutions in Mary’s reign and the attempts by Catholic terrorists to murder the queen put Catholicism beyond the religious pale. The defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English confirmed in the mind of many that God was on their side: if God was not actually an Anglican, he was certainly on the side of Protestants against the Catholics. The failed Gunpowder Plot reinforced this view; it was seen as a terrorist action fostered in Rome, and its prevention as an act of God. Catholicism became regarded by many as a serious enemy of the English monarchy, the Church of England, Parliament and the liberties of Britain.

Since the Middle Ages, it had been a principle of government in England that no new taxation could be imposed without the assent of Parliament. Elizabeth’s Stuart successors James I and Charles I had not been brought up with this tradition and resented any limitations on their divinely appointed kingly powers. Between them they ruled without a parliament for twenty-one years, which meant that money was short, the navy was largely neglected, and neither could afford war. So when a Scottish army, incensed by Charles’ high-handed attempt to force Anglicanism on largely Presbyterian Scotland, marched over the border, the king had to summon a parliament. The subsequent clash between King and Parliament resulted in some seven years of conflict fuelled by religious and political ideologies and entangled in traditional and familial loyalties, a war which was apocalyptically bloody and violent.

After the execution of Charles I, England and Scotland became republics with no established Church, and this fragile new commonwealth was protected by Oliver Cromwell in conjunction with Parliament. The favoured religious denomination was Presbyterianism, enshrined in The Solemn League and Covenant which asserted that the ‘doctrine, worship, discipline, and government’ of the English Church would be in accordance with ‘the Word of GOD, and the example of the best reformed Churches’. Unfortunately there was, and would continue to be, a wide range of opinion not only about which were the best reformed Churches but also about what the word of God had to say about Church doctrine, worship, discipline and government. The new regime replaced the majority of Anglican vicars with Presbyterians, and abolished bishops and other hierarchical Anglican positions. The Instrument of Government, adopted in 1653 as the British constitution, granted executive powers to Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector, but also promised freedom of worship for all Protestants. However, the plethora of new and often radical dissenting groups was too much for the Commonwealth. In 1656, there were additions to The Lord’s Day Act which made attendance at a (Presbyterian) church compulsory on pain of a fine of 2s 6d; but once the promise of freedom of worship had been made it was impossible to revert to ‘one state, one church’ politics. The Protestant Pandora’s box had been opened; people felt free to think for themselves about what they believed, and how they interpreted the Bible. The result of this theological liberation was dramatic. It generated an ever-fragmenting sectarianism, with the growth of numerous religious groups: ‘The Reformation continued to reform itself’,1 but with an unprecedented speed and fervour.

The execution of Charles I.

One of these ‘seekers after truth’ was George Fox, who came to believe that religion could not be imposed externally and had nothing to do with theological dogmatism or professional clergy. God was in all of us, and we must be guided by this ‘inner light’ to live a good and moral life in peaceable friendship with all others who must be treated as equals, as was believed to be the case among the early Christians. It was a simple and uncomplicated idea, and consequently a powerful message. Those who rallied to this new (or possibly old) belief called themselves ‘Friends of the Truth’ or simply ‘Friends’; but soon were known as ‘Quakers’ or ‘The Religious Society of Friends’.

George Fox found an eager response, especially in the northern counties. Quakerism soon established firm roots in Yorkshire, and firm they had to be. For a group whose way of life was predicated on peace, toleration and friendship, they did not find these virtues reciprocated by the authorities or by large sections of the population. Quakers refused to swears oaths (as it was forbidden in the Bible* ), did not acknowledge hierarchies or titles (as all were considered equal in the in the sight of God), and saw churches (which they called ‘steeple houses’) and a paid priesthood (‘hirelings’) as unnecessary and decadent, corrupting the true spiritual life. So they did not swear oaths of allegiance, call judges ‘Your Honour’, doff their hats to officials, pay tithes or contribute financially to the upkeep of churches or clergy, nor fight or support warfare.

Cromwell was interested in Quakerism, but there was no way that he would tolerate, let alone embrace, pacifism. He was a soldier, the victor in the Civil War and signatory to the king’s execution; his crushing defeats of the Scots at Dunbar and the Irish at Drogheda were swift and violent, and the condemnatory biblical sobriquet ‘man of blood’ given to the former king could apply equally to Cromwell.

Cromwell understood that an island like Britain must be a maritime trading nation, and that to safeguard the wealth which commerce could bring, the merchant marine had to be supported and protected by the government. The common assumption was that there was only a finite quantity of commerce, so the more that was had by the Dutch (England’s main trade rival) the less was available to Britain. Cromwell strengthened the navy, and Parliament passed the Navigation Act of 1651 which made it illegal for English overseas colonies to import or export goods except in English ships, and restricted the transport of imports from mainland Europe to ships owned in either England or the country of origin of the goods. This piece of legislation was aimed primarily and successfully at the merchant shipping interests of the United Provinces,* and was perhaps the main cause of the war (known as the First Anglo-Dutch War) in the following year. As befits a struggle between two maritime powers, this conflict was fought entirely at sea. It ended in 1654 with an English victory. Cromwell then turned his attention to the next two significant trading rivals: Spain and France. Cunningly he traded one off against the other, allying with France, on the condition she guaranteed not to support the Stuart claim to the throne. The English took Jamaica and Dunkirk (at that time part of the Spanish Netherlands). England, at the time of Cromwell’s Commonwealth, could (albeit briefly) call herself the ruler of the waves without eliciting laughter. However, while the British, French and Spanish were destroying each other’s merchant ships, the Dutch were able to recuperate all that they had lost in the First Anglo-Dutch War, and their trade flourished once more.

When the British seized land and established a colony, the main motive was trade and its consequent profit. Jamaica was to be particularly profitable in the eighteenth century, as new and valuable crops were imported and grown; these included sugar, rice, bananas, mangoes, limes and breadfruit. Slaves to do the growing, tending and harvesting of these crops were also imported. Alongside the invading soldiers, governors, merchants and profiteers who founded British colonies were missionaries of the Established Church; but other religious groups were not far behind. Quakers arrived early in the Americas and were well received in Barbados and in Rhode Island which had ‘no law … to punish any for only declaring by words, their mindes and understandings concerning the things and ways of God’.2 However, the rigorous Erastian Puritan regime in Massachusetts, which had set up a religious domination every bit as repressive as the one they had escaped from in England, was obsessively antagonistic. In 1658 it passed a law outlawing immigrant Quakers, who were to be banished and not permitted to return under pain of death. Masters of ships that brought Quakers into the colony were to be punished.

Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and rule passed to his son Richard; his succession was not a success, and he was forced to resign in 1659, leaving a power vacuum while Parliament and the army played a waiting game, both seeking their own advantage, but neither able to proceed without the other. The result was a state of nervousness and confusion which Pepys described in his diary: ‘All the world is at a loss … the country … all discontented.’

The Restoration of the Monarchy on 29 May 1660 was greeted with general relief. It seemed to promise peace and tolerance in a united and strong maritime world power. As the diarist Evelyn retrospectively commented, ‘never had King more glorious opportunities to have made himselfe, his people, and all Europe happy’.

The Restoration. Charles II centre, with his brother James, Duke of York on his right.

Charles had promised that if he were to become king, he would:

declare a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matter of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom.

(The Declaration of Breda)

This may have reflected his real intentions, but was certainly not the mood of the largely Royalist Restoration Parliament filled with those who wished to restore the Anglican ideal of a country united within a single church, with Charles II at its head, sharing a single translation of the Bible and a single form of worship. Parliament erroneously believed this goal was obtainable and would ‘not disturb the peace of the kingdom’. Parliament made the laws which the king had to sign. Far from being a time of ‘liberty to tender consciences’ there was an imposition of an exclusive, yet compulsory, Established Church of England.

Charles knew better than to challenge Parliament, but as king he had power and influence. However, he wanted an easy life and did not capitalise effectively on the mood of positive optimism in the country, letting many opportunities slip through his royal fingers. Evelyn wrote that Charles was of ‘too easy nature’ which allowed ‘him to be manag’d by crafty men, and some abandon’d and profane wretches’.

The proclamation of April 1661 prohibited the unlawful assemblies of ‘Papists, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, Quakers and other fanatical persons’, and required anyone charged with attending such a meeting to be required to swear the Oath of Allegiance – which, of course, Quakers could not do. Several Acts (collectively known as the Clarendon Code, after Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon who was the king’s chief minister) made it illegal for non-Anglicans to hold any government office, or attend any religious meeting of more than five people. The Quaker Act made it illegal to refuse to take lawful oaths, particularly the Oath of Allegiance. It became a catch-all piece of legislation for the authorities to discriminate against Quakers.

George Fox refused to ‘take the oath’ and was imprisoned from 1665 in Scarborough Castle. Leland, over a century before, had described it as ‘an exceeding goodly large and strong castelle’, but it had been dramatically battered when Sir Hugh Cholmley of Whitby had held it for the king during the Civil War for nearly two years before surrendering. It was dismantled to ensure it could never again be seriously defended and was in poor condition when Fox was imprisoned there, so it was hardly surprising that his health suffered.

Map of the Yorkshire coast, showing places mentioned in this narrative.

Fox was released in 1666, after which he paid his third visit to the Friends at Whitby.

Three years later a plot of land on Church Street, Whitby, had been bought by Quakers as a site for a meeting house, which was finally completed in September 1676. The Conventicle Act was still in force at that time, so either it was felt that the mood of the country and/or county was more Quaker-friendly, or else that the risks of building illegal meeting houses were outweighed by the benefits.

Henry Compton, who had been appointed Bishop of London in 1675, was one of few leading members of the post-Restoration Anglican Church who had wished for greater inclusiveness and hoped that ultimately the Established Church could find a way of coming to a greater mutual understanding and union with other Protestant dissenters. However, his tolerant attitude did not include Catholics. His appointment may have been due in part to his impressive pedigree, being descended from Edward III through the Yorkist line, but he was certainly well trusted, as he was appointed to the Privy Council and chosen to supervise the education of Mary and Anne, the children of James, Duke of York.

Charles II had married Catherine of Braganza in 1662, a princess of Portugal, England’s ‘oldest ally’. Portugal had been an independent country since the twelfth century until she fell under Hapsburg rule in 1580 when Philip II of Spain also became Philip I of Portugal. Independence was declared in 1640 and the Duke of Braganza, father of Catherine, became King John (João) IV of Portugal. Catherine was a Catholic and therefore not a popular choice – even though she made the drinking of tea fashionable. Her dowry brought Bombay and Tangier into British possession. Although she had several pregnancies, they had no live children, which must have been particularly galling to the queen as Charles had a series of acknowledged mistresses and a clutch of consequent acknowledged bastards.

The Quaker House at Whitby, which was rebuilt in 1813.

Scarborough castle.

By 1664, the commercial successes of the United Provinces once again stirred up feelings of envy and resentment among English merchants and Parliament. War fever gripped the country. The prevailing justification for the conflict was, as before, to extend English trade at the expense of the Dutch. Charles II also had personal and dynastic motivation: Cromwell’s government had included a clause in the previous peace treaty insisting that the pro-Stuart House of Orange should be excluded from all public office in Holland, and this Charles wished to overthrow.

Quakers did not participate in this rage of militaristic aggression, but suffered as preparations were made by a nation which ‘call’d aloud for war’.3 Not only were they routinely accused of being traitors to their country but, as Besse records, their property was often seized ‘for refusing to contribute toward the Charges of the County Militia’.

The Second Anglo-Dutch War officially began in March 1665, but before that there were government-supported piratical raids on territory of the United Provinces; for example, New Amsterdam, a Dutch city at the time, was captured by the British in 1664 and renamed New York after James, Duke of York. The English were arrogant and over-confident; they assumed that as they had beaten the Dutch very easily in the previous conflict victory in a second war would be a foregone conclusion. At first things went well for Britain; there was a resounding victory at the Battle of Lowestoft, in which William Penn fought with distinction. He later became an admiral and was knighted. He was Samuel Pepys’ neighbour and former colleague at the Navy Board, and father to the William Penn who founded Pennsylvania.

Members of the Society of Friends naturally did not volunteer to serve in the navy, but the fighting ships of England were full of sailors who had not volunteered. Impressment was deemed necessary to keep the fleet manned, and many personal tragedies resulted, but a pacifist who fell into the hands of the press gang faced a serious test of his belief. It was not a good time for Quakers, especially those who lived in port towns.

In June 1666, the British navy emerged from the Four Days’ Battle, one of the longest sea-battles in recorded history, in a position to claim victory, though it had, in fact, been a major triumph for the Dutch. A month after this, though, the Royal Navy had recovered sufficiently to defeat the Dutch and temporarily gain command of the sea off the coast of Holland, which enabled the British to capture a large number of Dutch merchant ships. These naval achievements were lauded by John Dryden, the first poet laureate, in his poem Annus Mirabilis, or The Year of Wonders. It is full of nationalist arrogance, and Dryden compares Holland’s relationship with England to that of ancient Carthage with Rome:

Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,

And swept the riches of the world from far;

Yet stoop’d to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:

And this may prove our second Punic war.*

Charles II was always short of money, and wars are expensive, so the king sold Dunkirk to the French for 2,500,000 livres (c. £350,000; in modern money £1.3 billion). Only a fraction of the agreed price was paid, and the money did not last long: the Great Fire of London had greatly reduced the Crown’s revenue, and had brought additional government expenses. Add to this the ever-increasing extravagance of the court, and the result was that both king and country were seriously financially embarrassed.

Dryden was right about Britain being poorer than Holland, but wrong about the outcome of the war, and all his poetic pomp and spin came to look rather foolish. Pepys summed up the situation: ‘the want of money puts all things, and above all the Navy, out of order’. Dryden had described the English navy which ‘now at anchor rides’ as ‘vast’; in fact, England did not have sufficient wealth to continue the war, and several of the larger British warships were indeed riding at anchor in the Medway as they were too expensive to refit.

This allowed the Dutch, in June 1667, to sail to the mouth of the Thames with impunity, attack the fort at Sheerness, which was surrendered fairly speedily by the unpaid and ill-supplied garrison, and occupy the island of Sheppey. Then they sailed up the Medway and burnt many of the ships riding at anchor, towing away the Royal Charles, which had been the ship in which Charles II had returned to Britain in triumph in 1660. The diarist John Evelyn, who was a friend of Dryden, wrote that this daring raid ‘put both Country and Citty into a paniq feare and consternation’ with many ‘fearing the enemie might venture up the Thames even to London’. This was the most catastrophic destruction ever inflicted on the English navy, and was also a successful (if brief) occupation of English territory. It was a deep humiliation for the country, for the navy and particularly for the monarch.

Map of Kent and the Thames Estuary, showing the Isle of Sheppey, the Medway and Chatham.

To add insult to injury the Dutch fleet blockaded the Thames for some days afterwards. This caused a serious shortage of imports to London, particularly coal, and led the king to consult John Evelyn, as an expert on trees and timber, about his ‘new fuell’.** The mood in the country turned against the government, and a peace treaty was signed in haste against a background of sullen discontent. Samuel Pepys wrote: ‘In all things, in wisdom, courage, force and success, the Dutch have the best of us and end the war with victory on their side.’ As Clerk of the Acts in the Navy Office, Pepys was responsible for the day-to-day logistics of the navy, something of a thankless task in a system that was riddled with incompetence, corruption and underfunding, though – as a result of his ‘life-long labours’ – Pepys eventually achieved his ambition of giving ‘administrative discipline’4 to the organisation of the navy.

The Dutch had won the war, and England was humiliated. Although England kept New York, the Dutch retained possession of the more profitable sugar-rich Suriname which they had captured a few months previously. The Indonesian island Pulau Run was officially confirmed as a Dutch possession, giving Holland a valuable monopoly on nutmeg for the next 150 years. Additionally, the English were forced to amend the Navigation Act to be more Dutch-friendly, and to sign an alliance with the United Provinces and Sweden in order to restrict France’s territorial ambitions. The Dutch also abolished the position of stadtholder ‘for ever’.

It was a disaster, and the public wanted scapegoats. One such was George Carteret of Jersey who had protected Prince Charles after the decisive Royalist defeat at Worcester. Later, after the execution of the king, Carteret had the prince publicly proclaimed as King Charles II at St Helier. At the Restoration, Charles rewarded him with a large grant of land in America (which Carteret named New Jersey) and the post of Treasurer of the Navy – and it was as such that Carteret was vilified as the man whose financial double-dealing and incompetence impoverished the navy into defeat.

The terms of the treaty had made another war inevitable. The Third Dutch War (1672–74) was meant to restore British prestige and to strike a serious blow at Dutch prosperity and trade, and at its current government. It was largely the brainchild of Charles II, who was also pursuing his dynastic interest in ousting the present Dutch regime and ensuring his nephew William of Orange, now come of age, should be appointed stadtholder. William had come to London in the autumn of 1670 in what was officially a visit to see his uncle, but which was no doubt something of a summit conference. Charles and William did not see eye to eye, but clearly had shared interests. Charles wanted William to run a puppet government subservient to the British in the United Provinces, which was not what William had in mind, and the visit, like many diplomatic missions, ended in mutual suspicion.

Charles persuaded William Temple, the British ambassador to the United Provinces (a man of probity who admired the Dutch), to pledge friendship with the government of Holland. The king then entered into a secret treaty with his first cousin and Britain’s old enemy Louis XIV whereby the army of France and the navy of Britain would destroy the wealthy Dutch republican government. This was totally contrary to the alliance, made only three years before, between England, Sweden and the Dutch Republic to curb the territorial ambitions of France, especially in the Spanish Netherlands.

The idea of another war with Holland was not popular, and the country could not afford it. Evelyn captured the mood of much of the country when he wrote ‘surely this was a quarrel slenderly grounded, and not becoming Christian [Protestant] neighbours’. Even before war was officially declared, the navy had been ordered to attack the Dutch merchant fleet sailing to the eastern Mediterranean while they were in the Channel. This was to be the pre-emptive strike which would seriously damage Dutch shipping and trade but was something of a fiasco due mainly to overconfidence on the British side.

John Evelyn. Swaine after a portrait by Nanteuil.

The Dutch navy, however, was able to offer its own decisive strike, catching the British fleet unawares while the latter were still taking on supplies in Sole Bay off the Suffolk port of Southwold. The ensuing battle was fiercely fought. Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich commanded PrinceRoyal, which was set alight by fireships; he perished, along with his son-in-law Sir Philip Carteret, in the ensuing inferno. The Dutch had the advantage and might have inflicted massive destruction but the wind suddenly changed and ensured that the Dutch withdrew. This was neither the first nor the last time that England was saved by the weather; Sydney Smith was later to refer to ‘those ancient and unsubsidised allies of England – the winds, upon which ministers depend for saving kingdoms as washerwomen do for drying clothes’.5

John Evelyn was one of the Commissioners for Taking Care of Sick and Wounded Seamen and for the Care and Treatment of Prisoners of War. It was his job to deal with the aftermath of the Battle of Sole Bay, having to look after ‘many wounded, sick and prisoners newly put on shore’.6 Naturally he was deeply affected by the tragic death of his ‘particular friend’ the Earl of Sandwich, whom he described as an ‘incomparable person who was learned in sea affaires, in politics, in mathematics, and in musiq … [he] was of a sweete and obliging temper, sober, chast, very ingenious, a true Nobleman’.

Evelyn took his work very seriously, and he was concerned about ‘the aboundance of miserably wounded’ seamen irrespective of rank. He reported that:

I saw the chirurgeon [surgeon] cut off the leg of a wounded sailor, the stout and gallant man enduring it with incredible patience, without being bound to his chaire as usual on such painfull occasions. I had hardly courage enough to be present. Not being cut off high enough, the gangreen prevail’d, and the second operation cost the poore creature his life.

He added:

Lord! What miseries are mortal men subject to, and what confusion and mischeif do the avarice, anger and ambition of Princes cause in the world!

Later he commented on the war that it ‘shew’d the folly of hazarding so brave a fleete, and loosing so many good men for no provocation but that the Hollanders exceeded us in commerce and industrie, and in all things but [except] envie’.

After Sole Bay, the British fleet was in effect useless. The French army had made incursions into the Netherlands, provoking a civil unrest in the country which toppled the existing government; William, Prince of Orange was invited to become stadtholder. By the end of 1672 the French and the British had come to distrust each other, and the war was doomed when Parliament refused to approve further funding. Taking advantage of the British weakness, New York was recaptured by the Dutch in 1673 and for a while was called New Orange after William, Prince of Orange. Britain made peace with the United Provinces in 1674 with the spin that their only war aim was the restoration of Prince William – which had already been achieved. The treaty was largely based on the pre-war status quo, so New York was handed back to Britain, which emerged surprisingly well from this total confusion of a conflict in which they had not won a single battle.

These wars disrupted trade; the Dutch blockading the Thames (1667) and the Battle of Sole Bay (1672) were serious problems for those ships engaged in the coastal coal trade between Newcastle and London, many of which were Whitby-owned and some owned by Quakers. During the wars, Dutch privateers had attacked and captured merchant vessels, deliberately targeting the East Coast coal fleet and ships trading with Norway and the Baltic. Peace brought an end to these depredations, and there followed some fifteen years in which Britain was free from war, much to the benefit of its trade. However, for those sailing in the Mediterranean, the Barbary pirates were a perennial danger, operating from various strongholds on the North Africa coast. They attacked merchant ships, plundering their cargo and taking the crew to be sold into slavery.

The walled and fortified city of Tangier, acquired as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, was seen as having considerable strategic significance for the British trade in the Mediterranean and as a base from which the power of the Barbary pirates might be reduced. Samuel Pepys’ administrative efficiency ensured that he was put ‘into commission in the business of Tanger [sic]’ by his patron and cousin Lord Sandwich. Other members of the Tangier Committee were Sir George Carteret and Admiral Sir William Penn.

A large force was sent out to garrison Tangier, but there was real antagonism with the local Portuguese inhabitants, who petitioned to be repatriated. This was granted, and Tangier ceased to be a city and became a barracks, surrounded by a rather unfriendly and uncooperative population. Sir Hugh Cholmley of Whitby had been appointed as the director of works at Tangier, with the responsibility of building accommodation for the men and improving the harbour by constructing a large mole. The impressive quadrangle of buildings was to be named ‘Fort Middleton’, but it was always known as colloquially as ‘Whitby’, as so many of the workers came from there.

Its isolation meant that Tangier had to be supplied with everything it needed by ship, which involved a lot of logistical work. Pepys, who had been appointed treasurer of the enterprise, receiving ‘half the profit’, became friends with Hugh Cholmley and it seems that the two of them had come to some mutually beneficial financial arrangement with regard to choice of suppliers. The mole was finished in 1676, and Sir Hugh Cholmley returned to England. Charles II, who was a keen supporter of the enterprise, granted him, as he was in possession of the old Abbey lands, all the rights and privileges ‘in as full, free, and ample manner as any Abbot or Abbots of the said late Monastery of Whitby’,7 which included ‘the sea-port and sea wreck through all his manor or Lordship of Whitby … with all the liberties, customs, and privileges pertaining to a sea-port’, among which were taxes on boats and fish, and dues for the right of lying-up in winter.

However, despite Tangier’s strategic usefulness, supporting the garrison there was expensive, and there were regular attacks from sea and land. Eventually, ‘The English Parliament disgusted with the expense of maintaining Tangier, from which the nation had imagined it should gain great advantages, which, instead of being profitable, it was burdensome, resolved to abandon the place’.8 In 1684, the English withdrew their garrison, stores and artillery, and blew up the mole and the fortifications.

During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Pepys and Evelyn had both been employed by the Admiralty. They met on several occasions and discussed Evelyn’s project to build an infirmary for sick and wounded sailors,* which Pepys ‘mightily’ approved of because it would be ‘of use and will save money’. Evelyn lived in Sayes Court, conveniently near the naval dockyard at Deptford, and was a Younger Brother of Trinity House:* Pepys at this time was an Elder Brother.

Like many intelligent men of the Age of Reason, Evelyn and Pepys were multitalented. Evelyn was a founder member of the Royal Society (of which Pepys was to be president in 1684), accumulated a large library (as did Pepys) and was a prolific author. They were passionate about science, trade and philanthropy – all of which were seen as closely related and intertwining: science was the means of promoting trade which in turn would bring wealth which would benefit the whole country.

After the Great Fire, Sir Christopher Wren’s design for the new St Paul’s Cathedral was (eventually) accepted, and numerous fine churches of his were built; however, his grand plan of totally restructuring the city with wide, straight streets, piazzas and public gardens to make a beautiful, practical, modern and efficient city was rejected.

Evelyn, who was a friend of Wren and a godfather to one of his sons, also wanted planning – in order to reduce the pollution in the city. In his work Fumifugium, he described the inhabitants of London as breathing ‘nothing but an impure and thick Mist … and filthy vapour … corrupting the Lungs, and disordering the entire habit of their Bodies’. The cause was the burning of coal by the various heavy industries (e.g. ‘Brewers, Diers, Limeburners, Salt, and Sope-Boylers’) which were situated in the centre of the city, with the result that London resembled ‘the Court of Vulcan … or the Suburbs of Hell, than an Assembly of Rational Creatures’. Evelyn thought that the fire of London was an opportunity to do some real planning with all the main polluters resited in an industrial estate away from the residential and commercial parts of town, which would make living and working in the city more pleasant, and the relocated businesses would be able to operate more efficiently. Evelyn’s utopian vision was also rejected, as there was neither the capital funding for anything so adventurous nor – more importantly – was there any precedent for King or Parliament to seize the necessary powers of compulsory purchase of private property, which would have been seen as a monstrous infringement of British liberty.

Rebuilding a city from an Enlightenment blueprint may be a fantasy, but making a garden could be a reality. And many strove to create gardens that were oases of delight and harmony, reaping the benefits of the twin sciences of horticulture and botany with plants often garnered from far-distant lands for their medicinal or culinary properties, their rarity or simply their pure beauty. The gardens were structured with avenues of trees, creating splendid vistas as well as having useful cash potential. A club of eager botanists, led by Hans Sloane, met at the Temple Coffee House near Fleet Street and acted as a hub for botanical information and exchange of plants. Members included Henry Compton, Bishop of London and his friend, fellow cleric and botanist John Ray.

Cross section of St Paul’s.

Evelyn was one such enthusiastic gardener and he spent much time improving the garden at Sayes Court. His horticultural speciality was trees, and he wrote a book called Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest Trees, and the Propagationof Timber in His Majesties Dominions, which was both a comprehensive work on tree varieties and an appeal to landowners to plant trees to ensure that there would be sufficient timber in the future to replace the devastation (particularly of oaks) brought about largely by shipbuilding. He also favoured planting rows of fragrant trees beside roads in towns in order to improve the quality of the air. He had travelled in the United Provinces and visited the palace of Rijswijk, the home of the Princes of Orange, commenting that there was ‘nothing more remarkable than the delicious walks planted with lime trees’, which were both beautiful and a good investment. Sir William Temple, who had been the British ambassador to Holland, wrote his own contribution to the garden literature of the times with Upon the Gardens of Epicurus.

King Charles died in 1685, and was succeeded by his brother as James II. As Duke of York and Lord High Admiral, James had gained some popularity; and his first marriage was to Anne Hyde, daughter of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. James and Anne had two children who survived adulthood, Mary and Anne, who were brought up as members of the Church of England.

After his wife Anne died in 1671 James had ‘come out’ as a Catholic. Evelyn recorded the ‘exceeding griefe and scandal to the whole Nation’ when, on Easter Day, James did not receive ‘communion with the King’. This clear and public statement of his Catholicism was shocking, particularly as Parliament had passed the Act for Preventing Dangers which May Happen from Popish Recusants, which required everyone holding any political or military office to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and make a declaration that it was their ‘belief that there is not any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or in the elements of bread and wine, at or after the consecration thereof’.

In the same year James had married the Italian Mary, the Catholic daughter of Alfonso IV d’Este, Duke of Modena. In 1685, the French king revoked the Edict of Nantes, thus making the practice of any Protestant denomination, in public or in private, illegal in France and its subject territories. In future, every French child born had to be baptised a Catholic. Protestant ministers had a fortnight to convert to Catholicism or leave the country; all other Protestants were forbidden to emigrate – though many did.

In England, Catholics flourished. Having a Catholic king who was ex officio head of the Church of England was a weird anomaly and one that generated a lot of bad feeling. However, as James wished to bring Roman Catholics back into acceptability in Britain, he was keen to reduce persecution for non-Anglicans. Consequently, religious persecution ceased with the Declaration of Indulgence. This was a welcome relief to dissenters, including the Quakers, though they were still liable to punishment for non-payment of tithes, which was a ‘legitimate tax’.

The Declaration of Indulgence was not palatable to a sizeable proportion of the population, who feared it was a first step to reintroducing Catholicism as the national established religion, and consequently made an unpopular monarch even more unpopular. The Civil War had left still fresh and painful scars in the country’s memory and consequently, while the ageing James II’s sole heirs were his two Anglican daughters, most people thought it better to weather out the storm until he died and was succeeded by Mary, the heir presumptive. In 1677, Mary had married William of Orange, stadtholder of the United Province. He had a good claim to the English throne in his own right, being the grandson of Charles I. This marriage had strengthened his claim, making it likely that he would sit on the English throne one day, provided James II had no male heir.

This situation changed in 1688 when it was announced that the Catholic James’ Catholic wife had given birth to a son, James Edward, who would be the Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the throne. The prospect of England becoming a Catholic and, so it was feared, less free country under a repressive autocratic regime, like France, was more than most people could bear, believing it would undo the achievements of the Civil War and turn the clock back to the reign of Queen Mary.

Many read, or had read to them, the grisly stories of the Marian persecutions of the Protestants by the Catholics in John Foxe’s book commonly known as The Book of Martyrs. It was regularly reprinted with appropriate illustrations and became, along with Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the most influential books in British Protestantism after the Bible itself.*

Foxe fixed in the popular mind an image of what living under Catholic rule might be like, and immortalised such Protestant rallying calls as Bishop Latimer’s last wordsto Bishop Ridley as they were both burnt to death at Oxford in 1555: ‘Be of good comfort, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as, I trust, shall never be put out.’**

In 1688, many were looking to William of Orange to extricate the country from this gloomy possibility, and to ensure that the Protestant candle would continue to burn in England.

Notes

Abbreviations

Burney    

The Burney Collection of Early Newspapers, British Library. Digitised by Gale Group.

ECCO

Eighteenth Century Collection Online, Gale Group.

TNA

The National Archives, Kew.

NMM

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

*  ‘I say unto you, Swear not at all … But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.’ (Matthew, 5.34–37).

*  The Netherlands, or the Low Countries, were under Spanish rule until 1751 when seven provinces seceded and set up as a republic in the name of the United Provinces; Holland was one of the provinces and became, by a process of synecdoche, to mean all of them. The portion of the Netherlands which remained under Hapsburg control (roughly modern Belgium, Luxembourg, with a bit of France) was called the Spanish Netherlands. In this book, I shall refer to the Dutch Republic interchangeably as Holland, the Netherlands or the United Provinces.

*  The Second Punic War (218–201 BC) was fought between Carthage, led by Hannibal, and the Romans. Initially, Hannibal won some spectacular victories, but Rome fought back and the war ended with the complete defeat of Carthage.

**  A ‘mixture of charcoal, dust and loam which burnt without smoke or ill smell’ (Diary 2 & 8 July 1667).

*  The army had the Chelsea Hospital, but there was nothing equivalent for the navy. This was eventually rectified in 1694, by the initiative of Queen Mary II, in the founding of Greenwich Hospital. Evelyn was chosen as ‘Treasurer to the Marine College erecting at Greenwich’ with a salary of £220 (£26,000 / £565,000) pa. However, after two years he complained that he had not yet received a penny (Evelyn, Helen, p.76).

*  Trinity House, which still flourishes, was founded according to its Elizabethan charter ‘to erect and set up such and so many Beacons, Marks and Signs for the Sea, in such places of the Sea-shores and up-Lands near the Sea-Coasts, or Forelands of the Sea … whereby the Dangers may be avoided and escaped, and Ships the better come unto their ports without peril’ (Mead, p.20). They were later also involved in providing pensions for superannuated sailors and seamen’s widows. The organisation was run by a Master (a post Pepys later held), four wardens and eighteen Elder Brothers. There were also Younger Brothers (usually between 250 and 400), who were assistants to the Elder Brothers but whose duties were largely honorary.

*  John Walker had a copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; Gaskin records seeing it, ‘with “John Walker” written on the title page’ (Gaskin, p.386).

**  These are the words attributed to Latimer by Foxe. Whether these were the bishop’s words is debatable; but there is no denying their lasting efficacy as denominational propaganda.

1.  Hazard, p.121.

2.  From Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, i, pp.374–8. Quoted in Rufus Jones, pp.54–5.

3.  Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, v.12.

4.  Bryant, Arthur, The Fire and the Rose. Collins. 1965. p.129.

5.  Quoted in David Salmon, The French Invasion, p.133.

6.  Evelyn, Diary, 31 May 1672.

7.  Patent Rolls, 26 Charles II. Quoted in Jeffrey, pp.85–6.

8.  Contemporary Parliamentary Records. Quoted in Jeffrey, p.84.

2

Liberty and Property

How came we ashore?

By Providence divine.

(William Shakespeare, The Tempest)

On 1 November 1688, William of Orange set out from Holland to England. He had been invited: the Invitation to William was written by Henry Sidney, suggesting that if William came to Britain, ‘the people are so generally dissatisfied with the present conduct of the government in relation to their religion, liberties and properties … that your Highness may be assured there are nineteen parts of twenty of the people throughout the kingdom who are desirous of a change’. He added that many soldiers would desert, ‘and amongst the seamen … not one in ten’ would stay loyal to King James.

The emphasis on liberties and properties reflects the claim of the philosopher John Locke that all people had the right to life, liberty and property. These ideas were enormously influential in political theory and practice in England and beyond for many decades. At the time of William’s invasion, Locke was in Holland; he later sailed to Britain accompanying William’s wife, the future Queen Mary II.

Henry Sidney, together with the six other signatories of the Invitation (who included William Cavendish, 4th Earl of Devonshire; Thomas Belasyse, Viscount Fauconberg; Richard, Viscount Lumley later 1st Earl of Scarborough; and Henry Compton Bishop of London), came to be known as the Immortal Seven. The Invitation was secretly smuggled out of the country to William by Vice Admiral Arthur Herbert, disguised as an ordinary seaman.

In spite of the promises of mass desertion from James’ army and navy, William was taking no chances. He sailed with a massive armada of 500 ships (nearly four times the number in the Spanish Armada a century earlier) and a sizeable well-trained, well-equipped and well-supported army. Although this has become known as the Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution, it was a real invasion force, indeed the last successful invasion of Britain. It had been assembled with speed and efficiency, and the rumours which circulated in England about it caused alarm and confusion at court.

The eye of God sees and confounds Guy Fawkes’ Plot.

When the fleet sailed, the plan was to avoid the south-east, where the British navy and most of its armed forces were assembled. If the wind was southerly, the Dutch would land in Yorkshire, where they believed there would be much support from Protestant dissenters; if the wind was easterly, which turned out to be the case, they would land on the West Country coast, where Monmouth’s Rebellion had begun three years before.

William’s armada sailed up the Channel in an ostentatiously magnificent display of power, and at some speed, driven by the same easterly wind which kept the English ships from leaving the Thames. Prince William’s fleet moored at Torbay, but delayed disembarking until 5 November, a suitable propaganda gesture as this was the day when the British commemorated being saved from Catholic rule.*

William and his advisors were well aware of the power of propaganda (having brought a printing press with them), the most significant of which was the Prince of Orange’s Declaration of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving of the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland, Ireland. This document had been months in the drafting and was the result of ideas and input from many sources, perhaps most importantly John Locke. This manifesto had been printed in vast numbers and had not only been brought over in the prince’s ships, but also been previously and secretly sent to certain safe houses in Britain to be kept hidden until William landed. It began: