There still remains to consider briefly the state of the other navies which bore a part in the great struggle; and after that, the strategic conditions of the sea war, in its length and breadth, at the time it began.
The British navy was far from being in perfect condition; and it had no such administrative prescription upon which to fall back as France always had in the regulations and practice of Colbert and his son. In the admiralty and the dockyards, at home and abroad, there was confusion and waste, if not fraud. As is usual in representative governments, the military establishments had drooped during ten years of peace. But, although administration lacked system, and agents were neglectful or dishonest, the navy itself, though costing more than it should, remained vigorous; the possessor of actual, and yet more of reserved, strength in the genius and pursuits of the people—in a continuous tradition, which struck its roots far back in a great past—and above all, in a body of officers, veterans of the last, and some of yet earlier wars, still in the prime of life for the purposes of command, and steeped to the core in those professional habits and feelings which, when so found in the chief, transmit themselves quickly to the juniors. As the eye of the student familiar with naval history glances down the lists of admirals and captains in 1793, it recognizes at once the names of those who fought under Keppel, Rodney, and Howe, linked with those who were yet to win fame as the companions of Hood, Jervis, Nelson, and Collingwood.
To this corps of officers is to be added, doubtless, a large number of trained seamen, who, by choice, remained in the navy under the reduced peace complement; a nucleus round which could be rapidly gathered and organized all the sea-faring population fit for active service. The strength of Great Britain, however, lay in her great body of merchant seamen; and the absence of so many of these on distant voyages was always a source of embarrassment when manning a fleet in the beginning of a war. The naval service was also generally unpopular with the sailor; to whom, as to his officer, the rigid yoke of discipline was hard to bear until the neck was used to it. Hence, in the lack of any system similar to the French maritime inscription, Great Britain resorted to the press; a method which, though legally authorized, was stained in execution by a lawlessness and violence strange in a people that so loved both law and freedom. Even so, with both press-gang and free enlistment, the navy, as a whole, was always shorthanded in a great war, so that men of all nations were received and welcomed; much very bad native material was also accepted. "Consider," wrote Collingwood, "with such a fleet as we have now, how large a proportion of the crews of the ships are miscreants of every description, and capable of every crime. And when those predominate what evils may we not dread from the demoniac councils and influence of such a mass of mischief." [50]
The condition of the seamen on board left much to be desired. The pay had not been increased since the days of Charles II., although the prices of all the necessaries of life had risen thirty per cent. The exigencies of the service, combined with the fear of desertion, led to very close enforced confinement to the ship, even in home ports; men were long unable to see their families. The discipline, depending upon the character of the captain, too little defined and limited by law, varied greatly in different ships; while some were disorganized by undue leniency, in others punishment was harsh and tyrannical. On the other hand, there was a large and growing class of officers, both among the sterner and the laxer disciplinarians, who looked upon the health and well-being of the crew as the first of their duties and interests; and better sanitary results have perhaps never been reached, certainly never in proportion to the science of the day, than under Jervis, Nelson, Collingwood, and their contemporaries, in fleets engaged in the hardest, most continuous service, under conditions of monotony and isolation generally unfavorable to health. Nelson, during a cruise in which he passed two years without leaving his ship even for another, often speaks with pride, almost with exultation, of the health of his crews. After his pursuit of Villeneuve's fleet to the West Indies, he writes: "We have lost neither officer nor man by sickness since we left the Mediterranean," a period of ten weeks. The number of men in his ships must have been near seven thousand. Both French and Spaniards of the fleet he pursued were very sickly. "They landed a thousand sick at Martinique, and buried full that number during their stay." [51] Collingwood writes: "I have not let go an anchor for fifteen months, and on the first day of the year had not a sick-list in the ship—not one man." [52] And again a year later: "Yet, with all this sea-work, never getting fresh beef nor a vegetable, I have not one sick man in my ship. Tell that to Doctor——." "His flag-ship had usually eight hundred men; was, on one occasion, more than a year and a half without going into port, and during the whole of that time never had more than six, and generally only four, on her sick-list." [53] Such results show beyond dispute that the crews were well clothed, well fed, and well cared for.
Amid ship's companies of such mixed character, and suffering during the early years of the war from real and severe grievances, it was to be expected that acts of mutiny should occur. Such there were, rivalling, if not surpassing, in extent, those which have been told of the French navy. They also received intelligent guidance at the hands of a class of men, of higher educational acquirements than the average seaman, who, through drunkenness, crime, or simple good-for-nothingness, had found their way on board ship. The feature which distinguished these revolts from those of the French was the spirit of reasonableness and respect for law which at the first marked their proceedings; and which showed how deeply the English feeling for law, duty and discipline, had taken hold of the naval seamen. Their complaints, unheeded when made submissively, were at once allowed to be fair when mutiny drew attention to them. The forms of discipline were maintained by men who refused to go to sea before their demands were allowed, unless "the enemy's fleet should put to sea;" [54] and respect to officers was enjoined, though some who were obnoxious for severity were sent ashore. One very signal instance is given of military sympathy with obedience to orders, though at their own expense. A lieutenant, having shot one of several mutineers, was seized by the others, who made ready to hang him, and he stood actually under the yard-arm with the halter round his neck; but upon the admiral saying he himself was responsible, having given orders to the officer in accordance with his own from the Admiralty, the seamen stopped, asked to see the orders, and, having satisfied themselves of their terms, abandoned their purpose.
Captain Brenton, the naval historian, was watch-officer on board a ship that for many days was in the hands of mutineers. He says, "The seamen, generally speaking, throughout the mutiny conducted themselves with a degree of humanity highly creditable, not only to themselves, but to the national character. They certainly tarred and feathered the surgeon of a ship at the Nore, but he had been five weeks drunk in his cabin and had neglected the care of his patients; this was therefore an act which Lord Bacon would have called 'wild justice.' The delegates of the 'Agamemnon'" (his own ship) "showed respect to every officer but the captain; him, after the first day, they never insulted but rather treated with neglect; they asked permission of the lieutenants to punish a seaman, who, from carelessness or design, had taken a dish of meat belonging to the ward-room and left his own, which was honestly and civilly offered in compensation." [55] Still, though begun under great provocation and marked at first by such orderly procedure, the fatal effects of insubordination once indulged long remained, as in a horse that has once felt his strength; while the self-control and reasonableness of demand which distinguished the earlier movements lost their sway. The later mutinies seriously endangered the State, and the mutinous spirit survived after the causes which palliated it had been removed.
In meeting the needs of so great and widely scattered a naval force, even with the best administration and economy, there could not but be great deficiencies; and the exigencies of the war would not permit ships to be recalled and refitted as often as the hard cruising properly required. Still,