The British Navy and the State in the Eighteenth Century

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THE BRITISH NAVY AND THE STATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Clive Wilkinson

THE BRITISH NAVY AND THE STATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Prominent in building Britain’s maritime empire in the eighteenth century, the Royal Navy also had a significant impact on politics, public finance and the administrative and bureaucratic development of the British state. The Navy was the most expensive branch of the state and its effective funding and maintenance was a problem that taxed the ingenuity of a succession of politicians, naval officers and bureaucrats. The Navy, in many ways a victim of its own success, grew faster than the infrastructure that supported it and the public purse that funded it. By the middle of the century the difficulties this growth created had become critical, and the challenge this presented was taken up by Admiralty Boards led by Anson, Egmont, Hawke and Sandwich. Resolving these problems introduced administrative reforms and innovations in the Navy’s administration and in public finance, some of which pre-figured later bureaucratic development. There was however a political price to pay, when the management of the Navy and its apparent unpreparedness for the War of American Independence made the Earl of Sandwich and the Navy a focus for political opposition to an unpopular government and a disappointing war. Clive Wilkinson is a graduate of the University of East Anglia where he received a Ph.D. in 1998. He is currently based at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich where he is working on the EU-funded CLIWOC project directing the preparation of a climatic database using information in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ships’ logbooks.

THE BRITISH NAVY AND THE STATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Clive Wilkinson

THE BOYDELL PRESS in association with the National Maritime Museum

© Clive Wilkinson 2004 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2004 Published by The Boydell Press An imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604–4126, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN 1 84383 042 6 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilkinson, Clive, 1954– The British Navy and the state in the eighteenth century/Clive Wilkinson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–84383–042–6 (Hardback : alk. paper) 1. Great Britain. Royal Navy—History—18th century. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—18th century. 3. Great Britain—Politics and government—18th century. I. National Maritime Museum (Great Britain) II. Title. VA454.W595 2004 359'.00941'09033—dc22

2003019977

Typeset by Keystroke, Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Limited, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Contents Foreword Acknowledgements Abbreviations

vi ix x

1 The myth of a paper fleet

1

2 Government and the Navy

12

3 ‘Treating the House with contempt’: British naval finance in the eighteenth century

35

4 Crisis and victory: the Navy, 1714–62

66

5 The peace establishment I: demobilization and retrenchment, 1763–6

105

6 The peace establishment II: stability, innovation, and the Falklands, 1766–70

139

7 Sandwich, Parliament and the paper fleet, 1771–9

165

8 Conclusion

209

Appendices Bibliography

213 228 240

Index

v

Foreword When France joined the American Revolutionary War in 1778 the British Navy was far from ready. A year later Spain joined the contest, rendering the situation truly grim because both Bourbon powers had been strenuously building up their navies. Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, told Parliament in early December 1777 that the fleet was more than a match for the Bourbon combination, but this declaration stood in marked contrast to his private assessment. For more than a year he had been beseeching Lord North for authorization to increase the number of British ships in commission. Reliable intelligence indicated that France was preparing new warships at such a pace that she would enjoy a substantial initial advantage if war came. The North administration had been hoping to knock the American rebellion off its feet by a massive military assault and had chosen not to augment the British fleet at home both to save money and to avoid antagonizing France. This strategy failed, and at the beginning of 1778, seeing that France would probably take advantage of the situation, North wanted to resign and proposed that the British government should settle its differences with the Americans. By then the Americans knew that France intended war, and when it was declared Britain faced a naval crisis. It had two aspects. Most immediately, there was the amount of time required to mobilize, that is to make the ships in reserve ready for active service and find men for them. In the opening phase of every war the manning problem posed enormous difficulties for the British Navy while the French Navy, thanks to a registry system, was able to get its ships manned faster. The other aspect concerned the condition of the ships in reserve. In truth, the Navy list contained many which would require major repairs or should be replaced by new construction. Although new ships could be, and were, ordered to be built in merchants’ yards, two or three years would pass before they could sail and fight. In the meantime the shortage would prevent the Admiralty from adopting optimum modes of naval strategy. To the consternation of the British public, French naval operations proceeded with little hindrance. This book concerns the second problem, the lack of ships. How could such inferiority have been allowed to develop? To be sure, the added weight of the Spanish Navy posed a severe challenge, but during the period of peace from 1763 to 1775 there was every reason to think that in the next war Spain would act with France. Parliamentary critics, however, focused on the idea that the Navy had not been kept up properly despite what they considered to have been ample appropriations. vi

FOREWORD

Opposition politicians were inclined to suppose that administrators were corrupt: since the fleet was in poor shape, the money appropriated upon the estimates had surely been wasted. Although this book shows that to be false, it also reveals how the conduct of naval officialdom invited criticisms because it was reluctant to report candidly how the money had been spent. For decades Parliament had tolerated this attitude: the Navy was funded by an inherently crude system wherein broad-brush and often inadequate naval estimates were approved that had to be supplemented by occasional grants to pay down an accumulated Navy debt. After 1763, however, as the author shows, there was a trend toward greater accountability, and opposition mistrust took on a partisan intensity because there were naval officers in the House of Commons who had served George II and now felt shunned under George III. When Lord Sandwich defended himself by saying that when he took office in 1771 he had inherited a ‘paper fleet’, that is, a list containing ships that were so decayed as to be useless, it had the effect of casting blame upon Sir Edward Hawke, who had been a seagoing hero in the preceding war and whose conduct as First Lord (1766-1771) was bound to be defended by outraged older officers and their political friends. Although some historians have taken sides, no one has really known whether it is proper to blame Sandwich, his predecessors, or Parliament for the failure to keep up the strength of the fleet. The only way to approach the question is to undertake the research that Dr Wilkinson has done, and the results of his research are truly interesting and fundamental. They go well beyond the question of which First Lord was neglectful. The findings emphasize two entwined facts that the author has established: first, that most ships of the line could be expected to require an expensive repair, or else be replaced, every twelve to fifteen years; second, that the British Navy was caught in a cycle of decay because in the 1740s and 1750s there were surges of wartime construction. At about the time Sandwich took office many ships built during the Seven Years’ War were approaching the end of their useful lives and, at the least, required major repairs. As Dr Wilkinson puts it, the ‘rate of decay’ was then outpacing ‘the rate of renewal’. One sees therefore how wise it was for the Earl of Egmont (the First Lord from 1763 to 1765) to spend some of the money that might have been devoted to shipbuilding on permanent dockyard improvements, and how Sandwich honestly sought to mitigate the cycle of decay when he took office though it meant a fleet of reduced size in the near term. When the North administration blundered into a major war, it could not have come at a worse moment for the Navy, or for Lord Sandwich. Yet this book, though it focuses on the crisis of the 1770s, also enables us to appreciate with heightened detail a much larger phenomenon. The two immense administrative achievements of the British state in the eighteenth century were the Treasury and the Navy. The former was the great foundation. The latter presented an unending challenge, as states have generally found it more difficult to keep up a navy than to build one. It is easy to form the vii

FOREWORD

idea that because Parliament was steadily disposed to favour the Navy, the British state’s task in this regard was simple and straightforward. This book shows how mistaken such an idea is. Daniel A. Baugh Cornell University

viii

Acknowledgements I wish to thank Professor Daniel Baugh and Professor Roger Knight for reading several chapters and offering useful comments, suggestions and endless encouragement. I would also like to thank Dr Roger Morriss and Dr Brian Hill (University of East Anglia – UEA) who guided me through the first stages of post-graduate research. I have also received much support and encouragement from Richard Deswarte (UEA), Professor Colin Davis (UEA), Dr Dennis Wheeler (University of Sunderland), Professor Phil Jones (Climate Research Unit, UEA), Dr Nigel Rigby and Rachel Giles (National Maritime Museum) and Ramin Keshavarz. I am grateful to the British Academy for providing a studentship to support my early research. My thanks also go to the trustees of the National Maritime Museum for the award of a Caird Fellowship to carry out additional research. Last but not least, thanks go to my wife Sally, and Catherine and Alexander, and this book is dedicated to them.

ix

Abbreviations BL NMM PRO Parl. Hist.

British Library National Maritime Museum Public Record Office (now the National Archive) Parliamentary History of Great Britain

x

1

The myth of a paper fleet

your fleet is the security and protection of your trade, and both together are the wealth, strength, security and glory of Britain. Lord Haversham (1707)1

Britain started and ended the eighteenth century celebrating its Navy. In the interval the Navy played a key part in establishing an empire in America and India, only to lose the former. During much of the third quarter of the eighteenth century, the time when the American colonies were lost, the Navy and its administration was severely criticized on numerous occasions. Among other things this book examines the justification for that criticism, examining the relationship between the Navy and the state to determine what was wrong with the Navy and its ships on the eve of the War of American Independence. There was a stark contrast between the three wars broadly covering the middle of the century. The war, beginning in 1739, over Captain Jenkins’ ear and becoming the War of the Austrian Succession, was entirely successful as a maritime war even though the peace negotiated in 1749 provided no more than a breathing space for Britain and France in their struggle for empire. The war left the Navy’s affairs in some disorder. Yet, after a disappointing start, the Seven Years’ War, in which the opening shots were fired in America in 1755, was the most successful war ever fought by Britain. At the Peace of Paris in 1763, Britain had gained Canada and the beginnings of an empire in India. The War of American Independence saw in its early stages a decisive check to Britain’s seapower, contributing to the loss of an American empire. Much has been written on why Britain’s seapower suffered a setback and some of this has necessarily concentrated on the period between the Peace of Paris in 1763 and 1776 when the Americans declared their independence. Criticism has centred for the most part on the inadequacy of the Navy’s ships and upon the shortcomings of the Navy’s administrators. There were too few ships, others were in a state of disrepair, and little had been done about it. The view that the administration of the Navy during the 1760s and 1770s was at best inept 1

Quoted in Linda Colley, Britons, Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992), p. 65. 1

THE MYTH OF A PAPER FLEET

and at worst corrupt seems firmly established in much conventional historical literature. It is hard to dispel the image of a parsimonious do-nothing post-1763 naval administration that elevated corruption, negligence and inefficiency to new heights. Warships rotting at their moorings and found wanting at the moment of need provide tangible evidence of neglect that is hard to excuse. Matters are not helped by contemporary comment describing a First Lord of the Admiralty, Edward Hawke, as ‘indolent’ and ‘paying so little attention to the fleet’ that he was forced to resign after ‘having fallen into a state of imbecility.’2 Hawke’s successor, the Earl of Sandwich has suffered even more in reputation at the hands of some historians armed with little more than the dubious ammunition supplied by the Earl’s political enemies.3 The real cornerstone of this myth however, and it is nothing more than myth, is the end result of this alleged neglect: the loss of America. The Navy did not perform as well as expected. An army was ultimately trapped at Yorktown because the Navy could not maintain a local superiority. Someone was to blame and inevitably Sandwich, the architect of the Navy’s ruin, bore the brunt of contemporary criticism and the ruin of his reputation. His only defence was to blame his predecessors, establishing the period between 1763 and 1770 as a time in which short-sighted politicians ran down the great fleet so carefully nurtured by Admiral George Anson during the Seven Years’ War and so disgracefully neglected by those who followed him into the Admiralty. This neatly packaged picture suffers from a number of problems. First, apart from the indisputable fact that there was something wrong with the Navy, particularly with regard to the condition of many ships, and that America was lost, very little of what has been outlined above can be supported by the facts. The Earl of Sandwich for instance, has most recently been portrayed as a cultured and intelligent man, an astute statesman and politician, and an assiduous and innovative First Lord of the Admiralty.4 This being the case, the obvious question to ask is why, with all his great ability, was Sandwich unable to provide the nation with a fleet ready for war? The answer, one might think, must lie with his predecessors because whatever difficulties Sandwich faced, he would have inherited many of these from a previous administration. This

2 These remarks describing Sir Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty from 1766 to 1771 refer specifically to his alleged want of care for the fleet at the time of the Falkland Islands crisis in 1770. They were made by Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 4 vols (London, 1894) vol. iv, pp. 137, 170. 3 See for instance William James, The British Navy in Adversity (London, 1926). 4 See NAM. Rodger, The Insatiable Earl: A Life of John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich 1718–1792 (London, 1993). Horace Walpole also commented on the First Lord’s shrewdness and his mastery of the business of the Navy though acknowledging his unpopularity, a lack of principles and a number of public enemies. Horace Walpole, George III, vol. iv, pp. 170–1.

2


apparently logical conclusion, also at times an orthodox historical view, was given impetus by the great man himself. Sandwich and his friends blamed previous administrations, the usual and understandable excuse of ministers under fire. Sandwich had supposedly inherited a fleet on paper on which vessels had been kept upon the Navy list for political reasons. Half of the fleet that had existed when Sir Edward Hawke was First Lord in the late 1760s had been removed by 1778.5 These assertions by Sandwich and North, ministers fighting for their political lives, provide drama and interest but these are not a basis for truth when there have been no in-depth studies of the naval administrations of Egmont and to a lesser extent Hawke, the targets of their criticism. It is all very well to determine the truth about the state of the fleet when Sandwich took over at the Admiralty. What is much more important is why the fleet was in poor condition in the 1770s and what was subsequently done about it. One man such as Hawke, whether competent or otherwise, could not possibly be responsible for the deterioration and wholesale neglect of a country’s naval force. Here rests the real problem of understanding the difficulties faced by the Navy at this critical period. There is an entrenched assumption that the Navy was neglected. It must have been neglected because had the Navy been well managed it would have advanced from its strong position under Anson to an unassailable posture under Sandwich. Instead, there were insufficient ships, the fleet was in a poor state of repair, and money had apparently disappeared or been wasted. These are established facts and, though open to interpretation and a degree of mitigation, they cannot be denied. Yet accusing a set of naval administrations of sustained culpable neglect defies logic. A whole series of Admiralty Boards comprising familiar names of good reputation cannot be branded as indolent, neglectful or incompetent. Naval officers like Augustus Keppel, Charles Saunders, Richard Howe or Edward Hawke would never have allowed the service to deteriorate yet it was these very men who served on the Admiralty Board during this time. Civilian board members such as George Grenville, Charles Jenkinson and John Buller were also of sound reputation and ability. The Earl of Sandwich himself was one of the Navy’s most able administrators and it was his great misfortune to be holding the smoking gun when the Navy failed to perform and the American colonies were lost. Setting aside this point, it is fair to say that the picture of neglect, that seems so inescapable, is simply not supported by any evidence. A detailed study of the Navy’s business after 1763 demonstrates problems and difficulties as one might expect but these were overcome. What emerges is an astonishing period of dynamic innovation, reform and change; a time of improvement and increased efficiency. In particular these years saw significant change in the civil and financial administration of the Navy, first, as a direct result of the war 5

Piers Mackesy, The War for America 1775–1783 (London, 1964), p. 167. 3


and, second, from lessons learned from the previous period of peace before 1755. The Navy used the peace period after 1763 to consolidate its recent triumph, to regenerate the fleet and place itself in as strong a position as possible to face the next crisis. The ‘paper fleet’ inherited by Sandwich is therefore another myth in need of revision. One purpose of this study therefore is to demonstrate the competent management of the Navy’s affairs by a specific examination of its administration from 1763 to shortly after the time when France entered the American war in 1778. It will, however, go much further than this. By putting the period from 1763 to 1778 into a larger context, in fact as far back as the 1720s, it will be possible to understand the development of the problems Sandwich faced and how these in turn were overcome. Although the post-1763 period was one of dynamic reform, it was also a continuation of a process of change that had been going on for several decades. It is only by looking at this much longer period that we can discover what was wrong with the Navy’s ships in the 1770s. Recent writers have indicated that the inter-war (1763–75) building programme was just adequate to produce a respectable fleet but that the infrastructure was insufficient to support the size of fleet that was to be needed for the American War.6 This is a sound basis for understanding the Navy’s problems, yet there is still an impression particularly from contemporary comment that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Navy’s 6 Daniel Baugh has blamed the poor performance of the Navy in the opening years of the American War on the delayed mobilization of the fleet. The root of the problem, as he saw it, was the delay in applying the Navy’s resources and the expansion of the French and Spanish navies rather than pre-war neglect. Baugh went on to say that although insufficient building in peacetime was usually blamed for inadequate numbers of ships at the outbreak of war with France in 1778, this was not supported by firm statistics. It was therefore a purely impressionistic conclusion based on contemporary comment. Professor Baugh also felt that if such a thing as a peacetime norm in naval shipbuilding could be determined, it was unlikely that the period between 1763 and 1775 strayed far from it. Here we have a balanced view that begins to question the matter of neglect by the peacetime administrators. Daniel Baugh, ‘Why Did Britain Lose Command of the Sea During the War for America?’ in Jeremy Black and Philip Woodfine, The British Navy and the Use of Naval Power in the Eighteenth Century (Leicester, 1988), pp. 154–5. Nicholas Rodger is the most recent writer to touch on this problem and one of the conclusions he draws from his assessment of the life of the Earl of Sandwich is that the Navy had outgrown the dockyards needed to maintain it. Like Professor Baugh, Dr Rodger has indicated that a statistical study of the performance of the dockyards is needed. He also implied that Sandwich’s predecessors had not understood that the yards and other facilities needed to expand with the size of the fleet and that they had therefore done little about it. Rodger, The Insatiable Earl, p. 323. Dr Rodger’s conclusion concerning the dockyards is similar to that of Charles Derrick writing in 1806. Dr Rodger’s overall point is sound; however his comment on Sandwich’s predecessors is not correct. The need for dockyard expansion had been given careful consideration by other administrators, in particular the Earl of Egmont in the years immediately following the Peace of Paris in 1763.

4


ships. The immediate concerns and opinions of contemporaries, whether ill informed or not, are worthy of some examination as any objective assessment of the performance of the dockyards or the management of the Navy cannot ignore the beliefs of those charged with the responsibility of the Navy’s affairs. The actions of individuals are after all motivated by their immediate perceptions whether those views are right or wrong. These perceptions, or at least those of Sandwich, were that the fleet was decaying and new and innovative steps were needed to put matters right. Sandwich’s critics, on the other hand, believed that, despite large sums voted by Parliament to rebuild and repair the fleet, Sandwich had been either criminally negligent or incompetent in discharging his office. Since the time of Sandwich there has been a long-held belief that the ships constructed during the Seven Years War were built in haste from unseasoned or green timber. They were generally termed ‘green ships’. It was for this reason that they decayed rapidly just at the critical moment when Britain was about to go to war again. There is evidence to suppose that this applied to only a minority of ships and cannot account for the decline in Britain’s naval strength.7 It was a convenient reason for any government minister to explain the Navy’s difficulties to a hostile and sceptical Parliament and one seized upon by Sandwich. He did this not to excuse his personal performance, but rather to add weight to his explanations for the Navy’s high expenditure. It also provided justification for his personal plans for improving the quality of naval construction. Apparently common sense was insufficient reason for carrying out a number of essential measures and Sandwich, in order to carry the day in Parliament, needed some way to magnify the Navy’s difficulties. This tactic worked if used sparingly but was ultimately self-defeating. With rare exceptions, historians have uncritically accepted these explanations without examining their validity, thereby giving substance to the myth of a paper fleet. An additional complication arose from the necessity of Sandwich having to criticize his predecessors either directly or implicitly and thereby clouding the matter by bringing reputation and personal honour into the equation. Two of his predecessors, Anson and Hawke, had a loyal following in the Navy and among naval officers sitting in Parliament, even though one was now dead and the other was not politically active. This was to provide an explosive mixture that would dog Sandwich throughout his tenure at the Admiralty. It should have come as no surprise therefore that there was a body of contemporary opinion, supported by a number of eminent naval officers such as Keppel, Saunders, the Earl of Bristol and the Duke of Bolton, that differed

7

A number of ships built during the Seven years War such as the Valiant and the Triumph were still in active service during the Napoleonic Wars some fifty years later. 5


substantially with the opinions of Sandwich and criticized his methods of management. Chief among these was Admiral Sir Edward Hawke himself. Hawke was particularly at odds with the new naval administration over methods of timber seasoning and naval construction. Hawke felt slighted because his judgement had been questioned and also because his tenure at the Admiralty had come under public criticism. Hawke actually described the idea of ‘green ships’ as having been ‘revived’ as if it was a myth or a convenient excuse that had been used in the past and was now being dusted off and given a further airing by a civilian head of the Admiralty with little professional knowledge. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of the personal and political animosities that this debate generated, it is fair to say that both Sandwich and Hawke had the best interests of the Navy at heart and were both passionately convinced that their respective views were correct. On the one hand Hawke’s arguments for improving naval construction were cogent and convincing and when his criticisms are studied closely it is difficult not to see the sense of what he is putting forward. These arguments were produced in a pamphlet after his resignation and subsequently published.8 On the other hand Sandwich’s aims were quite clear and not in the least misguided. It was purely the means by which he attempted to achieve his aims that were at fault. Sandwich was not always adept at handling the sensitivities of others, especially it seems naval officers, and could easily have won a prize for his dissembling manner. This stemmed from a combination of his clear vision of what was needed and his single-minded determination to overcome the Navy’s difficulties. It is sometimes difficult to appreciate that others may not see things quite as clearly as yourself. With this in mind, we can begin to address the curious dichotomy concerning the Earl of Sandwich himself, for his actions not only affected the Navy but also had a direct impact on the political stage. In fact the historical view of the Navy’s situation at this time has been coloured by the heated debates in both Houses of Parliament on the state of the Navy. The odium heaped upon the First Lord of the Admiralty would have broken a lesser man, yet no analysis of the parliamentary criticism of Sandwich has ever been undertaken. It has either been assumed that he was guilty of the crimes and incompetence ascribed to him or there has been insufficient understanding of the Navy’s administrative problems to counter some of the specific allegations. It has never really been determined if the criticism of the First

8

Hawke produced a pamphlet shortly after his resignation as First Lord in which he countered criticism from the new administration. This was later published in expanded form as A Seaman’s Remarks on the British Ships of the Line from 1st January 1756 to the 1st January 1782 with some Occasional Observations on the Fleet of the House of Bourbon (London, 1782). 6


Lord was based on real and substantial concerns or motivated purely by party political considerations. This study will answer these questions by setting Sandwich’s management of the Navy within the political as well as the administrative arena. The motivations of Sandwich’s critics as well as their personal and political connections are most revealing. There is also the matter of honour and personal reputation, always a delicate subject in the eighteenth century. More revealing still are the First Lord’s reactions to his critics more especially when we understand his own motivations and the difficult balance he had to make between his own ambitions for the Navy, the security of the country, and the political realities of his day. What finally emerges is not simply a confirmation of Dr Rodger’s favourable assessment of the abilities of this man. By disentangling the Navy’s difficulties from the web of political intrigue and personal animosities, a sustained level of competent management is revealed. What also emerges from the morass of political rivalry, party politics, injured reputation and a disastrous war are a number of key indications of what caused the Navy’s serious deficiencies. The reasons why the Navy’s problems have not been fully understood and why there is this myth that it suffered neglect in the 1760s and 1770s stem partly from the sources some historians have used and partly from their approach and methodology. In the past twenty years there have been a number of books and articles written on naval administration and on the dockyards. Many of these have revised the common view of inefficiency and negligence but this in itself indicates that a further revision of this subject is still needed. Collectively they are at odds with traditional published sources such as parliamentary debates on the state of the Navy and the views of politicians. As already indicated the uncritical use of this material presents too many contradictions. Critics with a particular point of view or a personal or political axe to grind are never trustworthy witnesses. The point is that these contradictions need to be resolved or explained. There is a further danger in trying to make an objective assessment of the Navy’s performance. Hindsight can sometimes prejudice our understanding of precisely what was going on. We also need to look at the problem, as it were, from the other end, without the aid of hindsight. The achievements or otherwise of naval administrations must be measured against their own objectives and against the particular problems and difficulties which they faced. We limit our understanding if we judge Sandwich, Hawke or Egmont against a set of modern presumptions of what we think they should have achieved. The outcomes of their actions were the result of decisions based on circumstances as they saw them and on policy constraints that were not in their power to overcome. Our judgement should therefore be reserved until it is tempered by an appreciation of the concerns, difficulties, and the objectives of those directing the affairs of the Navy. The study of any peacetime Navy should be examined within several different contexts. The first requirement is an understanding of the 7


administrative and financial machinery of the Navy.9 The second is an understanding of the place of the Navy within the wider sphere of government administration. Additionally an appreciation is needed of the political context within which the Navy operated. All of this is necessary before any quantitative and qualitative assessment of the Navy’s ships and the dockyard infrastructure is made. The Navy was not some autonomous monolith that defended the country and helped build an empire. It existed within parameters defined by a political system that operated within the constraints of a constitutional monarchy. It was further constrained by physical boundaries defined by available resources both material and financial and by an infrastructure that tended to expand at a slower rate than the growth of the fleet itself. It was sustained in much of this by vested interests and the force of public opinion. An holistic approach that sets the problems of naval administration within these varied contexts is more likely to achieve a satisfactory answer to the questions to be examined here. This approach provides a number of challenges in methodology and interpretation. In the past writing on the civil affairs of the Navy has concentrated on what administrators and politicians actually said in their official and private correspondence. This highlights the problems they were facing and the decisions taken, but, just as minutes of board meetings merely record the decisions arrived at rather than the decision-making process, this correspondence is often inadequate for an understanding of a course of action. This study seeks not only to make use of what was written in the conventional way but also to look beyond and examine the logic behind decisions, to measure the effectiveness of the outcome and to analyse the reasons why things were done in a particular manner.10 Once we have achieved some understanding of this we can better analyse much of the statistical material upon which administrators would have made their decisions; we can in effect begin to understand the problems they had to cope with from their point of view. By appreciating the logic of the administrative process we can thereby understand the administrative system and its relevance and impact on contemporary problems. Then we can determine the influence of the individual, whether First Lord, junior Commissioner or Secretary, on the management of the Navy and ultimately the reasons why the Navy was unprepared for the war with the American colonists and their allies. 9

This has been set out by Daniel Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole (Princeton, 1965). Baugh describes how the Navy was administered in respect to distinctive problems, but the scope of this essential book can provide only a limited analysis of the administrative process. 10 In effect the answers to some of our questions may be found by an examination of systems. We need to look beyond the content of archival evidence. As well as the text of departmental correspondence and the considerable body of statistical data which it contains (much of it never analysed), much can be gleaned by looking at the structure and logic of the Navy’s administrative paperwork. 8


In addition to these considerations it is necessary to take account of the restraints placed upon naval administrations by the government itself. The Navy was one of many semi-autonomous government departments, which were interconnected in many ways yet frequently at odds with each other. Even so there was co-operation between departments as well as conflict. Naval spending could in theory be moderated by the Treasury. Yet the degree of coercion exercised by Treasury ministers over the Admiralty or Navy Boards was often determined by the relative characters of the ministers themselves and to a large degree tempered by the very fragmented nature of public administration. Understanding these relationships gives considerable insights into the degree of control that individuals were able to exercise over the affairs of their own departments and to what extent they could influence the affairs of others. What emerges from this is the surprising importance of the lesser men within the Admiralty and the Treasury. Junior commissioners, secretaries and under-secretaries could often wield influence beyond what would normally be expected and the movement of these lesser men from one department of government to another was at times of great significance. A further factor that must be explored is the importance of politics in the affairs of the Navy. The 1760s and 1770s in particular were periods of high political tension. The young King George III came to the throne in 1760 determined to rule as a constitutional monarch but he frequently flouted custom and appointed unpopular ministers. No less than six ministries followed one another between 1763 and 1770 as the King sought to appoint governments that could both command the support of Parliament and be agreeable to his own wishes. Numerous changes of ministry caused considerable upheaval in the various government departments. The head and composition of the Admiralty Commission changed frequently during the 1760s. How far these changes affected the standards of naval administration has never been explored. 11 Numerous changes of management, policy and direction would, one would think, have caused chaos. Yet it is entirely possible that the contrary was the case and that the Navy could continue to be administered effectively despite frequent changes in the composition of the Admiralty Board. The administrative machinery may have had a momentum of its own; an independent existence for which a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ official or political appointee was of little consequence. What will be demonstrated in this study will be the interplay between the Navy and other sections of government, the influence of national politics, and

11 In his survey of the development of the Royal Navy, Brian Lavery suggested a link between the neglect of the Navy and the political instability of Britain after the accession of George III. Brian Lavery, The Ship of the Line, the Development of the Battlefleet 1650–1850, 2 vols (London, 1983), vol. 1, p. 109. It was Mr Lavery’s aside that first encouraged my investigation into the civil affairs of the Navy of the 1760s.

9


the influence of various individuals both within and without the civil branch of the Navy on the course of service affairs. This will be underpinned by a thorough explanation of the administrative and financial systems of the Navy showing not just how it operated but why. Once this broad context is established it will be possible to investigate the problems experienced by the Navy on two fronts. The first of these is to chart the course of the rebuilding and repair programme of the Navy in the eighteenth century, and in particular after the end of the Seven Years War. We need to determine if there was sufficient money voted to the Navy and then discover how this money was expended. Analysis is needed of the peacetime building programmes and the repair of existing ships. This should not however be studied in isolation. The Royal Navy had existed in some form or another for centuries but only since the time of the Commonwealth and the Restoration had it begun to develop into a leading maritime force. The infrastructure that built and maintained it was fast becoming the largest industrial complex in a pre-industrial world. In this sense then, politicians and administrators were still learning to cope with the pressures and problems brought about by this unprecedented expansion. How the period from 1763 fits into this expansion will not only illustrate the continuing development of Britain’s naval power, but also how the civil administration was learning from past successes and failures. In this sense, it is useful to make direct comparisons between peacetime periods, pre-1739 as well as 1749–55 and 1763–75. By working forward in this way, we can appreciate the accumulating difficulties brought about by naval expansion and the degree to which governments and individuals were able to learn from past experiences.12 This approach is far more useful than using just hindsight to assess the competence or otherwise of a set of men or administrations. This study will rescue a number of the Navy’s administrators from relative obscurity, show the true worth of Sandwich’s achievement and offer an interpretation of the Navy’s situation on the eve of the War of American Independence. Despite the adverse outcome of this war, the Earl of Egmont and Sir Edward Hawke, as well as lesser men within the Navy’s administration, must be given due credit for their achievements in the period preceding it. They must be given credit for managing an incredibly complex and difficult institution, one that involved the security of the country and an empire. They have been judged in the past only on the result, an unsuccessful war and the loss of America. Yet, after the loss of the colonies, Britain defeated France and Spain and her Navy was strong. It can be argued that this could not have been achieved by a series of incompetent or negligent naval administrations.

12

It is important to note at this point that the Earl of Sandwich must have owed much of his expertise to having been on the Admiralty Board during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744–8. He was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1749, again in 1763 and then from 1771 to 1782. 10


If the Navy had truly been neglected after the Seven Years War, Britain would have lost far more than America. Therefore, seeing the decades prior to 1775 as a period of innovation, reform and improvement need not be at odds with the reality of a disappointing war. The foundations of naval power can be strengthened in peacetime as well as neglected. The two key themes of this study are the maintenance of Britain’s naval strength in the eighteenth century and the financing of this undertaking. This is explored through an examination of the relationship between the Navy and the state and the part that politicians and administrators had to play.

11

2

Government and the Navy

Britain’s naval administration in the middle decades of the eighteenth century can best be understood by studying three main areas that can be broadly defined as politics, personalities and systems. Politics encompasses national politics and political patronage and for our specific purposes, interdepartmental politics. The study of individual personalities can examine character and personal ambition as well as political beliefs and ability. These facets overlay and interact with the administrative process. What is of interest is why individuals took on a post or office such as Admiralty Commissioner, what was their function in that position and then what they actually did or did not do. We can then judge their impact on the administrative system and chart the sequence of events in which they were involved and evaluate the consequences of their actions. This not only sheds light on the affairs of the Navy but also provides a number of insights into the structure, function and the process of eighteenth-century government. The highest level of the Navy’s civil administration was the Board of Admiralty.1 This was made up of officials who, with very rare exceptions, were sitting members of Parliament.2 Very often they were civilians with the inclusion of at least one, usually two, and occasionally more naval officers. All of them owed their position to their personal political allegiances. In this respect there was no distinction between civilians and naval officers. Any or all could lose their places on a change of government. It was common for any incoming government administration to consolidate its position by cementing

1

The Admiralty Board, of seven Commissioners, exercised the office of Lord High Admiral, a post previously held by a member of the royal family. 2 In the century between 1710 and 1810, there were 167 different Commissioners appointed. Of these 148 were members of Parliament, two were ex-members and one was an Irish MP. Only fifteen Commissioners were not part of the parliamentary political establishment, and of these, nine held their posts after 1790, so that during most of the eighteenth century, that is between 1710 and 1790, only six Commissioners did not have seats in Parliament. Figures have been abstracted from J. C. Sainty, Admiralty Officials 1660–1870 (London, 1975), L. Namier and J. Brooke (eds), The History of Parliament, the House of Commons 1754–1790, 3 vols (London, 1964) R. Sedgwick, The History of Parliament, the House of Commons, 1715–1754, 2 vols (London, 1970), and R. G. Thorne, The History of Parliament, the House of Commons 1790–1820 (London, 1986). 12

GOVERNMENT AND THE NAVY

political alliances through the gift of offices and places. As a rule, only the secretaries could count on retaining their positions, a fact which underlines the importance of their office and the potential degree of their influence.3 The predominance of civilians on the Admiralty Board serves to emphasize that the Admiralty was as much a political body as a governing body of the Navy. The Commissioners were, in effect, the Navy’s political representatives. This is an important distinction. National politics only touched the Navy’s affairs at the highest level, that is, the most senior sea-going appointments such as commanders-in-chief, and appointments to positions on the Admiralty Board. The King was often involved in these decisions. Politics did not normally enter into the everyday affairs of the Navy.4 Ordinary appointments and promotions were firmly in the hands of naval officers who tended to cultivate a following of young officers whose promotions were given assistance in return for their loyalty and support. This system of service patronage was self-contained, entirely effective and worked for the good of the service. Where political considerations did influence promotions or appointments it was always within the context of the naval service and always handled through the patronage of naval officers. Because of the highly professional nature of the naval service, civilians had virtually no influence in the matter of naval promotions.5 National politics generally only affected the Navy at Admiralty Board level. Appointments to any position under government in the eighteenth century were part of the political process of managing the House of Commons. Various political groups existed, led by influential men whose relationship with their followers tended to be of a personal rather than a political nature. This personal relationship was based on friendship, borough interest and family connection.6 Forming an administration often meant an alliance of factions as one group was often unable to command a majority in the Commons. The King, having found a minister willing or able to form an administration, would negotiate with that minister on the filling of the major offices of state and often on appointments to secondary offices such as the various Boards. The minister forming an administration would then have to balance the wishes of the King with the necessity of managing the Commons. The support of other political groups would always depend on providing places for their followers in exchange for their support. Even then, that support could be withdrawn at some critical juncture, leaving office holders in

3

This applied to all government departments, not only the Navy. I make a distinction here between national politics and personal politics. Personal politics could affect the Navy when major issues arose. The conduct of the war with the American colonies divided political opinion, and some officers refused to serve until France entered the war in 1778. 5 N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World (London, 1986), pp. 332–3, 335, 343. 6 John Brooke, The Chatham Administration 1766–1768 (London, 1956), pp. 234–5. 4

13


the unenviable position of having either to abandon their patrons or resign their places. Such a system of appointments did not necessarily burden the offices of government with the inexperienced, the undeserving or the incompetent. Promotion or appointment through the system of patronage, and appointment through ability or merit were not mutually exclusive. An individual of ability could bring himself to the attention of a patron who could advance his career and, if successful in that career, the sponsor stood to gain much personal credit from his client’s achievements. Such a system operated very effectively within the sea service branch of the Navy, and no doubt to the same or to a lesser extent in other professions including government service. Government offices and appointments were held therefore, by a mixture of professional ‘men of business’ whose appointments were often part of a career progression,7 and pure placemen who held office only to draw a salary, enhance their personal standing in society, or as a reward for past services. However, because of the nature of the appointment, it was far from permanent and dismissal from a position or a change of office was always likely. This again emphasizes the almost entirely political nature of the Admiralty Board. Under these circumstances, it was potentially disastrous to allow such impermanent officials too much influence over the management of the Navy’s affairs. In practice, many Admiralty Commissioners did not wield much influence. Some merely wanted a place in government and were not that concerned with the business attached to the position. On occasion they were blissfully unaware that they had even been appointed. Henry Temple, Viscount Palmerston, father of the nineteenth-century statesman, was on a continental tour in 1766 when he heard of his appointment as an Admiralty Commissioner. He wrote to his mother: I have never had any notice of it from anybody and am only informed of it by the Gazette; however I shall write to Sir Charles Saunders, to let him know where I am and to desire the indulgence of the Board for a fortnight longer absence.8

Palmerston remained at the Admiralty for over eleven years and being an avid traveller ‘desired the indulgence of the Board’ on many further occasions. He displayed little inclination for the Board’s business, attended few meetings and exercised no influence in the Navy’s affairs. His appointment did however give him some personal standing and no doubt satisfied the wishes of his sponsor,

7

A number of career bureaucrats worked their way through a hierarchy of government departments, often starting with a minor appointment at the Board of Trade and progressing eventually to the Treasury, after which the most successful could expect more senior positions at these boards. 8 Viscount Palmerston to the Hon. Mrs Henry Temple, 8 October, 1766, Brian Connell, Portrait of a Whig Peer (London, 1957), p. 66. 14


further enhancing the sponsor’s standing as a ‘political fixer’. Furthermore, a place under government, such as a Commissioner at the Admiralty Board, was an important aspect of social and political culture. The attraction of an appointment to a board such as the Admiralty was a salary, the social standing attached to an office that served the crown, and the possibility of service to one’s family and friends. Such appointments formed part of the lifestyle of the privileged.9 However, it should not be assumed that most of the Admiralty Board were mere placemen. Palmerston’s friend, Hans Stanley, was another Commissioner whose inclination for Admiralty business seems at best casual. 10 He was a Commissioner from 1757 to 1765 but Stanley’s apparent inattention to the Navy’s business is mitigated by his diplomatic activities. Although not a person of great political influence, he was an important government official attested by the fact that in the course of his diplomatic duties he could request that a naval vessel be appointed to convey him from Leghorn to Naples and thence to Marseilles.11 His position as an Admiralty Commissioner gave him some consequence when travelling abroad and his place on the Board therefore served a number of useful functions little connected with naval affairs. Stanley’s absence from board meetings should also be viewed in the wider context of public life and the nature of Parliamentary sessions. Sessions did not last for more than five to seven months. Even with such short sessions, regular attendance at the Commons by members was not a conspicuous feature. Personal inclination, private business, diplomatic business, as in the case of Stanley, or active service in the case of military and naval officers, often took them away from parliamentary duties. Of course the business of government departments and the various boards was carried on all the year round. During 1763 when Sandwich was First Lord, the Admiralty Board would meet from four to six times a week and often on a Saturday.12

9 Palmerston made frequent references in his engagement diary to dinners at Admiralty House, and the wife of James Harris, another Commissioner, wrote to her son about an expedition on the Thames in the Admiralty barge visiting Greenwich and Woolwich to see ‘the working of the cannon . . . and many curious models of ships’, dining ‘in a charming place in the open air , which commands a fine view of the Thames’. Mrs Harris to her son at Oxford, 2 July, 1763, Earl of Malmesbury, Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury 1745–1820, 2 vols, (London, 1870), vol. 1, pp. 92–3. 10 During an eleven-month period from mid-April 1763 to mid-March 1764, Stanley only attended thirty-eight out of the 234 days on which the Board met and during May and June 1764 he attended only three meetings before leaving for Paris on a pleasure trip, not returning until November. PRO: ADM 3/71, Admiralty Board minutes, April 1763–April 1764, ADM 3/72, Admiralty Board minutes, May 1764–March 1765, Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, vol. 3, pp. 468–70. 11 PRO: ADM 3/73, Admiralty Board Minute 12 July, 1765. 12 PRO: ADM 3/71.

15


However the nature of Admiralty business did not require full attendance. The work was often routine, almost trivial in nature, and only three of the seven Commissioners were needed to carry on any business and sign the necessary paperwork. This was usually the First Lord, who rarely missed meetings, one of the naval lords and one other of the Commissioners, as well as the Admiralty Secretary. In the absence of the Commissioners, the Secretary was authorized to sign any urgent documents that would then be properly dealt with at the next meeting. Many of the civilian Admiralty Commissioners were only needed occasionally to sign documents.13 We should further consider that the routine and almost trivial nature of the Board’s business, which even a cursory examination of letters and minutes makes apparent, must indicate that the Admiralty Board was not necessarily an executive decision-making body. Meetings were for transacting daily business and minuting decisions. Like any modern institution or commercial enterprise, meetings were also a forum for presenting decisions that had been formulated elsewhere. The decision-making process then as now would have taken place on an informal basis, over dinner, coffee, at social functions and so forth. It is all too easy to overlook the social aspects of official business. On one occasion when Hans Stanley excused himself from attending the Admiralty he wrote to George Grenville who was then First Lord: the slightest call to the business of the Admiralty, or of Parliament should Sir have brought me to London, but I cannot leave my house, which happens at this time to be full of people of the first distinction, in order to return you this answer by word of mouth.14

On this occasion, Stanley, in his minor diplomatic capacity, was better placed to serve both his official duties and his own interests by looking after his guests. There were of course those who were assiduous in their duties as Admiralty Commissioners. The First Lord was naturally engrossed in the business of his office, and naval Commissioners, such as Captain Richard Howe, if not on active service, attended regularly to their duties. There were also civilians, ‘men of business’, who took an active part in the work of the Board. Sometimes their appointment to the Admiralty was part of a career progression, and for some such as John Buller, a Commissioner from 1765 to 1780, it was almost a career in itself.15 13

It was not until Lord Barham became First Lord in 1805 that any specific duties were assigned to Commissioners and even then this only applied to the naval members of the Board. Sainty, Admiralty Officials, p. 19. 14 W. J. Smith, The Grenville Papers, 4 vols (London, 1852), vol. 2, p. 43. 15 The long-serving Buller eventually became the senior Admiralty Lord in the Commons and was described as a ‘perfect office drudge’. He supported each successive administration, and his willingness to provide the other Parliamentary seat at East Looe for a Government 16


All other considerations apart, an appointment to the Admiralty Board was an opportunity to give favours to friends and family, in particular to those in the naval profession. However it should be again stressed that promotion within the naval service, for instance to the rank of lieutenant or post-captain, although confirmed by the Admiralty, was firmly in the hands of serving officers who looked after the interests of their personal professional following.16 Even so, Commissioners were in a position of influence and able to provide favours and many did so. Within the context of eighteenth-century public service this was perfectly acceptable. John Brewer has pointed out that family service in government was usual, and providing places, opportunities and employment for sons, brothers or nephews was commonplace.17 After his appointment as First Lord in September 1763, the Earl of Egmont was able to provide many opportunities for his numerous family; he was twice married and had eight sons and eight daughters. Within two weeks of his appointment, Philip Tufton Perceval, Egmont’s third son was appointed to command the Ramilles at Chatham.18 A later Board minute showed Egmont making provision for his other sons: Charles George Perceval by His Majesty’s Pleasure is appointed Registrar of the Admiralty after the decease of Godfrey Lee Farrant and after the decease of both those persons that the Hon. Spencer Perceval succeed to that employment.19

These appointments were granted by a letter patent under the Admiralty seal giving Egmont the power to dispose of his own patronage.20 Even

candidate, as well as his inclination for the business of the Admiralty, served to keep him in regular employment. This led eventually to a place at the Treasury where he served both North and the Younger Pitt. The post at the Treasury may well have been a reward or promotion for long service. Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, vol. 2, pp. 132–3. 16 Rodger, The Wooden World, pp. 274–6. 17 John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State 1688–1783 (London, 1989), p. 81. 18 PRO: ADM 3/71 Admiralty Board Minute, Thursday, 6 October, 1763, David Syrett et al. The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660–1815 (London, NRS, 1994), p. 355, Peter Townend, Burke’s Peerage (London, 1970), p. 915. 19 PRO: ADM 3/72, f.44 Admiralty Board Minute, 30 June, 1764. The position of Registrar was a lifetime appointment, carried a salary of £1400 to £2000 per annum with the power to appoint deputies, and was usually given by a reversionary grant by a letter patent under the Admiralty seal. George Farrant, the incumbent at the time, had held the position since 1758 from a reversionary grant of 30 June, 1725. The practice of making grants in this fashion had existed since 1679. Charles Perceval was not able to enjoy his position until August 1790 and survived his brother Spencer who as Prime Minister was assassinated in 1812. 20 This would have been particularly appealing to Egmont who took a great delight in these matters. At one time he had devised plans to establish a colony in Canada governed according to a feudal system. 17


Admiralty Secretaries were able to use their positions to benefit their families. John Clevland, Secretary from 1751 until his death in 1763, obtained a position for his son as Admiralty Clerk, Deputy Judge of the Admiralty and a seat in Parliament for the borough of Barnstaple.21 With the exception of the post of Secretary, most minor civil appointments in the Navy were political because those exercising their patronage or using their influence were themselves in a position to do so because their own appointments were political in origin. However, the motivation for providing these places was based on family and kinship. This tended to make these appointments permanent. An examination of the periods of tenure of all minor appointments within the Admiralty reveal that changes in political fortunes did not upset the existing arrangements. In other words, though a Commissioner or First Lord might move on, resign or be dismissed, the patronage he had dispensed would remain in place. Even more important to the stability of the Navy’s administration was the Navy Board. Having existed since 1546, its composition by the eighteenth century was not generally political. Critically it was this subordinate board that maintained the fabric and infrastructure of the Navy.22 This then provided continuity in the day-to-day conduct of the Navy’s business. For instance the politically driven changes in department personnel, and in particular the purge of Newcastle supporters from both major and minor government offices at the end of 1762, was not evident in any of the Navy departments, nor in the Treasury, except in the Admiralty and Treasury Boards themselves.23 The Admiralty Board members were often hostages to political fortune, whereas the more minor officials within the Admiralty and the members of the Navy Board could rely on more permanent employment. This provided a considerable degree of stability and continuity within the naval administration even when, as in the 1760s, there were several changes of ministry and frequent alterations to the composition of the Admiralty

21

Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, vol. 2, pp. 220–1. Navy Board Commissioners were rarely sitting MPs. This changed on the appointment of Hugh Palliser as Controller in 1770. 23 See J. M. Collinge, Navy Board Officials 1660–1832 (London, 1978), Sainty, Admiralty Officials, and J. C. Sainty, Treasury Officials 1660–1870 (London, 1972). In 1762, as the Seven Years War came to a close, Lord Bute attempted to manage a government containing many of Newcastle’s followers while pushing through peace preliminaries, which Newcastle failed to support. To make matters worse, Newcastle encouraged many of his friends to resign from the government and was more than mortified when many of them chose not to do so. The vote on the peace preliminaries produced many more defections from the Newcastle camp, strengthening Bute’s position. Many who remained loyal to Newcastle and voted against the peace preliminaries lost their places in government. This purge extended to even minor officials in various government departments such as the Customs and Excise, as they owed their positions to the patronage of Newcastle. 22

18


Board. Twenty-six different Commissioners served at the Admiralty between 1761 and 1768, on a board that consisted of seven members. Seven different heads of the Admiralty were appointed during that period, the longest sitting incumbent holding the position of First Lord for less than three years. Even though the political instability of the 1760s did not disturb the everyday business of the Navy, we are still left with something of a conundrum. If most Admiralty Commissioners were nothing more than ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians, we are still left with the puzzle of how the Admiralty was able to function as the executive head of the Navy. If we can compare the Admiralty Commission to a board of company directors, but answerable to the public through Parliament rather than to shareholders, we can readily see that changes at the top might have had a minimal effect on the everyday transaction of business. Yet just as a dynamic managing director can make a difference to the performance of a company, so the personality, consequence and ability of a First Lord could make a great difference to the management of the Navy. The abilities of the First Lord and the assiduousness of at least a handful of the Commissioners were important and their importance cannot be entirely dismissed. The way through this puzzle is to question some basic preconceptions about the way the Admiralty functioned and to what degree the active members of the Commission exercised executive powers of management and control.

The Navy’s administrative structure It is entirely wrong to see the Admiralty Board as a supreme executive body directing the naval service. It was, rather, one of several clearly defined government departments responsible for the management of naval affairs. A sudden change in the membership of the Board did not disturb the Navy’s business. For instance, if one reads through the minutes of the Admiralty Board for 1765 and 1766 and a selection of the correspondence issued by the Board at that time, one is struck by the smoothness of transition from one ministry to the next.24 It was in July and August 1765 that the Rockingham ministry was formed making an almost clean sweep of government places including the Admiralty, whose sole remaining board member was Egmont, the First Lord. When Egmont resigned in September 1766, there was again a smooth transition from one head of the Admiralty to another. Apart from the minuting of new patents and the change in signatures, one could be forgiven for not noticing that anything as dramatic as a change of government had taken place. There were no discernible changes in policy or

24

PRO: ADM 3/73, ADM 3/74 Admiralty Board Minutes April 1765–February 1766 and NMM: ADM A/2568–9, ADM A/2587 Admiralty Letters to the Navy Board July–August 1765, September 1766. 19


direction, no changes in the functions of the office, and no attempts even to discover if changes were needed on the grounds of efficiency. In later chapters we will see that there was a growing and at times quite dynamic management mentality developing in the civil branch of the Navy, particularly from the 1750s onwards. It is difficult to detect this development, however, when new board members were appointed. Any civilian or naval officer newly appointed to the Admiralty Board would find himself working with a permanent Admiralty Secretary and the permanent officials of the Navy Board whose knowledge and experience of administrative matters was far greater. Against this, the capacity of a new appointee to quickly ‘take charge’ was severely limited. This was largely a matter of personality, political stature and experience. George Anson in the 1750s and the Earl of Sandwich in the 1770s were two of a handful of eighteenth-century administrators with the experience and confidence to take charge of affairs almost immediately. Many others needed a short time to accustom themselves to their duties. The stature of the office of First Lord of the Admiralty could be enhanced by the stature and personality of the office holder. Even so the post did not bring with it the supreme direction of the Navy. To begin with there is a basic flaw in the way the Admiralty and its functions have been generally perceived by non-specialists. Perceptions of what the Admiralty was and what it did are largely based on how the Admiralty operated in the early nineteenth century and later rather than the eighteenth century. The eighteenth-century Navy’s administrative structure is usually viewed using a model which places the Admiralty at the top of a pyramid, subordinate only to the King and the Cabinet. In Figure 2.1 the Admiralty is seen as a monolith directing fleets, formulating policy and exercising control over other naval departments. Such a model does not accurately reflect true practice until the second quarter of the nineteenth century, more so after 1832 when the functions of the Navy Board were absorbed by the Admiralty. The Admiralty has always been a focus for studies of naval history whether operational or administrative. The naval officer’s point of contact with home, with the government, with the civil branch of the Navy was always through the Admiralty. It was through the Admiralty that most flag officers and those captains cruising independently received their instructions. The Admiralty was looked to in matters of appointment, promotion, pay, leave and discipline. Officers would usually approach the Admiralty first concerning matters normally associated with other naval departments, such as the repair of their ships, victualling, and ordnance. From the point of view of the sailor, the Admiralty was a monolith. However, when viewed from the perspective of government, the Admiralty was no such thing. It was rather, one distinct department with clearly defined responsibilities within a broad and complex naval organization, itself integrated into the machinery of government. From the revised illustration in Figure 2.2, we can see that the Admiralty was not necessarily a weak body but that its powers and responsibilities were 20


King

Cabinet

Parliament

Admiralty

Operations

Commissioned Officers

Navy Board

Sick and Hurt Board

Victualling Board

Figure 2.1 The structure of naval administration

quite limited and its capabilities for effecting change or directing policy were very restricted. Most of the work was routine and this explains more than anything else why the transition from one set of Commissioners to another could take place so smoothly. Also seen here is the Admiralty’s function as a political body. It was responsible for the submission of all papers and accounts to Parliament and its Commissioners acted as the Navy’s political representatives. We can also see the importance of the Admiralty to the sea service as it was the main source of patronage, confirming appointments and promotions. Three important features stand out. First, the Admiralty did not conduct naval operations or formulate naval strategy. The King and the Cabinet, which included the First Lord of the Admiralty, discussed these matters and instructions were issued through the Secretary of State for the Southern Department.25 It was not unusual for senior flag officers to correspond directly with the Secretary of State, by-passing the Admiralty entirely. Where pressing matters were involved, this could save time as well as preserve secrecy. During the War of the Austrian Succession, the Duke of Newcastle, as Secretary of State, had directed the fleets. Senior flag appointments were also cabinet business and would have to be approved by the King.26 Second, the main tasks of administering the Navy, apart from issuing instructions to officers and appointing courts martial, was in the hands of the Navy Board. These tasks included the building and repair of the fleet, the maintenance of dockyard and harbour facilities, the issuing of contracts and the payment of all wages, including sea officers, artificers and even the Admiralty Commissioners. The Admiralty usually had little say in the fine

25

This post is the equivalent of the modern Foreign Secretary. Daniel Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole (Princeton, 1965), pp. 63–4.

26

21


King Cabinet and Parliament

Secretary of State Strategy Conduct of operations

Admiralty

Treasury

Responsible for: Submission of estimates and accounts to Parliament Routine operations. i.e. convoys Confirming appointments and promotions in the sea a service Recruitment and impressment

General financial management through the Navy Board Management of Navy Debt Issuing money to the navy Authorization for importation of foreign stores

Authorizes Movement of vessels Paying off ships Building and repair Purchase of prizes Experiments Dispensing with accounts Unusual payments Unusual expenditure Sale of old stores and ships Superannuation Officers leave Court martials

Navy Board

Victualling Board

Compilation of estimates and accounts for submission to Parliament through the Admiralty Receives money from the Treasury Makes payment of: Admiralty expenses Seamen’s wages Dockyard wages Makes appointments of: Dockyard personnel Warrant Officers Ship design Expenditure on the building and maintenance of ships, dockyard and harbour facilities Contracts for building and purchase of materials Leasing of transports

Sick and Hurt Board

Ordnance Board

Figure 2.2 Eighteenth-century naval administrative structure

detail of how the Navy’s money was spent, except to approve expenditure or payments and to authorize the building of new ships, and it maintained only a very loose supervisory role sufficient to be accountable to Parliament. The Admiralty’s prime function with regard to expenditure was to make 22


representations on the Navy’s fiscal needs and to obtain supplies from Parliament. The Admiralty would also monitor that expenditure, usually retrospectively, through copies of accounts that the Navy Board submitted through the Admiralty either to the Treasury or to Parliament. This was needed because the Admiralty was accountable to Parliament for expenditure even though it was not itself disbursing the public money. There was therefore a clear division between those who obtained funds from Parliament and those who spent them. The Navy Board was made up of professional men who understood the Navy’s needs better than most of the Admiralty Commissioners.27 The Admiralty’s control over the Navy Board was at best superficial: the direction of experts by amateurs.28 Despite this, it was possible for the Admiralty to exercise authority over the Navy Board. Throughout the mid-eighteenth century there were instances where the quality of the Navy Board’s clerical work or the amount of effort put into some particular Admiralty directive was not satisfactory and the Navy Commissioners were admonished. Such instances however were few and the Navy Board has often been seen as an almost entirely independent body. This is largely an illusion as the highly departmentalized administrative structure tended to create this view, hiding the fact that the Navy Board was subordinate to two executive boards, the other being the Treasury. This brings us to another important feature of the Navy’s civil structure – the role of the Treasury in managing the finances of the Navy and in particular the Navy’s debt. The Treasury managed naval finance directly with the Navy Board, which explains why it would appear that the Admiralty itself was independent of Treasury control.29 The Admiralty had to be independent of the Treasury as the heads of both Boards were members of the Cabinet and at least nominally on an equal footing. Additionally, there would have been grave constitutional difficulties if the First Lord of the Treasury, controlling the public purse strings, had the power to exercise even non-operational control over military or naval forces. Furthermore, the Admiralty had little to do with finance apart from obtaining supplies from Parliament and its independence from the Treasury can be established simply from this point. The Treasury restricted itself to financial management and had no powers to interfere directly in naval expenditure.

27

The Navy Board Commissioners were frequently naval officers or senior shipwrights. Baugh, Naval Administration, p. 83. 29 P. Crimmin, ‘Admiralty Relations with the Treasury’, Mariners Mirror 53, pp. 63–72, p. 63. 28

23


The evolution of Admiralty functions The duties and responsibilities of the Admiralty Commission developed over a period of time. The establishment of an Admiralty Office was largely a result of the work and ambition of Samuel Pepys.30 Before his time, the Navy Board, which was first established in 1546, had acted as the council advising the Lord High Admiral who was often the monarch or a member of the royal family.31 When the Exclusion Crisis forced James, Duke of York, to relinquish the post of Lord High Admiral in 1679, it was put into commission, which meant the post was replaced by a board of seven Commissioners, who were members of Parliament, and which was referred to as the Board of Admiralty. The Commission proved unsatisfactory and its patents were revoked in 1684. Charles II became the Lord High Admiral with Pepys as his personal secretary and, thereby, a Secretary of State in all but name.32 Pepys was able to exploit the wishes of Charles and later James II to retain personal control of the Navy, by appropriating to himself the management of the Navy’s personnel.33 He therefore acted in the powerful capacity of a broker of patronage. From this arose the functions of the Admiralty in the eighteenth century with regard to appointments and promotions. Pepys lost his position on the fall of James II. The office of Lord High Admiral was again put into commission with the Secretary subordinate to the Admiralty Board but, by the 1690s, independent of the political fortunes of the Board members.34 At this time, the direction of naval operations was also taken out of the hands of the Admiralty Commissioners. Admiral Russell, as First Lord, did not consult the other Commissioners, the Navy being directed at Cabinet level. This revived the system of dual command that had existed in 1689 when the Earl of Nottingham, as Secretary of State, had exercised command of naval affairs, by-passing the Admiralty.35 This was a critical time in the evolution of those functions of the Admiralty so evident by the mid-1700s. The Admiralty Office, controlled by the Secretary, became a department in many respects distinct from the commission and thereby justified the independent existence of the Admiralty.36 While the Admiralty Commission came to be a convenient vehicle to satisfy the demands of political leaders for places to reward followers,37 the mundane

30 Michael Duffy (ed.), The Military Revolution and the State 1500–1800 (Exeter, 1980), p. 78. 31 J. R. Tanner, Samuel Pepys and the Royal Navy (Cambridge, 1920), p. 26. 32 N.A.M. Rodger, The Admiralty (Lavenham, 1979), p. 26. 33 Duffy, Military Revolution, p. 78. 34 John Ehrman, The Navy in the War of William III 1689–1697 (Cambridge, 1953), p. 561. 35 Rodger, Admiralty, pp. 38–40. 36 Ehrman, William III, p. 561. 37 Duffy, Military Revolution, p. 79. Rodger, Admiralty, p. 46.

24


work of organizing and carrying out the work of the Board and the important task of co-ordinating communication between the government, the various administrative departments, and the ships at sea, became the real and necessary work of the Admiralty Office. The political expedient of making the Admiralty Board a vehicle for patronage while establishing a distinct and politically independent secretariat meant that the Admiralty Office survived, as its work, though routine, needed to be done. The demands for places in government continued to grow through the eighteenth century and while the Admiralty Office carried out much of the work, the Admiralty Commission became increasingly important in terms of patronage and electoral influence.38

The Admiralty and other departments The rather limited function of the Admiralty and the highly departmental structure of government administration can be demonstrated by examining the relationship between the Admiralty and other civil departments such as the Navy Board and the Treasury, and their interaction with the Secretaries of State, the Cabinet and Parliament. This interaction not only involved the transaction of business, but also involved the personalities of chief ministers. The various departments, although mostly autonomous, were interdependent and attempts were often made by ministers to extend their influence, with varying degrees of success, over departments other than their own. Government administration was far from static and was constantly evolving in response to changing conditions, personal initiatives and attempts by ministers to either enhance the importance of their departments or to extend their own personal influence. This naturally resulted in conflict between branches of government but as this was often at Cabinet level, any conflict or animosity was usually confined to the personalities involved and rarely interfered with the running of a department. Sometimes conflict between sections of the government would manifest itself in unusual and subtle ways and frequently involved attempts to set a precedent, to subvert accepted procedures or bypass usual channels of communication. Heads of departments and their subordinates were alert to these sorts of practices and jealously guarded their authority. This more than anything else made genuine reform and attempts at economy and efficiency difficult, giving a view of static conservatism and obstruction, impressions that are to a great extent false. Several examples can be given to illustrate this. In 1762, while George Grenville was First Lord of the Admiralty, he came into conflict with the First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Bute the King’s principal minister, and Henry

38

Rodger, Admiralty, pp. 49, 56. 25


Fox, Leader of the House of Commons. Grenville was pressing for action to intercept a French fleet on its return to Brest but as Bute and Fox were attempting to negotiate a peace settlement it was thought that such action would be considered provocative. Grenville was therefore directed not to proceed. One can sympathize with Bute’s attempts to control events but even as First Minister, his powers were severely restricted. In the event, the French got into Brest safely, but, meanwhile, Bute received a rebuke from Grenville who would only take instruction through the Secretary of State (who usually directed naval operations) and not through the First Lord of the Treasury (who did not).39 He went to some pains to explain to Bute, the correct procedure. I cannot help observing to you that, by the Preliminary Articles, hostilities are to cease after the ratification of the Preliminaries, which the Council were yesterday unanimously of the opinion must be construed after the exchange of ratifications; and consequently, until it is signified to us from the Secretary of State by the King’s command, the Board of Admiralty cannot take any notice of them or put a stop to hostilities at sea.40

In essence, many of the problems arising between government departments were problems of communication. An Admiralty Board minute of June 1766 shows how difficult it could be to manage affairs without proper information, procedures and communication. A letter was read from the Navy Board inclosing a copy of their report to the Lords of the Treasury, in answer to their [the Treasury’s] directions relative to a proposition of the Merchants and Ropemakers of London. Resolved that it was essentially necessary for their Lordships to have had a copy of it at the time the answer itself was sent and that it is their direction for the future that they give the Lords immediate information of and references they may receive from the Treasury or any papers or accounts that may be called for by that Office as well as copies of their answers at the time the answers themselves are sent.41

This example could simply be a reminder of procedural practice to overworked officials, but the tenor of much of the correspondence at this time indicates that the Admiralty was genuinely attempting to consolidate its authority over naval affairs by reasserting established procedures. The best way for the Admiralty to enforce its authority would have been to control the paths of communication. This it had begun to do in the 1750s, under George Anson. Anson was greatly respected and wielded authority not only over the Navy but within the political establishment. Statistical 39 40 41

Philip Lawson, George Grenville, a Political Life (Oxford, 1984), p. 143. Smith, Grenville Papers, vol. 2, pp. 2–3. PRO: ADM 3/74 f.67, Admiralty Board Minute, 17 June, 1766. 26


information useful for managing naval affairs was often found in reports submitted to Parliament. Under Anson and many of his successors, the Admiralty in its own right called for additional information on all manner of operational, administrative and financial aspects of the Navy. Sometimes this was called for in order for Commissioners to be better prepared to explain themselves before Parliament. More often, these reports allowed the Admiralty to better manage naval affairs. This view would seem to contradict the idea that the influence of the Admiralty over the Navy Board and naval affairs was superficial. This apparent contradiction can be resolved by introducing the factor of personality.

Personality and Admiralty politics As already mentioned the highly fragmented nature of government administration, lack of communication and tension between heads of departments tended to stifle reform and effective management. However, men like Anson and Sandwich had the personality, experience and ability to get a real grip on their departments. It is doubtful if Temple or Winchelsea, in the 1750s, or Keppel, in the 1780s, did much to enhance the position of First Lord of the Admiralty. Under their administrations it was far too easy for a lack of firm leadership to allow old practices to creep back in. There is an abundance of evidence to suggest that effective administrative and financial reform were beginning in the naval departments as early as 1750s with more substantial reforms taking place in the 1760s.42 For this to happen some alteration in the departmental status quo particularly between the Admiralty and Navy Boards would have been necessary. Before and during most of the Seven Years’ War, the authority of the Admiralty rested to a great extent in the personality of the First Lord. Anson in particular dominated naval affairs during his administrations (1751–6, 1757–62). He had a forceful dominant personality backed up by immense wealth, family allies and powerful political connections.43 After 1763, and particularly during the administrations of Egmont (1763–6) and Hawke, (1766–70) authority was asserted through the administrative process: by the introduction of new systems and the tightening up of existing procedures. The Earl of Sandwich (First Lord 1748–51, 1763, 1771–82), though not so well connected as Anson, had the authority of experience and ability. He had worked closely with Anson when both had served on the Duke of Bedford’s board (1744–7). Under the leadership of Anson and Sandwich, the

42

These are discussed in detail in later chapters. Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, was Lord Chancellor (1736–56) and Anson’s fatherin-law. Anson had made his fortune during his circumnavigation of the globe 1740–4, capturing the Manila galleon.

43

27


office of First Lord of the Admiralty took on the consequence and importance of the individual at its head enhancing the status of the entire commission.44 Egmont, on the other hand, an expert in such matters, asserted the authority of the Admiralty through procedure. We are led to believe that Egmont did not have a forceful personality. He is not known to have contributed a great deal in Cabinet; nor did he have powerful political connections. He was, however, clever, competent and meticulous, knew the business of his office and was assiduous in its execution. Like Saunders and Hawke who followed him into the office, he was a political lightweight despite a close association with the King. To many this would have been a grave disadvantage but, to a capable man such as Egmont, it was an opportunity. Whereas under his dominant predecessors the office of First Lord had taken on the consequence of the office holder, the virtually forgotten Egmont had to defend the integrity of his department by increasing the consequence of his office and the department of which he was the head. One gets the sense of some struggle in his correspondence with Grenville, the King’s first minister. He was able to consolidate the Admiralty’s position under Grenville’s successor, the less formidable Rockingham. Egmont was an important First Lord of the Admiralty at a significant time in the development of the Admiralty as a department of government. This is not because he was a man of great political consequence but because he was a man of sufficient ability to enhance his standing by increasing the authority of his department. If further proof of this process of enhancing one’s office is required, we need only look at a slightly later period to see a continuation of it. Sandwich again dominated the civil branch of the Navy between 1771 and 1782 and achieved much through his competence and personality. One cannot imagine Lord North, the Prime Minister, attempting to interfere in the detail of running the Navy, even though before the war with America he had frequently requested that Sandwich curtail the Navy’s expenditure. Sandwich was able to bring in a number of innovations and follow his own ideas wielding sufficient personal influence to antagonize a significant proportion of the naval service in the process. When Admiral Augustus Keppel replaced Sandwich in 1782, Sandwich’s dominance of naval affairs was replaced by the return of a system whereby departments rather than personalities dominated, making further reform difficult. Keppel was obliged to defend the integrity of the Admiralty against the Treasury much as Egmont had done with Grenville. Keppel, however, could only defend himself and his office in the House of Commons, whereas Egmont could use procedural methods to defend the authority of the Admiralty.45

44 In the case of Sandwich this only holds true until he became a political liability to the North ministry in the late 1770s. 45 See the Chapters on Egmont’s administration.

28


During the time of Keppel’s naval administration, the general movement toward administrative reform in most branches of government encouraged conflict between the major departments. In the debate in the Lords on the Loan Bill, in 1783, Lord Shelburne confidently stated that the Navy Office, meaning the Navy Board ‘was necessarily and naturally connected with the Board of Treasury’.46 This had been a response to Keppel’s remarks when he had countered Shelburne’s accusation that the Admiralty was the least active in the matter of reform. Keppel had complained that: the Noble Earl [Shelburne] having endeavoured insidiously to interfere with the office in a manner extremely inconvenient and, as he thought, impolitic, for it tended most unseasonably to diminish the influence and authority of the Admiralty Board over the subordinate boards by making them subordinate to the Treasury.47

Effective defence of the authority of the Admiralty against these incursions tended to consolidate the Admiralty’s position in much the same way as having that authority residing in a dominant but temporary personality. The Admiralty department was increasing in influence and authority during the second half of the eighteenth century, yet it was still only a body with narrow authority and a limited management function.

The departmental system at work Government by departments, whether we are discussing the machinery of government in general or the Navy in particular, must have had a number of disadvantages particularly with regard to efficiency. Yet these disadvantages were outweighed by numerous benefits, and were in some respects a necessity. The same set of structures, or a variation of them, existed during the entire eighteenth century. One of the main disadvantages of the Navy being run on a departmental basis was that it created obstacles to reform. Lack of reform was not simply conservatism. Furthermore, the personal authority and consequence of department members and the integrity of the Admiralty as a unit often needed to be defended. The possible disadvantage to departmenalization was that in the absence of men such as Anson, Wager, or Sandwich there was no all-powerful directing leader or body. Egmont’s administration shows this premise to be false. Yet in less capable hands, and there had been

46 ‘Debate in the Lords on the Loan Bill, 2 May 1783’, William Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 36 vols (London, 1808–20), vol. 23 (hereafter referred to as Cobbett, Parl. Hist.), p. 825, and John Barrow, Life of Richard, Earl Howe, K.G. (London, 1838), pp. 170–2. 47 Barrow, Howe, p. 170, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 23, p. 825.

29


some during the century, one could not depend on the competence of the Admiralty.48 In one sense the departmental structure of naval and governmental administration was a constitutional necessity. The King was the head of the government assisted by his chief ministers who headed the major departments. In the case of the Navy and the army departments, a strong centralized authority or a dominant leader in these departments would have been a potential threat both to the Crown and the balance of the constitution. The English Civil War and Commonwealth, was an example to later parliamentarians that weak personal command over the army and Navy was necessary to safeguard the authority of both the Crown and Parliament. As late as 1757 there was great concern over the military influence of the Duke of Cumberland, the uncle of George, Prince of Wales. Cumberland had been put aside in the Regency Act of 1751 for this very reason, and in 1757 Pitt’s followers were concerned to protect the succession and the country from a military government.49 The departmental system evolved for other reasons, many of them political rather than constitutional, but this point must have been apparent to many and would have encouraged a continuation of the system. A further advantage of departmentalism in the civil administration of the Navy was that a division of authority and responsibility along purely administrative lines separated financial functions from those in charge of patronage and appointments, and put operational matters in the hands of another such as a secretary of state. The division of these functions between departments helped to absolve Commissioners or department heads from charges of corruption or misapplication of public funds. The Navy’s finances were managed in such a way that the Admiralty obtained a promise of public money, the Navy Board spent it and the Treasury managed it. The only individual in a position to take criminal advantage of this was the Treasurer of the Navy, who was independent of all three of the boards but worked closely with them.50 Therefore like all good systems of checks and balances both the public money and individual reputations were preserved. In the 1770s Sandwich was accused of corruption and misuse of the public funds, but on a personal level this would have been almost impossible and such accusations were politically motivated. There were other practical reasons why a decentralized structure of naval administration should have survived. It was often the case that if a naval

48

The rather insipid administration of the Earl of Winchelsea, from 1742 to 1744, comes readily to mind. 49 R. Sedgwick, Letters from George III to Lord Bute 1756–1766 (London, 1939), p. xlix. 50 The Treasurer of the Navy frequently held large sums of public money in his personal accounts. For some time this was considered a perquisite of the appointment. In 1805, Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, was accused of misusing Navy funds during his term as Treasurer of the Navy. 30


officer was appointed to be First Lord of the Admiralty, there were frequently officers on active service who were senior to him. For instance, we could have a situation where a First Lord signed an order to a senior Admiral such as the commander of the Channel Fleet. This would not be incongruous as the order would have been formulated at Cabinet level and the First Lord was therefore the messenger not the source of the instruction. By the same token, the Secretary of State directing naval operations and formulating strategy with his Cabinet colleagues prevented the situation of senior admirals being directed by their juniors with all the problems of rank and personal honour that this would bring. Indeed, ordinary naval Commissioners were often below flag rank and one can imagine senior officers being touchy about operational decisions being taken by less experienced junior officers.51 This could even be a problem within the civil branch of the Navy. After a dispute with Sir Charles Middleton, Richard Howe questioned ‘the propriety of a flag officer sitting at a civil and subordinate board, while captains were mostly lords of the Admiralty’.52 The chief advantage of this system of administration, at least in relation to the Navy, was that when a situation arose, such as in the summer of 1765 or in 1782, when the Admiralty Board underwent a sudden and total change, the business of running the Navy continued unaffected. The Admiralty office itself was under the direction of the Secretary, while the main business of maintaining the country’s maritime strength rested with the Navy Board. Departmentalism, therefore, engendered a certain amount of independence and self-reliance among departments and their personnel. Although this could create its own problems, especially when reforms were needed, it did ensure that there was a high degree of continuity in the business of managing the Navy between one board and the next.

The Navy and the King’s Friends There was another factor that helped the machinery of government and the business of the Navy to run relatively smoothly even in periods of high political tension and turmoil. It is a particular feature of the mid-1760s but helped to set a pattern of developing bureaucratic professionalism that characterized the rest of the century. One set of individuals did not take part 51 Lord Howe was an Admiralty Commissioner between 1763 and 1765 but did not reach flag rank until 1770. Augustus Hervey and Lord Mulgrave also served as Admiralty Commissioners with the rank of captain. During the French Revolutionary War, when three naval officers sat on Earl Spencer’s Board, the Earl of St Vincent complained that he could not bear ‘to have my conduct scanned by the incompetent judgement of three such very inexperienced officers’. Sir William James, Old Oak, the Life of John Jervis Earl of St. Vincent (London, 1950), p. 156. 52 Barrow, Howe, p. 179.

31


in the factional politics of the 1760s. This group was a particular feature of the early reign of George III and for a variety of motives its members chose to support any government regardless of party. They came to be called the King’s Friends and have sometimes been seen as a party in themselves. Most saw service to the crown as more important than party politics, while others were career politicians, ‘men of business’ who were more interested in the functioning of the machinery of government; others (probably a minority) were more interested in keeping comfortable places to provide themselves with an income. It is the first two categories that interest us here.53 Dorothy Marshall remarked that the King’s Friends were rather like embryonic civil servants and dismissed the nineteenth-century myth that they worked with the King to oppose those ministers of whom he disapproved.54 Marshall described the King’s Friends as being politicians torn between loyalty to a political patron and the need to continue in office to ensure administrative continuity and therefore efficiency. This was resolved by looking to the King as the permanent executive head, and cutting purely political ties.55 Although this is essentially correct, it ignores a number of points and therefore needs some refinement. Overlooked is the fact that, despite serving the King directly, ties with other political figures were still necessary for the management of electoral and constituency matters. Also ignored is the fact that one of the most important of the King’s Friends in terms of administrative ability, Charles Jenkinson, lost his position as Joint Secretary to the Treasury on the formation of the Rockingham ministry in 1765. It is also apparent from a letter written to Jenkinson at that time, that politicians in important administrative positions had for some time enjoyed a continuance of office: ‘I heard of the changes in the ministry, but did not imagine that the Secretaries would be displaced as they were (till these late times) generally permanent.56 This would indicate that the King’s Friends were a phenomena that was not simply connected with the continuance of politicians in office. This was a consequence of their relationship with the Crown, not necessarily the reason for it. Furthermore the nineteenth-century myth that these individuals worked with the King to undermine ministers of whom he disapproved, and the apparent paranoia of the Whig opposition, should not be so lightly dismissed. Suspicions of a sinister plot to obstruct Whig ministers during their brief 53

Those of the King’s Friends having connections with the Navy were Charles Jenkinson, Admiralty Commissioner 1766–7; Viscount Barrington, Treasurer 1762–5; Gilbert Elliot, Admiralty Commissioner 1756–61 and Treasurer 1770–7; John Buller, Admiralty Commissioner 1765–80 and the Earl of Egmont, First Lord 1763–6. One could also include other Commissioners such as Charles Townshend, Viscount Palmerston, Lord Charles Spencer and Viscount Lisburne. 54 D. Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (London, 1974), p. 364. 55 ibid. 56 BL: Add MS. 38204, f. 322. 32


term of office in the mid-1760s, even if of no substance, were firmly believed at the time and must therefore be accounted for. It is the King’s Friends who hold the key to this puzzle, and understanding how this group functioned goes some way to giving evidence of good management in the Navy departments. John Bullion and Karl Schweizer have recently seen George III and his mentor, Lord Bute, as being committed to reforming the administrative and financial systems of government. This had little to do with undermining the power of the great Whig families, as seen by nineteenth-century historians, but rather genuine reforms aimed at improving the efficiency of the State after the conclusion of the Seven Years War. It was intended to render government more efficient by making full use of the system of public credit and by reducing taxation.57 As we have already seen, the departmental structure of government made reform difficult and strong central direction almost impossible, a fact brought home to Bute in his dispute with Grenville over naval operations in 1762. The most effective way of carrying out any degree of reform was from within departments, by placing key personnel in them. This could well explain the movement of ‘men of business’ from one board to another. The important reformers in the Navy in the 1760s were Egmont and Jenkinson, and it is unlikely that it was mere coincidence that when Egmont left the Admiralty Board, Jenkinson was appointed. Both Egmont and Jenkinson were classed as King’s Friends, both were capable and clever men committed to reform and more efficient government. Neither owed political loyalty to a party or any of the great Whig leaders. Increasing the efficiency of the State, especially with the firm support of the Monarch, could only be seen in a sinister light by many Whig politicians, even if reforms were carried out purely for the public good. This was seen as a threat to Parliamentary democracy and a subversion of the constitution, fuelling opposition to the Crown. These fears were transmitted to the colonies in America who then translated them into some kind of royal tyranny. These fears were then conveniently attached to their opposition to taxation, even though taxes were imposed by Parliament rather than the King. All of this translates directly into the Whig obsession with secret influence, the minister behind the curtain, or what is generally called the ‘Bute myth’. It is what the Whig historians of the nineteenth century saw as George III’s attempts to free the monarchy from the great Whig families and subvert the constitution. What we are seeing, however, is something much more subtle and therefore even more interesting. Men like Egmont and Jenkinson, committed reformers in tune with the ideas of Bute and the King, served at the Admiralty. Others of the King’s Friends served in other departments of

57

J. Bullion and K. Schweizer, ‘The Use of the Private Papers of Politicians in the study of Policy Formulation in the Eighteenth Century: the Bute Papers as a case study’, Archives, vol. 22, no. 93 (April 1995), pp. 34–44, p. 39. 33


government. They managed the government machine and brought with them innovation and change, making that machinery more efficient with varying degrees of success. The Whig leaders, their followers and party saw the power to effect change slipping from their hands. The Rockingham Whigs, while briefly in office between 1765 and 1766 did little in the way of reform, but that was in part because the system of administration made blanket reforms difficult. Yet by working from within, the King’s Friends were able to carry out reform and change, and even though this may have occurred on a small scale, it was change over which those out of government had no control. Even when they were in government, the Rockinghams continued to have little control over this process as many of the King’s Friends, for example Egmont, were still in key positions. The Rockinghams understandably saw this as sinister and the historians of the nineteenth century misunderstood this, interpreting it on a purely political rather than an administrative level. One can almost see George III and the King’s Friends as the innovators and reformers with the Newcastle and Rockingham Whigs as the more conservative element. The point behind this is two-fold. When later we come to examine the work of the Admiralty between 1763 and 1771, this context must be borne in mind. It explains the thinking and motivation behind the management and reform carried out under Egmont and Hawke, much of which was abandoned in the 1770s when the King’s Friends, though still holding offices, ceased to be an identifiable entity. Furthermore, the activities of Egmont and Jenkinson are pivotal in understanding the problems and dilemmas facing the Navy first on its demobilization in 1763 and, later, in the years before the break with the American colonies. But much more than this, the work carried out by both the Admiralty and Navy Boards demonstrates conclusively that far from being neglected, after the Peace of Paris in 1763, as is often thought, the Navy was managed with energy and imagination. The agency of the King’s Friends ensured a further degree of continuity within a system that was already structured in such a way that it was largely free from damaging political interference. There is some irony in the fact that the existence of these individuals and their administrative activities contributed in some measure to the political problems of the new reign. Yet as we shall see in later chapters, these men of ability, and some it is conceded were of the Whig persuasion, did not spring into existence on the accession of the new king in 1760. Innovation and ideas of professional management developed earlier particularly in the 1750s. This is clearly evident in the civil branch of the Navy and the driving force behind it was the financing of British naval power.

34

3

‘Treating the House with contempt’ British naval finance in the eighteenth century

In a debate on the naval supplies on 13 February 1778, Edmund Burke hurled the book of naval estimates at the Treasury Bench exclaiming ‘that it was treating the House with the utmost contempt, to present them with a fine gilt book of estimates, calculated to a farthing, for purposes to which the money granted was never meant to be applied’.1 This criticism was common in the years immediately before the American Revolution and did little to inspire contemporaries with confidence in the financial administration of the Navy. Indeed, among historians there has been an entrenched view that the Navy’s finances were at best haphazard, inefficient and liable to exploitation by dishonest officials. This view stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how the financial structure of the Navy worked and why it was organized in the way it was. For the most part there has been a failure to appreciate that, despite any perceived inadequacies, the end result was a highly successful naval force. There would not have been a successful Navy without effective financial support. Strict public sector economy, particularly in the Navy, was a feature of much of the eighteenth century, and yet, despite this, the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War saw the Navy reach new heights of power and success. After these wars, the various Admiralty, Navy and Treasury Boards of the 1760s and 1770s, far from starving the Navy of resources, attempted to take the cumbersome financial machinery of the world’s largest industrial unit, and make it more efficient and more accountable to Parliament. This chapter will demonstrate how the finances of the Navy operated. It will be made clear how precedents and procedures made reform difficult and show how the Navy was able to operate its own form of deficit finance. Although this may sound a very technical and difficult subject, it is not. The Navy’s financial systems were far from crude or antiquated but neither are they over sophisticated or impenetrable. They were both simple and extremely effective. The Navy was the most expensive department of the State and understanding how its finances operated gives insights into the

1

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 730. 35

‘TREATING THE HOUSE WITH CONTEMPT’

working of the State itself. For our immediate purposes, it will clearly indicate that the Navy was not at any time during the great wars of the eighteenth century or the intervening periods of peace subject to financial neglect. The most important modern work written on naval finance in the eighteenth century is Daniel Baugh’s pioneering British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole (1965). Except to outline the basic structure of the Navy’s financial system, little of what Professor Baugh has written will be repeated here and the reader is encouraged to examine this important book. This chapter will examine how the Navy’s finances operated in the period following Baugh’s book, drawing examples largely but not exclusively from the 1750s, 1760s and 1770s. It is a partial revision of British Naval Administration, but is intended more to complement it.

The procedure for voting naval supplies2 The voting of supplies for the naval service was part of the process of voting an annual supply to the Crown. At the opening session of Parliament, the King would request a supply, which the House would promise to grant in a Committee of Supply. Having resolved only to grant a supply, estimates would be called for in order that a sum could be determined. The Committee of Supply was a Committee of the whole House and it was here that the sums granted for different services were fixed. The Committee was authorized only to report its opinion not evidence or facts. After a debate within the Committee, it would report back to the House its opinion that a certain sum should be granted.3 This has made it appear that the naval estimates were always rubber stamped by the House whereas in fact the estimates were debated within this Committee and it was the opinions of the Committee that were passed by the Commons. In all instances except one, the Committee’s opinions were based on estimates previously called for that had been laid upon a table for the perusal of members of Parliament. The exception was the Sea Service estimate which was a vote of a certain number of seamen on a fixed rate for a fixed period of time. Estimates were called for because it was unconstitutional to vote any sum for unspecified purposes. Before Parliament would vote money and before it could raise any taxes, the services which required these sums had to be clearly and specifically stated. When the Crown attempted to circumvent this procedure in 1734 by raising an unspecified amount during a recess of Parliament, the House of Lords protested stating that:

2

The procedure is explained graphically in a flow chart contained in the appendix. C. Strateman (ed.) The Liverpool Tractate, an Eighteenth Century Manual on the Procedure of the House of Commons (New York, 1937) p. 36. 3

36


impowering the Crown to raise men and money, without specifying the numbers or the sum is unwarranted by any precedent and is of the most dangerous consequence, for it seems to us totally to subvert the very foundation of our constitution.4

Money voted for all branches of government expenditure followed these clear and transparent procedures. In the case of the Navy, the estimates, apart from the Sea Service estimate, gave a precise indication of where and how much money was needed.

The Sea Service estimate There were three estimates for naval services, the Sea Service, the Ordinary and the Extraordinary estimates. Of the three, the Sea Service estimate was the largest and depended on the number of men voted. The sum of £4 per man per lunar month, or thirteen months, was divided up with 30 shillings allocated to Wages, 27 shillings to Wear and Tear, 19 shillings for Victualling and 4 shillings to the Ordnance.5 The sum for the Ordnance was paid directly to that department so the Navy actually received £3 16s per man per lunar month. Before the Seven Years’ War, the peacetime establishment had been 10,000 men yielding a Sea Service estimate of £520,000. Between 1763 and 1770, 16,000 men were voted giving a supply of £832,000 or £790,400 deducting the ordnance. Not only was this estimate the largest of the three but it was the one most easily adjusted by parliamentary debate. If the Commons was unhappy with the number of men asked for in the Sea Service estimate, it was a simple case of voting more or less men. The other estimates were of a more complicated nature, and the amounts requested were the best judgement of those with experience of the Navy department. By these means the size of the Navy and its running costs could be regulated by Parliament.6

The Ordinary estimate The Ordinary estimate contained the standing charges of the Navy and included such things as the running costs of the Admiralty and Navy Offices, pensions, half pay to officers and the expenses of the ships in ordinary or reserve.7 Many of the items charged under the Ordinary could be calculated 4

‘Protest against the Kings being impowered to augment his Forces by Sea and Land during the Recess of Parliament’, 28 March 1734, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 9, p. 559. 5 Daniel Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole (Princeton, 1965) p. 456. 6 The sufficiency of the sums voted is discussed below. 7 A detailed list of the individual items making up the Ordinary Estimate of 1764 can be found in the papers of Charles Jenkinson, first Earl of Liverpool, BL: Add. MSS. 38428, ff. 1–33. 37


with a fair degree of accuracy and occasionally precise and recurring items of expense were transferred to the Ordinary estimate from other heads for this reason. For example, in November 1740, the Admiralty wrote to the Navy Board acquainting them that sums drawn for certain services exceeded those demanded in the estimates and, as they should be stated nearer the actual expense, they directed that these sums, which included stationery and certain contingencies, should be charged to the Ordinary estimate.8 Far from being set in stone, the procedures regulating naval finance were in a constant state of evolution, adjusting to situations as they arose. It was necessary to have a separate Ordinary estimate for these expenses as they could not be regulated according to the number of men voted. Pensions, wages to the Commissioners and clerks, as well as the cost of heating and lighting the Admiralty and the Navy Offices would remain much the same whether 10,000 or 70,000 men were voted for the Navy. In fact the Ordinary estimate was always higher in peacetime as it included half pay to officers.9 Between 1763 and 1770 the Ordinary estimate ranged between £380,000 and £416,000 per annum. The charge of the Ordinary estimate was seldom debated in Parliament although individual items might be brought into question. In 1740 for instance, the necessity of a charge of £19,000 for the upkeep of harbour moorings was questioned by Lord Baltimore,10 but between 1715 and 1787, the Ordinary estimates submitted to Parliament were always granted in full.11 However, these estimates, compiled in the first place by the Navy Board, were sometimes adjusted by the Admiralty before they were submitted to Parliament. An example of this occurred in 1765 when the Navy Board was directed to submit a revised Ordinary estimate in which a proposed increase of £74,413 was reduced to £6,165.12

The Extraordinary estimate The Extraordinary estimate was voted for the construction of new ships and the construction and repair of dockyard facilities. It also included major repair work to existing warships that could not be covered under the heading of wear and tear in the Sea Service estimate. An Extraordinary estimate

8

William Shaw, Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers 1742–1745 (London, 1903) p. xxxi. 9 Officer’s half pay ensured that, in an emergency, an experienced officer corps was available. This was originally only paid to flag officers and captains but was later extended to lieutenants. The common seaman was merely discharged at the end of hostilities and on the outbreak of a new war the Navy resorted to impressment. 10 Baugh, Naval Administration, p. 459, and Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 11, pp. 404–6. 11 PRO: T 38/638. 12 NMM: ADM B 176, 15 June, 1765. 38


was submitted in most years and regularly from the 1740s onwards. Between 1752 and 1766 the estimates submitted to Parliament by the Admiralty were amended by the Treasury. Sometimes they were rounded down by a few thousand pounds, and sometimes reduced by as much as 50 per cent. The amounts requested usually exceeded £200,000 and were sometimes more than £300,000 (see Appendices 1 and 2). The amount required for the Extraordinary estimate was the most difficult to assess. Very often the full cost of repairing a ship could only be judged after work had begun on a vessel, so initial estimates, though carefully compiled, could be little more than guesswork.13 For example, the 20-gun Lively appeared in the Extraordinary estimate for the year 1768 requiring a middling repair costing £3,348. A more precise estimation of £5,068 was submitted by the Navy Board, with a recommendation to undertake the repair in May 1768.14 A further £1,311 was requested in the Extraordinary estimate for 1769.15 This was not an isolated example. An estimate for the repair of the Montague was submitted by the Navy Board in November 1767 yet sums had been requested and granted for her repair in the Extraordinary estimate for 1766.16 Sometimes a certain amount of work had to be undertaken before the cost could be properly judged, and once work had begun it was necessary to continue as the ship under repair might be occupying a dock or taking up other facilities. At other times, sums were requested retrospectively, after work had been completed, though, more commonly, once the money had been expended this simply became a part of the Navy’s annual debt. Unlike the other estimates, the Extraordinary was merely a vehicle for obtaining a grant and often bore only a general relation to work in hand or work anticipated. It was necessary to submit such an estimate as the alternative would be to issue the Navy with an unlimited credit for building and repair. This ran counter to parliamentary procedure and was therefore unconstitutional. This lessened the significance of the severe cutbacks in these estimates before 1766 as the sums requested were only general even though they had the appearance of being specific. There was a further grant to the Navy for which an estimate was produced in January of each year. This was an estimate of the debt of the Navy, for which a sum was voted toward the end of the business of the Committee of Supply. The amounts voted depended on the state of the debt and the Navy’s credit. In some years nothing was voted, but at the end of a war the sum granted could be substantial, as in 1763 when over £3 million was voted to pay off the Navy’s creditors. The sum was either paid to the Navy as the other

13 14 15 16

Repairs were of three types, small, middling or large. NMM: ADM B 181, 17 May, 1768. Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 31, p. 459, vol. 32, p. 53. NMM: ADM B 180, 17 November, 1767. Commons Journals vol. 30, p. 488. 39


estimates or, as in 1763, the sum voted was applied to the payment of specific items of debt. Once the estimates had been passed and the sums voted, a Privy Seal was obtained which, with the appropriate Treasury warrant and order, established a credit at the Exchequer on which the Treasurer of the Navy drew sums to be expended under the heads of the various estimates. The procedure was for the Navy and Victualling Boards to direct the Treasurer of the Navy to apply to the Treasury for sums throughout the year, and, once each application was authorized, this was repeated until the Navy’s credit at the Exchequer was exhausted.17 Expense was spread throughout the year so as not to use up the Navy’s credit with the Treasury before the subsequent year’s supplies were voted. In practice the Navy’s expenditure always exceeded the grants voted, the excess being added to the Navy debt through the issue of Navy bills. It might seem, therefore, that there was little control over naval expenditure as any overspend could be added to the debt, thereby making a complete nonsense of the estimates. However, once the estimate of the debt was submitted to the Commons, the Navy was usually required to account specifically for any increase in the debt over the previous year. This made the ministers responsible for the Navy accountable for any extravagance particularly in peacetime, and as a method of financial and parliamentary control it was as effective as any other.

Estimates and expenditure One thing is clear from a study of the naval estimates. The sums voted to the Navy were never sufficient to cover actual expenditure. What must be borne in mind is that these were not defence budgets in the modern sense. They were precisely what their name implied: estimates. They were estimates of probable expense based on the situation of the Navy and the situation abroad at the time and, to a large degree, they were based on precedents and experience. Even so, it would appear that the Navy was so consistently under-funded that the reasons why this was so deserve close attention. There could, for instance, be politically motivated reasons for voting insufficient resources to the Navy. As every estimate had to be met by funds supplied through the Ways and Means, the levying of new taxes or the increase of existing ones could cause difficulties for ministers concerned with their popularity and ‘present ease’. This only put off the day when the debt would become so large that naval credit would face total collapse, as it nearly did in 1748. Parliament would then be obliged to find an enormous sum in a short space of time.18 Political

17

J. E. D. Binney, British Public Finance and Administration 1774–1792 (Oxford, 1958) pp. 174–5. 18 Baugh, Naval Administration, pp. 466–7. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 14, p. 611. 40


expediency might from time to time account for this under-funding but cannot account for consistent under-funding year after year. There were sound reasons, however, why the annual estimates were never sufficient to cover expense and these fall broadly into three categories. The first was a constitutional reason, largely concerning procedure and precedents. Second, there were operational reasons, to do with the nature of the service itself; and finally financial reasons, largely concerning the Navy’s cash flow and credit. It has already been noted in the case of the Extraordinary estimate that to grant the Navy an open ended supply would be unconstitutional. It would be equally unconstitutional to grant large sums to cover possible future costs of an unknown nature and amount. In the process of raising a supply and finding ways and means to provide for that supply, it was against parliamentary procedure to raise ways and means through taxation before the sum required had been established.19 Using the same logic, it could also be argued that to apply for a sum for the naval service which covered unknown costs or possible excess also ran counter to procedure. There was also the point that to grant a sum that was to cover likely expenditure, rather than a sum that covered known costs, was to make Parliament responsible for any overspend rather than the departments and ministers concerned. In 1734, Lord Bathurst stated: But there is a further difference between the Parliament providing afterwards for what the nation has been obliged necessary to expend and promising before hand to provide for what the administration may thereafter think themselves necessarily obliged to expend; that is in the first case the honour of Parliament is in no way engaged to the creditors of the public.20

Carteret is reported to have said that: ‘it is inconsistent with the honour and dignity of this House to make any such grant upon a mere suggestion from the minister that it is necessary’.21 Both of these speeches did not concern the Navy directly but pertained to a debate regarding the King being empowered to raise supplies during a recess of Parliament. However, the arguments used would have applied equally to any suggestion of supplying the possible needs of the naval service rather than known costs. Operational reasons also dictated that the costs of the Navy could not be determined beforehand. It was difficult enough making a retrospective assessment of expenditure as the accounts of the Navy debt were only estimates as well. The Admiralty and Navy Boards had no way of knowing what expense was being incurred in their name abroad. It could be months

19 20 21

Strateman, Liverpool Tractate, p. 62 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 9, p. 543. ibid. p. 523. 41


or even years before bills of exchange, originating in places like the East Indies, were brought to their attention. In 1767, the Navy Board complained to the Admiralty about the expense of bills of exchange, requesting that the Admiralty issue an order restraining officers overseas and informing them that the Navy Board would only honour bills for repairs deemed absolutely necessary.22 The cost of repairing ships in the home dockyards could also be difficult to assess, as often the full extent of repair work could only be determined once a ship had been partly dismantled. The cost of wages could be controlled well if the total numbers of seamen were properly managed but, once a war had commenced, the voting of supplies was a mere formality as it was impossible to assess the annual cost. In 1772, Mr Wellbore Ellis, a former Admiralty Commissioner from 1747 to 1755 stated: it is impossible for any man to ascertain what the price of provisions may be next month, or what dangers and damages the ships may be subjected to from gales of wind: it is therefore, necessary, Sir that such a credit should be lodged in the Admiralty . . . their accounts are always open for the inspection of this House.23

The ‘credit’ Ellis referred to was not the open ended credit that would arise if estimates were made large enough to cover any contingencies but the credit that arose from the Navy’s ability to transfer its overspend to a statement of debt. It was this statement of debt that was ‘open for the inspection of the House’. As a contemporary tract on parliamentary procedure stated: from the impossibility of stating in those demands, which the unforeseen exigencies of extensive and uncertain operations may require: it is therefore incumbent upon the House of Commons, not only to make this supply as small as possible but in a subsequent session, to enquire into the particular expenditure of this sum.24

This statement brings together both the procedural and operational reasons for the apparent under-funding of the naval service. Known or foreseeable costs would be provided by Parliament but in the full knowledge that the total amount voted was insufficient to cover all the expenses of the service. The remainder would be voted retrospectively. This sensible procedure secured the honour of the House and the reputations of ministers responsible for dispensing public money. It also ensured that the public purse was properly managed. At the same time this procedure gave the appearance that many

22

NMM: ADM B 179, 27 March 1767. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, pp. 546–7. 24 John Hatsell, Precedents and Proceedings in the House of Commons, 3 vols (Dublin, 1786) vol. 3, pp. 156–7. 23

42


state services, including the Navy, received insufficient financial provision. This was not the case. Lastly, reasons concerned with cash flow, the nature of payments to creditors, and the Navy’s ability to fund a deficit made it unnecessary for all of its requirements to be voted, even if such a thing had been possible. Most creditors were issued with Navy bills. These promised to pay at some future unspecified date the amount stated on them. They could accrue interest after, for example, six months and could also be traded at a discount. Through the issue of Navy bills and the unavoidable delay in paying at least some of the wages of seamen, the Navy was able to operate on credit and through credit was able to stretch the grants voted for it. To pay bills and expenses as soon as they arose was not making best use of the sums granted as it was better to keep back as much as possible for contingencies and only make payments as priorities and the need to maintain a credit rating dictated. To pay bills immediately when income was fixed and expenditure was indeterminate was to restrict cash flow and the Navy, in common with a commercial undertaking, needed to maintain a healthy cash flow or a reserve of cash in hand.25 The Navy’s cash flow was also assisted by an internal procedure of expenditure that permitted all the sums voted for the service to be used as part of a general fund. In this regard the naval service was unique. There was flexibility in the Navy’s financial management. The Navy was also able to issue Navy bills: its own form of credit. These points, as well as the precedents and procedures that bound Parliament to vote sums for known or knowable expense, are largely responsible for the apparent under-funding of the Navy in the eighteenth century. Providing that the level of debt was well managed and the payment of the bills registered on the Navy course was fairly regular, this under-funding had no detrimental effect whatsoever. Had it done so, it would be reasonable to assume that the system would not have survived as long as it did.

Expenditure26 Before dealing specifically with the way money was spent under the heads of ordinary, wear and tear, and wages, it is necessary to discuss the function of the Treasurer of the Navy, as well as the unique privilege of the Navy to manage its finances through a general fund. We must also examine the various means by which expenditure was monitored and controlled. In the seventeenth century, the Treasurer of the Navy had been the senior member of the Navy

25

This is discussed more fully in the section on the Navy debt. The process of expenditure is explained graphically in a flow chart in Appendix 9. Note the central importance of the Navy debt. 26

43


Board and accountable for all expenditure. During that time the Treasurer established his independence from the Board by working from separate offices. The post soon became a sinecure, with most of the duties of financial control and management falling to the Controller of the Navy who, during the eighteenth century, was the senior member of the Navy Board.27 Despite the post being a sinecure, it is apparent that the Treasurer did function as an intermediary between the Navy Board and the Treasury. With a constant flow of cash through his hands the Treasurer inevitably had a large balance of monies almost permanently at his disposal. The substantial salary of £2,000 probably went some way to preventing the temptation to embezzle, but there was little to stop the Treasurer from keeping these balances in some private account until the 1782 Regulating Act and, more specifically, the Act for Regulating the Office of the Treasurer of the Navy, brought in by Henry Dundas in 1785.28 The balances held by the Treasurer were annually deducted from the statement of debt. This was because the cash he held had already been issued by the Exchequer for the service of the Navy. These balances could often be substantial and the amounts not only included the current Treasurer but also previous Treasurers whose accounts had not been closed.29 In 1765, no less than seven treasurerships were represented in these balances, stretching back as far as 1756.30 This situation existed because a new Treasurer could not take over the balances of his predecessor. All outstanding obligations were labouriously copied into new books for the use of the new Treasurer and the accounts could not be passed until those of a predecessor were completed. Once a Treasurer’s account had been closed it was often found that sums would have to be paid back to the Exchequer. This occurred in 1770 when £5,932 was repaid to the Treasury at the closing of the accounts of the first treasurership of George Grenville. As far as the financial arrangements of the Navy were concerned the primary significance of the Treasurer of the Navy was not so much in the office itself but the large amount held in his account. The sums drawn from the Exchequer by the Treasurer were expended under the heads of Ordinary, Wear and Tear, Wages, Victualling and Transports.31 The Treasury was only concerned with the balance of the Navy’s credit and not with the amounts expended under each head, which was the responsibility of the individual board concerned. The Navy had the unusual concession of

27

Baugh, Naval Administration, pp. 35–6. Lucy Sutherland and J. Binney, ‘Henry Fox as Paymaster General of the Forces’, in R. Mitchison (ed.), Essays in Eighteenth Century History (London, 1966) pp. 231–59, p. 256. 29 In 1762, the total amount in the hands of the current and previous treasurers was £503,616 but more commonly the sums ranged from between £90,000 and £200,000. Commons Journals, vol. 29, p. 418. 30 Commons Journals, vol. 30, p. 493. 31 As we are primarily concerned here with the Admiralty and Navy Boards, the subject of victualling and transports will not be addressed as these had their own departments. 28

44


being able to use its grants as a general fund, savings made for instance on the Ordinary grant being applied to Wages, or to Wear and Tear. This gave the Navy Board great flexibility in its financial management and its distribution of money as it could give priority to creditors pressing for payment and not concern itself that the sums paid out exceeded the annual grant made under that particular head of the estimate. Expenditure based purely on the estimates would also have made it difficult for the Navy to satisfy creditors not covered under the generic terms of Wear and Tear or Victualling.32 This seems very sensible but in strict parliamentary terms this was a misapplication of money. In 1711, it was brought to the attention of Parliament that a substantial sum issued for the service of the Navy had been appropriated for the land service and thereby lessened the credit of the Navy. The fourth part of the resulting resolution stated: ‘That the applying any sum of unappropriated money, or surplusages of funds to usages not voted or addressed for by Parliament, hath been a misapplication of the public money.’33 When we come to examine the expenditure under their separate heads, it will be apparent that had the Navy been prevented from applying the surplus under one head to the needs of another, the existing financial machinery would have been rendered useless. This was understood perfectly by the Treasury and the Navy, and as it seemed to work adequately there was little incentive to change it. A contemporary work on parliamentary procedure is worth quoting at length on this point. The sums voted for the different heads upon account of the army, ordnance, militia, foreign subsidies and other particular services are in the Bill of Appropriation separately and specifically applied to those services for which they are granted. But in the instance of the supply granted towards the Navy, the practice has been different. In this service, all the different grants upon the head of Wages, Victualling, Ordnance, Ordinary and Extraordinary . . . are in the appropriating Bill added together and the whole sum arising out of all these separate grants, is appropriated generally for the naval service. This distinction in the form of proceeding between the navy and all other public services . . . has arisen from necessity and the impossibility that has been found from the nature of the sea-service, to confine the expenditure of the sums granted for wages, or building or re-building of ships to those immediate services and no other. . . . and this impossibility has therefore induced the House of Commons not to appropriate the sums voted for the Navy ‘specially’ but ‘generally’ so that if it shall be found expedient and necessary, the whole of the navy money, except that voted for the navy debt may be by law applied to any one part of the service subject however to a future enquiry and examination, by the House of Commons.34

32

John Ehrman, The Navy in the War of William III, 1689–1697 (Cambridge, 1953) p. 168. ‘Resolution on the Increase of Public Debts and Diverting Money Appropriated by Parliament’, 15 May, 1711. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 6, p. 1025. 34 Hatsell, Precedents, pp. 152–3. 33

45

272,226 1,228,500 1,365,000 1,090,001 601,524 200,000 1,000,000 1,000 6,000 5,772,251

Ordinary Wear and Tear Wages Victuals Navy Transports Extraordinary Toward discharge of the debt Haslar Stonehouse

Total

5,772251

210,764 1,411,729 2,407,740 1,334,540 356,136 – – 7,621 5,754

Received

1,469,094

183,229 1,042,740 336,503 – – – 6,621 –

–

More

35

NMM: ADM B 172, 2 May 1763.

There remains to come from the Exchequer of the Supplies of the Year 1762

Granted

Service

Table 3.1 State of naval cash, 2 May 176335

23,462

0

1,469,094

1,469,094

245,307 200,000 1,000,000 – 245

– – –

Less


An excellent example of how this worked can be seen in the cash balance when the supplies for 1762 were finally expended in April 1763 (Table 3.1). This demonstrates how the grants were used as a general fund, the supplies being applied where most needed, in this instance to pay wages due to ships at the end of the Seven Years’ War. There are, however, several points that should be clarified particularly in the light of the procedural tract previously quoted. It appears from the state of naval cash (Table 3.1) that nothing had been expended on the Extraordinary and that none of the debt had been paid off. The last point is an important one as the tract stated that ‘the whole of the Navy money, except that voted for the Navy debt, may be by law applied to any one part of the service’. The money voted for the Extraordinary can easily be accounted for as it would have been received and expended under the head of Wear and Tear and would have consisted of materials and workmanship.36 The sum voted for the discharge of the debt would have been expended under any or all of the several heads as it was under these heads that the debt existed. The problem was that it was impossible to show or to prove that the entire sum voted for the discharge of the debt had actually been applied to a previous overspend under those headings. No separate account was kept and the sum simply became a part of the general fund. It was equally impossible for any inquisitive member of the House to prove that the amount voted for the debt had not been appropriated specifically for that purpose. This made the Navy’s general fund a potential political issue as it appeared that the ministers responsible for the Navy could not be held accountable for specific expenditure. This explains the outburst made by Edmund Burke quoted at the beginning of this chapter.37 Disquiet about the financial management of the Navy was justified. At the time of the Falkland Islands crisis in 1770, Lord North remarked that if the Navy should need extra money it could be obtained by requesting a grant to discharge the Navy debt. This sum could then be used to strengthen the Navy rather than reduce the debt.38 This was unlawful. The Navy’s general fund was an operational necessity and it would have been politically dangerous to abuse the privileges granted to the Navy, even for the best of motives. The existing financial framework could not have been changed substantially without overhauling the administrative machinery and changing the attitudes of those who operated the system. It was a call for reform and an insistence on greater 36 The £200,000 voted on the Extraordinary estimate more than covered the overspend of £183,229 under Wear and Tear. 37 Edmund Burke described the naval appropriation as ‘a preposterous plan of disbursing the revenue’, Charles Cornwall described it as ‘this ancient and erroneous practice’ and Lord Shelburne thought it a ‘pernicious custom’. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, pp. 542, 549, and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, 3 vols (London, 1876) vol. 3, p. 335. 38 Ruddock MacKay, Admiral Hawke (Oxford, 1965) p. 323.

47


accountability that marked a number of minor but important changes brought in from 1765 onwards. These were abandoned in 1771, causing fierce debate in subsequent votes on the Navy supplies, and later enquiries into the state of the Navy.39 However, it would be wrong to think that the Navy was a law unto itself or that there was no form of internal monitoring or parliamentary control. Keeping the supply granted by Parliament as small as possible could not ensure that the public money was spent appropriately. To this end, several documents were prepared on a regular basis by the Navy Board for the Admiralty, the Treasury and for the House of Commons. The Ordinary and Extraordinary estimates have been discussed and the statement of the Navy’s debt will be addressed separately. The remaining documents are of a simple nature. There were the statements of naval cash, an example of which has been given (Table 3.1). This was produced monthly and gave details of the annual grant, the amounts received under the separate heads with any over or under spend, and the balance of the Navy’s credit with the Treasury for the supplies of that year. These statements had been produced since 1753 when the Navy Board had been directed to do so by the Admiralty.40 They continued until the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War when pressure of additional work and a change of personnel brought about an apparent lapse. Orders were reissued to produce these statements in 1758.41 The reissuing of the directive was a likely result of George Grenville’s Navy Act of 1758 which received the approval of the House of Lords on the 13 April. Among other things the bill was intended to establish ‘a regular method of punctual, frequent, and certain payment’ of seamen’s wages.42 These monthly statements would have assured the Admiralty Board that the Navy Board were making regular and substantial payments under the head of wages. To the historian these statements are of interest as the financial workings of the Navy can be seen on a month by month basis giving insights into how the Navy’s obligations were given priority and discharged. A closely related document was ‘An Estimate of the Monies Needed’ (see Appendix 3). This was requested by the Treasury and produced annually, usually between April and July. It detailed month by month to the end of the year what cash the Navy Board expected to disburse to pay for specific items. These ranged from monthly payments of seamen’s wages, quarterly payments of pensions, half pay, dockyard wages, and monthly disbursements on imprests and bills of exchange. This permitted the Treasury to anticipate requests for

39

These reforms were abandoned by Sandwich’s Admiralty Board. The first of these appears in the Navy Board letters at the end of 1753, NMM: ADM B 148, J. Cleveland to the Navy Board, 4 December 1753. 41 NMM: ADM A 2488, J. Clevland to the Navy Board, 25 July, 1758. 42 ‘Debate in the Commons on Mr. Grenville’s Navy Bill’, 24 January,1758. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 15, p. 839. 40

48


cash from the Treasurer of the Navy and thereby regulate its own administration. The anticipated monthly disbursements were totalled, giving the expected cash requirements of the Navy for the remainder of the calendar year. This was then subtracted from the current balance of the Navy’s credit with the Treasury to arrive at an estimation of what sums would remain to discharge the Navy’s other obligations. These obligations were either an additional sum for seamen’s wages or the payment of Navy bills registered on the course of the Navy.43 The estimate did not include the payment of Navy bills as these were administered separately. In practice, some of the amounts and the timing of the payments outlined in the estimate did not match those actually made. Many of the sums that were expected to be paid were themselves estimates and were often overstated. Payments were also occasionally made a month or two later than outlined in the estimate and in some instances not at all.44 As this document was requested by the Treasury, and as it tended to over estimate the cash requirements of the Navy, it was not produced for the financial management of the Navy but for the management of the Treasury. Two returns produced by the Navy Board were used to monitor expenditure. These were the returns of artificers employed in the dockyards and returns of seamen and marines borne and mustered.45 When it is considered that the wage element was the largest single component of naval expenditure the significance of these documents becomes apparent. The accounts of the artificers employed were produced quarterly at the request of the Admiralty. The account was very detailed dividing the total numbers of all the workmen into their different functions and classes, specifying the totals at each yard. This allowed the Admiralty to determine if sufficient skilled men were being employed at the different yards and that directions to reduce or increase the workforce had been complied with. It also allowed the Navy Board to make a fairly accurate estimation of the wage costs. This was useful in compiling the estimates.

43

The ‘Estimate of Monies Needed’ or a scheme of cash was first called for by the Treasury in the 1740s. Shaw, Calendar, p. xxxviii. Navy bills were registered monthly on the course and paid in chronological order. The length of the course in months and the anticipated payment of the course determined the discount on Navy bills which could be bought and sold like stocks. 44 This can be determined by a comparison of the ‘Estimate of Monies Needed’ and the monthly ‘Statements of Naval Cash’. 45 The number of seamen and marines borne always exceeded those mustered. Ships’ books contained more individuals than those actually employed. Sometimes this was due to dishonesty, or due to the keeping of a relative on the books to earn ‘sea time’ and thereby gain early promotion when they started their naval career. But usually a certain number of fictitious men, or widows men, were borne whose wages went toward the support of seamen’s widows and children. Quarterly returns of artificers had been a standing order since October 1750. 49


The Navy Board kept a monthly account of the number of seamen and marines borne and mustered. At the end of the calendar year, these totals, with a mean annual average, were submitted to the Admiralty before being laid before the House of Commons along with the estimate of the Navy debt. The House could then see if the full number of seamen voted had been employed. During the period immediately following any war, the numbers borne greatly exceeded those voted. After a war, Parliament voted numbers of men based on a peace establishment, even though it was physically impossible as well as impractical for the Navy to reduce the number of seamen at a stroke as demobilization was a gradual process. The excess number of seamen borne was always used as a partial reason for the increase in the debt of the Navy as the excess would not have been provided for in the parliamentary grants. The most important document was the estimate of the debt of the Navy. This was usually produced in January and was shortly followed, if applicable, by the reasons for any increase in the debt. The debt was only an estimate as it was impossible to know of every expense that had arisen during the previous year, particularly abroad. It was based on the best information to hand on the 31 December of each year and, although only an estimate, it was as accurate as the Navy clerks could make it and was calculated to the farthing. The account of the increase in the debt contained details of those items that contributed to the net increase of the debt over that of the previous year. This was also calculated to the farthing. It is evident that the clerks who compiled this document started off with a predetermined sum and then looked for obvious items that could explain the increased debt. They then continued to look until they had discovered a sufficient amount to satisfy the total they had previously calculated. The items produced were all legitimate and were all services that were not provided for by Parliament. The impression, however, is that this was creative accounting and, as it was to be submitted to the Commons, it was more important that it should look right than be accurate. In fairness to the clerks and the administrators, the Navy’s finances did not lend themselves to the sort of scrutiny and accuracy that a modern audit would demand. A modern audit would have been difficult if not impossible. Many of the figures produced were ‘best estimates’. Nor was an accurate account of expenditure strictly necessary even if such a thing had been possible. Naval finance was more concerned with the cash balance with the Treasury, and its credit with the sources of supply. It did not have to operate like a modern business producing accurate accounts of income and expenditure. There was no year-end balance sheet or shareholders to be accountable to. The Navy was accountable to the public through Parliament and, provided that the debt was not too high or any increase in the debt too sharp, politicians did not concern themselves with the fine detail. It was only when economies and efficiencies were demanded, when peculation was suspected, when something major went wrong, or it was deemed that ministers and administrators should be more accountable that attitudes changed. The 50


statements of debt were sufficient to discharge the duty of Parliament in supervising and monitoring the expense of the Navy although in the political climate of the 1760s and 1770s this became less so.46 Only one document of any importance remains to be described. This was ‘The Account of the Sums due on the Course of the Navy’, sometimes also called ‘An Account of the Navy, Victualling and Transport Bills owing.’ (see Appendix 5). This was called for by the Treasury at irregular intervals and signalled an intention to pay off some of the bills owing on the Navy course. These bills, consisting of debts for materials and services, were registered chronologically (the course) and paid off according to their date of registration. They were frequently purchased at a discount from the Navy’s creditors by speculators. This discount reflected the state of the Navy’s credit. When the Treasury deemed that the Navy had sufficient credit with the Exchequer to pay part of the course, it was paid in the same manner as the Navy’s other obligations. When cash was in short supply, these bills were paid off by the Treasury either through an issue of annuities or through a lottery and sometimes both. The amounts paid could cover as little as two or as much as twelve months of the course. Sometimes almost two years would elapse between payments and at other times three separate payments could be made in the space of a year. During periods of peace, as the overall debt of the Navy became more manageable, payments tended to become more regular and frequent. Regular payment was important as it affected the Navy’s credit. This was reflected in the discount on Navy bills, the price of naval stores and the amount of interest the Navy was obliged to pay on unpaid bills.47 The important procedural point to note here is that it was the Treasury that was responsible for regular payments of the course not the Navy Board. The Navy Board was responsible for expenditure while the Treasury was responsible for managing the payment. Nor was it the case that the Navy Board requested that the Treasury make a payment on the course. A covering letter with a copy of the account of the course submitted to the Admiralty in April 1768 makes this clear. Having in obedience to the directions of the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury signified by Mr. Cooper’s letter of the 25th inst., we send their Lordships an account of the money wanting to pay the course of the Navy and Victualling for six months ended the 30th day of April 1767 with the interest computed thereon to the 30th of this instant April.48 46 An additional document, not described here was an ‘Estimate of the Probable Expence of the Navy’, first requested by the Treasury in 1765, which by 1767 had become a ‘Plan of Expence’ to which the Navy was expected to conform in the distribution of its grants. This clearly demonstrates changing attitudes and attempts at departmental efficiency and accountability. 47 Navy bills carried interest after six months. 48 NMM: ADM B 181, Navy Board to Philip Stephens, 28 April 1768. Mr Cooper was the Secretary to the Treasury Board.

51


What is clear here is that the Navy Board were sending a copy of the account to the Admiralty for their information, meaning that the Treasury had taken the initiative in making the payment. Had this not been the case, the Admiralty would have requested the information directly from the Navy Board as if they had wished to approve of a payment beforehand. The account of the course demonstrates the high degree of co-ordination and co-operation between the Admiralty and Treasury Boards and the division of responsibility for expenditure and payment between the Navy and Treasury Boards. This co-operation between the Admiralty and the Treasury was to become more apparent in the late 1760s when both Boards attempted to get the Navy Board to conform to plans of expense and disbursement.

Expenditure on the Ordinary estimate Excepting the Victualling and Transports, the Navy’s grants were expended under three main headings, Ordinary, Wear and Tear, and Wages. In an administrative sense, the Ordinary was the most important of the estimates as the amount submitted to Parliament needed to be as accurate as possible. This was because the expense of the items in the Ordinary estimate could not be regulated by the number of seamen voted. These were the standing expenses of the Navy such as salaries to the Navy Commissioners and clerks, the upkeep of offices, heating, lighting and stationery. It also included pensions to sea officers and the wages of dockyard officers. These expenses did not change very much in times of war or peace. Another reason why the Ordinary expenditure could not be regulated by the number of seamen voted was that in peacetime the sums required needed to be much higher than in wartime. The Ordinary included half pay to sea and marine officers and also included the upkeep of the ships in Ordinary or reserve as well as the wages paid to those on board. Half pay officers and the ships in Ordinary were more numerous on a peace establishment. One administrative peculiarity resulted from this. The sums granted for the Ordinary estimate were not all expended under that head. Reference again to a part of the statement of naval cash on 2 May 1763, shows that the Ordinary grant was not completely expended (see Table 3.2). This occurred every year, because certain items on the Ordinary estimate were expended Table 3.2 Part of naval cash statement, 2 May 1763 Service

Granted

Received

More

Less

Ordinary Wear and Tear Wages

272,226 1,228,500 1,365,000

210,764 1,411,729 2,407,740

–

23,462 – –

52

183,229 1,042,740


under Wear and Tear instead of the Ordinary. These items were ordinary repairs and the charge of harbour mooring and rigging. The cost of victuals to the men on the ships in Ordinary were transferred from the head of Ordinary, to that of Victualling. Here we can see the importance of the Navy’s ability to use its grant as a general fund. The above items were disbursed under one head but needed to be estimated under another, because they were fixed amounts. The general fund made this process easier.

The payment of wages The items disbursed under the head of wages consisted almost entirely of pay for officers, seamen and marines, but not dockyard artificers, inferior officers of the yards or clerks. Related items were also included under this head. There was the allowance to clerks in the Pay Office,49 imprests for the carriage of money, and supplies for ship’s surgeons. Additionally, there was the pay to the secretaries of flag officers, table money, or an allowance to flag officers for entertainment, the cost of schoolmasters and less obvious items such as the hire of watermen and pilotage.50 All of these amounts were governed by the number of seamen voted by Parliament. The sum granted was just sufficient to cover costs providing the numbers borne did not exceed those voted. When it is considered that wages constituted the largest single item of naval expense, this is impressive. If we examine the expenditure under wages for 1768 we can see how accurate thirty shillings per man per lunar month was. In 1768, Parliament voted 16,000 men for the Navy. This amounted to a wage grant of £312,000. The Navy Board expected to spend £210,000 on sea wages which, when added to the other items under the head of wages and the £21,000 charged to the Sick and Hurt, amounted to £329,600.51 In 1768, 15,111 men were borne on a mean average52 and the amount actually expended under the head of Wages was £357,847.53 The grant was overspent by £45,847 or 8.5 per cent, but when the net reduction of the wages debt is removed from the equation, the Navy’s overspend was a mere £1,699 or half of one per cent. As impressive as this might seem, there are certain things that the available figures do not tell us such as how much of the sum expended under wages was

49

Pay office clerks would often have to visit the ports where ships were to be paid off, and therefore incurred expenses. They were also paid an additional sum for making up ship’s books. 50 Detailed accounts of disbursements under wages, wear and tear and ordinary are contained in the ‘Plans of Expence’. The one described here is the plan for 1768. NMM: ADM B 181, 27 May 1768. 51 NMM: ADM B 181, 27 May 1768. 52 NMM: ADM B 182, 30 January, 1769. 53 NMM: ADM B 182, 21 June 1769, State of Naval Cash (supplies for 1768). 53


for obligations of the previous year and how much of the expense for 1768 was carried over to 1769. It would have been time consuming to calculate the precise amount expended on wages. To calculate just the wages paid to seamen would have required a detailed examination of all the ship’s books taking into account the different ranks and rates of pay, as well as adjustments for pay forfeited by desertion. Such a calculation would have been difficult even if all the ship’s pay books were to hand and would be as time consuming and pointless. For administrative purposes it was sufficient that the grant had been exceeded by only a moderate amount and that the level of debt had not increased. There is little reason to doubt the general accuracy of the bookkeeping but it is obvious that errors occurred. In January 1766, the account of the increase of the debt of 1765 explained that a cumulative error arising over the period from 1756 to 1764 had caused the debt to be overestimated by £340,344.54 The important point to note is that there must have been some system to check the accuracy of accounting for this error to have been uncovered. The payment of wages presented the Navy with particular difficulties that demonstrate how essential it was that the Navy’s grants were appropriated generally rather than specifically. When the fleet mobilized for war, the Commons voted an additional number of seamen, thereby increasing the Navy’s grants. It could take a year and often longer before the full quota of men for a war establishment was reached as rapid manning was a problem that even impressment could not alleviate. Therefore the Navy had a certain amount of cash in hand that would normally be appropriated for wages. Even as the number of seamen increased, their wages would accumulate rather than be paid and if ships were sent on foreign service it could be years before wage obligations needed to be met. The amount voted for wages could therefore be used to fit ships out for sea service. At the end of a war, the process reversed itself, the Navy’s wage obligations coming due just as Parliament voted a reduced establishment. For example, in 1763, the wartime establishment of 70,000 men was reduced to 30,000 with a further reduction to 16,000 the following year. This meant that the wage obligations needed to be met by massive overspending. In 1762 the grant for wages was overspent by £1,042,740.55 The grants for 1763, 1764 and 1765 were overspent by £807,000, £473,000 and £280,00.56 Wages were given priority, although this had not always been the case. In 1727, Parliament had passed a bill to ensure that seamen employed on the British coast were paid at least two months wages in every six, but this was

54

NMM: ADM B 178, 23 January 1766. NMM: ADM B 172, 2 May 1763, State of Naval Cash. 56 NMM: ADM B 174, 1 March 1764; ADM/B/176, 1 March 1765; ADM B 178, 1 March 1766. 55

54


not strictly complied with.57 The Navy Act of 1758, introduced by George Grenville, then Treasurer of the Navy, set out ‘a regular method for the punctual, frequent and certain payment of their wages and for enabling them more easily and readily to remit the same for the support of their wives and families’.58 The primary purpose of the bill was to encourage seamen to serve in the Royal Navy. An objection to this bill voiced in the House of Lords was that the money allotted to wages would remain unemployed in the Treasurer’s hands.59 Had it remained unemployed, it would have been lodged in the Exchequer rather than with the Treasurer of the Navy, but the point of the bill was to make speedy and regular payment, not to appropriate a specific amount to wages and then hold that sum until needed. The bill did not prevent the Navy from appropriating unpaid wages for other purposes. What the bill did do was to ensure that when, as in 1763, the wage demands were substantial, they were given priority over other obligations. If the Navy’s grants had not been used as a general fund, the 1758 Act could not have been implemented without vast sums being set aside and left untouched. This would have severely restricted the Navy’s cash flow and consequently its ability to administer its finances.

Wear and Tear Like wages, the amount granted for Wear and Tear was regulated by the number of seamen voted. Twenty-seven shillings per man per lunar month was the allocation which, on a peacetime establishment of 16,000 men, amounted to £280,800. From this sum was paid the wages of the dockyard employees and those repairs transferred from the head of the Ordinary. Included with this was the charge of harbour mooring and rigging, stores and materials, transport for the same, premiums on naval stores, interest on Navy bills, and certain bills of exchange.60 Like wages, mobilization and demobilization had a disrupting influence on the transaction of business with regard to wear and tear. At the commencement of a war, sums that would normally be appropriated to wages could be allocated to wear and tear and the fitting out of the fleet for active service. But

57

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 15, pp. 841–2. ibid., p. 839. 59 ibid., p. 859. 60 Premiums were paid on certain naval stores to encourage their production in the colonies. This ensured an alternative source of supply in the event of a rupture with the Baltic powers who supplied those materials for which there was not an adequate or easily accessible supply in Britain. Premiums also tended to offset the higher trans-Atlantic freight charges making American naval stores price competitive with stores from the Baltic. This is the orthodox view but see also R. J. B. Knight, ‘New England Forests and Seapower: Albion Revised’, American Neptune, vol. xlvi (1986), p. 227. 58

55


at the end of a war, large bills needed to be paid just when the peacetime establishment was voted, reducing the grants available. The situation was made worse as priority had to be given to the payment of seamen’s wages leaving less to be expended on wear and tear and nothing to pay off the bills on the Navy course. Ships returning from active service often needed to be repaired, sometimes substantially, before being placed in reserve. The sum allocated to ordinary repairs in the Ordinary estimate, and expended under Wear and Tear was never sufficient. Here was the critical moment when investment needed to be made to ensure that a fleet in good condition was available for any future emergency. In April 1764, Lord Egmont, then First Lord of the Admiralty, estimated that £3 million was needed to put the fleet in good order at the end of the Seven Years’ War. The stores are very empty of sails, rigging, and cordage, and these are needed to keep pace with the condition of the hulks of all the ships, if we mean to maintain the fleet in a proper and respectable state. The hulls themselves (upon the whole fleet) may be computed to want little less than half their original cost, for rebuilding or repair. A very great sum since the value of the present Navy, if complete is above six millions.61

At the end of the war the amount needed just to pay the Navy course was £3,075,314.62 When priorities dictated, the one sum under the head of Wear and Tear, other than the Navy course, which seemed the easiest to delay payment of, was wages to the artificers and minor officers of the dockyards. Obligations under this head fell substantially during 1763 to £189,000 but rose again during the two subsequent years reaching over £296,000 in 1765.63 This represented more than the equivalent of one year’s pay. There was no statute such as Grenville’s Navy Act to ensure speedy and regular payment to dockyard artificers. From the Navy Board’s own estimate of the time and amount of money needed in 1764, dockyard wages were usually at least nine months in arrears and were paid six months at a time.64 The impression given by the various financial documents and a monthly analysis of the Navy’s spending and cash flow is that the system worked well

61

Earl of Egmont to George Grenville, 14 April 1764. William Smith (ed.) The Grenville Papers, 4 vols (London, 1853), vol. 3, p. 291. 62 Commons Journals, vol. 29, p. 418. 63 Figures are taken from the annual estimates of the Navy debt under the heading ‘to His Majesty’s several Yards and Rope Yards for the Ordinary and Extraordinary’. Commons Journals, vol. 29, p. 749, vol. 30, pp. 52, 492. 64 NMM: ADM B 174, 1 August 1764, ‘Estimate of Monies Needed’. It was apparently the intention of the Navy Board to pay a half year’s wages of £63,270, to Christmas 1763, in September 1764 and £61,244 to Lady Day 1764, in November 1764. 56


and that this was greatly assisted by the Navy’s ability to use its grants as a general fund. Providing there was a reasonable length of peace, the financial structure worked efficiently and, with the possible exception of interest payments, economically. When mobilization occurred the system, being flexible, was able to cope well but, on demobilization resort was made to crisis management. The massive discharge of obligations was dictated first by statute, as in the case of seamen’s wages, and then by the priority of maintaining the Navy’s credit. The ability to transfer many financial obligations to a statement of debt and eventually to the nation’s debt was the final resort.

The naval debt The debt of the nation and the Navy debt in particular figured frequently in parliamentary debate. It was clearly misunderstood by those not directly involved in public finance, often being seen as a burden and a curse rather than a way of making money work. In 1749, Mr Robert Nugent, later to become a lord of the Treasury,65 remarked, ‘our national debt is now swelled to such a monstrous bulk, that I am afraid, it will prove our ruin. It necessarily must if no expedient can be found for paying off a great part of it at once’.66 He clearly blamed ministers rather than operational and procedural reasons for the Navy’s accumulation of debt, and in the same debate went on to say, ‘Our ministers, I know, have always been pretty apt to run in debt upon the articles relating to the Navy, because they have found that a Navy debt is what the parliament will most readily submit to the payment of.’ It was his opinion that the Navy estimates were deliberately kept short in order to achieve ‘a short lived popularity’. A neglect of posterity has always been a complaint against ministers; and with regard to most of them, the complaint has been too well founded; but of late years our ministers have seemed to neglect not only posterity, but the very next stage of futurity. Present ease has been the only goddess they adored.67

These were purely political comments. Henry Pelham saw things in a more practical light. In 1751, he stated, I shall never be for putting more money into the hands of ministers than there appears to be occasion for, because I had rather see the parliament granting money

65

Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke (eds) The History of Parliament, the House of Commons 1754–1790, 3 vols (London, 1964), vol. 3, p. 219. 66 ‘Debate in the Commons on the Number of Seamen’, 27 November, 1749. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 14, p. 610. 67 ibid. pp. 610, 611. 57


for services incurred and not provided for, than calling ministers to an account for a waste of public money, which they had been tempted to commit by having more than was necessary put into their possession.68

In 1772, Lord North used much the same argument to support the system of appropriation as it then existed. Like Pelham, he saw it as a procedural point rather than a political one. If they were allowed more than a sufficiency, it would induce them to be lavish with the public money. As it is, if they exceed their allowance, they are obliged to give parliament a regular and just account of every extraordinary expenditure.69

But it was a member of the Opposition and a follower of Rockingham, William Dowdeswell, who in the previous year’s debate in 1771 had put forward the financial arguments for a managed level of debt. the French . . . had resources of revenue which could enable them to carry on a war without public credit, of which they had now none, but . . . our force arose entirely from our public credit, which could only be supported by most attentive economy in times of peace, from which alone the creditors of the public could hope for payment.70

Despite this change of emphasis, the Navy debt was still an overtly political issue in the 1770s. The Navy’s use of its appropriation as a general fund was seen to weaken Parliament’s control over the public purse, and to the Opposition and many independent members of the House this was unconstitutional. The ‘present ease’ of ministers was no longer the issue; it was the respect of ministers for parliamentary procedure and appropriation.71 ‘It is our enthusiastic fondness for the naval service that has prevented the practice of appropriation and regular accounts in that department, remarked Edmund Burke in 1772.’72 The resulting shortfall in the estimates for political, procedural and operational reasons meant an extension of credit was necessary. The operational reasons for the existence of the Navy debt have been partially addressed and fall broadly into two categories. These were debts for

68 ‘Debate in the Commons on the Number of Seamen for the year 1751’, 25 January, 1751. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 14, pp. 844–5. 69 ‘Debate in the Commons on the Navy Estimates,’ 2 December 1772. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 553. 70 ‘Debate in the Commons on the Number of Seamen,’ 29 January, 1772. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 242. William Dowdeswell had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Rockingham ministry, 1765–6. 71 John Norris, Shelburne and Reform (London, 1963), p. 221. 72 Edmund Burke speaking during the debate on the naval estimates, 2 December 1772. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 549.

58


obligations that it was physically impossible to discharge and debt incurred to ease the Navy’s cash flow. Arrears of wages constituted a substantial part of the unavoidable debt. Wages would accumulate until a ship was paid off or until she was in home waters when, by the 1758 Navy Act, part of the wages due would have to be paid. Even in peacetime, the debt in wages never fell below £500,000 and usually represented about a third of the gross debt of the Navy. It should be further noted that, although it was physically impossible to discharge this debt making it a permanent feature of naval finances, the sums theoretically held by the Exchequer for the payment of wages were always appropriated for other uses, making this a debt in the true sense of the word. The appropriation of the sums that would have been held for wages constituted an interest-free and therefore vital extension of credit.

Navy bills One extension of credit, that did incur interest charges, was the issuing of Navy bills, although interest was not usually payable on them until six months had elapsed. It is Navy bills that fall into the second category of debt: the easing of the Navy’s cash flow. Navy bills were registered monthly on the course of the Navy and paid in chronological order. In peacetime the average amounts of Navy and transport bills registered on the course each month were between £40,000 and £50,000, the annual total amounting to about £500,000.73 The amount outstanding on the course at the end of each year was often more than £1 million, and at the end of the Seven Years’ War was over £3 million. When properly managed, the course could be reduced to less than £400,000.74 Navy bills were negotiable and the Navy’s creditors were able to convert them into ready cash by selling them to speculators at a discount. The amount of discount on the bills depended on when the dealer expected payment to be made. If payment was likely to be some time or if it was uncertain, discounts were high. This had an inflationary effect on the price of materials and services as suppliers attempted to offset the discount by charging more. Although competitive bidding took place for Navy contracts, cartels sometimes existed that could inflate prices if the Navy’s credit was poor and discounts high. The payment of interest after six months helped to stabilize this situation because it then became worthwhile for some creditors to keep the bills instead of selling them at a discount.

73 These figures are compiled from accounts of the Navy course in the Navy Board letters in the National Maritime Museum, series ADM B, and are based on the years 1766 to 1770 inclusive. 74 At 31 December 1769, the Navy and transport bills owing, exclusive of interest amounted to £373,926. Commons Journals, vol. 32, p. 747.

59


The total amount registered on the course of the Navy and the level of Navy debt had little to do with the discount charged on Navy bills. It was the length of the course, which could be months or even years, and the regularity of payment, that determined the level of discount. Regularity of payment was the most important factor, although in practice a lengthy course and irregular payment usually went together. The importance of regular payment can be demonstrated by an examination of the course in the years following the Peace of Paris. In 1763, Parliament granted over £3 million to pay off the Navy course of which £1.8 million was allocated to Navy and transport bills. This had little immediate effect on naval credit for it was not until after 1765 that more frequent payments succeeded in reducing the discount on Navy bills.75 The reasons for this are simple. First, the Navy was still contracting enormous debt at the end of 1764. The Navy bills outstanding had risen to £1.7 million, almost the amount that had been paid off in 1763.76 Second, a massive grant by Parliament to pay off the debt did not indicate an intention to make regular payments in future. In fact, the act of wiping out the existing debt reduced the Navy’s credit to nothing. Starting with a clean slate meant that a dealer in Navy bills could not determine when the next payment might be made and, on past performance, he might have to wait two years or more.77 It was not until 1766 that some regularity entered the payment of the course and this improved throughout the remainder of the decade and into the administration of Lord Sandwich, when attempts were made to put payment on a monthly footing to avoid incurring interest charges.78 These interest charges had annually amounted to between £25,000 and £65,000. Frequent payment eventually reduced the discount on bills to below one per cent.79 The bulk of the debt therefore was made up of Navy, transport and victualling bills and unpaid wages. The remainder consisted of sundry items not provided for by Parliament. These included short allowances to ship’s companies, bills of exchange, military transports and victuals for soldiers. The monthly statements of naval cash show that, although not specifically provided for in the grants, the Navy bore the cost of transports and the victualling of soldiers. This cost was paid for out of the sums granted for the discharge of the debt.

75

Lord Beveridge, Prices and Wages in England (London, 1965) p. 525. Commons Journals, vol. 30, p. 52. 77 Bills registered in April 1763 were still unpaid in March 1765, the course then being twenty-three months long. NMM: ADM B 183, 24 April 1770. 78 NMM: ADM B 185, 5 April 1771. 79 Beveridge, Prices, p. 525. 76

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Debt redemption Although it could never be paid off in full, large parts of the debt were redeemed in imaginative ways. Often a lump sum was voted to the Navy in the same manner as the other estimates, and could be anything from £100,000 to £1.5 million. This amount then became part of the Navy’s general fund and, like the other grants, the disbursement of this was at the discretion of the naval administrators. Proper procedure dictated that it was unlawful to appropriate the amount granted for the Navy debt to other purposes. Yet, as the grant was blended with the other estimates and as it was to be expended under all of the various heads of expenditure, it was as impossible to prove that the grant had been applied correctly as it was to prove that it had not. As a point of procedure it is fair to say that this stipulation lapsed with the passage of time. In any event, ministers could be held accountable if the level of debt increased by a substantial amount after a grant had been made to discharge it. Sometimes a supply was voted to pay off specific items of the Navy debt rather than to a general application toward the debt. The naval administrators were unable to use their discretion in these cases. In 1763, over £3 million was granted to pay off the course of the Navy to the end of December 1762.80 This amount was applied directly to the debt and did not appear on any on the Navy Board’s statements of cash. In 1764, an additional £179,229 was voted for the same purpose.81 The sum of £1.5 million was voted for discharging the debt in 1765 and this was also applied specifically to the payment of the course with a remainder of £15,750 added to the Navy’s general fund.82 In all these transactions, the matter was entirely in the hands of the Treasury. These supplies, voted specifically for the payment of the course, were funded in such a way that there was no immediate need for additional taxes to be raised. This was achieved by converting the Navy bills to annuities either by subscription or through a lottery. Any creditor holding Navy bills to the value of £100 or more was to have the interest added to them at the Navy or victualling office. They were then to be taken to the office of the Treasurer of the Navy to have them exchanged for a certificate that was to be submitted to the Bank of England. In 1763 and 1764, these certificates were simply exchanged for 4 per cent annuities charged on the sinking fund.83 80

The specific items to be paid were, ‘bills registered on the course of the Navy for stores, freight of transports etc. – £1,767,576; bills registered on the said course for premiums allowed by Act of Parliament on Naval Stores – £19,824; bills entered in Course for Slop Cloaths, bedding and Surgeon’s Necessaries – £113,776 and bills registered on the Victualling Course – £1,174,138.’ Commons Journals, vol. 29, p. 418. 81 Commons Journals, vol. 29, pp. 749, 751. This was as well as £650,000 voted generally toward the Navy debt. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 15, pp. 1422–4. 82 NMM: ADM B 177, 5 August 1765, Statement of Naval Cash. 83 Commons Journals, vol. 29, p. 791. 61


The holder of these annuities received 4 per cent interest on the sum he was owed, but could convert them to ready cash by selling them on the Stock Exchange at a modest discount. The Navy Four Percents were a popular form of investment. The funding of the debt in 1765 was more ingenious. Two-fifths of every £100 certificate was exchanged for a 3 per cent annuity redeemable by Parliament and transferable.84 A further two-fifths could be entered into a lottery with prizes consisting of a further issue of 3 per cents and the remainder could be converted either to a 3 per cent annuity or to an annuity for life.85 The particularly ingenious part of this transaction was twofold. First, by making the lottery prize an issue of annuities, the Treasury, in the short term, only had to pay modest interest on the face value of the prize and not the full amount of any winnings. Of course those who did not win anything lost their stake in the Navy debt as well. Furthermore, those with less than £100 worth of Navy bills or those with fractional parts of £100 remaining could also claim a certificate and obtain the annuities on payment of the difference. 86 Therefore, the government was converting its debts to the payment of interest only, until such time as it could afford to redeem the capital. At the same time it was encouraging creditors to gamble with and possibly lose their claims. In many instances the government was receiving additional revenue in the process as fractional parts of Navy bills were made up into £100 certificates.87 These voluntary contributions were substantial. In 1765, after a subscription of £1,367,669 at the Bank of England, cash contributions for annuities and the lottery amounted to £116,579.88 These financial shenanigans, not only demonstrate the sheer ingenuity of Treasury ministers and their advisers, but also indicate how the State was able to harness vast sums of capital as well as manage a huge burden of debt. It shows that if money or credit was needed it could be got at a price. There was no shortage of individuals, banks and companies willing to invest their capital to ease the burden of State debt. Even so, the sheer scale of the operation put a severe strain on the tax system.

84 Three per cent annuities were perpetual annuities and part of the nation’s redeemable debt as they could be discharged by Parliament on repayment of the capital. Robert Hamilton, An Inquiry Concerning the Rise and Progress, the Redemption and Present State and the Management of the National Debt of Great Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh, 1818) p. 62. 85 A life annuity could not be redeemed during the agreed term without the holder’s consent. Hamilton, National Debt, pp. 62–3. 86 ‘Ways and Means for the Year 1765’, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 16, pp. 65–67, PRO: T27/29, f.147, 29 March 1765. 87 Between 1765 and 1768, the 4 per cent annuities were paid off by further borrowing at 3 per cent, BL: Add. MSS. 38339, f. 4, 38340, f. 345. 88 NMM: ADM B 177, 5 August 1765. Unusually, the precise origin of the sums granted to discharge the Navy debt were added to all of the statements of naval cash for the remainder of 1765.

62


The desired result was achieved and the Navy’s credit was secured. After 1765, the sums voted for the discharge of the debt were applied through the Navy’s general fund. The debt due on the course had been reduced from over £1.7 million in 1764 to just over £400,000 by the end of 1766. The level of debt remained at about £500,000 until 1772 when it began a rise that continued into the War of American Independence. At the end of a war various financial expedients were resorted to until such a time as the debt of the Navy was at a level that could be managed through moderate annual grants. In 1749, the Navy’s huge debts had been secured by an issue of annuities. The same had occurred in 1763. By 1767 and 1772 supplies voted for the discharge of the debt ranged from nothing at all to a maximum of £400,000, while the total amount of debt, including wages, stabilized at between £1.1 and £1.5 million. Clearly these levels of debt were of easily manageable proportions.

The cost of the Navy debt The ability of the Navy to extend the purchasing power of its annual grants by the use of credit and its ability to convert its cash obligations to permanent debt meant that a considerable part of the annual grant was free from previously contracted obligations. In other words its cash flow was healthy, giving the Navy financial sinews unrivalled by any other maritime power. This was achieved at a cost, but one that, with proper management, was surprisingly modest. We have already seen that the debt due to the wages of seamen and dockyard workers incurred no additional expense. Even some of the bills registered on the course, about 7 to 9 per cent of the total, never carried interest even after six months and anything up to £500,000 worth of Navy bills were permanently on the course and not carrying interest because they was not yet six months in arrears. The interest on those bills that did incur it was minimal. The interest due on the Navy bills totalling almost £2 million in March 1765 was just over £64,000 or about 3 per cent.89 As the debt came under control and more frequent and regular payments were made the cost of interest came down. In 1768, interest represented 2.3 per cent of the principle, by the end of that year it was 1.9 per cent and by 1771 the interest due on Navy and transport bills represented 0.9 per cent of the principal.90 By this time it was no longer necessary to fund the debt by the issue of 3 or 4 per cent annuities as the debt, amounting to just over £1 million, much of it interest free, was being

89

NMM: ADM B 183, 24, April 1770, An Account of the Bills . . . unpaid on the 14 March 1765. 90 NMM: ADM B 180, 3 March 1768, ADM B 181, 27 September 1768, ADM B 185, 5 April 1771. 63


contained by the annual grants, at a cost of half of one per cent.91 The Navy debt was, therefore, not only an essential feature of the Navy’s finances, the very engine that made it work effectively, but, when properly managed, it incurred little additional expense. Apart from financial management, the other essential aspect of the Navy debt was its function as an instrument of ministerial accountability. To this end, statements of the Navy debt were submitted annually to Parliament along with accounts of the increase in the debt over the previous year. As noted already, a certain amount of creative accounting went into the reasons for any increase. The amount of the increase was determined first, with explanations being sought afterwards to achieve the total previously calculated. The increase was accounted for in two ways. The first was the sum overspent under particular heads and the second was services not provided for by Parliament. The sums overspent were usually attributable to more men being borne than voted or additional repair work. In 1769, 730 additional men were borne at a cost of £27,046 and repairs were carried out to the Sandwich, Namur and Prince Frederick totalling £3,015 which were not included in the Extraordinary estimate for that year.92 Other sums were those not provided for by Parliament. A number of items could appear under this head, some being most unusual. Two examples were the payment of the account for determining longitude and the purchase of the Endeavour for Cook’s voyage to the Pacific. The effectiveness of these statements of debt upon ministers and administrators was quite shallow but at least there was a check. Malversation was possible but when it occurred would have been confined to those who actually handled the Navy’s money. As many offices and clerks were involved, attempts to conceal mismanagement were no doubt equally difficult. The statements of debt did nothing to monitor the internal financial workings of the Navy but did serve to give Parliament a broad, but therefore shallow, overview of the administrative state of the Navy. The fact that these documents existed and were called for annually and that the Navy’s accounts were open to inspection would have created a working environment in which accountability figured, if only to a small degree. Nor should it be assumed that ministers would naturally wish to mislead the House concerning the finance and administration of the Navy, an impression that comes across in some of the parliamentary debates. They were managing and directing a complex system, many parts of which they had little practical knowledge. They relied on experts in the various sub-departments. Ironically, as we will see in a later chapter, the Earl of Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty

91

In 1770 the Navy debt stood at £1,497,454 and the interest incurred during the year amounted to £9,529 or 0.6 per cent of the total debt. NMM: ADM B 184, 4 March 1771. 92 NMM: ADM B 183, 13 March 1770. 64


who made himself master of so much of the Navy’s administrative detail, was the one who endured the most criticism. The Navy’s finances and accounting systems have at various times been described as medieval and the system of calculating the estimates as inept and little changed from the time of William III.93 Such comment is not appropriate when the procedural reasons behind the estimates are properly understood. The financial structures were based, to a large extent, on the Navy’s ability to exist on credit and have a large part of its debt funded. This had only been possible since the Glorious Revolution after which public finance, under the impetus of war, had become more sophisticated. By the mid-eighteenth century these systems would hardly have been antiquated. The systems of naval finance throughout the eighteenth century were appropriate in that they suited the circumstances of the time and were effective and flexible in times of war. They operated in the way they did for procedural, operational and financial reasons. These reasons had evolved and continued to evolve. This evolution was driven by the need to wage war on a global scale, by the scrutiny of Parliament and to a large degree by common sense. The Navy did not simply spend the public money and incur debt. A financial structure that involved the Admiralty, Navy and Treasury Boards ensured that the Navy’s money was put to work and was managed in a number of ingenious ways. The success of Britain’s Navy owed as much to sound financial administration as it did to its officers, seamen and warships.

93

Baugh, Naval Administration, p. 464, and Binney, Public Finance, p. 142. 65

4

Crisis and victory The Navy, 1714–62 In the previous chapters we have looked at how the civil branch of the eighteenth-century Navy operated in terms of politics, administration and finance. This chapter and the ones that follow will run through a large part of the eighteenth century chronologically, beginning roughly in the period following the War of the Spanish Succession and ending as the War of American Independence came to its conclusion. A number of themes will be taken up in these chapters. The first of these concerns the efforts of various naval administrations to maintain an adequate and sustainable battlefleet. This was a task complicated by growing overseas commerce requiring naval protection, a corresponding build-up of numbers of naval vessels, but also an infrastructure of docks and yards that could not keep pace with this advance. Added to this there was an urgent need to make the royal dockyards more efficient and productive, a goal that proved largely elusive despite some moderate successes. Second, Britain’s growth as a naval power was complicated, rather than restrained, by a Parliament reluctant to vote large sums for the naval estimates. As already indicated, this apparent parsimony was a form of parliamentary control over the public purse rather than a reluctance to fund the Navy. Even so, finding enough money to maintain the fleet was a matter that taxed the ingenuity of successive naval administrators. Third, there was the matter of personalities. As indicated in a previous chapter, the influence of the First Lord of the Admiralty was circumscribed both politically and administratively. However, there were men who held this post in the eighteenth century, who were able either to use their political influence, their talent or a superior understanding of the Navy and its affairs to address many of these problems of finance, planning and management. Foremost amongst these individuals were Anson and Sandwich, but there were others, such as Wager, Egmont and Hawke, professionally adept but not noticed in this particular context by the generality of historians. Most of these personalities will figure prominently in the following chapters but three further themes will also emerge in the course of this particular chapter. During almost all of the period under consideration, the Navy’s ships suffered from an environmental problem that impacted on both the health of crews and the condition of the ships. The scope and extent of this problem has not been fully appreciated. Nor has the long-term impact of the decay of the Navy’s ships been investigated. A second theme, a direct 66

CRISIS AND VICTORY, 1714–62

consequence of the first, was the development of new management systems and a growth of a management mentality within the Navy’s civil branch. A third theme, arising from these developing management systems, but oddly influencing them also, was a symbiotic relationship between the Navy and Parliament. From about the 1750s onwards, the parliamentary process of scrutinizing the Navy’s accounts came to influence the management of the Navy and the dockyards, leading to innovations in working practices and administrative systems. This managerial approach in turn contributed to the growth and development of government bureaucracy. By a process, possibly unique to Britain, this bureaucratic development led not only to an increase in the efficiency of the state, but also to an increase in the stature of Parliament. In other words the Navy was an important influence in the bureaucratic development of a stronger and more efficient British state, but unlike military absolutist states such as France and Prussia, this developing strength was not at the expense of Britain’s representative institutions.

The British battlefleet 1714–49 – an overview The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 concluded the War of the Spanish Succession. The period between this and the War of Jenkins Ear in 1739 could hardly be called a period of peace, yet Britain was not engaged in a war on the scale of that which the treaty brought to a close. There was, of course, the brief war with Spain during which Byng defeated the Spanish off Cape Passaro. Then the British kept a naval presence in the Baltic during the Great Northern War, mainly to protect the King’s interests in Hanover, and again there was war with Spain 1726–7. Due to a mutually beneficial alliance, relations between Britain and France were peaceful, encouraged by the non-interventionist foreign policy advocated by Britain’s first minister, Robert Walpole.1 By the early 1730s, the Anglo-French Alliance was weakening and as France turned towards Spain and Britain towards Austria, Europe began to gear itself up for another war, this time over the Austrian succession. War came early for Britain as commercial rivalry with Spain and the alleged outrage committed by the Spanish in removing the ear of Captain Jenkins led to conflict in 1739. This war merged with a general European war with France over the Austrian succession. The war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, which only provided a breathing space for Britain and France as both were in almost open conflict over territory in North America and India. From

1 During the minority of Louis XV and the regency of Philip Duke of Orleans, the French succession was in some doubt as Philip V of Spain was a potential Bourbon claimant. France therefore did not need enemies. The alliance was advantageous to Britain as it deprived the Jacobite cause of its French support. The Anglo-French Alliance became the Triple Alliance with the inclusion of the United Provinces.

67


a naval standpoint, the Seven Years’ War began in 1755 and continued until the Peace of Paris in 1763. After many initial disappointments, it proved to be the most successful of Britain’s eighteenth-century conflicts. An overview of the size and condition of the Navy from the 1720s onwards indicates that something quite alarming was going on (see graph on the effective size of the fleet). Fleet lists of the Navy of the eighteenth century can be very misleading. Many accounts, particularly those published show a very large fleet, but give no indication of the condition of the ships listed or how many of them were in a condition to be fitted out for service. Even some of the fleet lists submitted by the Navy Board to the Admiralty failed to make this distinction.2 Apparently the Admiralty Commissioners needed to phrase their requests for information very precisely. Whereas in 1714 the Navy had in service, or in condition for service, fifty-six effective ships of the line, by the end of 1749 there were no more than thirty-five. Published figures at the end of 1748 indicate that the battle fleet, exclusive of 50-gun ships, numbered 104 and numbered ninety-five at the beginning of 1750, but these figures take no account of the condition of these vessels.3 Figures submitted to the Admiralty from the Navy Board at various times are summarized in Table 4.1. The figures submitted by the Navy Board, which are represented in this table, can be independently confirmed by checking the Admiralty progress books. These were records kept of the building, repairs and expense of almost every ship in the Navy. They are particularly full and detailed for the period from about 1725 to 1780.4 The number of ships fit for service at any one time over the first half of the century varied considerably and, as the percentage of those available show, from the late 1740s onwards the Navy was experiencing some extraordinary difficulties. The fleet was divided into various rates and the Navy Board made sure that a certain number within each rate were ‘kept on the books’.5 So, for instance,

2

All subsequent references to ships being in a fit condition, or fit for service should be understood as being able to put to sea for active service unless indicated otherwise. This information has been determined by checking fleet lists against the repair records in the Admiralty Progress Books. 3 See in particular Charles Derrick, Memoirs of the Rise and Progress of the Royal Navy (London, 1806), pp. 138, 140. In the early part of the century, 50-gun ships were considered as part of the line of battle whereas in the latter part of the century they were not. For consistency, only vessels of 58–60 guns or more are considered as being a part of the battlefleet 4 The Progress Books were first kept about 1710. They contain records of ships earlier than this but it is apparent that the information on these vessels was backdated. Prior to about 1720, the information recorded on each ship is incomplete. Likewise, in the period following the War of American Independence, the record keeping became increasingly poor. Many items of expense were lumped together or omitted entirely. 5 This was notwithstanding that, in 1717, the Admiralty suggested that first and second rate ships be dismantled to defray the cost of maintaining them. The Navy Board advised against this, pointing out that it would diminish the appearance of strength in the fleet and 68

1710

83

60

72

Year

Total ships

Fit for service

% of Total

69

56

81

1714

50

39

78

1721

59

46

78

1722

70

55

78

1727

73

66

90

1731

71

62

87

1733 89

1739 91

1742

69

64

92

1745

41

38

93

1749

35

33

93

1750

46

46

99

1753

Table 4.1 Ships of 100 to 60 guns listed and fit for service, 1710–53 (The original submissions do not include the percentage fit for service.)


from 1714 to 1744 there were always, officially at least, seven first rate ships of 100 guns. Likewise there were thirteen second rates, between forty to fortythree third rates and about sixty-five fourth rate ships. These were all ships of the line, and in this instance include fourth rate, 50-gun ships.6 Not all of these were fit for service but a respectable number of them usually were. With the exception of the year 1721, 60 to 70 per cent of the fleet was likely to be made up of serviceable ships of the line. Those not serviceable were usually awaiting major repair or rebuilding. Some amongst those being rebuilt had ceased to exist except on paper as there could be a considerable delay between the dismantling of a ship and the start of its rebuild. It was convenient to keep ships on the books as Parliament would be more likely to vote money for an existing vessel than a new one particularly in peacetime. Therefore the Navy replaced its ships on a one-for-one basis, often perpetuating a ship’s name by ‘rebuilding’ her even though the ship under construction was really a new vessel. In this fashion a nominal number of ships within each rate could be kept up. This procedure worked reasonably well and required about 2,000 shipwrights. It worked because ships generally lasted about twelve to seventeen years before needing what was termed a middling or large repair. The existing dockyard facilities and the number of shipwrights could maintain about fifty to sixty ships of the line (excluding 50-gun ships) in a serviceable condition. However, once any of these parameters changed, the infrastructure needed to adapt and adapt quickly. The problem was that in a crisis, the need for new or replacement ships, the expansion of the dockyards and an increase in shipwrights could seldom be anticipated because even the most competent of naval administrations would not know it had a problem until it was too late. The only contingency that could be reasonably anticipated was that there would eventually be another war, yet even then Parliament would rarely vote additional funds for the Navy unless conflict was a certainty. A settled period of relative peace in the 1720s and 1730s did little to galvanize naval administrations into anticipating future problems, there was really no need to, and the decentralized nature of the Navy’s bureaucracy would have made this virtually impossible anyway. When the parameters described above did change the result was a major crisis in fleet strength after 1749.

that the Admiralty’s argument could be applied in equal measure to all the inferior rates as well. Navy Board to Admiralty, 28 January 1716/17. Daniel Baugh, Naval Administration 1715–1750 (London, NRS, 1977), pp. 204–5. 6 PRO: ADM 106/2182, Abstract list of the Navy 1714–1746. 70


The royal dockyards in the 1740s The royal dockyards were able to keep some 60 to 70 per cent of the existing fleet in a serviceable condition from the end of the Spanish Succession War until well into the 1730s. This would indicate that the Navy’s infrastructure was probably adequate. The royal yards were far from efficient and there was room for many improvements in productivity so there was no need to suppose that existing facilities could not cope. This is attested by the fact that no ships of the line were built outside the royal yards between the year 1712 and August 1739.7 One might suppose that by 1739 the new war with Spain had changed matters but this had not been the case in the other short wars with Spain in 1718 and 1726. There was, however, an increasing volume of building and repair work that needed to be carried out and the Navy Board was obliged to contract work out, much against its inclinations. In December 1740, the Commissioners reported that the Berwick and Dreadnought needed great repairs and, as no docks could be spared or building slips found in any of the yards, they urged that two 60-gun ships be contracted for in merchant yards.8 It was not just an isolated case. When the Navy Board requested that the Hector be taken to pieces and built new by contract, Winchelsea’s Admiralty Board (1742–4) asked why she could not be built in the King’s yard. They had heard that there were slips available at Deptford and Woolwich. The Navy Board’s objection was that building on any of these slips would hinder the progress of the six large ships in hand at these dockyards. They also pointed out that there were already ships at these ports awaiting attention. It would appear therefore that by this time the yards were at near full capacity in terms of available manpower as all of the shipwrights were fully employed. The following month, the Admiralty requested a report on how many docks and building slips there were and how many of these were employed. This was followed in June 1743 by a report of what ships were building on slips in each of the royal yards.9 Clearly, Winchelsea’s board wanted to verify that contract work was indeed necessary, but may also have been concerned that, as the country was at war, they might be criticized if fleet numbers dwindled. The reports showed that the royal yards were working to full capacity. Sixteen ships were on slips and two vessels were under construction in docks. What is particularly revealing is a third report, also in June, detailing what building slips were unemployed. One of the slips at Woolwich was vacant because the ways were in need of repair. Three small slips at Deptford, suitable only for vessels of 20 to 40 guns, were unused because they would otherwise employ

7

NMM: ADM B 119, 29 September 1742. NMM: ADM B 113, 3 December 1740. 9 NMM: ADM B 120, 11 October 1742. ‘An account of the number of slips or other places for building ships’, ADM B 122, 22 June 1742. ‘An account of what ships are on all slips’. 8

71


labour needed on larger ships. Evidently, additional shipwrights were needed to bring the royal yards to full production. Even so, by this time there were over 3,000 employed, up from 2,300 in 1739.10 Even at near full capacity, the dockyards in 1743 were unable to maintain the usual number kept ‘on the books’ in each rate. In December 1732, Torrington’s Admiralty Board (1727–33) had ordered that no first rates were to be rebuilt until further orders. Only the Royal George and the Britannia had received any repair work since that time, meaning the yards had been spared the costly work of maintaining most of the seven first rates. This is borne out by a report of August 1746. At that time there were five first rates. The Victory had foundered in 1744 and the Royal Ann (built 1704) had been taken to pieces in 1726. The London (built 1721) was in need of rebuilding. The Royal Sovereign (built 1701 and repaired 1728) was not fit for sea without further repairs. The Britannia (built 1719) was serving as a hospital ship and needed a large repair. The Royal William (built 1719) was described vaguely as needing a considerable repair. Only one first rate, the Royal George (built in 1715 and last repaired 1745), was fit for service.11 This was not neglect. The order by Torrington’s board was sensible insofar as it saved needless expense. Apart from this consideration, in 1742 the French had only one first rate and by 1750 had no ships carrying more than 80 guns.12 It was only in 1746 that the Navy Board saw fit to recommend that a new first rate, the Royal Ann be set up in the double dock at Woolwich.13 The one-for-one replacement policy was not completely inflexible. When, in November 1746, the Admiralty ordered the building of four new 70-gun ships they were informed that there were so many ships building and rebuilding that there was no room to set up any of these new vessels until the end of the following year. The Navy Board’s letter went on to summarize the considerable building activity in the yards, which in terms of cost amounted to the astonishing sum of £900,000. They were anxious that the building of the new ships be deferred until there was room in the King’s yards for them. They did not advocate the use of contract building, in fact it was not even mentioned. The reason for a deferment was even more immediate and pressing. The dockyard artificers had not been paid for a considerable time, and it was proving difficult to keep them working. The

10

NMM: ADM B 122, 24 June 1743. ‘An account of what slips are unemployed’. ADM B 120, 6 October 1742. ‘Number of shipwrights borne’. 11 NMM: ADM B 133, 27 August 1746. 12 BL: Add MS 35898, ff. 123, 224. 13 The reader will have trouble finding the Woolwich built Royal Ann on the Navy lists. The Royal Ann of 1704 had been taken to pieces in 1726, though her name continued in the list. Her rebuild was eventually ordered in 1746/47 but when launched in 1756 she was renamed the Royal George. In the meantime the existing Royal George (built in 1715) was renamed Royal Anne and was broken up in 1767. See David Lyon, The Sailing Navy List 1660–1855 (London 1993), pp. 18, 33 and 62. 72


Navy’s debts had gone unpaid and amounted to nearly £5 million, and this was having an adverse effect on the price of materials. These were all immediate problems the Navy Board had to cope with and a £120,000 order for four new ships was therefore not welcome. The state of the Navy’s finances will be discussed separately but it is clear that the strain on both the Navy’s infrastructure and its finances was becoming critical.14 Other statistical evidence confirms this. As outlined in Table 4.1, after 1745 the dockyards were no longer capable of keeping nearly 70 per cent of the fleet in a serviceable condition. Nearly 1,000 more shipwrights were employed than in 1739 and all the available docks and building slips were in use. The increase in the workforce was insufficient. More problems arose at the end of the war. Capacity was already at full stretch when it was reported in June 1749 that the south dock at Chatham was in such bad condition that ships could not be docked. It was feared that the gates would blow.15 Many of the ships themselves were discovered to be in an appalling state. In one instance, Portsmouth dockyard reported to the Navy Board that thirty men were required every other day to pump out the Medway and the Montague to prevent them from sinking and that the ‘performance of this service is a very great obstruction to the current work of the yard’. 16 There had been much complaint from naval officers throughout the 1740s concerning the poor condition of their own ships and those of the fleet in general. The problem was grave enough for the Admiralty to order a survey of the entire fleet towards the end of 1748. With the war at an end, a survey may well have been ordered anyway, but it must have been clear to the Earl of Sandwich, now First Lord, that he needed more accurate knowledge of the condition of the fleet.17

The deterioration of the fleet 1730–50 There can be no doubt that the British fleet suffered severe decay in the timbers of many of its ships in the 1730s and 1740s. There is not just anecdotal evidence from naval officers to support this. It is supported by evidence from ship surveys, from the repair records of ships in the progress books and even from a French spy. Writing to Joseph Allin, the Master Shipwright at Portsmouth in April 1740, the Surveyor of the Navy, Sir Jacob Acworth wrote:

14

NMM: ADM B 134, 18 November 1746. NMM: ADM B 141, 16 June 1749. 16 NMM: POR/D/10, 13 July 1749. 17 Apart from the unfavourable reports from naval and dockyard officers on the condition of their ships, the report on the condition of the fleet was needed as so many ships had been serving in the tropics. 15

73


[I] . . . am much concerned that the Namur proves so defective according to the captain’s account, the ship requires a rebuilding. She has been built but eleven years and had a considerable repair in 1736, was fitted for sea in 1738 and again in 1739 when considerable works were done . . . it is very extraordinary that so great an alteration should happen within the compass of three-quarters of a year . . . her timbers and treenails are all rotten and decayed, and some of her timbers broke.18

The Namur was only one example of many. Furthermore, the care of timber in the yards was also a matter of concern. Writing from Antigua to Lord Winchelsea in January 1744/5, Commodore Sir Charles Knowles stated that many complaints had been made about the ‘badness of our ships’ and the ‘materials and the manner in which they have been built’. He continued: As to the reason for our ships not being so durable as the enemy’s or as they were in former times, much might be said thereon; but one principal reason I will offer at present . . . is that the timber as it is purchased and brought into the yards is laid in heaps, and not regularly expended according to its age and the time of it being cut down, so that I have seen green timber (which has lain uppermost) used soon after it has come into the yards, and the old timber which has lain undermost (and been seasoned fit to use) lay till it has rotted or been so bad that it decayed soon after it has been converted to use.19

The space for the storage of timber within the yards must have been limited and with the increase in the size of the fleet, and of ships in general, there would have been pressures on these limited facilities. This would be sufficient to account for Knowles’ observations, however pressures on time and the dockyard infrastructure must have been causing changes in the routine management and care, such as it was, of materials. There was little time to be neat and tidy. The Navy Board were well aware of this problem. Writing to the Admiralty in 1746, they commented on the poor condition of the Somerset and the fact that her repair would occupy a dock for two years. For this reason they recommended that she was not to be repaired. They went on to remark on her inferior dimensions, but more significantly suggested that ‘if we should attempt to repair her, the timber put into her would be subject to sudden decay, from it being so hastily wrought, as has been found by experience’.20 The example of the Namur and Somerset are typical of the more anecdotal evidence. The statistical evidence demonstrates the seriousness and extent of the problem. The repair records of the ships of the line suggest that during the 1730s and 1740s, many of the ships that were either built, rebuilt or had major

18

J. Hattendorf et al. (eds), British Naval Documents 1204–1960 (London, NRS, 1993), p. 484. 19 ibid., pp. 486, 489. 20 NMM: ADM B 133, 29 August 1746. 74


repairs performed on them, suffered from particularly severe rot in their timbers. The longevity of a ship, if the term is to be meaningful, can best be calculated by the elapse of time between the launch of the ship and the date it is found to need either a middling or large repair. The average longevity of most ships of the line in the eighteenth century was about twelve to sixteen or seventeen years. These rates of longevity can be determined from the date of a survey, or, in the absence of a survey, the date a ship was docked.21 What was termed a small repair could often be achieved in a few weeks and the vessel returned to active service.22 However, a middling repair would often take several months and could easily become a large or great repair or a ‘rebuild’. Great repairs could often take a year or more. The ship was rendered unserviceable until the work had been carried out. Once a ship had undergone a middling or large repair, it would, in effect, have a second life until it was either hulked or docked for a second major repair. A ship could therefore have one, two or more longevity periods, depending on the total length of its service history.23 All longevity periods stated below have been calculated according to this formula. Evidence suggests that naval planners also worked to much the same formula. In 1763, Sandwich was drawing up plans on the assumption that ships lasted from between twelve and sixteen years.24 French administrators in the 1750s also worked to a similar plan by assuming that their ships lasted twelve years and therefore replenishing one-twelfth of their fleet annually.25 Averaging out the longevity of ships of the 74- to 60-gun classes, suggests that their longevity decreased during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The sample used, though statistically small, shows a clear decrease. Ships of the first and second rates (an even smaller sample) follow the same pattern. This decrease is more evident when the longevity is worked out on a ship by ship basis (see Table 4.5). The ships built between 1740 and 1742 averaged 8.7 years between launch and major repair. The ships built in the eight years from 1735 to 1742 had an average longevity of 8.8 years with a sample number of 24.

21

Dates of surveys and docking can be found in both the Admiralty progress books and the Navy Board letters. In those instances where a ship is hulked rather than repaired, the date of it being hulked is taken as a proxy for the repair as it is no longer to be commissioned as a warship. 22 Small repairs in this context are considered part of routine maintenance, along with refits and triennial trims. 23 Calculating the longevity of a ship by these means is more meaningful than calculating the total number of years it is in existence. The ship may spend long periods of time when it is unserviceable or reduced to harbour service or hulked. 24 NMM: SAN F/1, fo. 32, October 1763. 25 James Pritchard, Louis XV’s Navy 1748–1762: A Study of Organization and Administration (Kingston, Ontario, 1987), pp. 126–7. 75


Table 4.2 Ships of 74 to 60-guns; average longevity at five-yearly intervals, 1700–79 Ships launched in the years

Number of years between launch and major repair

Number in sample

Number omitted

1700–4 1705–9 1710–14 1715–19 1720–4 1725–9 1730–4 1735–9 1740–4 1745–9 1750–4 1755–9 1760–4 1765–9 1770–4 1775–9

12.8 10.3 – 17.8 15.5 – 11.8 8.9 10.1 14.9 12.7 12.4 13.2 14.8 12.9 13.5

9 13 0 7 9 0 9 11 21 14 8 18 19 12 5 8

6 6 5 0 2 2 1 0 2 2 0 6 2 5 7 5

Note: Vessels are omitted from the sample if they were lost at sea or if, for some other reason, their longevity cannot be determined.

Thus there is critical evidence suggesting that something was seriously wrong. As already mentioned, during the eighteenth century, ships generally lasted between twelve to seventeen years between their launch and a need for a major repair. The royal yards could on average build or repair six or seven ships every year. The actual numbers could vary from one year to the next depending on the type of repair work being carried out. This rate of replacement or renewal matched or slightly exceeded the rate that ships fell into disrepair or required replacement. Based on an average lifespan of twelve to seventeen years, and a renewal rate of six to seven ships per year, the Navy could, mathematically at least, maintain a fleet of sixty ships of the line in a good condition. The infrastructure of docks and slipways and the number of shipwrights and artificers employed was geared to match this pattern of decay and renewal. This was not necessarily by design but had become usual from long practice. Two things were guaranteed to throw this system into disarray. The first was if, by some mischance, a large number of ships fell into disrepair more or less at once. The other was if the longevity of the ships decreased significantly. The dockyards as they existed would not be able to cope. Statistical evidence shows that the longevity of the ships was decreasing. In the worst-case scenario a large number of these ships would fall into disrepair more or less at the same time. This is precisely what happened. Between 1747 and 1749, 76


Table 4.3 Dockyard productivity and workload, 1725–6226 Years

Average annual total built or repaired

Average annual total falling into disrepair or disposed of

Average annual increase or decrease on total fleet numbers

1725–39 1740–6 1747–9 1750–5 1756–62

7 9 8 6 9

6 9 20 2 5

1 0 –12 4 4

sixty-one ships of the line were either found to need repair or were disposed of. During that time only twenty-four were renewed. Average annual rates of renewal between 1725 and 1762 are set in Table 4.3. Before 1739, the dockyards were in positive production. Between 1740 and 1746 they were able to break even. After 1746 the yards were swamped with work particularly after ships returned to be docked having been worn out on active service. This is why the usual number of ships could not be kept up even with the yards at full capacity and an additional 1,000 shipwrights employed. It is worth mentioning now that the positive production in fleet numbers in the 1750s was only achievable by contracting work out to private shipyards. This will be discussed later. There is evidence, before the end of the 1740s, suggesting that many ships might suffer decay at some future date. This evidence and the observations on the poor management of timber stocks in the English yards can be found in a French source. In 1737, Blaise Ollivier, the Master Shipwright at Brest, was sent to England and Holland to make observations on the naval dockyards. His lengthy reports commented on a number of aspects of naval construction including the design, setting up and fitting of ships, working practices, the care of ships in reserve, timber supplies, and the workforce as well as descriptions of the yards themselves.27 A feature of his report was that there was no concern about the preservation and storage of timber in English yards.28 Only Deptford and Chatham were an exception, and here plank was stored under cover.

26

All figures are collated from the individual repair records of ships in the Admiralty Progress Books. These are held at the Public Record Office Kew and copies of these are held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. 27 Blaise Ollivier, 18th Century Shipbuilding, Remarks on the Navies of the English and the Dutch from Observations made in their Dockyards in 1737, ed. and trans. David H. Roberts (Rotherfield, 1992). 28 Ollivier, Shipbuilding, pp. 54, 102. 77


Yet even at Deptford, Ollivier observed that the timber ‘is used with little care; much of the sapwood is left on and I saw many frames, timbers of the stern and transoms where there were two or three inches of sapwood already half rotted on one or two of their edges’.29 Compass timber and scantlings were piled without any system, while at Woolwich timber was piled up without order in every available space, and at Chatham timber was piled upon timber ‘as in the other dockyards’.30 That this was considered bad management is clear from Ollivier’s comments but it is also likely that this had been, and continued to be, common practice in English dockyards. Detailed models depicting the different yards in 1774 also show great masses of timber stacked in profusion.31 Ollivier also made a number of comments upon the storage of timber in water. He reported that in Holland this mode of preservation was of such common usage that timber was stored in seawater below tide level, and that ships under construction were routinely sunk to prevent the sap from fermenting. It was also known for the Dutch to sink their ships in reserve as a way of preserving their timbers.32 This contrasted with the practice at English yards. At Deptford, Ollivier commented that the mast timber was preserved in water but that he ‘saw no shipbuilding timber in the water nor any place suitable to store it thus’. At Chatham he saw a large pond, in which were immersed several timbers which have already been worked for frames. I was told that they formerly immersed in this pond all the compass timbers intended for building a ship, after first moulding them, and that they left them there five or six months. This time was reduced to three months and today they immerse them but one or two weeks, and often they do not immerse them at all.33

Although Ollivier had much praise for many aspects of English warship construction, it is evident that the storage and preservation of timber was, according to him, much neglected. This could be one of a number of explanations for the deterioration of the fleet. Before looking in detail at the probable causes, consequences and impact of the crisis at the end of the 1740s, it is well to return to 1749 when the report commissioned by Sandwich in November 1748 displayed the full extent of the problem. The Navy Board had directed the yards to survey all of the ships that had not already been examined and this was to be done without putting them

29

ibid., p. 54. ibid., pp. 54, 74, 102. 31 These models were made during the administration of Lord Sandwich and presented to George III. They are in the keeping of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. 32 Ollivier, Shipbuilding, pp. 223–5, 228. 33 ibid., p. 102. 30

78


in a dock. They were to be surveyed ‘on float’, distinguishing between those fit for immediate service, those in want of a small, middling or great repair and those in need of rebuilding. The report was to be sent without loss of a moment’s time.34 The abstract in Table 4.4 is made up from a second report sent in March 1750. It is more enlightening than the report of the previous year, as it includes many of the ships that would have returned to port after war service. Thus, at the beginning of 1750, no more than thirty-three ships of the line were reported fit for service (see Appendix 7). Had they been called upon the number might have been even less. Two-thirds of the British battle fleet was either in need of repair or was under repair. This was the end result of the period of negative production in the dockyards (Table 4.3), the decreasing longevity of the Navy’s ships, and the fact that so many vessels, due to war service, had become unserviceable in a short period of time. Critically, about forty of the fifty ships of the line requiring repair needed a middling to large repair which was costly and time consuming and in many cases required the building of a new ship. Even the ten foreign prizes captured during the war did little to improve the situation. Seven of these needed repair, adding to the work of the yards. One explanation for this situation is the long and wearing service of the Navy’s ships during this war. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the number of the Navy’s ships that had served in the West Indies had increased dramatically. Many of the ships now unserviceable had endured several years in the tropics. However, this cannot entirely explain the large number of unserviceable vessels, nor can it be a sole explanation for the reduced longevity of the Navy’s ships. There were still many ships with a reduced Table 4.4 Abstract of the Royal Navy, 175035 No of guns

In good condition

100 0 90 3 80 1 74 2 70 11 66 3 60 10 Foreign prizes 3 Total 33

34 35

Needing repair

Building or repairing

Total

3 6 5 0 9 0 20 7 50

1 1 0 0 5 0 2 – 9

4 10 6 2 25 3 32 10 92

NMM: CHA/E/8, Navy Board to the Chatham officers 19 November 1748. NMM ADM B 142, 9 March 1749/50. 79


longevity that had seen service exclusively in European waters (see Table 4.5). Additionally, it should be noted that, during the Seven Years’ War, the Navy’s ships had extensive service in the tropics, yet the scale of the repair work required after 1763 did not mirror that of 1749. There were many small repairs but far fewer middling or large repairs. Furthermore, if long war service, especially in the tropics, was the sole reason for the deplorable condition of the fleet in 1749, then one must wonder why Lord Sandwich, then First Lord, was, at a later date, to expend such time and effort in attempting to increase the longevity of the King’s ships. If service in the tropics was to wear the ships out, there was little point to increasing their longevity.

Dry rot in wooden ships We have examined the productivity of the dockyards and determined that they could not manage the sheer volume of work thrust upon them as the War of the Austrian Succession drew to its conclusion. It is not intended at this point to make a critical examination of dockyard management or to apportion blame. As will be discussed shortly many of the factors contributing to this crisis could not have been foreseen. We can now look at the physical environment of the ships to discover what they were suffering from and why. It will come as little surprise to know that the Navy’s ships were suffering from dry rot. This was not a new problem for the Navy, nor was it to go away until the advent of iron and steel in ship construction. At this time it was an acute difficulty. Rot in wooden ships was unavoidable but the worst effects could be mitigated or at least delayed. Rot could take hold in the timbers of a ship at any point in its life, even while it was under construction. Considerable care was needed at every stage, from the storage of timber in the dockyard prior to building, to the laying up of the ship in reserve. Dry rot is a fungal growth that flourishes in warm, damp, unventilated conditions. It often appears as a form of mildew and if unchecked reduces the timber it infects to a powder. Dry rot was likely to occur in a ship if the hold was not regularly aired. Insufficient ventilation would result in a build-up of heat as well as damp, often foul, air from the bilges, creating ideal conditions for dry rot to develop. In this context the proper care of ships in reserve during peacetime was essential. Another form of fungal attack was wet rot. This usually took hold of timber that was alternately wet and dry. The planking near the waterline of a ship was most at risk from wet rot but was easily replaced. More at risk from wet and dry rot was the timber kept in the yards, especially if no particular care was taken with its storage. Ships standing in frame and uncovered, in order to season the timbers, could also suffer from wet rot particularly if there was a long period of damp weather. In this situation the rot would first take hold on any sapwood or on unseasoned timber. If the hull was then planked in and not properly ventilated, airborne fungal spores would develop and wet as well as dry rot 80


would infect the adjacent timbers. This is precisely what Blaise Ollivier had observed in the English yards in 1737. The conditions under which rot took hold were well known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A commission of enquiry under James I had reported that ships built of green timber required docking within six years rather than twenty.36 Green or unseasoned timber could contain a substantial amount of sap and this would ferment quickly. A number of preventative measures could be taken. Preservatives were tried but were ineffective until the development of creosote in the nineteenth century. The most effective action was proper ventilation and the use of thoroughly seasoned timber. Timber in storage could be protected from rot by keeping it completely dry or alternatively totally immersed in water. In both English and continental yards it was common practice to store at least some timber in either fresh or salt water.37 The only thing known to kill or retard the spread of dry rot was cold temperature. Immersion in cold water or the onset of a hard frost would effectively halt the progress of the decay. It was also known that winter felled timber contained less sap and was therefore of better quality. However the sheer demand for shipbuilding timber often made this sensible measure impractical.38 We can see, therefore, that a complex combination of factors, beginning first with the cutting of the timber, its storage, the mode of construction, weather conditions, the service of the ship and its care while in reserve, determined the longevity of a ship and the amount of repair that it was likely to need. The careless management of materials in the yards must have contributed to the problem. Yet, in the 1730s, the timber management of the yards could not have been far different from what it had been before the 1730s, nor for that matter much different to what it was after 1770.

The problem of ventilation – the micro climate 1729–50 We should not put too much blame on the yards for their care of the ships in reserve. The ships in reserve, or in Ordinary as it was termed, were not properly ventilated for much of the 1730s. The blame for this cannot be placed with the yards themselves. Due to the changing diplomatic situation with the European powers, the Admiralty issued a succession of orders that were potentially prejudicial to the preservation of the ships. The period in

36

John Ramsbottom, ‘Dry Rot in Ships’, Essex Naturalist, vol. 25 (1937–7), pp. 231–66, p. 232. 37 ibid., p. 263. 38 The Achilles 60, built in 1757, was constructed with winter-felled timber and received no major repairs during her service life. When broken up in 1784 it was reported that her frames were as sound as the day she was launched. NMM: PST/49, f. 181. 81


question coincided with an increase in international tension starting about 1725. This state of tension was aggravated by disputes with Spain over Florida, Georgia and trade with South America. Matters became worse in 1733 when France and Spain signed the Bourbon Family Compact. Britain now faced an alliance between the two most significant of her maritime rivals. This influenced the management and care of the ships in Ordinary. A letter written by the Navy Board in November 1729 bears this out. Writing to the Admiralty Secretary the Navy Commissioners reported; The Blenheim at Portsmouth and the Devonshire at Chatham being fitted in all respects for the sea and many other ships in Ordinary at the several ports having the planks on their gundecks shut in and their bulkheads and storerooms in the hold complete, in order to keep them in readiness for sea service; and as we fear those ships may sustain damage for want of air, especially in their holds, we desire you will move their Lordships to signify their pleasure whether they shall be continued so, or be opened to air them, according to the standing orders of the navy for the better preservation of the ships in Ordinary.39

In 1729 a number of ships had their interiors shut in so they could be made ready for sea at short notice. Some like the Edinburgh and Hampton Court had been in this state since 1723 and 1725 respectively, no doubt in anticipation of the war with Spain in 1726. In 1730 the Admiralty instructed that these two remain closed in.40 The Navy Board repeatedly reminded the Admiralty of the large number of ships that were not being properly aired. These letters were written in January and October 1730, and again in May 1732 when the Admiralty instructed that the ships were to continue shut in until further orders.41 No orders came and, by 1737, the Navy Board was being urged to do something by the Master Shipwrights. Writing to the Admiralty, the Navy Commissioners stated; The Master Shipwrights and their assistants of the respective yards having lately represented to us that the ships named on the other side [45 in total, of which 29 were of the line] have not been opened for air since they came into harbour and being apprehensive that they may receive considerable damage if they continue longer closed, they pray they may have an order for the taking down the bulkheads in the hold and opening the proper strakes of plank on the gundecks . . . it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of His Majesty’s ships that they be opened to give all the air that is possible whilst they lie in harbour.42 39 Baugh, Naval Administration, p. 212. A set of instructions were drawn up in 1715 which directed the rigging of awnings in the summer to prevent a build-up of heat in the holds of the ships in Ordinary, as well as the removal of the planks adjacent to the frame timbers so that the circulation of air would not be impeded. ibid., p. 194. 40 PRO: ADM 1/3645, 30 October 1730. 41 PRO: ADM 1/3646, 17 May 1732. 42 PRO: ADM 1 3651, 15 August 1737.

82


This appears to be gross mismanagement on the part of the Admiralty, but the First Lord, Sir Charles Wager, was an able administrator and certainly not negligent. Nor did all of the ships listed in the Navy Board’s letters subsequently suffer accelerated decay, although it is not possible to determine how long some of them had been closed in.43 The fact that some ships might suffer decay as a consequence was unfortunate and, as it turned out, not all of them did. The matter did however encourage a spate of useful inventions. There were already plans to improve the ventilation of ships for the health of the crews. Among medical men and scientists there was a notion that confined air, particularly the vapours and perspiration expelled by the human body, were a cause of infection, particularly gaol or ship fever. The foul air from the ship’s well did little to improve the atmosphere and at the time it must have seemed logical that if foul air caused the human body to fall sick then the same could apply to the body of the ship itself. It was a neatly packaged problem with one common solution. The year 1741 saw no less than three proposals for ventilating the holds of ships.44 One of the most ingenious of these devices was by a brewer, Samuel Sutton who developed a system of air pipes leading from the ship’s oven into the hold. The air in the pipe, heated by the oven, drew the foul air from the hold by means of convection. The idea found much favour with Sir Charles Wager, though initial trials were disappointing. The system was then improved. On his way out to India with a squadron in 1747, Admiral Boscawen was full of praise for Sutton’s pipes in the improvement of health on board his ship.45 With regard to retarding the decay of ship’s timbers, Sutton’s pipes were used with good effect up until about 1752. They had been fitted to a number of ships at Portsmouth between 1747 and 1749 and in 1752 Portsmouth dockyard reported that where the pipes had been fitted, the ships were dry in their holds, wells and forepart.46 Unfortunately, Sutton’s pipes had not been used on all the ships in every yard. In the same year, 1752, the Navy Board wrote to the officers at Chatham dockyard concerning a visitation by the Surveyor of the Navy. He had found that the magazines in the guardships were in a bad condition. In the Yarmouth the Surveyor had found the magazine ‘damp and a fungus in several parts caused thereby, although the magazine and storerooms were all new built and new lined about six months past, the cause of which is attributed to the want of air.’ The Chatham officers were ordered to remove all bulkheads impeding the circulation of air and, where 43 Nine of the ships listed in the Navy Board’s letter of 1737 had been part of a large fleet sent to Lisbon in 1735. It may have been better for the longevity of a ship to spend time at sea rather than in reserve. It is difficult to determine if this was the case as subsequent service in the tropics complicates the issue. 44 A. Zuckerman, ‘Scurvy and the Ventilation of Ships in the Royal Navy: Samuel Sutton’s contribution’, Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 10 (1976–7), pp. 228–9. 45 NMM: ADM A/2386, Boscawen to Corbett, Table Bay, 9 April 1748. 46 NMM:POR/D/9 15 October 1749, POR/D/10 29 January 1752.

83


appropriate, to lay air pipes in the range of the fireplace of each ship as was done for the ships in Ordinary.47 Despite the reported effectiveness of the convection system, the Navy eventually opted for a mechanical windmill ventilator invented by Dr Stephen Hales. This system went through exhaustive testing throughout the early 1750s. It was improved by reversing the valve so that air was extracted rather than forced in, making it a mechanical version of Sutton’s pipes. Yet many of the tests proved disappointing.48 Mildew in the hold increased in some of the tests, although the tests themselves were mostly at fault rather than the ventilator. In one trial the ship was entirely sealed and the bilge left unpumped, with the result that the ventilator could not possibly improve circulation and no benefit was made to the condition of the timbers.49 Hales and the Navy Board persevered, nevertheless, and a portable version of the ventilator was eventually adopted. Admittedly, the chief object was the health of the crews rather than the airing of ships timbers.

Timber and the Navy – the macro climate 1730–9 Ventilation, or the lack of it, cannot provide more than a small part of the explanation for the decreasing longevity of the Navy’ ships in the 1730s and 1740s. As already remarked, a number of the ships that were left closed in during the 1730s did not suffer unduly whereas others did. Ventilation was an important consideration but was only a part of the problem. Evidence suggests that there was a specific problem with the timber being used by the Navy to build and repair its ships. We have already noted Blaise Ollivier’s comments concerning the rot he observed on the frames of ships under construction. There was also the Navy Board’s letter of August 1746 about the Somerset, where they stated that any timber put into her as part of a repair would, in their experience, be subject to sudden decay. Even the Ordnance Board had cause to express concern. They had visited Chatham dockyard to inspect the magazines of the ships and had reported to the Navy Board that the powder was being damaged due to the condition of the timbers of the magazines. The Navy Board instructed Chatham not to use any unseasoned timber in the building or repair of magazines, breadrooms or storerooms.50 The Admiralty progress books and the longevity of the Navy’s ships provide some of the best clues that the timber itself was at fault. As already explained, longevity here is defined as the lapse of time between the launch of a ship and the approximate moment it requires a middling or great repair. Many

47 48 49 50

NMM: CHA/E/10, 15 December 1752. NMM: ADM B/144, 27 March 1751, ADM B/146, 1 November 1752. NMM: ADM B/148, 6 June 1754. NMM: CHA/E/8, 18 December 1746. 84


factors can determine longevity and we have already discussed some of them. The care of the timber prior to construction, weather conditions while the ship stood in frame, proper ventilation and care when laid up in reserve, and the service history of the ship, particularly service in the tropics, are all possible factors that could influence the condition of the ship’s timbers. As there are so many factors at work, the repair records should indicate a wide range of longevity periods. It would be highly unusual for a large number of ships to show accelerated decay at about the same time unless one particular factor became dominant, or the Navy was unlucky enough to have several factors working against it at the same time. Table 4.2 already indicates that the average longevity of new ships decreased between 1730 and 1745. On examining new ships on an individual basis and bearing in mind that the usual lifespan of a ship during the century was between twelve and sixteen years, it becomes clear that the thirty-five ships of the line laid down between July 1731 and the end of 1742 fell well below what would be considered an acceptable lifespan. Only eight had a longevity that exceeded ten years. Many lasted for only eight, seven or even six years before requiring middling or large repairs. From 1734 onwards the decline was, with rare exceptions, a sequential one, of nine years reducing to eight in 1737 and six years in 1740 and 1741 (see Table 4.5). A ship that lasted only six years was a waste of public money. The Admiralty progress books also indicate that the ships repaired in the 1730s and early 1740s needed a subsequent repair within four to eight years.51 This might happen with a handful of ships but was unusual in so many vessels. There is a ten-year period from about 1731 to 1741 when most of the ships, built, rebuilt or substantially repaired, suffered from decayed timbers, a fact substantiated by the Navy Board’s letter of August 1746. Furthermore, the reduced longevity seen in Table 4.2 did not result from the output of a few yards but from all of them. Even those few ships built by private contract were affected. Nor can service in the tropics be entirely to blame although this was a significant factor. These ships were built and repaired with timber that was not sufficiently seasoned. It was a vicious circle. The demand for timber increased as more repairs became necessary. It was unfortunate for the dockyards that when they most needed seasoned timber, some unusual climatic conditions prevailed that made proper seasoning difficult if not impossible. The first forty years of the eighteenth century contained a succession of moderate winters. In England during the period 1730 to 1739 the average decadal temperature was 0.6° Celsius above normal.52 This warm period came to an end in the

51

The Prince of Orange received a great repair in 1742–3, and required a middling repair in 1747. In the interval she served in the tropics. 52 A 0.6° Celsius increase in temperature may seem small but as a decadal average this is significant. By way of comparison, on a global scale, an increase of 1.5°C would cause 85

70 Ipswich 70 Buckingham 80 Russell 60 Deptford 60 Pembroke 60 Centurion

Ship

60 Princess Louisa 60 Warwick 60 Rippon 60 Dunkirk 60 Tilbury 70 Prince of Orange

10.25 * 11.25 11.25 * 14.00 * –* 8.10 *

13.50 14.50 12.70 * 14.10 *** 9.75 ** 11.90

Longevity in years

2–1733 9–1733 9–1733 9–1733 11–1733 11–1733 11–1733

90 St. George 60 Strafford 60 Superb 60 Weymouth 60 Worcester 60 Augusta 60 Jersey

8.75 7.90 * 12.80 * 7.70 * 7.25 * 6.00 * 6.10 *

Climatic factor – positive phase of North Atlantic oscillation begins

12–1729 4–1730 10–1730 1–1731 3–1731 7–1731

Collapse of Anglo-French Alliance

4–1727 1727 4–1729 1729 8–1729 9–1729

Laid down

Table 4.5 Longevity of vessels constructed between 1727 and 1745

70 Monmouth

Ship

2–1742 3–1742 1742 11–1742 2–1743 2–1743 3–1743 5–1743

10–1740 10–1740 12–1740 1–1741 1–1741 1–1741 12–1741 1742 1742

2–1740 6–1740 8–1740

90 Ramilles 58 Canterbury 58 Sunderland 64 Yarmouth 58 Tilbury 58 Windsor 58 Defiance 80 Newark

60 Exeter 66 Devonshire 60 Nottingham 60 Dreadnought 60 Medway 70 Berwick 70 Edinburgh 64 Hampton Court 58 Princess Louisa

70 Captain 70 Revenge 70 Stirling Castle

Severe winter Jan/Feb 1740

12–1739

Laid down

– –* 12.10 * 16.70 – 17.60 19.50 16.75

6.40 ** 10.10 15.10 6.60 * 6.00 ** 17.10 7.90 15.10 15.40

6.20 * 6.70 6.50

22.50

Longevity in years

60 Dragon 80 Cumberland 90 Duke 80 Boyne 60 Lion 70 Elizabeth 70 Suffolk 70 Essex 70 Prince Frederick 60 Kingston 70 Bedford 70 Nassau 60 Rupert 70 Royal Oak 60 Princess Mary

12.30 * 7.00 * 9.75 9.70 * 6.10 * 10.75 * 9.80 * 8.90 8.80 * 8.25 8.25 8.30 8.20 7.35 6.90 **

7–1743 11–1743 12–1743 7–1744 8–1744 5–1745 9–1745 9–1745 9–1745 11–1745

66 Lancaster 90 Prince 64 Kent 58 Eagle 70 Northumberland 74 Culloden 60 Anson 60 St. Albans 70 Grafton 70 Vanguard

12.40 19.50 13.00 18.60 12.20 16.00 9.90 12.40 14.60 16.26

Note: Those marked * had service in the West Indies, ** East Indies, *** both East and West Indies. The vessels have been listed in the order that they were laid down rather than the year of launching. This helps to better define the environmental impact on the timber with which they were constructed.

11–1733 1–1734 5–1734 3–1735 2–1736 3–1736 6–1736 8–1736 1736 2–1737 4–1737 5–1737 6–1737 10–1737 1–1738


Table 4.6 Winter mildness/severity index (1950s = 0) Decade

Variation

Decade

Variation

1670–9 1680–9 1690–9 1700–9 1710–19

0 –2 –7 0 –2

1720–9 1730–9 1740–9 1750–9 1760–9 1770–9

–4 9 –4 0 –6 –1

winter of 1739–40 as the predominant weather patterns then began to conform to a continental rather than a maritime model.53 A winter mildness/ severity index using the 1950s as a base mark confirms that within the context of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, the 1730s experienced unusually mild winters.54 Modern climatic research indicates that this period coincided with a sustained positive phase in the North Atlantic Oscillation or NAO.55 The NAO index, used by climatologists, is the difference in sea-level air pressure between the polar low, centred over Iceland, and the subtropical high, centred over the Azores. When the difference in pressure is high, the index is positive and when the pressure difference is low, the index is negative. A positive index brings a strong westerly airflow resulting in warm and often wet and stormy conditions to northern Europe and the British Isles. A negative index means drier and cooler conditions. The consequences are climatically more significant in the winter months. An averaging of the index over the months of December, January and February shows that a sustained and quite intense positive phase of the NAO existed between 1731 and 1739. This then explains the unusually mild winters of that decade. What is remarkable is that this mild spell coincided, allowing a time lag of two years, with the periods of construction of the ships that decayed rapidly. According to Gordon Manley’s Central England temperature series, the warm

significant sea level change. The difference between today and the ice age of some 18,000 years ago is only 4°C. John S. Hoffman et al., Projecting Future Sea Level Rise (Washington DC, 1983). 53 John D. Post, Food Shortage, Climatic Variability, and Epidemic Disease in Pre-industrial Europe (London, 1985), pp. 52–3. 54 Hubert H. Lamb, The Changing Climate (London, 1966), p. 221. 55 For more information on the NAO and other related topics, the reader is directed to the following internet sites http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/NAO/ and http://www.met.reading. ac.uk/cag/NAO/. Present NAO reconstructions back to 1500 can be found through the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/ naojurg.htm. 88


spell commenced in the autumn of 1729.56 Shortly after this, the Prince of Orange was ordered and her construction began at Deptford in July 1731.57 The warm period ended abruptly, exactly ten years later in November 1739, and the following year recorded the coldest annual temperature between 1659 and the present day.58 Almost two years later, in May 1741, the Edinburgh was ordered and her construction started in the following December.59 These two vessels mark the beginning and end of a chronology of ships that decayed prematurely (see Table 4.5 – ships names’ emboldened). At both ends of the chronology, the two-year time lag between the state of the weather and the effect on the ships’ timbers suggests a strong link. Some sort of time lag would be expected as a change in the environment would not necessarily have had an immediate affect. With some exceptions, to be seen in Table 4.5, the majority of vessels whose construction began in or very close to this warm period had a much reduced longevity. Just as critically, almost all of the vessels that had large or middling repairs carried out at this time suffered as well. A long succession of almost frost-free winters meant that the benefits of winter-felled timber ceased to exist. The timber that was cut would have had more sap in it making the seasoning process much longer if not impossible. Wood may simply have started to rot instead of season. This would explain why, in 1737, ships standing in frame to season had started to decay on the stocks. If temperatures remained fairly even, dry rot could flourish unchecked, whereas a very severe winter, such as that of 1739–40, would have checked, if not killed, the fungus infecting the timbers. Timber cut after this severe winter and stored for later use may well have been of better quality. This is not to advocate an environmental determinist explanation for the decay of the fleet; that would be entirely wrong. However, there is such a strong correlation between the declining longevity of the Navy’s ships, the mild winters and the positive phase of the NAO that the environmental impact must be added to the issues of ventilation, dockyard management, and wartime service in the tropics. (The relationship between the longevity of the Navy’s ships and the environment is shown in Appendix 8.) Before turning to the subject of how the Navy responded in 1749 to the crisis it found itself in, there is one very obvious question that must be addressed. If environmental problems were causing the British Navy’s ships to decay, how did the French and Spanish navies fare at this time? The Spanish were unaffected. John Harbron has written that in the first half of the eighteenth century, the longevity of Spanish ships of the line was between

56

Gordon Manley, ‘Central England Temperatures 1659–1973’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 100 (1974), pp. 389–405, pp. 394–5. 57 NMM: PST 49, vol. 2, ff. 60, 153. Brian Lavery, The Ship of the Line, 2 vols (London, 1983), vol. 1, p.169. 58 Post, Food Shortage, p. 53. 59 NMM: PST 49, vol. 2, f. 72, Lavery, Ship of the Line, p. 172. 89


12.6 and 14.7 years rising to 31.6 years in the third quarter of the century.60 Many of the newest Spanish ships were built at Havana using tropical hardwoods, making them more durable. Evidence suggests however that the French could have been in as desperate a situation as the British. The French Invincible and Magnanime, both captured in 1747, had been launched at Rochefort within a month of each other in 1744. The Invincible required a great repair in 1753 that would take 24 months at a cost of £26,000. Her entire frame was rotten from her mizzen-mast aft, and she had been launched but nine years before. The Magnanime needed a great repair in October 1750 after a little less than six years afloat.61 In the French fleet, Le Conquerant required a rebuild in 1750, due to excessive dry rot, four years after her launch in 1746. At the time of the Peace in April 1748, there were only thirty French ships of the line fit for service and, in the following November, there were only twenty-four.62 No analysis of the building and repair records of the French Navy has been undertaken for this period, and no firm conclusions can be made until this has been done. However if the evidence of these three French built vessels is typical, then the French Navy was experiencing problems similar to those of the British fleet. At the time (c. 1748), Lord Hardwicke had intelligence that the French had a fleet of thirty-six ships of the line in good condition and had plans to increase these to at least 100 over the next ten to twelve years.63 French intelligence on British fleet strength, however, was entirely misled. In October 1751, French sources indicated that they considered the British Navy to number 116 ships of the line.64 It was just as well that the French were mistaken and the longer the British could keep up the pretence of naval strength the better.

From crisis to war – 1750–5 In March 1750, Sandwich faced the awful prospect of having thirty-three effective ships of the line out of a fleet of ninety-two. To bring the fleet back on a respectable footing was an awesome task complicated by difficulties that must have seemed insurmountable. The naval dockyards did not have the capacity either in terms of facilities or manpower to rebuild the fleet in an 60

John Harbron, Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy (London, 1988), p. 36. There is no indication of how the longevity of the Spanish ships was calculated. The point to note however is that the longevity of Spanish ships of the line doubled, the opposite of the British experience. 61 NMM: PST49, vol. 2, ff. 52, 34, 55, 67, ADM B/148, 24 November 1753. 62 Pritchard, Louis XV’s Navy, p. 126, 136. Pritchard cites the causes as poor construction, unseasoned timber and atmospheric conditions. 63 BL: Add. MS. 35898, f. 258. (undated). 64 Pritchard, Louis XV’s Navy, p. 137. 90


acceptable space of time. A decade of peace might have been just sufficient, however there remained a state of tension between Britain and France, which became extreme in 1754. Furthermore, the naval supplies had been reduced to their peacetime levels. In 1748, 2.5 million had been voted by Parliament for the Navy. In 1749 and 1750 a little over one million was voted for each year.65 Financial retrenchment meant less money and eventually fewer artificers in the dockyards. During the late war the Navy had run up debts of nearly £5.5 million most of which had only recently been discharged by the Treasury by an issue of 4 per cent annuities.66 It was politically inexpedient to ask for further large sums for the Navy. Yet, astonishingly, Britain was able to mobilize aggressively in 1755, and to build up such an overwhelming naval superiority that it was able to expand its empire in North America and India. This was largely achieved under the direction first of Sandwich and then Anson. The options immediately open to Sandwich were limited. He could impose measures to improve productivity in the dockyards. This needed to be done in any event, particularly after the visitations to the dockyards in 1749 had highlighted such gross inefficiency. Sandwich attempted to introduce task work. By working task, artificers were paid piecework instead of a fixed daily wage. At first it was applied to selected trades within the yards and it was expected that this would encourage the work to be performed more quickly. The scheme was strongly opposed by the Navy Board and by the artificers who understandably did not appreciate doing more work for the same money, even if they could theoretically earn more by increasing their productivity. The scheme simply did not work. At Chatham, artificers apparently went about their work more quickly, but as assigned tasks were completed early, they simply made themselves absent. This prompted the Navy Board to instruct the Chatham officers to keep the men at their work.67 Another option open to Sandwich was to obtain increased funding. He fought hard for this, so hard in fact that an argument broke out over the issue in Cabinet in November 1750.68 The main bulk of the naval supply was determined by the number of men voted and little could be done to increase the number without a good reason being given to Parliament, such as a sudden alarm or a legitimate increase in the Navy’s operations. The only part of the supplies that could be augmented was the extraordinary estimate for additional building and repair. As Parliament did not favour voting large sums in aggregate this estimate was usually kept as small as possible and sometimes

65 NMM: MRF/I/1, vol. 137, f. 1. The figures quoted are approximate and exclude supplies voted to discharge the Navy debt. 66 NMM: ADM B 144, 6 January 1751/2. The enclosure that contains this information is mis-filed and can be found further on in the volume. 67 NMM: CHA/E/9, 13 December 1749. 68 Nicholas A. M. Rodger, ‘George, Lord Anson 1697–1762’, in P. LeFevre and R. Harding, Precursors of Nelson (London, 2000), p. 192.

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not granted at all. Even so, Sandwich, in April 1751, asked the Treasury to make an additional application to Parliament. The Treasury’s reply was not helpful. The Lords of the Treasury stated that the estimates for the naval supplies had already been laid before Parliament and that the Treasury had no idea that more money would now be wanted. They directed the Admiralty itself to apply to Parliament, an irregular procedure, for any additional sums deemed absolutely necessary and that in future the Admiralty would be pleased to inform the Treasury as early as possible of the whole sum demanded for naval services.69 Sandwich may have been unsuccessful in gaining additional funding and making the dockyards more productive but at least he managed to keep up the pretence of naval strength even if this was largely by default. Fifty ships of the line needed repair or replacement. If the yards could not cope with this amount of work neither could they afford the time and resources to dispose of defective ships. To the casual observer the sea of hulls and lower masts in Britain’s naval arsenals must have looked impressive. The appearance of strength this gave was both politically and diplomatically imperative. The Navy’s administrators, if called to account, could privately argue that the deception was necessary. If deception was not acceptable, they could argue that the disposal of these ships would consume vital man-hours and resources. Possibly less acceptable was Henry Pelham’s statement to the House of Commons in January 1751 that ‘all our ships are now in perfect order, a very few excepted’.70 It is not clear if he believed this, and he may well have been deceived himself. After making himself unpopular with his colleagues over naval funding, Sandwich was removed from his post in favour of George Anson who became the head of the Admiralty in June 1751. Anson occupied a remarkable position in the British political establishment. He was immensely wealthy after his capture of the Manila galleon in the Pacific in 1743. He was married to Elizabeth Yorke, the daughter of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, one of the most important and influential politicians of the time. If this was not enough to commend him, he was at the very top of the naval profession and one of the most respected and most innovative officers of his day. From late 1744, he had held a seat on Bedford’s Admiralty board where he and Sandwich worked closely together. At the same time he held the chief command of the Channel Fleet which frequently obliged him to be absent from the Board. Nevertheless the success and direction of the late naval war had to a large measure been his. The problems that needed to be addressed by Anson can be broadly defined first, as an inadequate dockyard infrastructure and second, insufficient

69

PRO: ADM 1/4285, 18 April 1751, J. West to William Corbett. ‘Debate in the Commons on the Number of Seamen for the Year 1751’, 25 January 1750/1. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 14, p. 847. 70

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financial provision. There was little that could be done in the short term with the dockyards. Increasing productivity by using task work had proved unworkable. Prioritizing work by repairing the larger classes of ship was already in place.71 Increasing the capacity of the yards by building new slips and docks was a long-term project requiring major capital expense and the works this would entail would in the short term hinder the repair of the fleet. At the time this was not an option. There was little that Anson could do and, as only five new ships were launched between 1751 and 1755, little appears to have been achieved. However, this is not the case. Much thought and preparation went into planning for the next war. The battle waged by the civil administration of the Navy to restore the fleet was more one of financial management and, to this end, and rather perversely, nearly 900 workmen, including 442 shipwrights, were discharged from the dockyards at the beginning of 1753.72 Despite protestations from the Navy Board this reduction was put in place as a contribution to keeping the expense of the Navy within the grants supplied by Parliament. Furthermore, it was vital that the financial credit of the government and the Navy in particular was kept strong. Effective mobilization meant that the Navy’s suppliers had to have confidence in the credit worthiness of the state. This confidence was particularly needed after the huge debts run up by the Navy in the previous war. Anson must have abandoned any thought that the dockyards could cope with the huge backlog of repair work and known that many of the ships awaiting attention were unworthy of repair. Despite this, between 1751 and 1754 five new ships were built and seventeen repaired and only four ships were declared unserviceable. The dockyards were back into positive production mainly because there were so few ships left to fall into disrepair. By May 1753, there were forty-six ships of the line, excluding 50-gun ships, declared fit for service.73 By 1755, there were at least fifty ships of the line in a fit condition, and in March of that year forty-three were in commission.74 As war became increasingly certain in 1754 and 1755, Newcastle chose not to ask Parliament for more money. Anson, however, had plans that would quickly increase the size of the fleet once Parliament granted more funds. The King’s yards could not hope to build a fleet of sufficient numbers, so the only recourse was to make use of private yards. Building by contract was not popular with the Navy Board. They held an unreasonable assumption that contract built ships were not as durable as those built in the royal dockyards. The Navy Board and many

71

NMM: ADM B145, 2 March 1752. NMM: ADM B 147, 31 January 1753. 73 PRO: ADM 106/2186, fo. 429, 23 May 1753. There were nineteen 50-gun ships declared fit for service. 74 Isaac Schomberg, Naval Chronology (London, 1802), 5 vols, vol. iv, p. 31. This total excludes 50-gun ships. 72

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sea officers stuck rigidly to this prejudice, and it is a historical myth that has largely persisted to this day. Statistically, the longevity of contract built ships was no different from those built in the King’s yards. Contract building was absolutely necessary. At a stroke, it increased the Navy’s building capacity and freed the royal yards to fit out and mobilize the existing fleet. It was only possible to fit out and man about fifty ships of the line in the first year of a war. Slightly more than this number were fit for mobilization in 1755. After a year or so the newest of the contract built ships would be nearly ready. Twenty-two new ships of the line were launched in the years 1756, 1757 and 1758 and a further eleven were repaired. Furthermore, if this method appeared feasible, it had the added advantage of leaving any large-scale reconstruction of the fleet until the last possible moment. This was risky, but on past experience, ships had decayed rapidly and fallen into disrepair. Early rearmament was therefore a waste of public money. Thus Anson waited until 1755 to build up the fleet. Nine ships of the line were ordered in 1755, three of them to be built in private yards. Six were ordered in 1756, five of them in private yards. Assuming that British intelligence on French rearmament was accurate, Anson’s actions were not really putting British naval superiority at risk. Between 1749 and 1754, the French built or rebuilt thirty-eight ships of the line. During the same period, Britain built thirteen and repaired twenty-four, a total of thirty-seven. Furthermore after 1753, the pace of French naval reconstruction slowed considerably due to financial constraints. Many French ships under construction had their work suspended and in some instances delayed for several years.75 It appeared that Britain could easily match and just as easily outbuild the French Navy.

Naval expenditure and Parliament 1739–55 Naval administrators of the eighteenth century often found themselves at odds with Parliament. It was a problem that is still familiar today. Parliament always expected more for the money, and efficiencies were constantly being demanded from politicians who wanted a Navy on the cheap. Parliament held the public purse and had the final word; or so members thought. The sequence of events that follows concerns the Navy’s extraordinary estimates in the 1740s and 1750s. As outlined in a previous chapter, these estimates were compiled and submitted annually by the Navy Board from information supplied by the Royal Dockyards. The extraordinary estimate was granted to fund the building of new ships and to carry out major repairs to existing vessels. Although it detailed the type of work and expense that was expected to be carried out in the ensuing year, and even named specific vessels, the

75

Pritchard, Louis XV’s Navy, pp. 140, 139. 94


eventual expense never conformed to the estimate. The problem with this estimate was that its form and function was never to anyone’s satisfaction because the Navy merely used it as a vehicle for obtaining a supply from Parliament. Parliament therefore had every right to be dissatisfied with these estimates, as there were serious contradictions within the whole process. There were numerous instances of double accounting where the Navy would ask for the same money twice. For instance when a ship was surveyed and its repair estimated, this would usually be broken down into separate totals for materials and workmanship. If the time needed to repair the ship was lengthy, some proportion of the expense was placed on the extraordinary estimate. Sometimes a fraud would be committed when the total cost on the survey, including the estimate for workmanship, was submitted to Parliament. The cost of workmanship (artificer’s wages) was already funded by Parliament through the Sea Service estimate, so the dockyards were effectively inflating the estimate by asking for the same money (workmanship) twice.76 This sort of practice had been going on probably for as long as there had been extra estimates submitted to Parliament. In Anson’s period at the Admiralty, Portsmouth dockyard submitted a scheme of work for the year 1752 on which were detailed the repairs for the Neptune. The figures for this ship were clearly intended for the extra estimate and consisted of £1,800 for workmanship (already provided for in the sea service estimate) and £3,200 for materials.77 The entire sum of £5,000 appeared on the extra estimate. Whether this was done with the connivance of either the Navy Board or the Admiralty is hard to say, but it was an effective method of getting additional funding for the Navy. Most MPs were never too particular about the fine detail in these estimates and those that did choose to pick at particular items of expense were probably considered tiresome by their fellows. Of equal concern to anyone bothered enough to enquire was the fact that ships would also be repaired that were not on the estimate and money appropriated for one task would be freely allocated elsewhere. The estimate therefore was, even at best, one of intention only. The reality was that the dockyards would prioritize their work with only a passing reference to what was recorded on the estimate. In the second half of the eighteenth century, MPs were less happy with this situation and more alert to what amounted to deliberate deceptive practice on the part of some of the Navy’s administrators. Yet it was a problem that apparently had no acceptable solution. Parliament’s answer was to either restrict the amount granted to the Navy on the Extraordinary estimate or to withhold it altogether. So, for instance, the Navy might demand £86,804 as it did in 1738 and only be allowed

76 See for instance the survey and estimate for the Rippon in 1751. NMM: ADM B 142, 12 January 1749/50 and Commons Journals, vol. 26, p. 14. 77 NMM: POR/D/10, 22 October 1751.

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£40,000.78 From 1739 until 1750, the Navy produced Extraordinary estimates every year but no provision was made by Parliament whatsoever. The Navy, as members of Parliament were aware, continued to build and repair ships as if the sums requested had been granted. It is not difficult to discern the consequence. In 1737, the Navy debt increased by only £12,000. In 1738, it actually decreased by £160,000. In 1739 it rose by £477,000 and continued to rise year on year by about half a million annually until, in 1746, it stood at £5.5 million. Parliament was forced to make a special provision of £6 million over three years to secure the Navy’s credit.79 These were of course war years when it was particularly difficult to regulate expense and when the debt was expected to escalate. However, if the difficulty of regulating wartime expense was the sole reason for not providing a grant, there would have been no reason for the Navy Board to produce an estimate each year, yet they continued to do so. When, in 1747, Parliament called for an explanation of the increase of the Navy debt from 1739 to 1746, the account indicated that during that period eighty-seven ships had either been built or purchased for the Navy of which twenty-four were large vessels carrying fifty guns or more. The cost was over £551,000 for which there had been no parliamentary provision.80 Ten 50-gun ships where listed on this account and sixteen were actually built and launched between 1743 and 1746. None of these ships were even listed on the original estimates produced by the Navy Board.81 Expenditure on new ships was effectively unregulated and only monitored by Parliament retrospectively. This was unacceptable. The submission and granting of Extraordinary estimates had given some indication of how funds were likely to be spent. From 1750, the Extraordinary grants were reinstated and provided in full for the next two years. What prompted this is unclear, but the fact that shipbuilding without parliamentary provision had contributed to the Navy’s huge war debt must have been an important factor. Parliament needed to rethink how it could keep a grip on these aspects of naval expenditure. The problem of the Extraordinary estimates required some additional form of monitoring. When this was set up, the information called for by the Commons apparently confirmed their worst suspicions.

78

‘An Account of the . . . whole Sum granted for Naval Services . . . from the Year 1731 to the Year 1764’, NMM: MRF/I/1, vol. 137, fo.1. This useful document lays out at a glance all the parliamentary grants, the number of men and ships employed, and the state of the Navy debt. 79 NMM: MRF/I/1, vol. 137, f. 1. 80 NMM: ADM B 134, 2 February 1746/47. This document is printed in Baugh, Naval Administration, pp. 489–91. 81 Compare, for instance, the list of 50-gun ships in Lavery, Ship of the Line, vol. 1, pp. 172–3, with the estimates for the years 1742 to 1746, (1742) NMM: ADM B 134, 2 February 1746/7, (1743) ADM B 121, 8 February 1742/3, (1744) ADM B 124, 13 February 1743/4, (1745) ADM B 128, 28 January 1744/5, (1746) ADM B 132, 3 March 1746. 96


In January 1751, the Admiralty directed the Navy Board to report how the extra estimate granted by Parliament for 1750 had been expended and this direction was immediately forwarded to the dockyards.82 Their reply indicated that out of £197,000 they had only spent £121,000.83 A later request for similar information indicated that, in 1751 and 1752, the extraordinary estimate was again significantly under-spent. Either the estimates were grossly inflated or the money was being directed elsewhere and in a fashion that defied parliamentary conventions. It is not surprising, therefore, that Parliament made no Extraordinary grant for the following year, 1753, despite a request for £121,822.84 Once again the debt of the Navy increased and £117,888 of the increase was for building ships, almost the same as the amount the Navy had asked for.85 The grants were again reinstated in 1754 but at much reduced levels, in effect reverting to the situation as it had stood before 1739. It seemed that whichever way Parliament sought to control and monitor expenditure, an acceptable solution seemed beyond its grasp. However, the exercise was not entirely worthless. The process of producing accounts to satisfy Parliament proved beyond doubt that the existing system of estimates was not satisfactory in either a political or constitutional sense. More importantly, the developing process of closer scrutiny was now compelling the dockyards and the Navy Board to compile more statistical information. This could be used internally to assess and manage both Navy Board and dockyard activities. It was of particular use to the Admiralty Commissioners and served to give men like Sandwich and Anson a better appreciation of the administrative and financial state of the Navy. Furthermore, seeing the utility of these exercises, the Admiralty was able to call for more accounts in its own right rather than wait for Parliament to take the initiative.86 The unspent money from the extra estimates of 1750, 1751 and 1752 had been appropriated to other services, as was the custom of the Navy. This was both sensible and unavoidable but according to many in Parliament this mode of operation placed too much trust in the hands of a few. Their concern centred on the fact that, despite the necessity to carry on the business of the Navy in this fashion, officials could spend what they considered the Navy legitimately required, and leave Parliament to pay later. No matter how reasonable the arguments put forward by the Navy, what they were doing was in the strictest interpretation, spending, and by implication levying, money without the consent of Parliament. Governments were notorious for moving money around if they could get away with it, and finding ways of

82

NMM: ADM A 2412 and CHA/E/9, 4 January 1750/1. NMM: ADM B 144, 16 January, 1750/1. 84 NMM: MRF/I/1, vol. 137, f. 1. 85 BL: Add MS 38331, f. 222. 86 The amount of paperwork produced by the Navy Board increased dramatically in the middle of the eighteenth century. 83

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spending more than the legislature was willing to provide. This was a problem of long standing and the Navy was often at the heart of the controversy. Decades earlier, on 5 May 1711, MPs had resolved that it was an invasion of the rights of Parliament to increase the public expense beyond the supplies granted by Parliament. This clearly established that an account of debt had to be kept and that it could be used as a form of monitoring state activity.87 This resolution effectively closed off any options the executive might employ to move money around. Money voted for one service could not be used for another without prior consent. Yet, this rule did not apply to the internal financial arrangements of the Navy. Apparently, money once voted for any naval services could be applied to any part of that service. Parliament was not therefore trying to dictate how the Navy should spend its grant but trying to prevent any substantial overspend as this tended to loosen Parliament’s grip on the public purse strings. Most MPs wanted tighter control and scrutiny of public expenditure. Before the 1750s this scrutiny was driven by an interest in containing the level of state debt rather than forcing through administrative reform or restraining ministers. However the mode by which the Navy’s financial affairs were transacted, in other words the special circumstances that allowed the Navy to be, as it were, an exception to most of the rules, generated criticism. Initially, in the 1730s and 1740s this criticism was fleeting and ineffectual. The House could do little more than withhold or restrict the money it granted and call for accounts of naval debt to regulate and monitor activities. As John Brewer points out in the Sinews of Power, MPs called for more scrutiny of public expenditure as the only alternative to obstructing or refusing appropriation in response to an expanding fiscal–military State.88 One should not suppose, however, that all naval administrators and ministers were engaging in some sort of deliberate sharp practice. Pressure to work within the financial restrictions imposed by Parliament might at times have seemed tiresome and common sense would dictate that, on occasion, some expedient was needed that would not be approved by their parliamentary masters. Yet at the same time, officials would try to keep procedures and accounts as accurate as was possible. Writing to the officers at Chatham Dockyard in 1751, the Navy Board admonished them for omitting a bill for £734 that had not been included in the outstanding debt of the previous year. They observed that, ‘such negligent proceedings must render the Debt of the Navy at the end of each year very imperfect’ and that the debts must be ‘as perfect as possible before they are presented to Parliament’.89 This clearly indicates that the Navy Board was using its own monitoring procedures. 87

Cobbett, Parl. Hist, vol. 6, p. 1025. For an overview of John Brewer’s The Sinews of Power: War Money and the English State 1688–1783 (London, 1989), see D. Baugh’s review in the American Historical Review, vol. 96 (October 1991), pp. 1193–5. 89 NMM: CHA/E/9, 8 January 1750/1. 88

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Parliament, the Admiralty and naval reform From the 1750s onwards there was pressure at all levels to improve the Navy’s financial administration. Some of this pressure was generated by parliamentary scrutiny. Much more appears to have been generated by the Admiralty itself, but whether this itself was driven by Parliament is difficult to determine. Anson was a powerful figure both within the Navy and the political establishment. Any pressure he brought to bear on reforming the Navy would be given political backing. The climate of accountability, generated by both internal and parliamentary scrutiny trickled down right through the administrative structure. The Navy Board was called more and more to account by the Admiralty, and the Board in turn directed the dockyards to transmit to it copies of all returns that the dockyards sent directly to the Admiralty so that it could be better informed.90 Now the unfortunate dockyard officers frequently found themselves being told off by the Admiralty as well as the Navy Board. The important thing to note is that the Navy’s administrators at all levels found themselves working within an environment where information was power and in which they were increasingly accountable, to the Admiralty, for the discharging of their various duties.91 From the 1750s onwards this situation encouraged what can best be termed administrative resourcefulness, a process by which officials strove to overcome the financial restraints that had been imposed by Parliament. This was achieved through expedients, which were often at the very boundaries of what was legal or constitutional. What we see here is a process of challenge and response. The perception of an unsatisfactory state of financial administration in the Navy after the Austrian Succession War (given tangible form by the huge debt) was treated as a challenge to the authority of Parliament who responded through a process of scrutiny. This response by Parliament was itself a challenge to naval administrators and officials at all levels. In the first instance it produced a clerical response, a need to produce additional paperwork and to keep better records. Second, it produced a managerial response. Senior officials needed to defend their administrative conduct and in certain circumstances their probity.92 More importantly, ministers and officials found a need to exercise some ingenuity to either work within the restrictions imposed by Parliament or to find some expedient, preferably a legal one, to circumvent those restrictions. In both instances, the process of both parliamentary and internal 90

NMM, CHA/E/8, Navy Board to the Officers of Chatham Yard, 29 May 1746. One need only look at the volumes of Navy Board correspondence to see that both Parliament and the Admiralty are causing the Navy Board to generate more paper work. In the 1720s and 1730s a single volume might contain ten to fifteen months of paperwork. By the 1760s and 1770s, a single volume is generally two to three times thicker and covers only four to six months. See National Maritime Museum ADM/B series. 92 See the Chapter 7 on Sandwich at the Admiralty in the 1770s. 91

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scrutiny created a demand for better administrators and better bureaucracy resulting in the efficiency of the state stepping up a gear. What are of particular interest are the managerial responses to the financial restrictions imposed by Parliament. Particularly from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, there was constant pressure at all levels to control expenditure, reduce debt and conform to the restrictions and monitoring procedures imposed by Parliament. Naval administrators were finding it more difficult to run into debt, to inflate estimates and to keep ships on the Navy list that no longer existed, particularly as the accuracy of clerical work became more of an issue. Expedients were needed and these involved new ways of working, and methods of maximizing the benefit of the sums granted by Parliament. What is particularly noticeable in the late 1740s and during the 1750s is that the Admiralty was exercising more control and implementing many of these new initiatives itself. The Navy Board still held an advantage in technical expertise but now armed with facts and figures and having systems of monitoring in place, and backed up by the pressure of parliamentary scrutiny, the Admiralty was better positioned to start to manage the Navy more effectively. It is in this context that we can appreciate the observations of James Haas who noted a breakdown in co-operation between the Admiralty and Navy Boards after 1744, under the leadership at the Admiralty of Bedford, Sandwich and Anson.93 This was bound to happen as the departmental autonomy of the Navy Board and the authority of the Navy Commissioners was eroded. Furthermore as the Navy did not operate in bureaucratic isolation, these developments in management had a knock-on effect, eventually influencing bureaucratic development throughout government. The entire process had at its root a financial and constitutional imperative arising from the need of Parliament to exercise a restraining hand over the executive. Working within imposed financial restrictions, the Navy needed to use its resources more efficiently if it was to remain effective without running up huge debts. In this sense, the sorts of economic reforms that would eventually be typified by the younger Pitt’s administration in the 1780s started far earlier. Unlike the economic reform of the 1780s, the reform in the Navy of the 1750s onwards did not mean abolishing sinecures, saving money and generally cutting back. In fact these earlier reforms were not carried out as part of a reforming agenda, they were simply a response to a particular set of circumstances. Reform in the 1750s meant new and innovative ways of working. Expedients were devised that were able to draw the maximum benefits from the available resources by a restructuring of existing systems. The naval administration resorted to what today would be considered modern management techniques.

93

James Haas, ‘The Royal Dockyards: the earliest Visitations and reforms 1749–1778’, Historical Journal, xiii, 2 (1970), pp. 191–215, p. 192. 100


A typical example of new working practices, the attempt to introduce task work into the dockyards in 1749, has already been discussed. Despite the failure of this initiative, it was an innovation that demonstrated that existing human resources could be reorganized to improve efficiency and productivity. The other innovation was the use of private contracts to build new ships of the line. It amounted to the introduction of task work by the back door. The reasons why the Navy had to turn to private builders has been discussed, but there were also a number of financial and administrative advantages to pursuing this course. By building ships of the line by contract, the Navy could not only undergo a rapid expansion, but expand with only a limited fiscal impact on the State. First, using the private sector was the quickest and most cost effective way of expanding the naval infrastructure. Increasing the number of docks and slips in the royal yards would have taken at least a decade, disrupted ongoing work and incurred a substantial capital investment. By using the private sector, the state was spared, at least for the time being, the expense of major infrastructure change. It was not until 1765 that a large programme of dockyard expansion was begun. Second, by using the private sector, there was no need to augment the number of artificers and shipwrights in the royal yards beyond what was needed to fit out, refit and repair the fleet. This spared an increase on the wage bill. For those ships ordered by contract, the private sector rather than the royal yards had the responsibility to recruit and retain labour, to pay for wages and to obtain and pay for materials. Private shipbuilders were given an advance payment, but were under contractual obligation to meet imposed deadlines or face financial penalties. These advance payments were placed on the extraordinary estimates in the same fashion as for ships building in the royal yards. There were a number of administrative advantages to contract building. It was easier to contract the work out rather than organize it in the over stretched royal yards. It was also easier to make payment to a contractor for a vessel rather than a host of different creditors for materials and services. More importantly, with regard to the Navy and Parliament, the bulk of the payment would be on completion of the contract. This meant that the Navy did not need to obtain a grant from Parliament based on some speculative estimate of the work to be carried out. A grant would be requested more or less retrospectively to pay a specific contract. This circumvented a number of the procedural objections arising from the former mode of business. More than this, however, the Navy needed, at least initially, to ask for less money from Parliament, or in more practical terms, it could ask for the same amount of money and then perform more tasks. Once the building of a ship by contract had been approved and an initial grant obtained, Parliament was duty bound to honour all subsequent financial commitments connected with that contract. This suggests that the Navy was in effect, contracting debt, with the implicit and prior approval of Parliament. This process did not undermine the authority of Parliament but still left the Navy’s administrators 101


with most of their discretionary powers intact. If MPs considered that this still tended to erode Parliament’s grip on an aspect of public finance it was up to Parliament to respond in kind. These innovations were the practical responses, the managerial response, of talented men who were obliged to re-think old problems and devise new solutions.

The navy and bureaucratic development In a much broader context, the process by which parliamentary scrutiny of the Navy’s finances led to administrative reorganization and better management can be seen as a part of the professionalization of proto-civil servants and the implementation of more efficient bureaucratic systems. In other words, what we see here is the strengthening of state machinery without endangering representative government. What ensured the survival of and even strengthened Britain’s representative institutions was the reaction of Parliament to this professionalization and to the perceived growth and efficiency of the fiscal–military State. Bureaucratic innovations provoked parliamentary reaction and as these innovations became more common, in the 1760s and 1770s, there developed a belief, mostly amongst those opposed to government, that the very constitution was in danger. For example George Grenville, a great innovator, had been an Admiralty Commissioner in the 1750s and responsible for reforms over seamen’s pay. He worked closely in the early 1760s with the young King George and his first minister, Lord Bute, in an administrative and financial reorganization of state activities in the first years of the new reign. Grenville’s well-intentioned and ingenious reforms, for all their apparent merit, backfired. Trying to improve the North Atlantic commercial and maritime system, in order to extract additional state finance, was clever but eventually destroyed the system itself.94 Establishing a large standing army of 10,000 men overseas, where it was not a direct threat to English liberties, and then having the American colonists pay for it as part of their contribution to imperial defence, was political and organizational genius, particularly as Parliament might not have to be approached to obtain money to pay for it. But, as is often the case, the solution to one problem created a host of others. In this instance, these innovations led to growing hostility from the parliamentary opposition. It also led to a fear that the King and his ministers were increasing in influence and trying to undermine the constitutional basis of government, and of course it contributed to the eventual rebellion of the American colonies. This clearly demonstrates that not all bureaucratic developments and gains in efficiency could be deemed beneficial. The point

94 Daniel A. Baugh, ‘Maritime Strength and Atlantic Commerce’, in Lawrence Stone, An Imperial State at War 1769–1815 (London, 1994), p. 207.

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behind this example is that we can see here a similar sort of process as in the Navy of the 1750s but on a larger scale. We have the imposition of financial restraints by Parliament, countered by innovation and then innovation provoking reaction, and then the eventual imposition of new controls and restraints.95 Superficially, at least, this thesis applies to other departments of the British State; although much more detailed departmental studies need to be made to determine how widespread this process was. The movement of ‘men of business’ from one department of government to another suggests that ideas and working practices must have crossed departmental borders. Although government by department, as Lord North termed it, also suggests departmental autonomy and a lack of communication, it should not be assumed that ministers, officials and clerks operated within a closed world with no access to innovation elsewhere. That the Navy should take such a high profile in this process of professionalization is due to the substantial degree of state expenditure, the scale of activity involved and the frequency of political debate concerned with naval expenditure and its administration. We have seen that the decades before the Seven Years’ War were important in the growth and development of Britain as a great naval power. This was not in just the military sense but also in the development and reform of the Navy’s administration and its financial systems. It also saw the increasing influence of the Admiralty and the development of a more system-based management attitude. Furthermore, there is a case to be made that this whole process, influenced the bureaucratic development of the state itself, making it more efficient. Yet the driving force of public accountability to Parliament even more evident from the 1760s onwards ensured that the growth of the fiscal-military state did not descend into absolutism. In the 1740s Parliament had been concerned with debt. As a response to this, the 1750s saw administrative innovations and reorganization. The 1760s, particularly during Hawke’s administration, was to see attempts to make naval finance more transparent as a means of easing the passage of the estimates through Parliament. The 1770s was to see parliamentary reaction and the collapse of trust in the Navy’s administration. As far as the war itself is concerned, it had started in 1755 with just over fifty ships of the line in condition to mobilize. As the war drew to its conclusion and the preliminaries of peace were signed

95

It could be argued that his experience of the Navy’s administration had some influence on Grenville’s outlook and mindset. One might go so far as to assert that the means by which Grenville placed impositions on the American colonies were more like the methods of an absolutist state than a constitutional monarchy. Even if this was not literally true, it was certainly the perception of many Americans. The colonists felt they were resisting a form of absolutism resulting from the centralizing pressures of the British state and manifested as externally levied taxation without consent, forced billeting and impressment. As with the Navy, the imperatives behind this were ones of management, control and finance. 103


on 3 November 1762, Britain had ninety-four ships of the line in commission and a further twenty-four in various stages of construction.96 The Navy had gone from the apparently hopeless situation of 1749 to unrivalled supremacy at the end of 1762. This success was in large part due to the fact that Anson, a man highly respected in both the naval and political establishment, was able to get a real grip on the Navy’s administration.97 The peace that followed and the build-up to war with France in 1778 would bring fresh challenges and the re-emergence of familiar difficulties.

96

This total is exclusive of thirteen 50-gun ships in commission but includes some harbour vessels. NMM: ADM B/170, 17 November 1762. 97 From the beginning of Anson’s administration in 1751, he was strongly assisted by Admiral Edward Boscawen, another like-minded officer of distinction and ability. Boscawen’s friend, Savage Mostyn, served as Comptroller of the Navy Board from 1749 to 1755. The Navy suffered a great loss on the death of Boscawen in 1761 and Anson in 1762. 104

5

The peace establishment I Demobilization and retrenchment, 1763–6

The end of the Seven Years’ War1 provided a set of unique opportunities as well as a set of serious problems to George III and his ministers. The opportunities lay in the possibilities of administrative and financial reforms long contemplated by the King and his first minister, Lord Bute. The problems left from the war were closely related to these opportunities but apparently irreconcilable with them. The huge burden of war debt had to be reduced but the King also wanted to reduce the high level of taxation. Continuing confidence in the financial credit of the country largely depended on this. The dilemma for the armed forces, the most expensive arm of the state, was that if both the debt and taxation were reduced, it might not be possible to afford an adequate peacetime military and naval establishment. This was particularly relevant to the Navy as much of the fleet was worn out by long service and in need of repair or rebuilding. This was going to prove a long and expensive task. What was needed was a careful balancing of security and economy. This and the following chapter will examine the Navy’s administration from the Peace of Paris in 1763 to the Falkland Islands crisis in 1770. It will focus on the fiscal and logistical problems of demobilization, the establishment of the peacetime Navy, and the various reforms and innovations introduced at this time. In particular it will be clearly demonstrated that despite the appearance of strict economy, security was always the first priority and the Navy was never starved of cash.2 It will also be shown that, despite smaller grants for naval supplies and a substantial reduction in the Navy’s debt, expenditure on the repair of the fleet was carried on at a high level. It will also be demonstrated that the demobilization and laying up of the fleet was a carefully managed process and that no charge of neglect or incompetence

1

Peace was officially concluded on 18 March 1763. Writing in 1767, Charles Jenkinson made the observation that security and economy must be reconciled but that security must have the first place. John Bullion, ‘Securing the Peace: Lord Bute, the plan for the army, and the origins of the American Revolution’, in Karl Schweizer, Lord Bute, Essays in Re-interpretation (Leicester, 1988) p. 35 fn. 9. 2

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THE PEACE ESTABLISHMENT, 1763–6

can be levelled at the naval administrations between 1763 and the Falkland Islands incident in 1770. The process by which both security and economy was achieved was by an ingenious blend of established procedures, new innovations and careful management. Many of the individuals behind this work are minor figures in the history of the period and their importance to the smooth running of the Navy and the state has been little studied. The first and most essential of their tasks was to deal with the usual problem the Navy faced at the conclusion of a war. This was to secure the Navy’s credit. At the end of the Seven Years’ War, with the fleet worn out, a massive debt and thousands of sailors to discharge and pay, the matter of naval finances was an acute and pressing problem.

The legacy of debt It was the increasing cost of the Seven Years’ War that had caused Bute to encourage negotiations for peace in the autumn of 1762. Both he and the King wished to reduce the burden of debt on the country and knew that only peace could relieve this and bring them the opportunity to put their planned reforms in place.3 Even with the coming of peace, the problems of high taxation and debt seemed insoluble. Bute’s secretary at the Treasury, Charles Jenkinson, made a summary of the country’s financial situation. Annual taxation raised £9,800,000. The Navy debt alone stood at £7,700,000 at the end of 1762 and it cost the Treasury up to £50,000 for every £1,000,000 borrowed.4 It was imperative for the security of the country that the financial credit of the nation be preserved. Future security would depend on an ability to raise the sums necessary to conduct war. Heavy wartime taxation would ensure this but only at the risk of creating economic and social difficulties. The most immediate step that could be taken was a reduction of peacetime expenditure, and to balance this policy of economy with the military and naval security of the country, a number of innovations were planned. It was intended, for instance, that the military establishment be reduced to the levels of 1749 but with a high proportion of colonial and Irish troops. The cost of these forces, intended for colonial defence, was to be supported by the colonists themselves, thereby easing the financial burden on the home country. 3 John Bullion, ‘To know this is the true essential business of a King: the Prince of Wales and the study of Public Finance 1755–1760’, Albion, XVIII (1986), pp. 429–54, pp. 432, 437, and J. Bullion and K. Schweizer, ‘The Use of the Private Papers of Politicians in the Study of Policy Formulation in the Eighteenth Century: the Bute Papers as a case study’, Archives, vol. 22, no. 93 (April 1995) pp. 34–44, p. 39. 4 House of Commons Journals, vol. 29, p. 418, and John Bullion, A Great and Necessary Measure, George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act 1763–1765 (London, 1982), p. 18.

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George Grenville at the Admiralty proposed that some sailors and half-pay officers be employed in the Customs Service to combat smuggling around the British coast. This would ensure that the officers and men would be available in an emergency as well as reduce losses in customs duties. In the event this proposal was not carried out. Grenville also set the peacetime size of the Navy at 16,000 men rather than the more usual 10,000 to 12,000 that had existed in 1755 before hostilities. An establishment of 16,000 men remained the norm for the remainder of the decade. However, as a preparation for a future war, these innovations were not supported by the Opposition. In their eyes, they amounted to increases in the peacetime military and naval establishments rather than usual fiscal retrenchment common at the end of a war.5 Clearly security and economy were not to be reconciled without additional sources of public income. These were to come in the form of new taxes, such as the Cider Tax, and schemes to extend the base of taxation to the American colonies.

The Navy’s finances 1763–4 The special situation of the Navy mirrored that of the country. Specifically, the Navy faced the following three problems, listed here by their priority. 1 The Navy debt. – The debt consisted mostly of wages and Navy bills which had to be paid off to an acceptable level. Wages were a priority as by law they had to be discharged quickly. Late payment would have proved a disincentive to future manning, and manning in wartime, more than anything else, determined the rate at which the fleet could mobilize. Most Navy bills carried interest after six months and the longer they remained part of the debt, the more expensive they were to discharge. They were also traded at a discount and, if the date of their payment became uncertain, the discount increased. To compensate for this, merchants and suppliers increased their prices. This therefore was the basis of the Navy’s credit. 2 The condition of the fleet. The Navy was worn out by the war and in need of substantial repair at an estimated cost of over £3 million.6 The repair programme would require the dockyard workforce to remain at near wartime levels. Only a moderate amount of money would be needed to purchase materials for the rebuilding and repair programme as much of this could be funded through the Navy’s credit system by the issuing of Navy bills. This would only be possible, however, if the conditions in the first point had been met. 3 The supply of funds for the Navy. For political, economic and diplomatic reasons the number of men voted and the sums voted for the naval service had to be reduced. This made it difficult to provide for points one and two. From the

5 6

Bullion, ‘Securing the Peace’, pp. 22–4. William Smith, The Grenville Papers, 4 vols (London, 1852), vol. 2, p. 291. 107


Table 5.1 Seamen employed and wage costs, 1762–7 Year

Men voted

Men borne

Wages voted Wages paid

Wages debt

1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767

70,000 30,000 16,000 16,000 16,000 16,000

84,797 38,350 20,603 19,226 16,817 15,755

1,365,000 585,000 312,000 312,000 312,000 312,000

3,109,521 1,784,456 1,270,969 763,164 618,191 527,314

2,407,740 1,392,218 785,135 591,875 517,691 396,035

70,000 men voted in 1762, numbers were reduced to 30,000 in 1763 and 16,000 in 1764. Unfortunately, sweeping reductions in the numbers of men voted could not be matched by an actual reduction in men employed as so many remained overseas. This meant that the Navy continued to pay a higher wage bill than the grants of Parliament would support. In addition to this, massive payments had to be made to reduce the amount of back pay. At this time, therefore, much of the money voted specifically to discharge the Navy debt went towards servicing wage costs.

Ideally, as these three points have been listed in order of priority, reductions in the sums granted by Parliament should have taken effect only when the debt had been cleared and the fleet repaired. In other words the Navy should have continued on a wartime financial footing for at least two years after the conclusion of peace. This did not occur. Instead the supplies were reduced but there was also a simultaneous reduction in the Navy debt (see Table 5.2) The implication is that the financial provision for the repair of the fleet was sacrificed in order to discharge the debt as repair work had to be funded on reduced naval grants. A superficial view of the figures seems to bear this out. For instance, of the £1,975,661 granted to the Navy in 1763, £1,392,218, or 70 per cent, was expended on wages alone (see Tables 5.1 and 5.2 amounts in bold typeface). This impression is contradicted, however, by another set of figures produced by the Navy Board at the end of 1764. The Navy Board was directed to report on the progress that had been made in the repair of the fleet, giving the sums already spent and what remained to be expended from the Peace to the 30 September 1764, a period of eighteen months. They reported that £743,234 had been spent on building and repair.7 This represented 25 per cent of the total naval supplies for 1763/4 pro rata and clearly exceeded the Extraordinary grant of £225,000 pro rata voted specifically to cover this expenditure. When added to the sums applied to payment of wages, the sum left almost nothing to pay the Navy’s other expenses such as the ordinary,

7

PRO: ADM 7/186, 31 December, 1764. ‘An Abstract of His Majesty’s Fleet’. 108


victualling and transports, even if we were to allow that much of the repair work would not have actually been paid for immediately. Clearly a closer examination of the Navy’s expenditure is needed for these critical eighteen months. Actual expenditure, both in terms of cash payments and additional bills registered on the course clearly exceeded the grants of Parliament by a wide margin. We would therefore expect a corresponding increase in the Navy’s debt but this did not occur (see Table 5.2). Even when the debt is broken down, the amount owing on the two largest heads, wages and the Navy course, decreased from 1762 to 1764 even though more than an additional £2 million in Navy bills were registered during this period (Table 5.4). Table 5.2 Naval supplies and debt 1762–7 Year

Total supplies granted*

Gross debt (31 December)**

1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767

5,772,251 1,975,661 2,053,200 2,904,366 2,680,683 1,827,721

7,700,642 4,465,530 1,195,209 2,719,337 1,614,155 1,760,032

*Based on statements of naval cash ADM B series. **Gross unadjusted debt, Commons Journals.

Table 5.3 Sums granted and expended, 1 April 1763 to 30 September 1764 Service

Sums granted pro rata* 1763/4

Ordinary Wear and tear Wages Victualling Extraordinary Debt Other Total Registered on the Navy course Total

584,421 605,475 672,750 426,075 225,000 487,500 20,428 3,021,645

268,560 737,768 2,049,321 390,740 – – 149,083 3,595,472

3,021,645

***2,157,868 5,735,340

*Pro rata based on 18 months or 75 per cent of 1763–4 grants. **Expenditure based on actual monthly payments, ADM B series. ***Navy course – NMM: ADM B 175, 24 November 1764.

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Cash sums expended 1763/4**


Table 5.4 Navy debt 1762–4 Year

Wages

Navy course

Grand total debt

1762 1763 1764

3,109,521 1,704,456 1,270,969

1,767,576 1,511,648 1,747,448

7,700,642 4,465,530 4,195,209

Source: House of Commons Journals Note: Grand total includes other items.

It is obviously not possible to increase expenditure and at the same time reduce the debt on a lower income from Parliament. Reference to the published accounts of naval expenditure does not resolve this problem.8 Therefore, we are left with a financial miracle. The Navy was spending more, reducing its debts and yet receiving less from Parliament. Somehow the three priorities were being achieved and the only conclusion possible is that the Navy was in receipt of additional funds that did not appear in the Navy Board’s monthly statements or in the published naval estimates.

The Treasury and naval finance One very large source of additional funds is revealed in the Commons Journals which show that in May 1763, £3,075,314 was voted by Parliament to pay the Navy and victualling course to 31 December 1762.9 The sum voted was applied directly to the payment of the course and not voted for naval services. This was done because the debt on the Navy course was exceptionally large and was therefore being managed by the Treasury and not the Navy itself. Any calculation of naval expenditure would need to take account of this as if the sum had been voted to the Navy to discharge the debt in the customary fashion. As responsibility for paying the course and the management of the debt was a Treasury concern, it was not necessary for the Admiralty to be accountable in this area. The transfer of this debt from one department to another cast a veil over the true cost of maintaining the Navy. This was a structural feature of public finance, and a very convenient one, rather than any attempt to mislead Parliament. The sums voted in this instance were

8

Ruddock MacKay calculated that the total expenditure for 1763 and 1764 was £4,246,752 and £1,974,817 respectively. Pro rata, this amounts to about 4.6 million for the eighteen months under consideration but, as expenditure was not evenly spread throughout the year, any pro rata calculation must allow for a fair degree of error. Therefore MacKay’s calculations are not greatly different to those given in Table 5.3 (£3.6 million–£5.7 million) and also exceed the corresponding Parliamentary grants (£3 million). 9 Commons Journals, vol. 29, p. 418. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 15, p. 1315. 110


part of the process of granting a supply and the accounts were open to inspection by members of Parliament. The financial advantage of removing the debt from naval accounts by parliamentary action can be illustrated by following what subsequently happened to this debt. The £3 million voted in 1763 was used to convert the equivalent amount of Navy bills into 4 per cent annuities which were known as the Navy Four Percents and traded on the Stock Exchange.10 Prices were regularly quoted, for instance in the Gentleman’s Magazine, until 1767. These annuities were themselves discharged between 1765 and 1768 by further Treasury borrowing, but at the lower rate of 3 per cent.11 At this stage the Navy’s debt became blended with the National Debt and ceased to be a separate identifiable entity. Therefore this debt, which originally consisted of Navy bills, continued to exist but in a different form. The cost of sustaining this debt was much less than it had been in the form of Navy bills, but, much more important than this, the Navy’s credit with its suppliers was preserved. Initially, of course, the Treasury still faced the problem of raising money both to pay the interest on the Navy debt and to encourage subscribers to shoulder the burden by purchasing the 4 per cent annuities. Subscribers were given encouragement, first by issuing more annuities to an individual than the equivalent cash amount they paid, and also by operating a lottery with prizes of both cash and annuities. Even so, there was seemingly no shortage of those willing to lend money. While joint secretary to the Treasury under Grenville, Charles Jenkinson received letters offering financial help to the government. Sir, In case of a loan, I am desirous of subscribing forty thousand pounds for myself and that my banker Mssrs. Cliffe, Walpole and Clark may be permitted to subscribe for ten thousand pounds.12

These were fantastic sums in the eighteenth century, but annuities issued by government were considered a very safe and profitable form of investment. However, these financial dealings were not without political consequences particularly when it is considered that ways and means had to be found to pay the interest on the loans. One protest was directed against the original loan the Treasury raised in 1763 to convert the Navy bills to annuities. The cost of servicing this loan was to come from a tax on cider. A number of members of the House of Lords, among them Grafton, Bolton, Devonshire, Portland and Rockingham, expressed their 10

BL: Add MS. 38339, f. 107. BL: Add MS. 38340, f. 345. See also Robert Hamilton, An Inquiry Concerning the Rise and Progress, the Redemption and Present State and the Management of the National Debt of Great Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh, 1818), pp. 88–9. 12 BL: Add MS. 38204, f. 83, Lord Catherlough to Charles Jenkinson, 22 February 1765. Robert Knight, Earl of Catherlough had closely supported Bute and then Grenville through whom he obtained his Irish earldom. 11

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high disapprobation of the terms upon which 3,500,000 have been borrowed on the loan without any material alteration since in the state of public credit. An enormous profit of above 350,000 is already made by such persons as have been favoured with shares in this private subscription. We apprehend that in time of peace, an open subscription had not only been the fairest but cheapest method of borrowing any sums . . . a redeemable annuity of four percent is given to certain persons who offered to advance this loan. . . . No less than two lotteries in one year are now for the first time, without any urgent necessity established . . . to the no small excitement of the pernicious spirit of gaming.13

Other additional sums do not appear in the Navy’s accounts. On 12 March, 1765, £1.5 million was voted by Parliament to discharge the debt and again this was directly applied to the Navy course by an issue of 3 per cent annuities.14 Precisely how much all this additional income amounted to and where it came from cannot be determined with any precision without auditing the Navy’s accounts, a daunting if not an impossible task. However, much can be inferred from Treasury and private papers. Lesser sums were also used to quietly service the Navy’s debt without ever becoming a part of the Navy’s official supplies. In 1765, a Treasury Board minute recorded: issue to the Treasurer of the Navy £90,785.10s.5d to pay the course of the navy for the months of June and July 1763, half in exchequer bills and the remainder of contributions to annuities and the lottery.15

A further source of income came from the sale of old or defective stores and old ships. Usually this was not a substantial amount but when giving their approval for such sales, the Admiralty always cautioned the Navy Board to obtain a privy seal for the proceeds. This constituted additional income for the Navy, and as it was not voted by Parliament it was not part of the annual supplies. On rare occasions it could be a significant sum. Between April 1763 and September 1764, nine old ships of the line were disposed of along with fifty-five smaller vessels yielding a net contribution of £44,437.16 In terms of overall expenditure this may seem a small amount, but it was sufficient to service the entire cost of the Admiralty for seventeen months or the wages to the ships in Ordinary for ten months.17 13

House of Lords, 30 March 1763, ‘Protest against passing the Cyder Bill’, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 15, pp. 1314–15. The revenue raised from the cider tax was not sufficient to pay the interest on the entire loan. Revenue amounted to £62,067 in 1765 and £46, 817 in 1766. Interest amounted to £40,000 on every million borrowed. BL: Add. MS. 38420, f. 23, ‘Summary of public Accounts’. 14 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 16, p. 61. 15 PRO: T29/37, f. 66, Treasury Board minute, 10 July 1765. 16 PRO: ADM 7/186, 31 December 1764, ‘Account of ships sold’. 17 This calculation is based on the Ordinary estimate for 1764. 112


This practice was later to become a political matter. In 1772, William Dowdeswell complained about this specific aspect of naval income. He had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under Rockingham in 1765 and, according to Edmund Burke, had promised to introduce a plan of appropriation into the Navy. Attacking Sandwich’s naval administration in 1772, Dowdeswell declared: I am full as willing as any one to preserve the navy upon a respectable footing, but let us at the same time know what we are voting the public money for. . . . They claim also the produce of the old stores and ships that are sold; for the last five years they produced £20,000 per year: a sum of £100,000 which is not accounted for; and I should be glad to be informed by what law, and under what authority, they dare make use of the public money.18

We will return to this particular issue in a later chapter. For now, we can see that through clever financial expedients, national security along with the outward appearance of economy was achieved. True economy could follow once the crisis of debt was overcome and the Navy’s credit secured. The Navy was not starved of cash, and there were substantial sums available to rebuild and repair the fleet. Before moving to an examination of how the money was applied, and the post-war administration of the Navy, it is worth considering some of the reasons why the Navy’s finances were not as open and regular as many of the government’s critics would have wished. We have already seen in the chapter on naval finance that the Navy could not operate under a system of strict budgeting, and that it benefited from being allowed a general rather than a specific appropriation. We have also seen that the Treasury’s responsibility for managing and discharging the debt tended to hide the true cost of maintaining the Navy by a transfer of the Navy’s debt to the Treasury and a separate appropriation. This was a structural feature of administration and not a deliberate attempt at concealment. There was also a security consideration. Both the Admiralty and the Treasury as well as the Secretary of State received regular intelligence reports on the state of repair and readiness of the French Navy as well as reports on the state of French finance and credit. In the 1760s and 1770s these usually came through Robert Wolters, agent at Rotterdam, who had a network of informants in Paris, Madrid, Brest and Toulon.19 As it was supposed that France would take revenge for its losses in the late war, it was essential that Britain’s financial credit appear sound and

18 ‘Debate in the Commons on the Navy Estimates, 2 December 1772’, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, pp. 544–5. 19 Nicholas Tracy, ‘The Gunboat Diplomacy of the Government of George Grenville, 1764–1765: the Honduras, Turks Island and Gambian incidents’, Historical Journal, vol. 17, no. 4 (1974), pp. 711–31, p. 73.

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that the true condition of the fleet be disguised. A policy of deterrence could be better maintained if it appeared that Britain could easily mobilize a fleet in good condition, even though at least two years of intensive repair were needed to make this goal a reality. This consideration may well account for the apparent parsimony of the Grenville ministry in voting Extraordinary grants for building and repairing the Navy’s ships, a mere £100,000 when Grenville was at the Admiralty in 1763 and only £200,000 per annum when he was First Lord of the Treasury in 1764 and 1765. We have seen that actual expenditure far exceeded these sums. The successful balancing of security and economy may therefore have contained an element of confidentiality. The French government no doubt had its own intelligence network operating in England, and with the English dockyards busy repairing the fleet, it is unlikely they were fooled.

The Navy at the Peace of Paris, 1763 With the preliminaries of peace signed, George Grenville, the First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered a survey of the fleet. The Navy Board produced an account showing a list of the Royal Navy at 1 January 1763 with the condition of those surveyed (see Appendix 6).20 Of the largest ships of 50 guns and upwards, eighty-two were at sea leaving only a reserve of six in good condition. Twentyeight were under construction, twenty-one required substantial repair and a further nineteen had not been surveyed. As those at sea represented an unknown quantity as far as repair was concerned and would require re-fitting at the very least, this left just six large ships and a further forty-four smaller vessels known to be in good condition (see Table 5.5). As always at the end of a war, Britain’s seapower had been stretched to the limit with virtually nothing in the way of reserve. There was little that Grenville himself could do. Despite some experience in the administration of naval affairs, the immediate situation needed managing by experts. It was Grenville’s intention that at some stage an examination and eventual reform of the Navy’s financial arrangements would be made.21 However, Grenville’s tenure at the Admiralty was short and, in April 1763, he replaced Lord Bute at the Treasury. The Earl of Sandwich for the second time became First Lord of the Admiralty.

20

PRO: ADM 7/553. Smith, Grenville Papers, vol. 2, p. 294. Grenville had been an Admiralty Commissioner from 1744 to 1747 and Treasurer of the Navy during most of the Seven Years’ War. 21

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Table 5.5 Abstract of the Royal Navy, 1 January 1763. PRO:ADM 7/55322 Guns Building Good

Small repair

Middling Large At sea Not Total repair repair surveyed

100 1 90/84 3 80 0 74 13 70 0 66 0 64 9 60 0 50 1 Line 28

1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 6

0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 3

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 5

1 0 1 0 0 0 2 5 4 13

0 6 3 18 7 1 14 21 12 82

2 5 1 4 2 0 2 2 1 19

5 14 6 37 10 2 29 29 24 156

44 38 36 32 30 28 24 Hulks Old ships Other

0 0 0 3 0 3 0 0

0 0 0 2 0 0 2 9

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0

1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0

8 1 0 0 0 0 2 0

9 1 4 20 0 16 15 3

1 0 0 1 1 2 0 0

19 2 4 27 1 22 20 12

0 2

0 53

0 1

0 1

8 1

0 76

0 11

8 145

Total 36

72

5

9

33

226

35

416

Total tonnage 338,539

Sandwich and the Navy, 1763 Sandwich had not been the first choice for the Admiralty; Charles Townshend had been approached but refused the position. Sandwich had considerable experience of naval business having served alongside Admiral George Anson on the Duke of Bedford’s board during the War of the Austrian Succession. He was First Lord from 1748 to 1751, also a critical period of demobilization. At this time he was the obvious and best choice to head the Admiralty in 1763, yet it seems he was chosen for the appointment more on the basis that he would encourage economies in the Navy.23 His reputation at this time was

22

In this document 50-gun ships are included in the line of battle. N. A. M Rodger, The Insatiable Earl: A Life of John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich 1718–1792 (London, 1993), pp. 96–7.

23

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high, having served with distinction not only at the Admiralty, but also as a diplomat. It would be in the period immediately before and during the War of American Independence that his reputation would suffer a complete reverse. Whatever reasons prompted his appointment in 1763, Sandwich immediately set about gathering information in order to monitor the demobilization and repair of the fleet. The detail of how this was to take place was in the hands of the Navy Board, but, as a member of the Cabinet, Sandwich needed to indicate to his colleagues the state and readiness of the Navy. It was calculated that to complete all of the hulls would take 1,760 days or 51⁄2 years, supposing a peace establishment of 3,000 shipwrights and 313 working days in a year. This forecast assumed that the repair would be carried out at single day work, or without resorting to overtime. What made this calculation alarming was that the establishment of shipwrights at that time was only 2,800 and the amount of work on which the forecast was based was exclusive of the usual business of fitting, refitting and equipping the ships in commission and other routine maintenance work.24 From an account produced two years later, it is evident that the routine work alone would have employed 1,900 shipwrights.25 Other accounts called for by the Admiralty included an estimate of the likely annual cost of maintaining the present fleet, and comparisons were made of numbers of ships and tonnage in earlier periods. Compared with 1749, the previous period of demobilization, the size of the Navy had increased from 291 vessels of all classes to 409 vessels and the tonnage from 228,215 to 316,682.26 It was further calculated that the value of the fleet amounted to £6,624,311, a sum that represented the cost of replacement.27 This value was used to estimate future costs of maintaining the fleet based on a natural cycle of decay. The forecast that was then produced assumed that the Navy was already in good repair. It related ‘strictly to the building and repair of ships and vessels only’ and not routine maintenance. if the duration in regard to recurring expence be supposed between 12 and 16 years, then the annual charge of re-building and keeping it in good condition . . . will appear hereunder:28

24

NMM: SAN F/1, f. 34, 1 September 1763, ‘Account of the number of Men and Days . . . to complete the hulls for service.’ 25 This number is calculated from figures submitted by the Navy Board in 1765, NMM: JCK 1, ff. 36–9. 26 NMM: SAN F/1, f. 30, ‘An Account of the Tonnage of the Royal Navy to 26 September, 1763’. A copy of this account was transmitted to the King. 27 NMM: SAN F/1, f. 32, October 1763. 28 NMM: SAN F/1, f. 32. 116


Years 12 13 14 15 16

555,025 509,562 473,165 441,620 414,019

Once the fleet was in good repair there would be an annual cost in the region of £500,000 simply to keep pace with the natural decay of the ships. The calculation above indicated that this annual cost could be reduced if some way could be found to increase the average durability of the Navy’s ships of the line from twelve years to sixteen years or more. These documents are important in several respects. They not only indicate the seriousness of the task facing the naval administrators and the huge costs involved, but their very existence also demonstrates that the naval authorities were trying to quantify the scope of the problem, to establish the level of financial provision that the security needs of the country would require. The accounts provided powerful arguments for continuing a high level of naval appropriation, even if on an ‘unofficial’ level. The Admiralty Board under Sandwich took its responsibilities very seriously. With respect to economies, Sandwich’s board discussed with the Navy Board what savings could be made. The Navy Commissioners were to consider what ‘superfluous expense’ could be saved, in particular; what charges have been brought upon the Publick since the commencement of hostilities previous to the late war with France, either in your office or in His Majesty’s dock and rope yards, of officers, clerks, workmen, . . . house rent or any other incidental allowance.29

This request was in no way unusual and was a common exercise at the conclusion of a war. Often, the Navy Board would take the necessary steps without being prompted by the Admiralty. Before any action was taken on this issue and the other matters under consideration, attempts by the King to dismiss Grenville’s ministry failed, giving Grenville the opportunity to appoint ministers of his own choosing. The death of Charles Wyndham, Earl of Egremont, permitted Grenville to appoint Sandwich as one of the Secretaries of State and, in September, place the Earl of Egmont at the head of the Admiralty.

29

NMM: ADM A 2547, Admiralty to the Navy Board, 27 June 1763. 117


Egmont and the Navy, 1763 John Perceval, Second Earl of Egmont, may on first acquaintance seem an odd choice for the Admiralty, particularly following Sandwich whose abilities and experience made him an ideal First Lord. Egmont is one of those lesser, often inconspicuous political figures whose lack of prominence on the stage of history has consigned them to an ill-deserved obscurity. Being very much a man of business, and a very capable one, rather than a man devoted much to faction or party, he has been largely overlooked in the common run of eighteenth-century political historiography. Yet, despite not cutting much of a figure in the pages of history, he was an active and often outspoken member of the Commons.30 Egmont had inherited his Irish earldom in 1748 but had refused to serve both as Leader of the Commons and as a Secretary of State, desiring above all a seat in the House of Lords. He was granted an English barony in 1762, and resigned his position as joint Paymaster General to take his seat at the head of the Admiralty on 16 September 1763.31 Some indication of Egmont’s aptitude for the task before him, in particular his attention to detail and meticulous planning, can be judged from his former association with Prince Frederick, the father of George III. On Frederick’s behalf, he had arranged for the Prince’s accession on the death of George II, forming a detailed political timetable so that the correct decisions could be made at the right time, that all legal forms were properly observed and that the necessary documentation was prepared in advance.32 Egmont was also closely associated with Bute’s post-war financial reform programme and he is usually classed among that group of politicians known as the King’s Friends.33 His talent for business is attested by the writings of Horace Walpole, a contemporary commentator. Described as a man of ‘indefatigable application’, Egmont’s personality was painted as being ‘as good humoured as it was possible for a man to be who was never known to laugh’ though apparently he was once seen to smile at chess. ‘He did not dislike mirth in others, but he seemed to adjourn his attention till he could bring back the company to seriousness.’34 This rather cheerless disposition was characteristic of a number of the socalled ‘King’s Friends’ or men of business. Walpole’s description of Charles

30 Egmont’s title was an Irish earldom which permitted him to have a seat in the English House of Commons. His parliamentary activity is apparent from the writings of Horace Walpole in particular his Memoirs of King George II. 31 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 15, pp. 815–16, J.C. Sainty, Admiralty Officials 1660–1870 (London, 1975), p. 24. 32 A. N. Newman, ‘Leicester House Politics 1750–1760, from the Papers of John, Second Earl of Egmont’, Camden Miscellany, vol. XXIII, 4th series, vol. 7, pp. 85–228, p. 87. See also Archibald Foord, His Majesty’s Opposition 1714–1830 (1964), pp. 270–8. 33 Newman, ‘Leicester House Politics’, p. 93. 34 Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, (ed.) John Brooke, 3 vols (London, 1985), vol. I, p. 23.

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Jenkinson, probably the most capable of the King’s servants, was even less complimentary.35 Walpole further asserted that Egmont wasted half a million on ‘pompous additions to the dockyards’, a remark entirely unjustified as the improvement of dockyard facilities was a matter of high priority. He was a wise, careful and assiduous minister who was to successfully oversee the Navy’s affairs for the next three years.36 Egmont picked up the business of the Admiralty precisely where Sandwich left it. His first major task was to address the matter of superfluous expense as outlined in the Admiralty’s letter to the Navy Board of 27 June. The Navy Board replied in October indicating that they had already taken steps to curb expense by reducing the numbers of workmen employed in the dockyards. These had been reduced from 8,169 at the preliminaries of peace to 6,400 and they had: ‘maturely considered the present state of the Navy, in order to come at a knowledge of the numbers of artificers that may be proper to be employed in the year 1764’. This was set at 6,363, a target they had almost achieved even before the Admiralty’s direction. It was hoped that in the course of the following year, they would have a clear indication of the condition of the fleet and therefore be in a better position to propose any alterations to this establishment.37 The Admiralty endorsed the Navy Commissioners’ reductions and various other suggestions, going so far as to approve of their keeping up a number of additional clerks to clear an arrears of business. However, the seriousness of the work in hand caused the Admiralty Board to direct the Navy Board ‘in the strongest manner to enforce the several standing orders for the better government of His Majesty’s yards, to the respective officers thereof’ and to report any neglect of duty.38 The detailed management of demobilization was in the hands of the Navy Board but it is apparent that Egmont was determined to keep a close watch on what was going on in the dockyards.

Egmont and the dockyards, 1763–4 It seems at first surprising that the number of workmen in the yards was so severely cut back and that Egmont apparently made no recommendation to increase the establishment of artificers. This is especially so in view of the forecast of 51⁄2 years to repair the fleet submitted to Sandwich just a few weeks before Egmont replaced him. There were a number of reasons for this. First,

35

For a description of Jenkinson’s character, see Chapter 6 on Hawke’s naval administration. 36 Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George III (ed.) G. F. Russell Barker, 4 vols (London, 1894), vol. 4, pp. 136–7. 37 NMM: ADM B 173, Navy Board to Philip Stephens, 14 October 1763. 38 NMM: ADM A 2553, Admiralty to Navy Board, 18 November 1763. 119


Egmont like many of his predecessors needed to rely on the expert opinion of the Navy Commissioners and had not, within just a few weeks, sufficient knowledge to form his own opinion. Second, much of the required repair work could not be taken in hand as many ships were still abroad. The dockyards no longer had the task of fitting and equipping ships for service and the reduced workforce was almost certainly sufficient to continue the work on the ships under construction, and to survey and lay up in Ordinary those that had returned. In fact much of the building work, in particular equipping those ships nearing completion, was not so urgent and did not need to be carried forward with the usual dispatch. This was reflected in the reductions in the Extraordinary estimates submitted to the Admiralty and Treasury Boards prior to their delivery to Parliament. The sums relating to rigging and stores for the eight ships building in merchant yards were savagely cut.39 Therefore a short-term saving could be made until the amount of work demanded an increase in shipwrights and workmen. In the spring of 1764, Egmont made a visitation to the dockyards to observe the progress being made on the fleet. This was the first such visitation since that of Sandwich and Anson in 1749.40 At Portsmouth, during a visit lasting three days, there was found to be almost 6,000 tons of timber, a considerable quantity, but much of the older timber was being left while the newest timber was being used before being properly seasoned. Much of the timber was also neglected, being left exposed to the weather, and the mast pond was largely filled with mud.41 It was also observed that the mast houses were insufficient for the port. What was more immediately serious to Egmont’s mind was the work in hand and the management of the yard’s priorities. They observed also a new ship called the Ajax upon the stocks just beginning to be set up . . . that a vast portion of the shipwrights of the yard were employed upon her instead of proceeding upon the ships in Ordinary which want the least repair. . . . The Lords ordered very few hands to be employed on her only to raise her ribs to the expence of about £500 . . . and repair first which want only the least repair.42

Egmont took immediate action on a number of issues highlighted by his visits, mostly concerned with the general management of work in the yards. It was resolved that in peacetime all ships be built on slips in order to free

39 PRO: ADM 49/50. The task of rigging and storing these ships was carried out in the King’s yards, not the merchant yards which had built them. As these new ships were not to be equipped for immediate service there was a saving both in work and expense. 40 James Haas, ‘The Royal Dockyards: the earliest visitations and reforms 1749–1778’, Historical Journal, XIII 2 (1970), pp. 191–215, p. 193. 41 In this respect, little had changed since Blaise Ollivier’s visit to the English dockyards in 1737. See Chapter 4. 42 BL: Add. MS. 47014b, ff. 117–18, 15 May 1764.

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the docks for repair work. The number of docks at the various yards varied in size and utility and their use needed to be managed with considerable care. Often vessels could only be moved in and out of a dock during a spring tide, which occurred fortnightly. Mismanagement of the yard’s priorities could also cause a ship to block up a dock for weeks or months causing needless disruption to other essential work. Building new ships in docks, except for the very largest which could not be built on a slip, was an improper use of a limited resource when so much repair work was needed. The Navy Board was instructed as a general rule to repair first those ships requiring the least repair and next those in need of a middling repair, leaving the others until work on the former had been completed. By ordering repairs to be carried out according to these priorities, it was expected that ‘the Navy may be restored to the most respectable condition as soon as possible after the damages sustained by the late war’.43 Within days of making this resolution, the Navy Board was ordered to send a complete body of all instructions and orders in force in the dock and ropeyards so that the Admiralty could have ‘clear information of the regulation and economy subsiding in the said yards’. This went to the extent of reporting the dates on which standing instructions had been issued to individual officers and an account of any customs carried on in the yards not founded upon any standing orders.44 Clearly, Egmont was not happy with the Navy Board’s supervision of the yards. Egmont next turned his attention to the numbers of shipwrights and workmen employed in the King’s yards. Each yard was to report how many men were employed in each occupation in the years 1751 and 1764. They were also to report if those presently employed exceeded or fell short of the prescribed establishment. Plymouth, for instance, reported that their number of shipwrights fell short of the establishment for that yard by thirty-four, whereas they were employing twenty-eight bricklayers instead of the specified ten.45 Each yard also had to report on the condition of its ships and the sums needed to repair them.46 Egmont then went to the extraordinary length of examining productivity within the yards. The yard at Plymouth for example produced an account detailing how many days it took to complete a set of sails for a ship of each class at single days work, and the charge for workmanship.47 This was based on the yard’s official establishment of thirty-four sailmakers, although at the time they were employing forty-three.48 By these means the Admiralty was able to determine how much work could be expected from the established numbers of

43 44 45 46 47 48

PRO: ADM 3/72, f. 42, Admiralty Board minute, 21 June 1764. NMM: JCK 1, f. 13. Admiralty to Navy Board, 28 June 1764. NMM: JCK 1, ff. 173, 177. NMM: PLA 13, f. 49. Plymouth Yard, 14 July 1764. NMM: JCK 1, f. 153, 14 July 1764. NMM: JCK 1, f. 177. 121


different craftsmen and labourers as well as to check that correctly balanced numbers of artificers were being employed at each yard. The state of the ships and vessels in each yard and the amount of outstanding work was then compared with a similar account for the year 1751 along with the numbers of artificers employed at that time.49 With this mass of information, Egmont was able to form an opinion of how many artificers and, in particular, how many shipwrights ought to be employed. His own notebook recorded his line of reasoning as he attempted to calculate the numbers of shipwrights employed at different times during the century as a proportion of the total tonnage of the Navy. Sandwich had already called for an account in 1763 detailing the total number of ships and the tonnage of the Navy at various dates between 1688 and 1763.50 Using this information, Egmont compared it with the numbers of dockyard artificers employed at those times. Based on the proportion of workers to the tonnage of the fleet that had existed in 1715, he determined that the present number of shipwrights ought to be 3,801.51 The order of 18 November 1763 had established 2,800. Before any action was taken in this matter, the Navy Board was directed to keep in each of the yards a Description Book of all artificers and workmen. These were to be kept on the lines of the muster books used by ships of war, and it was further directed that these books be submitted to the Admiralty at the beginning of each year.52 Egmont was not just assiduous in his duties but a competent and imaginative First Lord. It is also apparent that the Navy Board was not attending to the supervision of the yards to the standards that Egmont expected. This gave Egmont an opportunity to gain a certain moral ascendancy over the Navy Commissioners. This moral authority allowed the most active members of the Admiralty Board, Egmont and Howe, to carry out a degree of reform and reorganization. It is worth re-emphasizing that Egmont had been associated with the Earl of Bute and his post-war plans for reform, and had become one of the King’s closest confidants. In common with other King’s Friends, he bore more resemblance to a proto-civil servant than a politician. Indeed it is evident that some of Egmont’s plans and calculations were shared, if not with fellow ministers then certainly with other like-minded officials. Calculations similar to those found in Egmont’s private papers and other Admiralty business can also found among Charles Jenkinson’s private and official papers.53 49

NMM: PLA 13, ff. 49, 119. NMM: SAN F/1, f. 30. 51 BL: Add. MS. 47053, f. ii. Egmont’s calculations were written on the inside back cover of a blank notebook. They are undated but must have been written in the summer of 1764. 52 NMM: ADM A 2564, 9 October 1764. 53 BL: Add. MS. 38339, ff. 160–1. This document in the Liverpool manuscripts, undated but probably written in 1765 or 1766, also contains details of the establishment of artificers at different periods of the early eighteenth century. At this time Jenkinson was still attached to Grenville and not as closely associated with the King’s party as he was later to be. 50

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Having made his calculations, it was obvious to Egmont that the numbers of artificers in the dockyards needed to be augmented. Writing to the Navy Commissioners, the Admiralty observed that, in former times, the numbers employed in the yards were greater in proportion to the tonnage of the fleet than they were at that present time. It had appeared from their recent visitation that an insufficient number of shipwrights and caulkers were employed and after consultation with the Master Shipwrights, it was proposed to employ an additional 400. The Navy Board were directed to report what proportion of the said increase would be added to each yard.54 It is significant that Egmont had consulted directly with the Master Shipwrights on the matter, reached a conclusion, and then left the Navy Board to report on how the resolution was to be carried out. It is also interesting to note that the augmentation in the number of shipwrights was more or less in line with the account submitted to Sandwich in 1763 which had assumed a minimum of 3,000. An order of 14 November 1764 increased the official number of shipwrights to 3,150.55 Not content with merely increasing the workforce, Egmont sought to improve the efficiency of the yards. On his visitation he had noted that a number of disabled and elderly shipwrights were being employed. These men were kept on in the yards on the grounds of humanity as there was no formal pension scheme. This practice also served to encourage artificers to work in the King’s yards where wages were lower than in private yards but where there was greater job security. Egmont established a formal system of superannuation, whereby a certain number of deserving employees would receive a pension to be established on the Navy’s Ordinary estimate. It was calculated that this would incur an additional expense of £1,300 per annum, but it would also allow the pensioners to be replaced by active, able bodied men and encourage the rest to be industrious. The Navy Board expressed their great satisfaction with these arrangements and offered several suggestions for refinements.56 Thereafter, Egmont was honoured by having his birthday celebrated in the dockyards. Despite Egmont’s unhappiness with the management of the dockyards, it is fair to say that the Navy Board and the yards had achieved a great deal. At the beginning of 1763 only a reserve of six large ships were definitely known to be in a fit state for service, the eighty-two at sea being an unknown quantity in terms of their condition. On 31 December 1764 the Navy Board produced an account of the condition of the Navy at 30 September 1764. Forty ships of 60 guns or over were now repaired and in good condition. Of the more than £3 million required to repair the fleet, £743,234 had been expended. This was commendable but it could still be argued that had Egmont’s priorities

54

NMM: ADM A 2564, 13 October 1764. BL: Add. MS. 38339, f. 161. The largest number employed by the Navy in wartime had been in 1757 when 3,456 shipwrights had been employed. BL: Add. MS.47053, f. ii. 56 NMM: ADM B 175, 3 October 1764. 55

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been properly observed in the first place, more could have been achieved. A formidable amount of work still remained to be done. Of the ships mounting 60 guns or more, ninety-six still required repair or replacement.57 The entire fleet still required £2.5 million in expenditure, and £1,769,541 of that was just for hulls and masts.58 Through Egmont’s intervention, greater productivity and efficiency could now be expected provided that the Navy was permitted to continue its high expenditure and the Treasury was still content to manage the existing level of debt. Much depended on George Grenville’s financial policies.

Egmont and Grenville, 1763–4 Nicholas Tracy, writing on the naval estimates produced between 1763 and 1765, described Grenville and Egmont as having competing objectives – on the one side economy, on the other strength. Tracy argues that it was difficult to reconcile economy and security and that it was purely in the interest of economy that such small Extraordinary estimates of between £100,000 and £200,000 were annually granted, even though these financial restrictions were not observed in practice. He states that a dispute began in 1763, when Grenville would only allow £100,000 though the Admiralty requested £197,877.59 The idea that Grenville and Egmont were in some sort of dispute arises from a particular interpretation of their correspondence and assumes that Grenville starved the Navy of cash. This view is not correct. We have already seen that the Navy spent considerably more than was granted for the repair of the fleet. It will be argued here that Egmont and Grenville were in broad agreement on policy although they differed over some of the detail. Any animosity between the two developed toward the end of Grenville’s ministry, as Grenville became increasingly disagreeable to the King, and the Treasury attempted to intervene in Admiralty business. The reductions to the Extraordinary estimates approved by both the Admiralty and the Treasury were sensible and not across the board. Money appropriated to some ships was even increased. The Canada building at Woolwich had her appropriation increased from £2,000 to £5,000 and an additional amount of £5,017 was inserted for the Courageux building at Portsmouth. The reductions were almost entirely made up of money

57

The total of ninety-six includes ships that could never be repaired. In the 1760s, the yards were incapable of maintaining a permanent fleet of more than about 80 ships of the line, though 100 might be kept up in wartime. 58 PRO: ADM 7/186, 31 December 1764. 59 Nicholas Tracy, Navies, Deterrence and American Independence (Vancouver, 1988), pp. 22–3. 124


appropriated for the ships building in merchant yards.60 This did not mean that the ships were not built. Work continued on them but at a less urgent pace and therefore payment could be delayed.61 In 1764 the estimate for that year was also reduced along reasonable lines. Simply reducing the amounts appropriated for rigging and stores, most of which would only have been needed if the ships had been fitting for sea, saved over £56,000.62 It has already been mentioned that concern over security may have demanded that the true condition of the fleet be kept confidential and cutting the Extraordinary estimates served this end. Bearing in mind these considerations, and that Grenville as a skilful finance minister also had experience of the Navy department, we can re-examine some of his correspondence with Egmont. In December 1763, Egmont wrote to Grenville concerning reports he had received relating to the readiness of the French fleet. Egmont’s informant had seen a confidential letter from a French minister stating that the French Navy would be restored during the following year, and that preparations were being made for war and that the Newfoundland fisheries would provide a pretext for hostilities. Egmont expressed his regret that under these circumstances Grenville had only promised £100,000 for the Extraordinary estimate in the forthcoming supplies, particularly as the Navy had already contracted to pay more than this sum for the ships building in merchant yards.63 He went on to say that he had heard, via Mr Jenkinson, one of the Treasury secretaries, that Grenville now intended to grant £150,000 but that this left the ‘trifling sum’ of £40,000 for the entire repair of the fleet as well as the building work in hand. Egmont concluded that; I should hope that you would try to assist us with the full sum upon the head of the Extra, if not by increasing the quantum of the General Supply, at least by postponing a sufficient portion of the debt of the Navy intended to be discharged this year, or by any other means which you may think more proper.64

Grenville did not respond as Egmont would have wished, even though he conceded a grant of £200,000 for 1764. Egmont, new to his duties, was no doubt alarmed by the reports and documents he had inherited from Sandwich, and saw it as his duty to prepare for hostilities as quickly as possible. His letter was an understandable over-reaction. Grenville took a more measured view. Other intelligence reports indicated that the French had only eighteen ships of the line in good repair, that their yards were suffering from a shortage of

60 61 62 63 64

PRO: ADM 49/50. Most of these ships appear in the Extraordinary Estimate for 1764. PRO: ADM 49/50. These were the ships cut from the estimate of the previous year. Egmont to Grenville, 3 December 1763. Smith, Grenville Papers, vol. 2, pp. 171–5. 125


timber, and that their building programme was not sufficient to keep pace with the natural decay of the French fleet.65 Grenville was more familiar with the financial arrangements of the Navy than Egmont. He knew, for instance, that the cost of any work carried out would become a part of the Navy debt which was under Treasury management and that most sums appropriated in any one year went to service previously contracted obligations anyway. He also knew that the Extraordinary estimate was a mere convention and did not place a financial restriction on the work to be undertaken. Many of the ships repaired in 1764 never even appeared on the estimate for that year.66 The Navy needed vast sums spent on it but Grenville was not prepared to simply throw money at the problem. There was waste and inefficiency, much of it brought to light by the visitations of Egmont during 1764, and a regular trickle of cash rather than large cash grants were more cost effective in Treasury terms. It is difficult to judge the extent of Egmont’s knowledge of the financial aspects of the Navy. It was likely to have been limited, but even if he had full knowledge of this subject, it is likely that he would have continued to press for more money. He would be at least jointly accountable for any increase in the Navy debt as it was the Admiralty that would authorize expenditure. He did not know how much of the existing debt the Treasury would be willing to absorb and therefore he needed to press for increased grants to compensate. On this point Egmont had to rely on the good management of the Treasury. In April of the following year Egmont again pressed Grenville over the naval grants. This letter was prompted by a draft of the King’s speech stating that ample provision had been made for the fleet.67 Egmont was concerned that nothing had been spent on the ships lately returned from abroad, that the Extraordinary estimate was only sufficient to carry on the building of the new ships, and that the stores were empty of sails, rigging and cordage. He went on to emphasize that upwards of £3 million was needed to rebuild or repair the fleet and that the numbers of artificers were reduced to a level approaching that established in 1748 when the tonnage of the fleet was two-thirds what it was at present. He went on to say: It is my duty in the place I hold to tell you this, and I am confident you will take it (as I mean it) a friendly intimation given. . . . And if you think it deserves regard, it will induce you to modify the expressions in the King’s Speech with respect to this matter, in a different manner which is at present all I mean to suggest in giving you this trouble.68

65

Nicholas Tracy, ‘British assessments of French and Spanish Naval Reconstruction 1763–1768’, Mariners Mirror, 61, pp. 73–83, pp. 75–6. 66 This is evident by comparing the estimates printed in the Commons Journals with the Navy Board’s account dated 31 December 1764, ADM 7/186. 67 Egmont to Grenville, 16 April 1764. Smith, Grenville Papers, vol. 2, pp. 290–2. 68 Smith, Grenville Papers, vol. 2. p. 292. 126


Grenville replied that he was greatly concerned at the nature of Egmont’s objection. He observed that the total naval grant of £1,450,000 was double that allowed in former times of peace. I am confident that the adoption of an opinion that this great sum is not sufficient to maintain the Fleet in a respectable state in times of peace would occasion great and universal uneasiness, and will be attended with many evil and dangerous consequences both at home and abroad.

From his own experience of the Navy department, he reminded Egmont that ‘the naval money is by no means applied in the most frugal manner’. He assured Egmont that he was satisfied that he was motivated in his remarks by duty to the King and the public service and not by unkind intentions but he could not admit that sufficient provision had not been made for the fleet. Grenville thought it best not to alter the speech in the manner Egmont suggested. As to the word ample, if the omission of that epithet could be sufficient to answer your Lordship’s intention, I should have less objection to that alteration than the other, though I think it of some consequence to have it thought abroad that ample provision has been made for maintaining the Fleet in a respectable state.69

Grenville’s concern over Egmont’s objection could not have arisen from the serious condition of the Navy or the apparent insufficiency of naval grants. Grenville was confident in the knowledge that real expenditure exceeded the grants of Parliament and that a certain amount of hidden provision was being made for the Navy. There was no dispute here over money. Egmont was over anxious to do his duty and possibly overawed, at least initially, by the enormity of the task facing him. Grenville must have been alarmed at the political naivety of his colleague. Had the enemies of the ministry suspected that provision for the Navy was inadequate they would have clamoured for Grenville’s dismissal. Had they then discovered that a certain amount of additional provision was being made in an irregular fashion, then the political consequences would have been equally disastrous. What is clear from his letter is that Grenville considered it of the first importance that the French should think that Britain was able to maintain a respectable Navy at moderate expense. For reasons best known to himself, but probably arising from insufficient knowledge of the Navy’s financial arrangements, Egmont was anxious that the real needs of the Navy were made known to Parliament. This then was not a simple case of one party advocating economy and the other security. Grenville did not concern himself with economy in dealing with the French attempts to displace British settlers on Turk’s Island in 1764.

69

Grenville to Egmont, 16 April, 1764. Smith, Grenville Papers, vol. 2 , pp. 293–5. 127


He was determined to maintain a strong naval force to deter foreign aggression.70 Both Grenville and Egmont were anxious for the Navy to be put on a respectable footing and that efficiencies should be made in the process. Grenville had the additional concern of maintaining the appearance of security until the reality of security could be achieved. What appeared to be a dispute, was nothing more than a failure of communication. This failure was undoubtedly influenced by the deteriorating relationship between Grenville and the King with the consequence that Egmont, as the King’s friend, must have been regarded with some suspicion.71 This failure of communication reached its zenith in a dispute between the Admiralty and the Treasury in 1765 over procedural matters and the limits of authority exercised by the two departments.

Egmont and the Treasury, 1765 Not knowing what provision the Treasury was making for the Navy debt, Egmont would have continued to be concerned about the level of parliamentary grants, particularly the Extraordinary estimate. The Navy Board were also alarmed about this. As a result of Egmont’s visits to the dockyards, they were expected to perform more efficiently with the additional handicap of being granted less money for the coming year. To ease their way, the Navy Board attempted what can only be termed a mild subterfuge. Knowing full well that the Extraordinary grant would be cut, they attempted to insert certain improvements to the yards and additional building work within the Ordinary estimate. The Ordinary estimate was for recurring and standing charges only and these improvements did not constitute the ‘ordinary repair of docks, wharfs and buildings’. As these additional items increased the Ordinary estimate from £103,379 to £177,793, it was hardly going to go unnoticed by the Admiralty who looked over these accounts before submitting them to Parliament.72 The Extraordinary estimate in which these charges should have appeared had already been prepared and was called for by the Commons a few days later. It could be argued, therefore, that as it was too late to put the charge in the proper estimate, the Navy Board had inserted it instead, in the wrong estimate. Whatever the reason, Egmont directed the Navy Board to resubmit a new Ordinary estimate with these articles left out. Egmont knew that some explanation as to why the Ordinary had increased would be required by Parliament and it would be imprudent to explain that the estimate had been

70

Philip Lawson, George Grenville, a Political Life (Oxford, 1984), pp. 209–10. George III and Grenville had frequent disputes concerning patronage and the supposed influence of his predecessor Lord Bute. See Lawson, Grenville, pp. 165–6. 72 Commons Journals, vol. 30, p. 24, NMM: ADM B 176, 15 January, 1765. 71

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formed with irregular entries. Interestingly the Navy Board, in returning the revised estimate, stated that they understood that the Lords of the Admiralty had it suggested to them, ‘that it may be necessary to confine the grants for naval services for the present year as near as may be to the sums granted for naval services in the last year’.73 This would seem to indicate that the Navy Board considered that the Admiralty and the Treasury were co-operating with each other in constraining the activities of the Navy Board. If this was an instance of co-operation, it was not to last. Feeling that the naval supplies for 1765 were inadequate, the Navy Board wrote in March to the Admiralty explaining that it would be impossible to confine the expense for the year within the grants made by Parliament. The Extraordinary estimate had been cut from £306,717 to £200,000. This reduction was excessive even by former standards. In making their case, the Navy Board submitted an estimate of the expense of the Navy to the end of the year by which it was calculated that they would exceed the grants of Parliament by £83,961.74 Excluding the four ships building in merchant yards, this sum was nearly equivalent to the difference between the amount to be granted on the Extraordinary estimate and the original sum requested. The Admiralty took this representation from the Navy Board seriously and the ensuing correspondence was carried on in secret. Whether the secrecy was related to national security or Egmont wished to resolve the matter without reference to the Treasury is difficult to establish from the text of the correspondence. As the two boards intended to enter into a minute discussion of the condition and future requirements of the Navy it was certainly a sensitive matter in terms of national safety. However, the political situation was also in some doubt. The King had fallen ill during February and March and a Regency Bill was being formulated. Meanwhile, relations between the King and Grenville had deteriorated to the point that, providing either William Pitt or some other individual could be persuaded to form a government, it was a case of when rather than if Grenville would be dismissed. One thing is quite clear: Egmont was not prepared to concede the Navy Board’s point without making himself conversant with all the facts. The Admiralty Commissioners first wrote to the Victualling Board to determine what excess was likely to arise in that department.75 This caused some delay in replying to the Navy Board. In April, the Navy Commissioners were admonished for having contracted to spend the full amount for the stores specified in their estimate, by which any retrenchment on the estimate was rendered even more difficult. The Navy Board declared that the number

73

NMM: ADM B 176, 15 January, 1765. PRO: ADM 7/703, 11 March, 1765. ‘Private correspondence respecting the great deficiency of money for naval services for the year 1765’, artificial collection, 1844. 75 NMM: JCK 1, f. 19, 26 April, 1765. 74

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of ropemakers could not be decreased and pointed out that the Admiralty had stated that the number of seamen and marines voted would be unavoidably employed so that no saving could be made in these areas. The Admiralty therefore concluded that because of the Navy Board’s precipitate haste in making contracts for stores, there was no alternative but to reduce the number of shipwrights and caulkers employed in the yards and to reduce the amount of the overtime or ‘extra’ worked by those who would remain.76 With characteristic efficiency Egmont set about gathering further information to determine if such reductions would ‘be consistent with the Public Safety’. He requested a number of accounts, including the number of ships presently in good condition, as well as the number of additional ships expected to be complete by the end of the years 1765, 1766, and 1767. This last account was based on three alternative schemes of work. It envisaged the present establishment of shipwrights working at either single days, working overtime for five months or working overtime for seven months. The difference in the expense for these three modes of work were also to be specified. Account number six requested that the Navy Board: acquaint us at the same time what number of shipwrights, caulkers etc. must necessarily be reduced in the several yards to bring them to the number mentioned as a medium between the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle and the breaking out of the last war comparing the state of the fleet at that time with the present; and observing whether the number then so employed was adequate or not adequate to the necessary repairs and putting the fleet in good condition; and the difference of the wages before that number and the number now employed.77

The Navy Board were further to report fully the consequences that any reduction would produce and in particular what advance could be made on restoring the fleet. Furthermore would it then be possible to keep the fleet in the condition it then stood, on such a reduced establishment? Would the dockyards be able: to keep pace with (the fleet’s) certain gradual and natural decay, to which all ships, whether in commission or in Ordinary, are subject, but particularly those returned from the severe service of the late war, which if not taken under repair within a reasonable time must suffer, not all in an equal proportion, but in a much more considerable degree.78

The Admiralty’s letter was signed by the entire board and ended with an unusual and almost sinister warning:

76 77 78

NMM: JCK 1, ff. 19–20. NMM: JCK 1, ff. 21–3. NMM: JCK 1, ff. 23–5. 130


The great consequence of this enquiry has induced us not to prepare this letter in the common official manner but we have ordered it to be written in the hand of the Secretary of the Admiralty and be sent privately by him to you. The same reasons will no doubt weigh with you to take the like course in forming your answer, and in transmitting the information required to us with as much secrecy as the nature of the thing can admit.79

In view of Egmont’s previous correspondence, it could be that Grenville had impressed upon him the need to keep secret all matters to do with the condition of the fleet, lest the French discover the scale of the problem and take advantage of it. But why then was the letter sent in secret to the Controller of the Navy Board at his private address in Dean Street instead of the Navy Board offices? The answer must be that this matter was being kept secret from the Treasury and from Grenville in particular. Egmont was close to the King and the King’s relationship with Grenville had by this time broken down entirely. Grenville was convinced that Lord Bute, the King’s former first minister, was exerting undue influence over the King after a dispute concerning Scottish patronage. Shortly after the Admiralty’s letter was written, the Duke of Cumberland, the King’s uncle, was negotiating with William Pitt on the formation of a new government.80 Egmont was also active in helping the King form a different administration. It must be significant that, on 30 May, this secret correspondence, including the Navy Board’s reply and accounts of the French and Spanish fleets, were sent to the Earl of Halifax, the senior Secretary of State, ‘with a letter from the Earl of Egmont desiring him to lay the several papers that accompany it before the King’.81 The Navy Board’s reply was grim. Bearing in mind that a saving of £83,000 was demanded, the difference between the dockyard artificers working single day and overtime was only £17,000 for five months and £24,000 for seven months. Any such reduction in overtime, it was stated, would also cause hardship to the workmen and be a disincentive to ‘diligent exertion’. Reducing the number of shipwrights to the number specified in article six would only save £34,000. On the question of whether such a reduction was consistent with putting the fleet in good condition, they reported that the present establishment was barely adequate, and below the proportion needed in relation to the tonnage of the fleet based on the peace establishment of the 1750s. The Navy Board further pointed out that after 1753, the artificers employed were even then ‘insufficient for the purpose, occasioned we presume by the grants of Parliament not admitting having a greater number’.82

79 80 81 82

NMM: JCK 1, f. 25. Lawson, Grenville, pp. 214–15. PRO: ADM 7/703, 30 May, 1765. NMM: JCK 1, ff. 29–35, 10 May, 1765. 131


The Navy Board then outlined the consequences that might be expected from the proposed savings. It was their opinion that if the shipwrights were reduced, few could be spared to repair the fleet, and those remaining would be barely sufficient to carry out refitting and other routine maintenance. They reported that in this eventuality, it would be impossible to keep pace with the natural decay of so extensive a fleet. It was their hope that some other means could be found to reduce the expense to within the grants of Parliament.83 This correspondence is revealing in a number of ways. It tells us something about the Admiralty’s relations with the Treasury. It also reveals that attempts to reform and regularize naval appropriation were being made by both the Admiralty and Treasury Boards, and that very sophisticated productivity forecasts were being made at the instigation of the Admiralty Board. This is firm evidence that the Navy was not being neglected and that, where economies were being made, they were not sweeping indiscriminate savings that took no account of future consequences. With regard to the relations between the Admiralty and Treasury Boards, it is certain that this had much to do with attempted reforms in naval appropriation. Such reforms were likely to prove difficult when it is considered that it was here that the authority and responsibility of both boards overlapped. Grenville’s political situation would not have contributed to an amicable working relationship; even so it must be stressed that the objectives of both boards and therefore both men, were broadly the same. The difficulty arose over the Treasury’s need to control expenditure and the Admiralty’s need to know the degree of flexibility that they would be allowed in incurring additional debt. The Navy Board’s original letter had been dated 11 March. At that time the naval supplies had been voted with a much reduced Extraordinary estimate. Parliament had not voted any amount to reduce the Navy debt, a sum which would have given the Navy additional flexibility in its spending as this was usually granted as part of the general naval supplies.84 The Navy Board therefore had no idea how much, or even if, any additional income would be forthcoming to make up the shortfall on the Extraordinary estimate. Considering that they had been directed to keep the expense within the grants made by Parliament, additional money seemed unlikely and, in the event, none was granted. The day after the Navy Board’s letter was sent to the Admiralty, Parliament voted £1,500,000 towards the discharge of the Navy debt. However, this was to be applied directly to the Navy course which was the responsibility of the Treasury; the money was not given to the Navy as part of its normal appropriation.

83

NMM: JCK 1, ff. 38–9. A sum of £1,000,000 and £650,000 had been granted for 1762 and 1764. The £3 million granted in 1763 had been applied directly to the Navy course and not appropriated generally to the naval service.

84

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What was the Treasury trying to do? By applying the grant for the Navy debt directly to the Navy course, the Treasury was better able to manage and control naval expenditure. With less financial flexibility, the Navy Board would have to produce more accurate estimates. These estimates would have to reflect their true expenditure and they would be held accountable for exceeding them. This was why, in their letter of 10 May, the Navy Board explained to the Admiralty that their letter of 11 March and their plan of expense had been intended to show how impossible it was not to exceed the grants and to request that the Admiralty authorize them to proceed by the plan all the same.85 The Admiralty was broadly in agreement with the Treasury’s administrative objective. Egmont knew that tighter control over naval appropriation would give the Admiralty greater control over the Navy Board. In January Egmont had directed the Navy Board to alter certain irregular entries in the Ordinary estimate.86 Unfortunately, at this point the Admiralty became caught in the middle. The Navy Board, by proceeding with their plan and confirming the contracts without prior authorization, had made it virtually impossible for a reduction in expenditure to take place. The accounts they submitted to the Admiralty made that clear, and by submitting the matter to the King, the Admiralty was acknowledging the Navy Board’s case. As the proposed reduction only represented 6 per cent of the total naval supplies it was not worth reducing the dockyard workforce merely to make a point. The consequences of such action would have been dire. The reduction of a skilled workforce might result in a permanent loss of vital shipwrights. The Treasury did not agree. Although, the correspondence between the Admiralty and Navy Boards was carried on in secret, the Navy Board’s letter of March and their plan of expense had not been subject to this confidentiality. No doubt Grenville was aware that Egmont had been unable to resolve the matter when it was sent to the King through Halifax at the end of May. If the Admiralty was unable to control expenditure, there was now a case for the Treasury to extend its authority as its understanding of financial matters was greater. The Navy Board received the following letter from Charles Jenkinson: I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to desire you will transmit to me for their Lordship’s information an estimate of the probable expense of the Navy for the present year distinguished under the proper heads which their Lordships hope will be nearly confined to the amount of the supply granted by Parliament for that purpose.87

85 86 87

NMM: JCK 1, f. 32. NMM: ADM B/176, 15 January 1765. NMM: ADM A/2573. Charles Jenkinson to the Navy Board, 2 July 1765. 133


It was clear from this letter that the plan of expense, the vehicle by which the Navy Board had made its case, was about to be turned against them. The Navy Board informed the Admiralty of the Treasury’s directive and in reply the Admiralty told them that they were not to transmit the requested information; instead they were to make a strict search to discover if there was any precedent for the Treasury calling for such an account.88 It must have been evident to Egmont that the Treasury was now seeking to resolve the issue of the naval supply directly with the Navy Board. Moreover, the matter had been sent to the King for his opinion, and not to the Treasury. Egmont could not have tolerated this affront to his authority particularly as it would diminish his own authority over the Navy Board, and the authority of the Admiralty itself, if he were to allow the Treasury to have its way. However, it was characteristic of Egmont that he first made sure that there were no precedents giving this right to the Treasury. The entire matter was quietly dropped.89 No record has come to light concerning the King’s opinion and in the rush of events he may not have expressed any. On 12 July a new administration was formed with the Marquis of Rockingham replacing Grenville at the Treasury. Egmont had assisted the King and the Duke of Cumberland in forming the new government, and he remained at the head of the Admiralty. In September the Navy Board, in response to the Admiralty’s letter of 19 July, submitted abstracts of all directions received from the Treasury since the year 1700 concerning papers and accounts which it was usual for the Treasury to call for. The Admiralty responded by giving permission to the Navy Board to submit the Plan of Expense; however, no mention was made of the expense being confined to the grants made by Parliament.90 The plan submitted exceeded the grants for the year by £78,763. The original plan submitted by the Navy Board in March had exceeded the grants by £83,961.91 Little had been gained and much fuss had been created yet it must be conceded that Egmont had, by being firm in procedural matters, done much to enhance the authority of the Admiralty as a department of government.

88

NMM: ADM B 177, 17 July 1765, and ADM A 2573, 19 July 1765. This does not mean that the matter was of no consequence. At least three copies of these transactions have been preserved in separate archives. The Public Record Office contains an artificial collection, ADM 7/703. The British Library has part of this correspondence preserved in the Liverpool manuscripts, Add. MS. 38339. In the National Maritime Museum, it is contained in full in the papers of Sir George Jackson, JCK 1. Jackson was Second Secretary to the Admiralty. 90 PRO: ADM 3/73, Admiralty Board minute, 4 September 1765, and NMM: ADM A 2575, 4 September 1765. 91 NMM: ADM B 177, 11 September, 1765. ‘An Estimate of the Probable Expense of the Navy for the present Year’. 89

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The Navy and the Rockingham ministry The business of running the Navy continued as normal on the change of government. At this point, Egmont had acquired considerable experience and was further assisted in his duties by the appointments of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Saunders and Rear-Admiral Augustus Keppel to the Board. Both sea officers had political influence with the ministry, Keppel in particular, and it is likely that in having them appointed, Egmont saw an opportunity to ease the financial restrictions which in his opinion had been imposed to an unreasonable extent.92 On 18 November the Admiralty and Navy Boards met to review the state of the fleet and the condition of the yards. Egmont was particularly concerned that the establishment of shipwrights should be sufficient. The Navy Commissioners reported that, with the present establishment of 3,150 shipwrights working the usual overtime during the summer months, the number of ships over 60 guns, including those in commission, would stand at ninety by the end of 1768. It was also their opinion that this number of shipwrights would be sufficient to maintain ninety ships of the line in good condition. They further stated that every additional ship of the line would require a further twenty-six shipwrights and that to maintain the 140 ships of the line on the list, with the present number of frigates, 4,200 shipwrights would be needed.93 The Navy Board were directed to keep to the present establishment, as at least thirty ships, of the 140 on the list, were beyond economical repair. The Extraordinary estimate for 1766, the only one produced under the first Rockingham ministry, was different from the previous estimates in several respects. It was the first since 1751 to be granted in full. Previous estimates had been reduced to either £100,000 or £200,000, but that for 1766, amounting to £277,300, and all subsequent Extraordinary estimates up to and beyond the War of American Independence were granted in full with no reductions. Also, for the first time since 1754, sums were allocated for preparing the frames of new ships in advance. There were also a number of extra works proposed for the yards. These included deepening the docks and building new slips at Portsmouth, and new rope houses and slips at Plymouth. The expense of these improvements was to be spread over several years and on the 1766 estimate amounted to over £37,000. Apart from the cancelled improvements at Port Mahon and Jamaica in the 1765 estimate, these were the first specific appropriations for yard improvements since 1756.94

92

The characters of Saunders and Keppel will be discussed in Chapter 6. BL: Add. MS. 38339, f. 163, copy of Admiralty Board minute, 18 November 1765. 94 Commons Journals, vol. 30, pp. 487–8, vol. 26, p. 869, vol. 27, pp. 411–12. The extra works in 1756 had been cancelled. 93

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This was the beginning of a major investment in the Navy’s dockyard infrastructure that would continue well into the war with America. Between 1766 and the end of the war, Parliament would vote nearly £900,000 toward dockyard improvements with 95 per cent being spent on Portsmouth and Plymouth. This particular initiative was largely the work of Egmont. After his dockyard visitations in 1764, a number of recommendations had been made concerning much needed additions, alterations and repairs, particularly at Portsmouth and Plymouth.95 At these ports the proposed work had been costed at £352,240 and £379,170.96 These sums would normally have been added to the Extraordinary estimate over a period of years but nothing was inserted into the 1765 estimate. Other improvements totalling £9,000 were struck off the 1765 estimate by the Treasury and, had the major improvements been inserted, it is likely that these would have suffered the same fate. The estimates for 1766, however, including £37,126 for dockyard improvements, were passed in full by the Rockingham ministry. The reason for this is that Egmont had taken steps to ensure that these sums would not be struck off the estimate by the current, or any future head of the Treasury. On 6 September 1765 Egmont had obtained an Order in Council directing that the planned expense on Portsmouth and Plymouth facilities be inserted in the estimate of the Navy, and the Navy Board was ordered to form its estimates accordingly.97 The sums still had to be approved by Parliament but they were now free from Treasury interference, as the Treasury would not be able to remove any items placed within the estimate by order of the Privy Council. During the subsequent Chatham ministry, the 1767 estimate, formed under Charles Saunder’s naval administration, contained £57,500 for dockyard improvements. These sorts of sums continued to appear on estimates up to and during the War of American Independence and the sums were not altered from the amounts recommended by the Navy Board. Egmont’s persistence and attention to detail and his procedural ingenuity was therefore critical to the growth and development of these important yards. One further point is worthy of note in the management of the Navy under the Rockingham ministry. It is surprising that the party most in favour of reforming naval appropriation made no advances in this area. In the debate on the naval estimates of 1773, Edmund Burke stated that the 1766 administration had ‘discovered the impropriety and bad economy that prevailed in the accounts of the Navy’. They had apparently pledged themselves ‘to introduce into that department the plan of appropriation . . . and this they did unsolicited by opposition’.98 There is no evidence that any such ‘plan

95

PRO: ADM 49/162, 18 June 1764. PRO: ADM 1/5167, 6 June 1765. 97 PRO: ADM 181/6, Admiralty to Navy Board, 21 October 1765. 98 ‘Debate in the Commons on the Navy Estimates’, 2 December 1772, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 550. 96

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of appropriation’ was implemented. The Plan of Expense submitted to the Treasury in September 1765 appears to have been used only in the sense it was originally intended, that is a justification to exceed the grants of Parliament. It was Grenville’s administration that had seen the plan as a vehicle for reforming the accounting and estimating procedures. The Rockingham administration overlooked this opportunity to carry out reform when no plan of expense was called for during 1766. It would not be unreasonable to say that if the Grenville ministry had survived and had Egmont and Grenville reconciled their differences, they would have succeeded in bringing in a significant measure of reform in naval appropriation and expenditure. Grenville’s right hand man, Charles Jenkinson, did just this shortly after his appointment as an Admiralty Commissioner in 1767.

Egmont, Grenville and the Navy, 1763–6 The collapse of the Rockingham administration, after a little over one year in office, left the Admiralty Board intact. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, now head of the new ministry, made no changes. However after only a month Egmont found he could not work with Pitt and resigned his position. His tenure at the Admiralty can only be described as an unqualified success. Sandwich had only begun the task of rebuilding the country’s naval power; Egmont had successfully managed and directed this huge task. By visiting the yards he was able to ensure that work was carried out according to the proper priorities. By sophisticated productivity calculations based on both precedent and the work to be performed, he was able to determine if the numbers of and the different types of artificers employed on this work were both sufficient and properly balanced. In co-operation with the Treasury he was able to bring in a measure of reform, removing waste and inefficiency. His superannuation scheme for the dockyards made them more productive. He asserted the supremacy of the Admiralty Board over the Navy Board and defended the integrity and authority of the Admiralty against attempts by the Treasury to assert its own authority. Probably his most significant contribution was to begin the long-term improvement to the dockyards which would prove vital in increasing the Navy’s capacity for the building and repair of the fleet. It would not go too far to say that this increased capacity was an important element in Britain’s eventual overwhelming naval superiority against Republican and Napoleonic France. Although fewer new ships were added in this period it was judged pointless to add to the fleet without increasing the capacity to service and repair it. Egmont’s sometimes difficult colleague at the Treasury, George Grenville, managed the post-war financial crisis and the problems of the Navy’s huge debt with efficiency and imagination. He was able to maintain the outward appearance of naval strength, preserve the Navy’s credit and yet provide sufficient funds to ensure that the fleet was put on a respectable footing within 137


a short period of time. The Navy was not starved of cash by the Grenville administration but neither was it permitted to waste public money. By careful management, the Navy received what was needed but no more. The apparent conflict between Egmont and Grenville over naval appropriation only occurred as the crisis receded and Grenville’s relations with the King deteriorated. As the Navy’s financial crisis eased, Grenville saw an opportunity for further retrenchment. Egmont, however, saw an opportunity to apply funds to other necessary works such as dockyard improvements. Egmont was undoubtedly right but it is wrong to suppose that Grenville was only interested in squeezing naval expenditure. For years, both had worked in an effective partnership; it was almost inevitable that at some point they would differ over detail. The civil affars of the Navy were well managed in the immediate aftermath of the Seven Years’ War. Yet, by 1771, something had occurred to prompt Lord Sandwich, by then once more at the Admiralty, to declare that he had inherited nothing more than a ‘paper fleet’. Egmont had done all that an assiduous and conscientious administrator could have been expected to achieve. His successor at the head of the Admiralty, Admiral Sir Charles Saunders, occupied that post for only three months. It might be thought, therefore, that the next administration, of Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, was responsible for what Sandwich was later to observe.

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6

The peace establishment II Stability, innovation, and the Falklands, 1766–70

The naval administration of the Earl of Egmont ended in September 1766. He left a fleet that had undergone substantial and rapid repair and was quickly approaching the level, in terms of numbers of ships, needed to secure Britain’s maritime interests. The dockyards had also undergone a number of important reforms, increasing their efficiency and productivity. Two peacetime administrations followed that of Egmont; the short three-month service of Admiral Sir Charles Saunders and then the administration of Admiral Sir Edward Hawke. Toward the end of Hawke’s tenure at the Admiralty, a crisis arose with Spain over the Falkland Islands during which, on mobilization, some of the Navy’s ships were found unfit for service. During the first years of the subsequent naval administration, Lord Sandwich ordered a number of surveys by which it was discovered that a substantial part of the fleet was in no condition for service in the event of war. The fine fleet Sandwich inherited from Hawke was apparently a paper fleet and Hawke was later criticized to such an extent that he felt obliged to defend his conduct in print.1 Reasons for such a rapid deterioration of the fleet will be explored in the next chapter. Here it will be shown that the period between the administrations of Egmont and Sandwich was one in which the affairs of the Navy were managed in a competent manner and that Hawke and his colleagues were no more guilty of neglect than Egmont was. It was in fact a period of continued improvements in efficiency and one of considerable innovation and reform. Much of the reform was in the area of finance and appropriation. The Navy was adequately funded yet kept largely within the government’s policies of economy by savings made through efficiencies, and by good financial management. A particularly shrewd appointment, Charles Jenkinson, was made to the Admiralty Board which assisted these objectives. This in itself was an innovation, considering the importance of these posts in terms of political patronage. The alleged poor condition of the fleet in 1770 at the time of the

1 Lord Edward Hawke, A Seaman’s Remarks on the British Ships of the Line from 1st of January 1756 to the 1st of January 1782 with some Occasional Observations on the Fleet of the House of Bourbon (London, 1782). This was based on an earlier pamphlet, written in the 1770s.

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Falklands Crisis was greatly exaggerated although, as the 1770s progressed, it was plain that a considerable problem was unfolding.

Saunders and the Admiralty, 1766 Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Saunders replaced Egmont at the Admiralty on the latter’s resignation. He was a naval officer of some distinction and he had already served as a Commissioner of the Admiralty for over a year. The professional regard accorded to him by his contemporaries is at odds with his relative neglect by many naval historians dazzled by the brilliance of Anson and Hawke. Saunders had been Second Lieutenant of the Centurion during Anson’s circumnavigation of 1740–4. He commanded the naval part of the expedition that took General Wolfe to the conquest of Quebec in 1759, and he was patron and mentor to the young John Jervis who, as Earl St Vincent, had the foresight to place Nelson in command of a fleet that would annihilate the French at Aboukir. Saunders, therefore, provides a direct professional link between Anson and Nelson, arguably the most significant naval officers of the long French wars of the eighteenth century. Horace Walpole, writing in a more congenial manner than usual, described Saunders as brave, unaffectedly modest, generous and good natured, ‘No man said less and deserved more.’2 Despite some administrative experience first as Controller of the Navy Board in 1756 and then at the Admiralty from 1765, he owed his appointment more to his politics than his undoubted ability. A political as well as a professional protégé of Lord Anson, he had, after Anson’s death in 1762, become associated with his fellow board member and close friend, Augustus Keppel. Both were amongst Rockingham’s most firm supporters and in terms of personal favour and politics were a sound choice for seats on the Admiralty Board. Saunders was placed as First Lord over the heads of fifteen senior officers, most notably Sir Edward Hawke, but his elevation did not owe itself entirely to his politics. Although with only modest experience of naval administration, he was of sound reputation, and was furthermore associated with Egmont who would have approved of the appointment.3 Above all, Saunders’ appointment was unlikely to offend too many of the administration’s opponents.4 Chatham desired a broad based administration in order to weaken political or factional groupings by detaching their members and this may have had a 2 H. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II (ed.) John Brooke, 3 vols (London, 1985), vol. 3, p. 81. 3 Egmont may well have suggested Saunders as a possible successor. Both had been involved in land dealings and the proposed establishment of a settlement at St Johns, in Newfoundland in 1764. Edward Salmon, Life of Admiral Sir Charles Saunders K.B. (London, 1914), p. 207. 4 Admiral Sir George Pocock considered Saunders worthy but felt the appointment might engender discontent, Ruddock MacKay, Admiral Hawke (Oxford, 1965), pp. 299–300.

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bearing on Saunders’ appointment. Both Saunders and Keppel had agreed to continue serving on the board after the formation of the Chatham ministry, although like Egmont, Saunders found Pitt overbearing and difficult to work with. Saunders’ tenure at the head of the Admiralty was brief. In December 1766, he resigned with Keppel and Meredith over the dismissal of Lord Edgcumbe from his position as Treasurer of the Household. Edgcumbe was a fellow naval officer politically connected with Rockingham and the resignation of his friends was a point of honour as much as anything else. It is therefore not possible to assess Saunders’ ability as a First Lord on the basis of a few months. The Board minutes and letters record little of note, and as active members of Parliament both Saunders and Keppel were diverted more by political matters than the business of their office.

Hawke’s Admiralty Board, 1766 A new Admiralty Board with Admiral Hawke at its head was appointed 12 December 1766. Whereas Saunders’ appointment had been sound both professionally and politically, Hawke’s appointment was based on his reputation alone. If political considerations had been taken into account they would have centred around the fact that Hawke held no strong political affiliations. Hawke had served with distinction at the Battle of Toulon in 1744 and at the second Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1747. His greatest achievement was his crushing victory over the French at Quiberon Bay in 1759. In 1766 he was by far the most respected officer in the Navy. Initially, Horace Walpole described him as a man of ‘courage’, ‘fair appearance’ with ‘a plausible kind of sense’ devoid of ‘ostentation and ambition’.5 His tone was to change and he later reported that though brave, Hawke ‘had never been a man of abilities’. Walpole went on to describe Hawke at the Admiralty as ‘worn out, grown indolent [and] paying so little attention to the fleet that the ships were rotted in harbour’.6 Nothing could be further from the truth. Two other Commissioners were appointed with Hawke, Rear-Admiral Sir Piercy Brett, and Charles Jenkinson. Brett had been professionally associated with both Anson and Saunders and was a supporter of Rockingham. When these new Admiralty appointments were being considered, both Keppel and Brett had attempted to persuade Hawke to refuse the post of First Lord, but Hawke had not only accepted the appointment but convinced Brett to support Chatham and to accept a seat at the Board himself.7

5

Walpole, Memoirs of George II, vol. 2, p. 276, vol. 3, p. 85. H. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, (ed.) G. G. Russell Barker, 4 vols (London, 1846) vol. 4, p. 137. 7 MacKay, Admiral Hawke, pp. 301–2. 6

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The appointment of Charles Jenkinson to the Board was a shrewd and significant move. Like Hawke, he held no strong party views. In his professional rather than his political capacity, he counted Lord Bute and George Grenville among his patrons. However, Bute was in political exile and Grenville, with whom Jenkinson was shortly to fall out, was in opposition. Being more interested in the constitutional and practical aspects of government and public finance rather than in high politics, his natural abilities and capacity for hard work marked him out for office in any ministry. Having adopted the Crown as his patron, and being one of the most talented of the ‘King’s Friends’, his professional fortunes were no longer tied to the vagaries of the political climate. His appointment to the Admiralty resulted in the breaking of any party connections and completed his estrangement from George Grenville, previously his most important patron. After this he was always classed as one of the King’s Friends. Having it would seem, a low regard for ‘men of business’ and consistent with his uncomplimentary and cheerless characterization of Egmont, Horace Walpole went to even greater lengths with Jenkinson. He was a close confidant of the King, manipulative, shrewd and cautious but also able, these being Walpole’s kindest remarks. Jenkinson was ‘much fitter to suggest and digest measures than to execute them. His appearance was abject; his countenance betrayed a consciousness of secret guile; and . . . his demeanour exhibited such a want of spirit, that had he stood forth as Prime Minister, . . . his very look would have encouraged opposition.’8 According to Walpole then, Jenkinson was the most cheerless of a dull set of ministers and officials. As with Hawke and Egmont, if Walpole’s uncomplimentary comments can be used as a yardstick of ability, then Jenkinson was probably the most able man in government. Jenkinson’s appointment was significant in several respects. Like Egmont, his association with the Crown and his former connection with Bute had made him familiar with the ambitions of the King and his former first minister to reform many aspects of public finance. Jenkinson was already proficient in this area and his place at the Board would enable him to act as a financial adviser to Hawke. He had already been closely involved in the Treasury’s failed attempt to extend its control over the Navy’s finances in 1765, and he may well have been responsible for the ideas that had led to the breakdown in the Admiralty’s relationship with the Treasury at that time. The breakdown had not been caused by the reforms themselves, but by the way the Treasury had attempted to implement them. As an Admiralty Commissioner, Jenkinson was to be in a better position to advance ideas in financial and administrative reform in the naval departments.

8

Walpole, Memoirs of George III, vol. 4, p. 90. 142


The fleet at Hawke’s appointment In the 1770s, Sandwich was to blame the policies of former Admiralty Boards for the neglect and deterioration of the fleet. As we have clearly seen, Egmont managed the Navy with great energy and imagination, so it is the state of the fleet under Hawke’s administration that we must turn to for an explanation. Mackay wrote that Hawke concentrated more on the administration of the yards than the condition of the ships.9 If this is the case, then any assessment of Hawke’s administration must take into consideration the fleet he inherited as well as the fleet he left to his successor. In January 1767, an abstract of the fleet was produced. This showed nineteen ships of the line in commission and a reserve of forty-two in good condition. From the time of a previous report in May 1765, which listed twenty-five, the number in reserve had increased by seventeen in the space of twenty months. This was six less than the Navy Board’s forecast in 1765, when they had estimated that by the end of 1766 there would be forty-eight ships in good condition exclusive of the twenty in commission as guardships; a total in all of sixty-eight.10 A further forecast in September 1766 was more modest supposing a fleet of sixty-two by the end of the year, and eighty-two by the end of 1769. By the beginning of 1767 this had been adjusted to sixtyone and eighty-one as the Dreadnought, on her return from Jamaica in November 1766, was found to be in bad condition.11 These adjusted forecasts do not indicate a reduction of effort in the repair of the fleet but rather a careful monitoring of progress. In any event, it was unlikely that more than sixty ships could be mobilized in the first year of a war due to the problems of manning.12 In 1765, the Navy Board had been too ambitious in estimating the amount of work that could be achieved. The rate at which ships could be turned round was bound to decrease due to the nature of the repairs themselves. Egmont had specified that those in need of the least repair should be taken in hand first, meaning that those subsequently docked between 1766 and 1769 would require more substantial repair, consuming more materials and taking more time. The amount of work that could be undertaken was limited by the number of shipwrights employed and by the number of docks available. If the docks were occupied for a longer period of time by individual ships, then the number of ships that could be

9 Ruddock MacKay (ed.), The Hawke Papers 1743–1771 (London, NRS, 1990), p. 396. 10 NMM: PLA 13, f. 5, 10 May, 1765, ‘An Account of HM Ships . . . that were in condition for service 25 April 1765’. 11 NMM: MRF/I/1, f. 6, 10 September, 1766, BL: Add. Ms. 38340, f. 2, 3 January 1767. 12 To fully man the existing sixty-one ships would require 36,950 men, an increase of almost 21,000 on the existing establishment. These figures took no account of the men needed to man smaller vessels. BL: Add. MS. 38340, f. 2.

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Table 6.1 Amount of the bills (£) registered in the year 1752 and 1766, demonstrating an increase in the materials consumed Article

1752

1766

Inflation

Real increase

Hemp Norway goods English Timber Canvas

22,550 10,836 79,836 2,922

57,657 15,636 101,892 14,748

52% – 5% 50%

68.2% 44.3% 21.5% 236.5%

put into condition was bound to decrease. It was also likely that in the intervening years the condition of these ships had deteriorated further. Some indication that these reduced forecasts did not indicate a slackening of effort can be judged by the value of materials registered on the Navy course in 1766. A comparison with 1752, the corresponding peacetime year after the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, clearly shows that substantial quantities of naval stores were being consumed (see Table 6.1).13 To summarize the situation at the beginning of 1767, Hawke had a fleet of sixty-one ships of the line with a further twenty promised over the next three years. As such a large number of these ships had undergone recent repair or refitting, it was not unreasonable for Hawke to concentrate his efforts on dockyard and administrative matters rather than the condition of the ships themselves. Mackay’s assertion that Hawke’s Board was not aware of the extent to which the fleet was decaying must be right but on the other hand they had little reason to suppose that it was.14 Before the Seven Years’ War, the peacetime administrations between 1749 and 1755 had made only moderate progress in the repair of the fleet, constrained by Pelham’s financial restrictions.15 Increased activity and additional building had taken place on the approach and outbreak of war. The great effort made by Egmont between 1763 and 1765 was, in this context, an innovation. It had not been the practice in the past to restore the Navy so quickly after a war. Surveys such as those ordered by Sandwich after the Falklands crisis might have revealed a problem to Hawke, but in the aftermath of Egmont’s intensive repair programme it would not have seemed necessary to order such surveys. Furthermore, there is no certainty that the problem had progressed sufficiently before 1770 to become apparent. An indication that a problem might be developing could have been highlighted by the condition of a few of the ships when Hawke was appointed. The condition of the Dreadnought on her return from the West Indies has been

13

BL: Add. MS. 38339, ff. 294, 300. The adjustment for inflation appears on the original document. 14 MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 396. 15 This had been the view put forward by the Navy Board during Egmont’s administration. 144


mentioned. There were also two others, the Jersey, also in the West Indies, and the Revenge, then laid up in ordinary. It was reported that the Revenge was not to be depended on for more than two to three years.16 However, this was no cause for concern. The Revenge was an old ship, built in 1742, and had a history of frequent and expensive repair, the most recent being in 1761 with a further small repair in 1764.17 The forecast that she was not to be relied upon was premature as it was 1771 before a survey revealed that further substantial work was needed.18 The Jersey was also an old ship, built in 1736 and last repaired in 1764. The concern about her condition in 1766 was based on her age and a history of frequent repair. She was serving in the West Indies at the time and it was assumed that on her return she would not be fit for further service.19 It was not until February 1770, just before the Falklands crisis, that a survey was deemed necessary and this recommended a middling repair.20 The Dreadnought like the Revenge had been build in 1742 in the King’s yard at Deptford. She was known to be in bad condition in 1766. On this basis, it was not reasonable for the Hawke administration to suppose that a problem existed or that a crisis was likely to arise in the near future. Nor did Lord Shelburne, Secretary of State for the Southern Department and the man likely to be involved in directing future naval operations, express great apprehension on the condition of the fleet. His sources indicated that the French had forty-six ships of the line in good condition, with a further three building and sixteen in need of repair. These sixty-five French ships when added to the forty-seven Spanish ships supposed to be fit or to be building, made a potential hostile fleet of 112 by the end of 1769, to which Britain could oppose ninety-two, supposing the thirteen, then on the stocks could be got ready.21 Clearly, the British government was thinking in terms of a two-power standard even at this early date, and had assumed that the next war would commence with the two Houses of Bourbon united.22 In his papers, Shelburne commented that apart from the three ships mentioned above, the totals of

16

NMM: MRF/I/1, f. 6, ‘Account of the ships of the Navy’ 10 September 1766. These repairs were largely structural and in addition to the usual trimmings, gravings and other routine maintenance. 18 NMM: PST/49, vol. 2, f. 96. 19 Ships returning from the tropics were often expected to be in a poor condition. This had been an increasing problem from the time of the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s. 20 NMM: PST/49, vol. 2, f. 136. 21 The figures for the hostile fleets were not precise about their condition for service which was by no means certain. In the event, neither power was able to seriously threaten the Royal Navy in 1770. 22 This was also Charles Jenkinson’s view in the draft of a speech to the Commons in December 1767. 17

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British naval strength by the end of 1769 were based on the supposition that no further ships had been declared unfit since 1764.23 The general impression that the condition of the ships was not a cause for concern was reinforced by the reports of the Navy Board. They had been ordered to make regular dockyard visitations and carried out two in 1767, a further two in 1768 and at least one in 1769. It was reported that the ships in Ordinary or reserve were in excellent order and that the regulations for attending to their care were being observed.24

Naval finance under Hawke Under Hawke’s administration, the finances of the Navy reached that point where its credit was secure and its funding could be placed on a more regular basis with few additional grants needed to service the debt. Although by 1767 and 1768, the Navy was receiving far less from Parliament than it had under Egmont, the debt had stabilized at near £1 million and less was needed to pay off the debt and fund the interest on what remained. This was due to good management on the part of the Treasury. It was achieved by reducing the length of the Navy course from almost two years at the beginning of 1765 to as little four months at the end of 1766. During the period 1767 to 1770, the length of the course varied between seven and nineteen months and payments were made on a frequent but irregular basis. Frequency of payment or rather anticipation of frequent payment was what determined the discount on Navy bills and reflected the Navy’s credit worthiness. Prices quoted for Navy bills in the Gentleman’s Magazine illustrate this. At the beginning of 1764, Navy bills had been discounted by 11 per cent; by July 1766 they were discounted by 1.5 per cent and thereafter discounts were not quoted as they (the Navy bills) were not worthy of purchase by speculators. Even the Navy Four Percents were trading at 99 per cent of their face value on conversion in 1767 and during 1766 had traded at a price slightly higher than their face value. All of this meant that there were no pressures on the Navy’s suppliers to increase their prices. Just as important, the easing of crisis management in the Navy’s financial affairs meant that proper systems of operation could be reimplemented and this also meant that an examination and refinement of those systems could take place.

23

NMM: MRF/I/5, vol. 154, f. 6. Undated but must have been compiled in late 1766 or 1767 as Shelburne was dismissed as Secretary of State in 1768. 24 NMM: ADM B 174, 5 June 1767, ADM B 180, 18 December 1767, ADM B 182, 17 November 1769, MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 411. 146


The plans of expense, 1767–70 The first plan of expense was compiled by the Navy Board in 1765 to persuade the Admiralty that the sums granted by Parliament were insufficient. After it became apparent that the Admiralty and Navy Boards had failed to keep expense within the bounds of the parliamentary grant, the Treasury had communicated directly with the Navy Board endeavouring to take control of expenditure. This extension of the Treasury’s powers was resisted by Egmont who directed that the plan of expense called for by the Treasury was not to be submitted without the prior approval of the Admiralty.25 The dilemma facing the Treasury was that although charged with the management of the Navy’s finances, it could not initiate any reforms or make improvements in efficiency that directly concerned specific appropriation and expenditure. The Treasury could only manage the debt and influence appropriation when the annual estimates were submitted. The Admiralty and Navy Boards on the other hand, were more concerned with appointments and the practical everyday running of the Navy rather than its financial intricacies and it was unusual for an Admiralty Commissioner to have any in-depth knowledge and experience in these matters. It was difficult therefore for any major reform to take place. This situation now changed. Charles Jenkinson who had been at the Treasury in 1765 was appointed to the Admiralty in December 1766 and remained until March 1768.26 He had been involved in the Treasury’s first call for an ‘estimate of the probable expense of the Navy’ in 1765, and had signed the Treasury’s letter to the Navy Board. It is likely that the idea of using this estimate or plan to better organize naval expenditure, and to place it on a more regular and constitutional footing, was his own as the plan was re-introduced in 1767. As an Admiralty Commissioner he was better placed to carry out these reforms without upsetting the status quo in terms of interdepartmental authority and responsibilities. However, we should not assume that Jenkinson was deliberately placed at the Admiralty to introduce his estimating procedure. There is no evidence to suggest this, yet he did use the advantage of his position to start reforming naval appropriation. These reforms, carried out from within the department, tended to underline the Admiralty’s ultimate responsibility for expenditure, its independence from Treasury control, and its authority over the Navy Board. The proof of Jenkinson’s involvement can be seen in his official papers which contain many financial documents dealing with the process of forming

25

See Chapter 5. Jenkinson was appointed as a Treasury Commissioner in December 1767, and as well as holding this post he kept his seat at the Admiralty until the following March. The Admiralty Board’s minutes indicate that he was still attending meetings during the first months of 1768. MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 422.

26

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the naval estimates and managing the debt. In particular he was concerned by the fact that much of the sum granted by Parliament usually went towards servicing past expenditure rather than the payment of the articles to which it was appropriated. In a pencilled note, he posed the question, ‘If you appropriate the supplies of the year to the [expense] of it, how will you pay the debt of the last?’27 The nature of the naval service and the general rather than specific appropriation which it received made regularity in the accounts very difficult, but there was scope for improvement and the plan of expense addressed this problem. In the draft of his speech to the Committee of Supply at the end of 1767, Jenkinson explained the constitutional and practical motives behind the re-introduction of the plan. You are to vote the sums you are to approve the service for. Otherwise it is not you that grant the public money but they who incur the debt which you are forced to pay and then you become only the bankers to the executive power . . . the government at large have no knowledge of the expense. The Admiralty, but in few cases the Navy Board, are the principal regulators of the expense and masters in this respect of the public money. The Admiralty therefore, having no other method of checking the expense at the beginning of last year [1766],28 directed the Navy Board to prepare a Plan of Expense for the year taking care to apply the several sums as near as possible to the services to which they were voted.29

To facilitate this, several adjustments were made to the way in which the estimates were formed. These were not imposed upon the Navy Board but resulted from a period of consultation. When framing the plan of expense for 1767, the Navy Commissioners wrote at length explaining how the plan drew attention to several flaws in the estimating procedure. The Ordinary estimate, which contained standing charges, had always been under-spent. This was because some of the Ordinary items were estimated under one heading but expended under another heading such as wear and tear. The Navy Board also pointed out that many items of expense never appeared on the estimates yet the Navy paid for them. An example was the cost of maintaining the hospitals at Haslar and Stonehouse. This item of expense had always been submitted to Parliament as one of the reasons for the increase of the Navy debt. The Navy Board needed to know if this was to be considered an Extraordinary expense or whether some abatement would need to be made on the other headings to account for this sum.30 27

BL: Add. MS. 38340, f. 16. The word in brackets is illegible. No plan of expense had been formed in 1766. 29 BL: Add. MS. 38336, f. 362. 30 NMM: ADM B 179, 24 March, 1767. The sum amounted to £20,000 and had been omitted from the Ordinary Estimate since 1752. 28

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This was precisely the sort of point Jenkinson wished to address. He reported to Parliament that the Navy also paid out of its general supply the premiums on naval stores, the cost of transports, and the victualling soldiers. None of these items appeared in the estimates They could therefore not be considered to be in the view of the House when they granted money upon these estimates nor indeed could any plan be formed if they were included for they were uncertain and not within the control of the naval department.31

Jenkinson was of the opinion that the estimates, including the Extraordinary estimate, should not be a mere vehicle for obtaining a supply from Parliament. The estimates needed to conform much more closely to the Navy’s actual expenditure. It is notable that from 1767, the Extraordinary estimate started to include sums for the repairs to frigates and sloops. Jenkinson was proposing to sweep away decades of precedent and custom by producing naval estimates that were more like modern defence budgets. Jenkinson reasoned that with items such as the hospitals and transports removed from the Navy debt, the overall level of the debt would be reduced. Moreover with uncertain items removed, the level of debt could be better anticipated and action taken if necessary. Furthermore, with the Navy Board required to make an accurate forecast of their expenditure, they were likely to be more conscious of areas of wastage and inefficiency and more likely to initiate or recommend action themselves. The most important point, however, was that regularity in naval accounting would, it was hoped, ease the passage of the estimates through Parliament, without the sort of adjustments and amendments that had characterized procedures before 1765. It must be emphasized here, that these important reforms were initiated by one of the King’s Party, Charles Jenkinson, not the Opposition, who were later to make assertions that they themselves had introduced a new method of appropriation. In summary, Jenkinson’s ‘Plan of Expense’ made a readjustment of the estimating procedure so that it was easier to reconcile specific appropriation with its corresponding expenditure. Items not within the control of the Navy were removed from Navy debt. This made the Navy more accountable for the debt that remained as the plan contained only knowable expenditure. The Extraordinary estimates now included items such as the repair of frigates and sloops which had usually been paid for without appearing on an estimate. The plan therefore reduced the level of debt that the Navy reported annually. The plan also made the Navy’s financial procedures more transparent and more understandable therefore easing the passage of the estimates through Parliament. (See Appendix 4 for an example of the Plan of Expense for 1768.)

31

BL: Add. MS. 38336, ff. 362–3. 149


The plans of expense – operational consequences It is difficult to judge the effectiveness of Jenkinson’s scheme based on published figures. The level of the Navy debt decreased, possibly to a level as low as it conceivably could, given the inevitable and unavoidable delay in making many payments. The plan of expense was not necessarily responsible for this reduction and, as items within the debt were blended together, it is difficult to determine if more accurate estimating procedures managed to reduce the level of debt. It is just as likely that given a sufficient period of peace, such debt levels could have been achieved anyway. However, in the draft of his speech to the Committee of Supply, Jenkinson stated that from the information he had received the plan will answer in that respect, so that there will be no additional debt this year contracted except what arises for premiums on naval stores, transport service and the other articles mentioned.32

The plan did have the effect of causing the Navy Board to re-examine the necessity of some of the articles of expense as well as the accuracy of the estimates overall. They pointed out to the Admiralty that certain incidental expenses under the ordinary had never been provided for, whereas others had gradually increased over the years. They further discovered that savings of £10,000 were possible under wear and tear which would assist in providing for the deficiency of the ordinary. Furthermore, the Navy Board expressed a concern that certain articles of expense that were properly under its responsibility were beyond its control unless the Admiralty intervened. This concerned foreign bills of exchange drawn by naval officers abroad, usually for repairs, or supplies and stores. Foreign bills of exchange were received on an irregular basis and were therefore impossible to anticipate. In the Navy Board’s opinion, these bills also ‘exceeded what they ought’.33 Accordingly, officers abroad were advised that such bills would not be ‘allowed for work done to their ships between one cleaning and refit and another unless some unavoidable accident makes the same absolutely necessary’. Unavoidable accidents were specified as the springing of leaks or the loss of masts. The yards abroad were also ordered to ensure that major repairs were carried out in the home yards.34 In its purely administrative respects, the plan was beneficial but it was also bound to have an impact at an operational level. When the plan for 1767 had been submitted, it exceeded the grants of Parliament, and the Navy Board had pointed out to their Lordships they

32 33 34

BL: Add. MS. 38336, f. 363. NMM: ADM B 179, 24 March, 1767. NMM: ADM B 179, 27 March 1767, BL: Add. MS. 38336, f. 363. 150


are sensible of the difficulty that must attend confining every branch of such extensive concern as the Navy, within exact bounds from the variety of unforeseen accidents that may happen to increase the expence; therefore we can only promise to use the utmost care and attention as far as depends on us to prevent an exceeding.35

The Admiralty returned the plan ordering that a new one be made strictly conformable to their orders.36 On 3 April, both boards met to discuss the matter, the Admiralty repeating its determination that the plan would conform to the grants of Parliament. Methods of reduction were agreed and the Admiralty promised to use its authority to enforce any orders issued by the Navy Board to implement the plan.37 In view of this determination, it must seem that the Navy Board’s ability to function in a flexible manner had been removed. Apparently this was not so as can be seen by examining some of the specific points that Jenkinson made to the Committee of Supply at the end of 1767. Jenkinson was actually concerned that his system might prevent the civil branch of the Navy from performing properly and therefore had made efforts to reconcile the constraints put on the Navy Board’s activities with the constitutional and economic benefits. First, it was obvious that much expenditure could be foreseen with considerable accuracy. The number of seamen employed at this time differed very little from those voted. It was known how many artificers were employed in the dockyards and an accurate forecast of wage costs could be made. The cost of pensions on the ordinary estimate was known. Even the amount likely to be spent on materials could be foreseen as the amount of work to be done was known and the capacity of the yards to complete the work in hand could be judged with a fair degree of accuracy. With the debt under control, there was little pressure on suppliers to increase prices. Providing that there was not a sudden mobilization, it was entirely possible to know with reasonable exactness, what the cost of the Navy would be for the year. It was incumbent on the Navy Board to first provide an accurate estimate, for it was this estimate that they would be obliged to conform to. Second, as Jenkinson pointed out, those items which were uncertain, such as bills of exchange and premiums on stores were not a part of the plan and were properly part of the Navy’s debt and provided for retrospectively. Third, Jenkinson clearly stated that the rules by which this system was governed applied only if there was no emergency:38 ‘in time of peace the rules should be stuck rigid to. . . . In time of war the executive power must be allowed to

35 36 37 38

NMM: ADM B 179, 24 March 1767. Admiralty Board minute, 26 March, 1767, MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 400. Admiralty Board minute 3 April, 1767, Mackay, Hawke Papers, p. 401. By this he meant war or anticipation of war. 151


exceed the estimates’ and that the nature of war ‘forces you sometimes to break through all laws and all regulation’. He also stated that expenditure was to conform ‘as near as possible to the sums to which they were voted’.39 There was some small degree of flexibility here and what constituted an emergency was possibly open to interpretation by the ‘executive power’, itself accountable to Parliament for its actions. Lastly, Jenkinson provided for the possibility that rigid budgets would damage the naval service. This he did by placing the responsibility for adequately funding the Navy where it properly belonged: Parliament. He reasoned that any harm done to the Navy by conforming to the system would, in any one year alone, be small. If Parliament wished the Admiralty and Navy Boards to alter their conduct, it could be altered. ‘If you think their notions too confined they can easily increase the expense. If you think them too large they can diminish them’ and ‘if the service should suffer, Parliament in a future year may easily rectify it.’40 This made Parliament responsible for any ill effects caused by insufficient funding, and this combined with a more transparent system of estimates, was a powerful argument for the House to vote the sums asked for. Providing that the government had the courage to go to Parliament for more money in the first place, the new procedures provided little room for argument or objection. Only one aspect of Jenkinson’s system is open to criticism that it might unduly confine the activities of the Navy Board. Jenkinson reported to the House that the Admiralty had ‘determined to allow no new work to be undertaken but what had previously had the approbation of Parliament’.41 This point was vague; what was meant precisely by ‘approbation’ and did ‘new work’ refer to new construction only or to repair work as well? If it was only intended to submit new construction to parliamentary approval before work started, Jenkinson’s statement merely formalized what was already common (but not binding) practice. However, if his intentions applied to repair work as well, the implications were more serious as it undermined the discretionary powers of both the Admiralty and the Navy Boards. This would never have been sanctioned by Jenkinson’s colleagues at the Admiralty. The submission of all new repair work to prior approval would have had the effect of causing docks to lie empty and for workmen to stand idle while they awaited the submission and approval of a new estimate. Furthermore, it would have been the view of most of the members of Parliament that the civil branch of the Navy had the power to adjust priorities and redirect resources as the need arose. As a practical man, Jenkinson could not have imagined that such rigid conformity to the system was desirable or even possible. In any event a comparison of the estimates and of the repair records of ships indicates that nothing changed in this respect. Nor do official letters contain 39 40 41

BL: Add. MS. 38336, f. 362. BL: Add. MS. 38336, f. 363. BL: Add. MS. 38336, f. 363. 152


any special instructions with regard to the Extraordinary Estimates. The Navy Board was only expected to confine expense to headings that were themselves quite broad. The Jenkinson system or the plans of expense were therefore beneficial and not restrictive or harmful to the naval service.

The plan of expense, 1771 Jenkinson’s plan of expense was such an important innovation in naval finance that its eventual fate should be mentioned here, even though its abandonment did not occur under Hawke’s administration. The system remained in place throughout Hawke’s administration, even after Jenkinson had moved from the Admiralty in March 1768. When the plan of expense was called for in 1771, the Earl of Sandwich was First Lord. John Buller and Viscount Palmerston were the only remaining colleagues of Jenkinson at the Admiralty Board, and Buller was the only active participant in Board matters. The Navy Board also had a new Controller, Hugh Palliser, appointed by Hawke but to become a close associate of Sandwich. It is evident from a letter submitted to the Admiralty in August 1771 that Palliser’s Navy Board did not view the plan of expense in the same light as Jenkinson or Hawke’s Admiralty Board had done. Far from being an instrument of financial or budgetary control, the Navy Board saw the plan as a way of determining if the annual grants were sufficient for their planned expenditure, just as they had done in 1765. They also saw it as inconvenient additional paperwork. The Admiralty had called for the plan on the 27 June and, at a meeting of both boards, was informed that the plan would take a considerable time to prepare. On 24 July, the Admiralty informed the Navy Board that the principal object of calling for such a plan was to see whether the expense would fall so far short of the money granted by Parliament for the naval services of the year as to allow of completing the South Dock . . . as to bring the dock into use in the course of the year at Portsmouth . . . and that if [you] are prepared to let their Lordships know whether the grants will admit of carrying on those additional works without incurring debt, [you] need not go on with preparing the plan.

The Navy Board were of the opinion that the expense of the year will be so much within the grants that the additional works proposed may be executed without incurring a debt upon that amount.42

42

NMM: ADM B 185, 13 August 1771. 153


At a stroke, by this mode of framing the issue, both boards abandoned Jenkinson’s innovation and in the subsequent years no further plans were called for. The immediate reason for abandoning the system was that the Navy at that moment had more money than it needed and a detailed plan of how the surplus was to be expended could have been politically awkward. During the Falklands crisis, Parliament had voted a grant for 40,000 seamen, but, as Spain backed away from hostilities and therefore the mobilization was only partial, this number was never employed. The Navy therefore had an additional credit with the Treasury amounting to the equivalent of a Sea Service estimate for nearly 10,000 men, more than half a million pounds. Sandwich put this money to use by applying it to dockyard improvements and the additional building and repair of ships.43 Strictly speaking, this was a misappropriation of public money, but in Sandwich’s defence it must be added that the additional funds were put to a worthwhile use. There was no precedent for the Navy to return surplus funds to the Treasury or request that its credit with the Treasury be diminished, nor would Sandwich’s successors have thanked him for creating such a precedent. Parliament had voted the sums for naval services and they could not be diverted from naval use. Abandoning the plan allowed the Admiralty to exercise its discretionary powers without having to account for specific expenditure.

The Fleet, 1766–70 Under Hawke’s administration finances were well managed, administration was reformed, and improvements to the dockyards continued. The critical question of the care of the Navy’s ships remains, however. Were the ships neglected in pursuit of other aims? The answer to this question is no. The work carried out was not on the same scale as under Egmont, but then Hawke did not inherit a fleet worn out by wartime service. Using his own assessment, as laid out in his pamphlet, which accords well with other records, Hawke’s achievements are summarized in Table 6.2. This was the paper fleet inherited by Sandwich. Unfortunately, Hawke’s assessment counted thirteen ships twice in its total, though this is transparent. Others were omitted entirely. The forty ships repairing or in a doubtful state do not reflect well on his administration though it must be recognized that Hawke prepared these figures after he left office. His purpose in enumerating the ships repairing was not so much to defend his administration as to criticize Sandwich for disposing of a number of vessels that Hawke believed could

43 Officially however, it was stated in Parliament that the surplus had been applied to the course of the Navy and the reduction of the debt. This was only true in an indirect sense. See Chapter 7.

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Table 6.2 Summary of the fleet during Hawke’s administration44 Ships built Ships on the stocks in 1770 Total In Ordinary and in good condition Ships in commission Total Ships repairing or in a doubtful state

13 15 28 21 47 68 (includes the 13 built) 40

have been repaired and returned to service. Even though some of Hawke’s figures for ships might be disputed, many of his arguments in the pamphlet concerning the care of the fleet, methods of building ships, the logistical consequences of dockyard alterations, and his remarks on timber, were penetrating, demonstrating a firm grasp of the issues and problems.45 Where Hawke’s care of the fleet is concerned, any objective assessment must to some extent put to one side the problems faced by his successors and the remarks made by his critics. It is a matter of debate whether Hawke was responsible for things that were either outside his control or beyond his knowledge. What must be assessed is the work actually carried out and his reaction to problems that arose. This must be measured against either an agreed norm, the accomplishments of his predecessors or the forecasts set out at the beginning of his administration. Comparisons with subsequent administrations are not only unfair but are also pointless exercises. An agreed norm for maintaining a wooden battlefleet in the eighteenth century is difficult to ascertain because of the growing size of the Royal Navy. Nor is a comparison with the peacetime period before the Seven Years’ War particularly useful. The building and repair regime at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1749 was very different to the one promoted by Egmont after the Peace of Paris in 1763. During the earlier peace, the repair of the fleet accelerated on the approach of war. Under Egmont, efforts to restore the fleet had followed closely upon the peace. We can, however, measure the performance of both the Admiralty and the Navy Boards by the three-year forecast produced in September 1766.46 According to the Navy Board’s account, they expected to produce twenty additional ships during this period. Hawke administration produced twentyfive as shown in Table 6.3. Against this favourable impression, we must deduct those vessels listed in 1766 as being in good condition, which before the end of 1769 were docked for repairs as these would reduce the level of fleet strength. By the end of 1769, only two ships, the Fame and the Ocean, were

44 45 46

Hawke, A Seaman’s Remarks, pp. 17–23. ibid., pp. 2–4. NMM: MRF/I/1, f. 6. 155


Table 6.3 Additional ships completed during the Hawke administration 1766–947 Year

Navy Board forecast

Ships completed

1767

Royal George (repair) Ocean (repair) Neptune (Torbay-repair) Lenox (repair) Dublin (repair) Marlborough (new) Orford (repair) Africa (repair)

– Ocean – Lenox Dublin Marlborough Orford Africa Ajax (new) Total 7

Total 8 1768

Ajax (new) Raisonable (new) Modeste (repair) Trident (new) Pembroke (repair) Panther (repair)

– Raisonable (not known) Trident Pembroke Panther Barfleur (new) Prudent (new) Egmont (new) Royal George (repair) Montague (repair) Fame (repair) Total 10

Total 6 1769

Barfleur (new) Queen (new) Egmont (new) Northumberland (repair) Somerset (repair) Bienfaisant (repair)

Total 6

– Queen – Northumberland Somerset – Elizabeth (new) Worcester (new) Royal Oak (new) Dunkirk (repair) Torbay (repair) Total 8

Total (1767–9) 20

Total (1767–9) 25

47 Figures are based on the Navy Board’s Account of 10 September 1766, NMM: MRF/I/1, and the Admiralty Progress Books.

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removed from this list. The Fame received a small repair in 1768, while the Ocean was surveyed at the end of 1769, found to want a small repair and returned to service at the beginning of 1770.48 Therefore, to the end of 1769, more work had been performed than had been expected. During the course of 1770, the last year of Hawke’s administration, a large number of surveys were carried out, most of them before June when the Falkland crisis provoked a naval mobilization. These surveys were equal in number to the total number of surveys conducted in the previous three years.49 This was not an indication that a problem was looming. Of these seventeen surveys, only five were conducted on ships in commission.50 Of the remaining twelve, one was a hulk and the remainder had been originally surveyed during Egmont’s administration and set aside for repair when more urgent work was cleared. Having completed all of the work proposed in the forecast of 1766, it was now possible to take additional ships in hand but new surveys were required before work could commence. Therefore this burst of activity was part of future planning not an indication that the administration feared that the fleet had begun to deteriorate. Regarding the five guardships in commission, three of them were almost ten years old and approaching that period when more major repairs were likely. The other two were older ships. All had been in almost continuous service since before the end of the Seven Years’ War. The surveys indicate that these ships were being kept under observation for defects. Unfortunately, we cannot tell if the other guardships and those ships supposed to be in good condition were also being monitored. Ships selected for survey were thought to require repair. The overall impression, however, is that neither the Admiralty nor the Navy Board were neglecting their duty with regard to the care of the ships.

The timber problem, 1768–7051 With regard to the supplies of timber kept in the yards, it can be argued that Hawke could have achieved far more in maintaining the stocks necessary both for immediate use and for proper seasoning. When Sandwich came to the Admiralty at the beginning of 1771, there was an acute timber shortage, but 48

NMM: PST 49, vol. 2, ff. 117, 12. The number of surveys conducted in each year of Hawke’s administration were: nine in 1767, five in 1768, three in 1769, seventeen in 1770, a total of thirty-four. 50 These were vessels serving as guardships, and kept in an advanced state of preparation in the event of an emergency. They were the Burford, Jersey, Dragon, Superb and Kent. 51 There is well-established literature on the problems of supplying naval timber in the eighteenth century. R. G. Albion’s influential but now dated Forests and Seapower, the Timber Problem of the Royal Navy 1652–1862 (Hamden, Conn., 1965) is still worthy of examination. There is also J. J. Malone’s Pine Trees and Politics: The Navy Stores and Forest 49

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this was not necessarily due to neglect or a lack of resolve in obtaining new supplies. Much of the problem was a direct result of the mobilization against Spain and, a more conjectural point, a cartel of timber merchants.52 That Sandwich was faced by a serious timber problem after he took over from Hawke is beyond doubt. There were great difficulties in obtaining supplies but this had a great deal to do with the price that the Navy Board was willing to pay to the merchants rather than any shortage. Sandwich obtained much needed supplies by paying increased freight charges and importing foreign stocks.53 Within three years, Sandwich was able to increase timber stocks to a healthy level from the alarming state of 18,277 loads, or four months’ consumption, he found on his appointment.54 In Hawke’s defence, it must be said that the assertion that 18,000 loads represented just four months’ supply is suspect. According to a parliamentary report on the matter, produced in April 1771, the amount representing three years consumption, the desired minimum, was 66,000 loads. Therefore the 18,000 loads that Sandwich inherited would have lasted ten months not four. This was still unacceptable but not nearly so critical as it has been represented.55 Between 1767 and 1769, the Navy had used between 27,000 and 22,000 loads of British oak timber and about 2,000 loads of oak plank annually. At the end of 1770, there were 12,177 loads of oak timber and 1,315 loads of oak plank all of British origin. Prior to 1770, the rate of consumption indicates that adequate stock levels must have been achieved. The depleted timber stocks were not due to a long period of neglect. It must be conceded, however, that the Admiralty had been aware of a developing crisis since at least the summer of 1768 and that the problem did

Policy in Colonial New England 1691–1775 (London, 1964) and P. Bamford Forests and French Seapower 1660–1789 (Toronto, 1956). For a revision of Albion, see R. J. B. Knight ‘New England Forests and British Seapower: Albion revised’, American Neptune, vol. xlvi (1986), pp. 221–9. 52 The idea that a cartel was operating is doubtful, although Sandwich later referred to the breaking of a timber monopoly when he took over the Admiralty. N. A. M. Rodger, The Insatiable Earl: A Life of John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich 1718–1792 (London, 1993), p. 142, Cobbett, Parl. Hist. vol. 19, pp. 82–8. 53 Roger Knight writes that before 1800, the Navy’s timber shortage was illusory. Knight ‘Albion revised’, p. 229. 54 Rodger, Insatiable Earl, pp. 141–2. 55 ‘An Account of the Quantity of Timber and Plank used in His Majesty’s Navy from 1 January 1763 to 31 December 1769 . . . pursuant to an Order of the Committee of the Honourable House of Commons appointed to consider how His Majesty’s Navy may be better Supplied with Timber’, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons 1715–1801, 16 vols (London, 1803–6), vol. 3, p. 31. During the French Revolutionary War, the dockyards had held between 40,000 and 50,000 loads of English oak. This was apparently just sufficient to serve an even larger fleet in wartime. Roger Morriss, The Royal Dockyards during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (Leicester, 1983), p. 80. 158


largely arise from the freight costs. In August, the Navy Board informed the Admiralty of the difficulty we have lately experienced in supplying His Majesty’s yards with oak timber, and that the quantity we have been able to procure for these two or three years has fallen short of our expense and reduced the stock necessary.56

The Navy Board explained this as a reduction of growth in the usual counties, giving rise to wider circuit in search of timber and, therefore, higher carriage costs. Landowners had also obstructed surveyors and much useful timber was being supplied to the East India Company. No action in this important matter took place until Sandwich came to the Board in 1771. Even the parliamentary committee that sat to consider the matter was not appointed until March 1771. Dr Rodger writes that timber was available but that it was the Navy Board that had not been willing to pay the price asked for by the suppliers.57 It is surprising that the Hawke administration took no action considering that in 1768 they knew that a problem was developing. Yet the figures for timber consumption demonstrate that stocks must have been easily obtained until the end of 1769. If the problem really developed only in 1770, the mobilization against Spain must have diverted the Board’s attention. An emergency was also the opportunity for suppliers to increase their prices. In any event, the increase in demand would have had an immediate effect on market prices. In this respect, Hawke must be criticized for not having sufficient amounts of timber stockpiled against an emergency. It must have been known that the increase in demand would have created a temporary scarcity and therefore inflated prices. Yet, it would not be reasonable to expect the Navy to start stockpiling timber in readiness for war without good reason to suspect a breach with France or Spain. Stockpiling could be interpreted as a potentially hostile act. Above all it would have been difficult to justify the additional expense to Parliament.

The Falklands mobilization, 1770 At the mobilization against Spain over the Falkland Islands, some ships were found to be in a poor state and surveys carried out in the following years revealed that many ships were deteriorating. However, we must ultimately judge the Hawke administration on its ability to mobilize for war and in this respect it was a success. Not only did the mobilization have the desired effect of keeping France out of an impending war but it also obliged Spain to back away from a confrontation. This must also be seen in the context that both

56 57

NMM: ADM B 181, 9, August, 1768. Rodger, Insatiable Earl, p. 141. 159


of these powers had been building up their navies since the end of the previous war in 1763. The mobilization was more rapid than was expected by Britain’s rivals and to a great extent this must account for the lack of timber and stores when Sandwich took over from Hawke in 1771. On 6 June 1770 the Admiralty sent copies of letters received from Spanish officers in the Falkland Islands to the Secretary of State, Lord Weymouth. These had been sent to them through Captain Hunt of the Tamar frigate who had lately arrived at Plymouth.58 The Spanish were protesting at the British presence at Port Egmont, and in reply to this protest, Captain Hunt had ordered the Spaniards to leave the Falklands. Leaving the sloop Favourite at Port Egmont, Captain Hunt had returned to England with his news. On 7 June, the day after this news arrived at the Admiralty, Captain Maltby of the Favourite recorded the arrival of four Spanish frigates at Port Egmont; joining another that had arrived there on the 4 June. The Favourite took up a defensive position close inshore, landing guns powder and shot to defend the settlement. On 10 June the Spanish frigates opened fire on the shore defences and troops were landed.59 After a brief but hopeless resistance, the settlement capitulated and the Spanish took possession, turning out the garrison who were sent back to England.60 On the 6 June the Admiralty also received news that the French had reinforced Martinique with five warships and six battalions of troops.61 Whether or not these incidents were directly related makes little difference as they were generally perceived to be connected and that connection added up to a threat. In December 1763 Egmont had received a report warning of preparations being made by the French for a war in which Newfoundland fisheries would provide a pretext for hostilities. That particular threat had not materialized. In 1770 the French Navy was considerably restored. Based on an intelligence report for 1768, there were at least fifty-nine French ships of the line theoretically available, of which some twenty-four were almost new. The Spanish could probably mobilize anything up to forty ships of the line providing they could be manned.62 A breach between Spain and Britain would provide a perfect opportunity for the French to take revenge for their losses in the Seven Years’ War. Even if the French Navy was not yet ready for war, almost certainly the case, the threat of a naval combination between the Bourbon Powers would be a useful instrument to test the readiness of Britain to engage in hostilities. The response of Britain was immediate. On 20 June naval preparations were begun with an order to the Navy Board to move the guardships from

58 59 60 61 62

MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 443. NMM: ADM/L/F59, Log of William Maltby, HM sloop Favourite. Nicholas Tracy, Navies, Deterrence and American Independence (Vancouver, 1988), p. 76. MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 443. BL: Add MS 35898, f. 287, Liste de la Marine de France 1768. 160


the dockyards and to fit the Dorsetshire and Edgar for service.63 The guardships were vessels kept in an advanced state of readiness and partly manned in order to get a squadron to sea as quickly as possible in the event of war. The nation that could mobilize its Navy first was likely to gain a considerable and possibly decisive advantage. By 7 September further intelligence was received that a Spanish squadron was fitting out at Buenos Aires to attack the Falklands. 64 Weymouth ordered the Admiralty to man the guardships to their highest complement and victual them for three months. Two days later a number of frigates were ordered to be put into service. It was at this point that the Navy Board warned the Admiralty that if the guardships were ordered to sea, the stores in the dockyards would be diminished and would need replenishment. The Navy Commissioners were ordered to take the necessary steps to replace any deficiencies.65 By the 19 September a further twenty-two ships-of-the-line were ordered to be got ready, and the Navy Board was directed to produce estimates for Parliament based on 25,000 men rather than the peacetime establishment of 16,000. An aide-memoire and a set of personal minutes indicate that Hawke had the situation under control.66 There were notes to hasten the movement of ships, to enquire after the progress in manning the ships, to consider an application to enlarge the bounty for new men, to increase contracts for stores, and to consider setting up new ships of the line in merchant yards. Hawke also had notes to check the number of ships employed in the West Indies and North America in the previous war as well as the number likely to be required to protect trade. One particular point is noteworthy in the light of later criticism. Hawke wrote: To get a particular account from the Surveyor of the Navy of all the different species of stores which now remain in the several dockyards in this kingdom, and how long they will last in peace and how long in war, as likewise an account of the different species of stores which they have contracted for to make up what is deficient in the yards.67

It was the responsibility of the Navy Board to take care of these matters but, clearly, with all his other responsibilities, as well as health troubles, Hawke

63 These two ships were ordered to the Mediterranean on 16 August. Tracy, Navies, pp. 77, 79. 64 By this time the Spanish squadron had achieved its objective. Captain Maltby at Port Egmont recorded that the first of the Spanish frigates to arrive on 4 June was fifty-three days out from the River Plate. The Spanish had therefore sailed in mid-April. NMM: ADM/L/F59. 65 Admiralty Board minutes, 11, 13, 14 September 1770, MacKay, Hawke Papers, pp. 448–50, Sixteen of the guardships were ordered to be manned. Two had already been sent to the Mediterranean. 66 MacKay, Hawke Papers, pp. 457, 459. 67 ibid., p. 459.

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was considering all aspects of the mobilization and anticipating a crisis rather than reacting to one. The problem of stores and supplies was made more acute by the rapid mobilization of the fleet. After the Seven Years’ War, the King had estimated that only thirty-nine additional ships could be commissioned in the first year of war, over and above the peacetime establishment of ships already in commission.68 Based on this calculation the mobilization of the fleet in 1770 was remarkable. When Hawke resigned from the Admiralty, mobilization had been underway for just four months yet thirty-six ships of the line were reporting ready for service and manning levels of 61.5 per cent had been achieved. By March, forty-four ships were ready and by May, although accident had reduced the fleet to 38 units, manning levels had risen to 75.2 per cent.69 The French were unable to keep up with this rate of mobilization. Work at Brest and Toulon was slower than expected and what was more significant, of the fifty-two ships of the French fleet supposed to be in good condition, it was discovered that nine needed rebuilding and a further ten had to be condemned. The Spanish could only provide thirteen ships of the line for service in European waters.70 The alarming condition of the French fleet was a portent of what was later to come in the British fleet. According to an assessment of the French Navy made in 1764, at least fourteen ships had been built during the Seven Years’ War and a further nineteen had been built in 1763 or 1764.71 To have nineteen ships unserviceable, out of a fleet of fiftytwo, was very serious. Considering that a sizeable proportion of the French fleet was not particularly old, this was even more alarming. By comparison, the idea that the Falklands mobilization revealed the British fleet to be in a ruinous state pales into insignificance. Under these circumstances, the French thought better of supporting their Bourbon ally. The British had been able to mobilize their forces far too quickly for the French to keep pace. Without an ally, Spain backed away from a war. Britain’s Navy was intended to act as a deterrent to her enemies or in the last resort her primary weapon. The rapid mobilization had fulfilled the first of these functions. Hawke had therefore done what was expected of him. This being the case, from where did criticism of his administration arise? In November and December 1770, a number of accidents befell the Navy which in turn sparked off criticism of Hawke and his administration. Of the five ships sent to Ireland to transport troops to Gibraltar, the Ajax, had sprung a mast and the Achilles and the Arrogant were damaged in a storm and

68 The peacetime establishment in 1770 was 60 per cent larger than it had been in the 1750s. 69 Tracy, Navies, p. 95. 70 ibid., p. 96. 71 BL: Add. MS. 35898, ff. 282–7.

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were forced to return to Spithead. Such accidents were to be expected and, although unfortunate, were not out of the ordinary. However Captain Allen of the Ajax complained about the state of his rigging and declared that ‘there had been great want of attention in fitting the ship for sea’. The Admiralty directed the Navy Board to make strict enquiries into the fitting out of the ship.72 It may be ungenerous to suggest that Captain Allen was seeking an excuse for poor seamanship, but one would think that he would have made himself familiar with the condition of his ship before sailing. Complaints from sea officers about the condition of their ships were bound to occur considering that the priority of the dockyards was to fit ships for immediate service and this would inevitably mean that quantity of work would be more important than the quality of work carried out. This was a routine problem with a routine solution. In 1781, the Navy Board was to order the officers at Portsmouth Dockyard to refit the Western Squadron with all dispatch and ‘not enter into their defects so minutely as those for foreign service’.73 A more likely explanation however was that the Ajax, being newly fitted, had proceeded to sea and encountered rough weather before her standing rigging had time to stretch. This was to be a frequent problem in the War of American Independence.74 In addition to these accidents, it was found that the Yarmouth was unfit for service. A hint of exasperation appeared in the following Admiralty minute: The Yarmouth having been found unfit to proceed at present with troops for Gibraltar;75 resolved that the Belleisle or any other ship at Spithead (if she should be found unfit) be ordered to be got ready to perform that service.76

The captain of the Belleisle complained about the guns fitted to his ship, requesting that six of them be replaced.77 Six days later, the minutes record; The Lords took into consideration two letters . . . relative to the defects of the Yarmouth and Belleisle, and it appeared thereby that the same must have been owing to some very great neglect or inattention at the time they were fitted as guardships, or when they were lately refitted for Channel service.78

72

Admiralty minute, 1 December 1770, MacKay, Hawke Papers, pp. 472–3. R. J. B. Knight, Portsmouth Dockyard Papers 1774–1783: The American War (Portsmouth, 1987), p. 85. 74 Knight ‘Albion revised’, p. 226. 75 It was this one simple task that had been delayed by storm damage, poor workmanship and unfit shipping. 76 Admiralty minute 3 December, 1770, MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 473. 77 Admiralty minute, 10 November, 1770, ibid., p. 470. 78 Admiralty minute, 12 December, 1770, ibid., p. 474. 73

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Despite these disappointments, which evidently caused some alarm to both the King and the new Secretary of State, Rochford, both they and the House of Commons were reassured by Hawke’s assertion that these mishaps were of no great consequence and that generally the mobilization was in a greater state of forwardness than in 1755. This was entirely true despite Keppel’s remark that all the ships ‘you have tried are bad’.79 Highly partisan comment such as Augustus Hervey’s description of the Navy as a ‘ruined service’ was of little utility to the country. Thomas Bradshaw further remarked that the mobilization had been ‘miserably bungled’, and that the Admiralty suffered from weakness.80 These unjustified observations, when added to doubts about Hawke’s effectiveness and his declining health, served to obscure the fact that the mobilization against Spain not only prevented war but was, in detail, handled in a very competent manner. The condition of some individual ships and the quality of some of the work carried out by the dockyards was bound to be disappointing considering the scale of the operation. The period between the resignation of Egmont and the appointment of Sandwich, almost entirely the administration of Sir Edward Hawke, cannot be termed a period of neglect or one of weak administration. It was a time of continued reform and expansion in the dockyards. Important and carefully thought out financial innovations were introduced and successfully implemented. What was most to Hawke’s credit was the continuing progress in the building repair and restoration of the fleet. Hawke’s achievement in this area exceeded the forecasts made by the Navy Board in 1766. Both the Admiralty and Navy Boards deserve credit for this. Largely as a result of this, the Navy successfully mobilized for a war against Spain and France, a mobilization so rapid that it left the Bourbon powers far behind. There was no reason during this period to suppose that a crisis in the condition of the fleet was approaching. Most of the fleet had been surveyed and repaired in the very recent past and the poor condition of some of the ships upon mobilization was not in any way out of the ordinary. Hawke said as much to Parliament and he was not the sort of man who would deliberately hide the truth. Even the best management of such a huge and diverse concern as the Navy could not prevent accidents to ships at sea, or all incidents of poor workmanship. One legitimate criticism of Hawke’s administration concerns the dearth of timber and stores in the aftermath of the Falklands crisis. This can be explained by a number of mitigating circumstances though not necessarily excused. If this is the only criticism that can be levelled at Hawke, it is far outweighed by his achievements. Like the period presided over by Egmont, the years between 1766 and 1771 must be seen as one of sound administration.

79 80

MacKay, Admiral Hawke, p. 330, Tracy, Navies, pp. 89–90. Rodger, Insatiable Earl, p. 129. 164

7

Sandwich, Parliament and the paper fleet, 1771–9 What has become of the Navy or what has become of the money granted for it? It is a plain question; the people of England expect an explicit answer! Earl of Bristol, 23 April, 17791

This question was asked in the House of Lords in 1779 on a motion to remove Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty. Sandwich was appointed to the Admiralty in early 1771, after the departure of Hawke. He inherited a fleet in good order, a fleet whose maintenance had been carefully co-ordinated and a Navy whose administration and finances had been well managed. When war had threatened with Spain over the Falkland Islands, the Navy was prepared, so well prepared, in fact, that war with the Bourbon powers was averted. In the years that followed the Falklands crisis and as war with Britain’s colonies in America escalated, the impression of the fine fleet inherited by Sandwich apparently evaporated. The Navy’s ships seemed to be in terminal decay. The Navy was administered by, it was alleged, corrupt ministers and officials more interested in lining their own pockets. The focus of this criticism, and contempt, was Lord Sandwich himself. No First Lord of the Admiralty before or since has been subject to so many accusations of dishonesty, corruption and mismanagement. These accusations generated such contempt among Sandwich’s contemporaries in the parliamentary opposition that history has recorded him, until quite recently, as being one of the prime architects of Britain’s loss of her American empire. However, an examination of Sandwich’s administration reveals a man who was without doubt one of the most competent and dedicated naval administrators of the eighteenth century, a view entirely at odds with the unjustified reputation that prevailed for so long. There is a substantial amount of literature about Sandwich, much of it concerned with his use of patronage, his character and his part as a minister in a government engaged in an unpopular war. The twentieth-century publication of four volumes of the Sandwich papers by the Navy Records

1 ‘Debate on the Earl of Bristol’s Motion for the Removal of the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty – 23 April, 1779’, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 20. p. 437.

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SANDWICH, PARLIAMENT AND THE PAPER FLEET, 1771–9

Society did much to re-evaluate his reputation. More recently, Knight, Haas and Broomfield, to name a few, have provided a more balanced assessment of Sandwich’s abilities as an administrator and his life has been entirely reassessed in the biography of the earl by Nicholas Rodger.2 Yet despite a much greater understanding of Sandwich and his management of the Navy, we are left with two unresolved issues. The first of these issues concerns the decline of the fleet that Sandwich inherited. He termed it a ‘fleet on paper’, indicating that it had not been properly maintained before he came to the Admiralty. Clearly something was amiss with the Navy’s ships, and it was always the first resort of any politician to blame the previous administration. The second issue concerns Sandwich himself. He was an exemplary naval administrator. Why then was he not trusted and why did he attract the contempt of so many of his contemporaries? This criticism was so loud and at times so violent that the two issues have themselves been obscured. They have been obscured because dissatisfaction with Sandwich’s administration of the Navy took on a momentum of its own. This was fuelled by the government’s handling of the crisis with the American colonies, the subsequent war with France, and in due course Spain as well, and what was seen as unconstitutional behaviour by ministers of the crown. They were apparently unwilling to be brought to account. The issues were further obscured by personal attacks on Sandwich himself, particularly his handling of senior officers such as Keppel and Howe, on his lifestyle, his connections, and his mode of conducting business. The Navy became a prime focus for government opposition aimed at discrediting Lord North’s ministry by discrediting Sandwich at the Admiralty.

Sandwich as First Lord Unlike a number of his predecessors, Sandwich had considerable experience of naval administration long before he became First Lord in 1771. He had served with Anson as a Commissioner on Bedford’s board in the 1740s and had been First Lord between 1748 and 1751, and again briefly in 1763. Therefore, he was at the head of the Admiralty at the time of the Navy’s crisis of 1749–50 when the War of the Austrian Succession had ended, and was again overseeing the first stages of decommissioning the fleet in 1763. He knew a great deal about the Navy and naval affairs, learning much from his former working association with Anson. Sandwich had an eye for detail and was diligent and hard working. After a dockyard visitation in

2 R. J. B. Knight, Portsmouth Dockyard Papers 1774–1783 (Portsmouth, 1987), J. M. Haas, A Management Odyssey (Lanham, Maryland, 1994), J. H. Broomfield, ‘Lord Sandwich at the Admiralty Board, Politics and the British Navy 1771–1778’, Mariners Mirror 51 (1965), Nicholas Rodger, The Insatiable Earl A Life of John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich 1718–1792, (London, 1993).

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1776 he wrote, ‘I consider it as the Business of the head of a department of Government to be always on the spot where he thinks his presence can be of most use to the Publick service’.3 His experience as a diplomat and, again briefly, a Secretary of State, gave him insights into those wider diplomatic and political issues that would always form a background to naval affairs and which might be disregarded by a man of more narrow experience. In many respects he was the best person to head the Admiralty and his enthusiasm for naval affairs should have ensured that the Navy would be well looked after. In character, Sandwich was pragmatic and practical when it came to the business of the Admiralty and his political responsibilities to the Crown and to Lord North, the king’s first minister. Despite being resolute in his opinions and actions, he was in many respects what would today be termed a team player. Writing to Anson as far back as 1746, Sandwich demonstrated that he could subordinate many of his own views to the opinions of the majority: I shall have no difficulty to give up my own opinion to those I am sure must know much better than myself and shall never intimate to any person whatever that I was of another sentiment, because I think every act . . . ought to be the act of the whole, and you will have all the support I am able to give it.4

Later as a member of North’s Cabinet, Sandwich continued to submit to collective decisions but also used the concept of collective responsibility to defend himself in the House of Lords. However, when it came to the business of running the Navy, he would not submit to those that he considered less informed than himself. Many such persons were naval officers who themselves felt that a mere civilian could not know as much about the naval profession as they did. Sandwich again had a pragmatic approach to difficulties and setbacks. He would not take blame or criticism for situations beyond his immediate control or for which he was not personally responsible and would, when pressed by his critics, seek refuge in the collective responsibility of cabinet decisions. This frequently infuriated the parliamentary opposition who saw it as a cowardly attempt to absolve himself from responsibility. What they chose not to see was a man of loyalty. Even when he was over-ruled by Lord North, he would support him rather than resign. He would not worry about those things he could not alter, including the opinions of his political enemies. ‘I think there are few people can bear disappointments better than me’, he wrote in 1771, ‘therefore few things prey much upon my spirit, except such as are the consequences of my own want of judgment or indiscretion.’5

3 4 5

NMM: SAN V 10. BL. Add MS 15957, fs.6–7, Sandwich to Anson, 20 July 1746. NMM: SAN F/2, f. 24, 13 June 1771. 167


Sandwich at the Admiralty When Sandwich came to the Admiralty, the crisis over the Falkland Islands was all but over. Parliament had voted supplies to put the Navy on a war footing and war had been averted. As a consequence, he inherited a fleet that had been partly mobilized and, because of this, had a large surplus of funds. Yet there was no precedent for returning the surplus credit to the Treasury. It was fortunate that this was so, for Sandwich had a growing conviction that he had inherited a fleet on paper. Several ships at the mobilization had proved unfit for service but, as Hawke had reported to the Commons at the time, this was by no means unusual. Sandwich had personal experience of the disaster that had befallen the Navy in 1749 when so many ships had proven defective on survey and he was uneasy about the situation. For a start there was little timber in the dockyards, the mobilization having used up much of the reserves. This fact along with the surplus of funds presented an opportunity. In 1763, while Sandwich had briefly been First Lord, he had drawn up a plan showing that if the lifespan of new ships could be extended, there would be a saving of nearly 10 per cent in maintenance costs for every extra year that the Navy’s ships could be made to last.6 His idea was that if shipbuilding timber was better stored and seasoned there would be a substantial saving to the Navy. Furthermore it would assist in alleviating the other problem, apart from money, that afflicted all naval powers: insufficient or inadequate dockyard facilities and personnel. Less maintenance would mean that Britain could keep a larger fleet in good order, as the existing infrastructure of dockyards and shipwrights would only support a permanent fleet of about eighty ships of the line in good condition. The ongoing expansion of the dockyards at Portsmouth and Plymouth, begun by Egmont, went some way to helping, but increasing the longevity of the king’s ships was both logistically sensible and cost effective. Sandwich had become convinced that much of the construction of the previous war had been done in haste and with improperly seasoned or green timber. He reported as much to Parliament on numerous occasions when interrogated over the state of the Navy. His experience of 1749 was probably sufficient to fix this idea in his mind but he also had the benefit of expert opinion. William Wells, a respected Thames shipbuilder, had advised Sandwich in a letter of February 1771, shortly after his reappointment to the Admiralty, that the rapid decay in the Navy’s ships was due to having been built hurriedly with green materials.7 Wells lived in Sandwich’s county of

6

NMM: SAN F/1, f.32. William Wells to Lord Sandwich, 20 February, 1771. G. R. Barnes and J. H. Owen (eds), The Private Papers of John Earl of Sandwich 1771–1782, 4 vols (London, NRS, 1932), vol. 1, p. 14.

7

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Huntingdonshire and was a personal friend of the First Lord. This advice was based on Wells’ opinion as he did not submit any supporting evidence and was the preamble to a proposal to erect storehouses at the different dockyards for the seasoning of ship’s frames and timbers. Despite the fact that Wells stood to gain financially from creating this impression, these remarks seemed to confirm what Sandwich had already been thinking and he was sufficiently convinced by this argument to have seasoning sheds constructed, and the first of these were completed at Chatham by June 1772.8 It was not a moment too soon, as Sandwich’s dockyard visitations in 1773 and 1774 seemed to confirm his worst fears. On 16 June 1773, at Portsmouth, where the new docks, reservoir and basin, begun in 1764, had just been completed, Sandwich reflected that the Monarch and Magnificent, built but eight and seven years before, were in need of a small repair and had been built with green timber.9 The situation became more melancholy. At Plymouth on 30 June, Sandwich recorded that: The Shrewsbury was supposed to be in perfect condition and ready to be commissioned if wanted, but in examining her in the dock it appears that she wants a small repair and that £1,600 must be laid out upon her before she can be reported fit for sea. The Hercules which lies at the jetty head and is to succeed the Shrewsbury in the dock was found to be in the same condition and it is much to be feared that almost every ship that comes to be examined will be found in this melancholy state, till such time as the present Plan for building with seasoned timber has had time to operate.10

A small repair of £1,600 was not particularly serious in a ship eight years of age even though it rendered the ship unfit for sea until docked. However, Sandwich had to consider that if this was a common problem, then the Navy’s capacity to mobilize for war would be seriously compromised. As his visitations progressed, the news became much worse. Woolwich dockyard reported that the Mars needed a repair costing £20,000, having already cost some £56,000 over the past 14 years.11 Sandwich soon came to the conclusion that he had to start building a Navy anew from properly seasoned timber, and in the meantime it was more economical simply to break up many of the older ships that in a former time might have been repaired. In the minutes of his dockyard visitation of 1774, Sandwich noted that the number of ships condemned in the last three years amounted to twenty-one. ‘Nor is this all,’ he continued, ‘for it is to be feared that many others must share the same fate before it will come to their turn to

8 9 10 11

Philip Macdougall, Royal Dockyards (London, 1982), p. 98. PRO: ADM 7/660, ff. 12–13. Dockyard Visitation 1773. PRO:ADM 7/660, f. 32. PRO: ADM 7/660, f. 75. 169


be repaired.’ Sandwich now insisted on the same repair regime that Egmont had followed in 1764, that is to repair those first that needed the least repair. Even though this was the most effective way of keeping the fleet in condition he noted that, ‘many ships on the serviceable list will probably be condemned before they can be taken in hand; for I am dearly of the opinion that when a ship wants what is called a great repair, it is cheaper at once to rebuild her’.12 A great repair usually meant rebuilding and, as Sandwich went on to note, it was more economical to build a new ship from the keel upwards than to try to use the serviceable parts of an existing ship for a great repair. There was the expense of pulling the existing ship to pieces, in addition to the cost of rebuilding. There was the added consideration that a new ship would be built on a slip, possibly in a merchant yard, whereas a great repair required a dock that might then be occupied for the best part of a year and often longer. With the dock occupied ships requiring less serious attention would have to wait their turn while their defects increased. There is no doubt that Sandwich was facing an increasingly difficult situation and that his idea for seasoning sheds and building new ships of greater durability was a sound proposition. The whole issue of building ships in haste, and construction with green timber is not straightforward, however, and there were naval officers, chief amongst them being Hawke, who disagreed fundamentally with Sandwich’s management of this growing crisis. The matter of hasty construction can be dismissed immediately. The time taken to construct a vessel was irrelevant providing that the timber was properly seasoned in the first place and that care was taken to protect the ship’s frames from the worst effects of the weather. In the previous century, Samuel Pepys had been dismissive of hasty building as an excuse for premature decay in ships. Instances were produced . . . where timber had been standing cut and converted and the ships built therewith and launched in six months; without ever having one plank shifted in them (but for shot) in eight or nine years after. While on the contrary, three and twenty of these thirty13 (ships) lay from one to full two, three or four years in building and the last of these more than five; till above one hundred pounds was demanded by her builder for repairing the decays of her very keel as she lay upon the stocks.14

If brisk construction was a factor in premature decay, it is to be wondered why private builders were penalized for late delivery and actually given financial incentives to complete their contracts early. There was always a

12

PRO: ADM 7/661, f. 83. Dockyard Visitation 1774. Pepys is referring here to the Thirty Ships construction programme of 1677–88. 14 J. R. Tanner(ed.), Pepys’ Memoirs of the Royal Navy 1679–1688 (New York, 1971), pp. 34–5. 13

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danger of course that private builders would cut corners to achieve an early delivery and gain a bonus yet even a cursory examination of those ships whose construction lasted under one to two years indicates that there is no correlation between this and their durability. With regard to green or unseasoned timber, its premature use was undoubtedly a cause of rapid decay in ships. It was in this matter that Sandwich had received advice from William Wells. The use of green timber, in the past, was cited as a justification for the actions of both the Admiralty and Navy Boards by Lord North in the Commons in 1772. However, to some critics, this was nothing more than a convenient and over-simple explanation. Wells’ proposal and Sandwich’s actions were sound, as the storage of timber had been a matter to which too little consideration had been given. Yet there were additional factors to consider, and Wells’ opinion unfortunately had the effect of condemning the entire 1756–63 wartime construction once his views had been voiced in the House. There were others holding opinions that did not agree with Wells or Sandwich. Chief among these was Lord Hawke. His criticism of Sandwich might be seen to be nothing more than a defence of his own conduct while at the head of the Admiralty, yet his comments on this subject are illuminating. He wrote: At the end of the last war [1763] the Navy . . . required very large repairs; . . . some of them having been built in a very short time during the last war . . . were indiscriminately, but very erroneously, termed green ships and an idea began to prevail that ships should remain a considerable time on the stocks, before they could be fit for service; and that by keeping them in their frames, they would acquire a durability equal to any service expected of them.15

Hawke’s observation takes on greater significance when compared with the previously cited remarks made by Pepys nearly a century earlier. Allowing the timber of a ship to ‘season in frame’ was only really effective if the vessel was protected from the weather.16 Hawke continued his remarks hinting that Sandwich had been given bad advice.17 Such was the state of the fleet when the idea was revived of its ruinous condition . . . his Lordship [Sandwich] was persuaded by some person during the first four years of his administration . . . to neglect the plan of his predecessors and break up many ships, many more than he built under the wrong idea that the old ships were

15

Lord Edward Hawke, A Seaman’s Remarks on the British Ships of the Line from 1st of January, 1756 to the 1st of January 1782, with some Occasional Observations on the Fleet of the House of Bourbon (London, 1782), pp. 2–3. 16 Plans for covered slipways were later produced by Samuel Bentham and the first were completed at Chatham in 1811. Macdougall, Dockyards, p. 134. 17 As a shipbuilder, Wells might have had a vested interest in convincing Sandwich that the existing fleet needed to be scrapped, however this point is a speculative one. 171


unserviceable and that the new ones ought to continue a considerable time on the stocks to season their timber.18

According to Hawke, Sandwich had broken up twenty-seven ships of the line between 1771 and 1775.19 Hawke felt it was clearly wrong to dispose of so many ships at once without first arranging for their replacement or, better still, repairing them.20 What Hawke did not mention, though it would have supported his argument, was that a large number of ship disposals and a corresponding concentration of new building activity tended to create its own problems. If vessels conformed to an average lifespan of twelve to fifteen years, then a short, concentrated period of building activity was likely to lead to a corresponding decline in fleet strength as those ships began to fall into disrepair some dozen years later. In practice, of course, cycles of decay in the fleet arising from a concentration of building activity were complicated by a host of additional factors. Yet when it is considered that twenty-three ships of 74 to 60 guns were launched to meet wartime needs between the beginning of 1757 and the end of 1759, there was every prospect that these ships would need substantial repair during the 1770s, regardless of whether or not they had been constructed with properly seasoned timber. Sandwich may have disposed of twenty-seven ships but to attempt to replace all of them in a short space of time was not advisable. A gradual build-up of fleet strength, with ships constructed from properly seasoned timber was the best policy but this policy in itself created a period of relative weakness in fleet numbers since the pace of new construction could not keep up with the immediate disposal of those ships discovered to be defective. Nor in all likelihood could it keep pace with the further inevitable decay of the fleet until the new measures introduced for the seasoning of timber had time to take effect. Furthermore, if we examine the twenty-seven ships that Hawke listed,21 it is found that only six of them were constructed during the Seven Years War, the remainder dated from the War of the Austrian Succession. It may well be that these seven represent most of the ‘green ships’ and Sandwich was clearly correct in disposing of the other twenty-one as they were some thirty years old. In fact many of these had been condemned in 1749 and with neither the time or the resources to repair them, they had decayed beyond the point of economical repair, and were no longer on the Navy list. We can see therefore 18

Hawke, Remarks, p. 6. This figure is accurate. Between 1771 and 1775 thirty-one ships of the line were disposed of. Twenty-seven of these were broken up or sold and four were sunk as breakwaters. 20 Large repairs could last as long as the building of a new ship and required a dock whereas a new ship could be built on a slip or the work contracted out to a private builder. Therefore a further important consideration in carrying out a large scale repair programme was the long-term commitment of limited facilities and human resources. 21 Hawke, Remarks, p. 26. 19

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that Sandwich was dealing with a complicated situation. There were many old vessels to dispose of and there was every likelihood that many other vessels were approaching that time when they would require repair.22 The surplus of unexpended funds Sandwich inherited when war failed to materialize over the Falklands gave him an unexpected windfall with which to undertake the necessary changes needed to keep the fleet in condition. The issue of green timber and the wartime construction provided an uncomplicated explanation to the questions that would inevitably arise in Parliament. This was the explanation used, despite it being substantially false. One can only assume that Sandwich was trying to get more money for the Navy without causing undue alarm. It was an unwise move because Parliament itself was to play a part in the whole issue of the state of the Navy before the American War. As a consequence their debates provide an enduring but erroneous view of a Navy in ruin and a corrupt and inept naval administration.

The Navy and Parliament From 1772 onwards, the Navy came to figure more and more prominently in parliamentary debates. There was a significant impact on the affairs of the Navy, and it is within this context that aspects of Sandwich’s administration must be examined. It has been customary to use parliamentary debates to provide a picture of Sandwich’s administration of the Navy up to and including the American War. It is not intended here however, to use such contemporary comment and criticism in order to pass judgement on either Sandwich or his predecessors. Instead we need to address the anxieties and understand the concerns and motivations of the administration’s critics and then evaluate the responses of Sandwich and Lord North. In other words, we need to reinterpret the very nature of these debates.23 Although much has been written on Sandwich and his management of naval affairs, little analysis exists of the parliamentary criticism directed against him. Soon after he took office, criticism of Sandwich reflected genuine alarm over the state and management of the Navy. Former Admiralty Commissioners, naval officers, such as Hawke, Keppel and Bolton, and other interested parties were concerned about appropriation, changing practices and innovation in the dockyards. Criticism was directed at Sandwich’s general style of management,

22

We have only touched so far on the matter of new construction. An additional factor which the administrators had to take account of concerned ships that had already been repaired once or twice and required further repair or disposal. 23 The debates upon which the criticism of Sandwich is to be examined are taken from William Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England. This is the most comprehensive source as Cobbett borrowed from a number of other writers and printed sources. 173


and an apparent decline in the strength of the fleet. In many respects this was a spontaneous outburst, rather than a politically motivated one. A high profile figure such as Sandwich was bound to attract some criticism, more so if he made himself a true master of his office, and introduced innovative methods of management. Any setbacks or failures were bound to draw unfavourable comment. Unfortunately for Sandwich, attempts by ministers in both Houses to counter this criticism and defend his administration resulted in remarks, ill-advised assertions, and reflections on former ministers that only served to inflame the critics. This resulted in the Admiralty becoming a focus for opposition to the government, with the most trivial detail being paraded in the Commons with the sole purpose of discrediting the First Lord of the Admiralty.

1772–4, The Navy debates – appropriation By 1772, additional naval issues began to concern members of parliament. At first these were related to manning levels but then moved on to include how the supplies of funds for the Navy were spent. This became a major concern to the opposition when it became apparent that the peacetime supplies were becoming larger and that there seemed to be little to show for the increased expenditure. Before the Seven Years’ War the peace establishment had been set at 10,000 men. After the war it had become 16,000 and after the mobilization against Spain, in 1770–1, it seemed likely that the establishment would be set at 20,000 men or more. In moving the Sea Service estimate for 1772, John Buller, the senior Admiralty Commissioner, asked that 25,000 men be voted. The reason for so large a number was then explained to the House of Commons. A squadron had been sent to Jamaica and another to the East Indies, and the twenty guardships were to have larger complements. Augustus Hervey, another Admiralty Commissioner further explained that the 9,000 additional men would provide more money for wear and tear, and that this was needed to keep the guardships in better condition. He went on to say that they were not properly kept up during the peace and had been unfit for service on the mobilization against Spain.24 Hervey’s remark was to prove unfortunate and was substantially incorrect as the mobilization in 1770 was swift and effective despite the difficulties with getting the Yarmouth and Belleisle fit for sea.25 The increased appropriation asked for was the considerable sum of nearly half a million pounds. Admirals Keppel and Saunders, both former members

24

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, pp. 238–9. The North ministry lacked firm leadership and it was foolish to allow Hervey to act as an untutored spokesman for the Navy. 25

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of the Admiralty Board, objected to the sending of ships to the East Indies as this conflicted with the pacific state of international affairs expressed in the King’s speech, a view enlarged upon by other members. The critics of the government were suspicious that 25,000 men would become a permanent peace establishment. This suspicion was justified in view of the fact that the size of the establishment had apparently doubled in the space of twenty years. Furthermore, if Hervey’s assertion about the guardships had been correct, there was no guarantee that increased expenditure on the guardships would prevent them from being found unfit for service at the next emergency. This was also very likely in view of the difficulties that were to come to light as Sandwich made his dockyard visitations. Opposition leader, William Dowdeswell, and William Pulteney attacked the government over this increased expense. It was ‘a piece of art and management’, they declared, ‘to begin the augmentation, when the money granted last year for another purpose was still in hand, in hopes that it would pass with less difficulty next year’.26 Pulteney had calculated that only 17,500 men were needed to provide all the services required and supposed that the money was to be applied to some other purpose.27 Despite these objections and after some debate, the original motion passed without division. Opposition MPs were right to believe that much of this increase was largely unjustified. From the Navy Board’s monthly accounts it is apparent that the Admiralty was hoping to keep a healthy sum in reserve. With the uncertain state of the fleet after the Falklands mobilization and its likely deterioration, this fund would allow Sandwich considerable flexibility in directing money where it was most needed. In this respect this increase in the naval estimates reflected nothing more than the true expense of maintaining the fleet. During Egmont’s administration, this cost had been partly hidden by indirect funding. However, much more was being voted in this instance than was strictly required. In January 1772, when this debate was taking place, there was still a surplus on the previous year’s supply of nearly £300,000 even after almost £1 million in Navy bills had been discharged. This surplus was not spent until the following May. At the end of 1772, £337,884 remained of that year’s supply; the net surplus having increased. A remainder of £192,000 of this was still unused in May 1773.28 These annual surpluses were not uncommon. However they rarely exceeded £200,000 and were either applied to the payment of the Navy course in the first few months of the new year or provided a reserve until

26

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17. p. 242. The money in hand referred to the surplus from the supplies of 1771 when less seamen had been employed than voted. This amounted to nearly £350,000. 27 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 243. 28 NMM: ADM B 186, 1 January 1772, 1 June 1772, ADM B 187, 1 January 1773, ADM B 188, 1 June 1773. 175


the next round of supplies had been voted.29 There are also grounds to suspect some truth behind Pulteney’s remark about the money being applied to other uses. Lord North, the king’s first minister and head of the Treasury, had candidly admitted in 1770 that if the Navy needed extra money it would be best to get a grant for the debt and then apply it to the repair of ships rather than discharging the debt.30 This was unconstitutional and strictly against parliamentary procedure. Even so Treasury ministers and officials had a long history of fudging finances for perfectly legitimate ends. Members were quite right in asking why an additional half million pounds was being asked for when nearly this amount remained unspent from the previous year’s supplies. A further point connected with this debate took place two days later. It was a portent of trouble that was to visit Sandwich in the following years but at this time it directly concerned the generous supply granted on 29 January. Martin Hawke, who had been absent from the House when the debate had been taking place, rose to object to the indiscriminate remarks made by several members concerning the state of the Navy in 1770. This was in part a response to Hervey’s comment about the guardships. Criticism had been circulating in the press about his father, Sir Edward Hawke, and his conduct of naval affairs. The son declared: It has been reported that the situation of your marine at the conclusion of the year 1770 was totally owing to the inactivity or ignorance of the right honourable gentleman who then presided at the Board of Admiralty; . . . that the present alteration in your fleet is owing to a change of men, and not to a change of measures.

Hawke went on to say that his father had not been so well supported as the present First Lord and that measures had indeed changed. Parliament had voted nine thousand more men than the usual establishment and that under Hawke ‘had more liberal supplies of money been granted and assigned to the Navy, your fleet would have been in a more forward situation’.31 In many respects both North and Sandwich were potentially making a rod for their own backs by obtaining generous supplies for the Navy. Although increased investment was to become progressively more necessary, there could be no excuse of parliamentary underfunding to fall back on if Sandwich and the Navy did not produce a clear improvement. The supplies were so liberal that expectations were high and it must have been assumed that once the Navy was in a respectable condition, the supplies requested would become more moderate. This was certainly Lord North’s expectation. Writing to

29 30 31

A new supply would appear on the accounts any time between February and April. Ruddock MacKay, Admiral Hawke (Oxford, 1965), p. 323. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 244. 176


Sandwich some months before the supplies for 1773 were to be voted, he remarked that a large peace establishment would prove ruinous and that the unprepared state of the Navy before the previous war (1755) had been mitigated by strong credit and financial resources carefully managed during the peace. North proposed a reduction in the number of guardships and the recall of the India squadron, but Sandwich countered this by stating that a strong peace establishment was a deterrent and would prevent war, a view amply demonstrated by the recent Falklands crisis.32 North was right to suppose that the voting of large supplies would become an important issue, insofar as it differed from previous peacetime practice. On 2 December 1772 Buller moved for a supply for 20,000 men for 1773, with no account of their distribution or explanation as to why more were needed than the accustomed establishment. Again it was Pulteney, Dowdeswell and Cornwall who raised objections. Pulteney pointed out that not only had the peace establishments increased from ten to sixteen and now twenty thousand, but the expense had more than increased in proportion. Sixteen thousand men had cost double the expense of ten. He went on to condemn the practice of voting sums in aggregate and giving the Admiralty the power to employ the money as it pleased.33 From an unnamed informant, Pulteney had discovered that more men were being requested than were necessary. ‘What then will become of the surplus men? They will not be upon the muster yet the nation will pay for them.’34 There appears to be some truth in this. Much of the increase in the establishment can be accounted for by the larger crews of the twenty guardships, yet North had proposed to Sandwich that to save money, four of these ships be decommissioned while still maintaining a force of 20,000 men. It seemed to the critics of the ministry that the wages for these men were to be applied to other naval services. Twenty thousand men had been decided upon because of a possible confrontation in the Baltic.35 Yet, following Pultney’s argument, these numbers should not have been called for until the possibility became a certainty. As explained in Chapter 4, there was an ongoing interplay between Parliament and various departments of the state over public finance, and the level of state debt in particular. Since at least the 1750s this interplay was apparent with the Navy departments. On the one hand Parliament sought to control the public purse, and thereby retain an influence over the Crown by voting a bare sufficiency for public expenditure and putting in place systems

32

Barnes and Owen (eds) Sandwich Papers, vol. 1, pp. 21–5. The background to these reductions can be found in Nicholas Tracy, Navies, Deterrence and American Independence (Vancouver, 1988), pp. 116–17. 33 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, pp. 538–9. 34 ibid., p. 540. 35 Tracy, Navies, p. 108. 177


of monitoring, and then funding retrospectively any shortfall. High spending departments, the Navy being the best example, tried to overcome the financial and administrative restrictions placed upon it either by subverting the process of appropriation or by promoting internal efficiencies, and usually both. There were limits to efficiency gains, however, and it is fair to say that Anson and Egmont had probably gone as far as was possible on that front. The only recourse left to resourceful officials and ministers was working the system and moving money around and even obtaining appropriation under false pretences. North’s remark that money to spend on ships could be found by obtaining a grant for the Navy debt was typical of this. It did not matter that men like Sandwich and North had the good of the naval service in mind. Parliament was reluctant to give wide discretionary powers to any individual or body entrusted with several million pounds of state expenditure. Parliament needed to be alert, but distrust of ministers in the 1770s was particularly intense. This may be because closer scrutiny of government business simply amplified suspicion. However, the arrogant and inept handling of the developing situation in the American colonies must also be seen as an important element. It did not help matters, when reforms that assisted in making the whole process of funding the Navy more transparent were abandoned. In 1771, the annual plan of expense was dropped. The plan had been a significant reform in naval appropriation introduced by Charles Jenkinson during Hawke’s administration of the Admiralty.36 Its intention had been to ease the passage of the naval estimates through Parliament and place the responsibility for adequate naval funding on Parliament itself. If a plan of expense had been produced and presented to Parliament for the supplies of 1773, then the nature of the Navy’s expected expenditure would have been apparent to all and the increase in funding could have been justified. As the plan had been abandoned, it seemed to some that the Navy’s expenditure could not be justified and that matters were being hidden from Parliament. This was not mentioned specifically in any of the published accounts of the parliamentary debates but it must lie behind some of the criticism. Something was being hidden from Parliament. Sandwich’s fear about the deteriorating state of the fleet must have been looming in his mind even before his dockyard visitations of 1773 and 1774 and the state of the Navy was always a tender political issue. Furthermore, if a strong peacetime naval force was to deter war then there had to be confidence in the condition of the fleet. It was not wise to advertise the Navy’s difficulties abroad. A deterrent was needed. In October 1772 Lord Harcourt had been instructed to inform the French that British fleets would be sent to the Baltic and the Mediterranean if the French deployed their fleets against Russia.37 This could not be seen

36 37

This was discussed in Chapter 6. Tracy, Navies, p. 108. 178


as an idle threat. Apart from this, Sandwich with long experience at the Admiralty would not have wished those substantial discretionary powers exercised by both the Admiralty and Navy Boards to be eroded by parliamentary scrutiny. Sandwich was asking for what the Navy needed and he had to be trusted with the direction of the Navy’s affairs. More specific criticism emerged during the debate of December 1772. Taking a lead from the surplus of men for 1773, Charles Cornwall, a prominent Opposition speaker drew attention to the number of seamen voted in 1771. This had been forty thousand, however as mobilization had been partial, only thirty-one thousand men had been borne on the books of the Navy. The difference in wages was almost half a million pounds and no account had been given of how this money had been applied. An account would have been given to Parliament if the Navy Board had produced a plan of expense for that year. Lord North confidently answered the question by stating that the money had been used for the repair of ships built with green timber during the Seven Years War. These had been found unfit for service during the Falklands crisis.38 Cornwall replied that he had no objection to the money being used and of course there was no precedent for a reduction of a new supply in accordance with the surplus of a previous year. He stated that he was concerned only that the money was not abused or misapplied.39 However, there was no way of showing to the satisfaction of anyone how the money had been spent, as there was no longer any plan of expense being produced by the Navy Board. The issue was not to go away. Half a million pounds of public money was apparently unaccounted for and the matter was to be raised again and again in subsequent debates. When the matter arose some years later in 1778, North made the mistake of not being consistent in his response to the question. 40 In the debate on the 1773 supplies, the surplus had, according to North, been applied to the repair of ships, yet in the debate of December 1778, he changed his story. Temple Luttrell openly accused both North and Sandwich of embezzlement as the appropriation of the surplus was not to be seen in any of the accounts submitted to the Commons. North replied that the sum alluded to, which he stated to be £450,000, had been applied to the debt of the Navy.41 Yet, as Luttrell was to demonstrate in the debate on Fox’s motion on the state of the Navy in March 1779, the debt was not reduced in 1771 nor did any

38

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 546. ibid., p. 547. 40 The matter was raised again, twice in 1778 and again in 1779. ‘Debate in the Commons on the State of the Navy’, 11 March 1778, ‘Debate in the Commons on the Naval Estimates’, 2 December 1778, and ‘Debate on Fox’s Motion on the State of the Navy on the breaking out of the War with France’, 8 March 1779, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, pp. 876–7, 1379, 1386, vol. 20, p. 226. 41 ibid., vol. 19, pp. 1379, 1386. 39

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part of this sum go towards the debt contracted by Hawke during the Falkland’s mobilization.42 The truth of the matter was that there was no contradiction and North was correct in both assertions. The money was used to discharge both the debt and repair the Navy’s ships, and precisely where the money was applied depended on one’s interpretation of the Navy’s accounts. The Navy Board letters indicate that a large sum, nearly £800,000, was used to discharge part of the debt of the Navy in April and October 1771, and that the debt contracted by Hawke in 1770 was paid off at this time (see Table 7.1). In this respect Luttrell was clearly misinformed as nearly the total of the debt contracted at the end of Hawke’s administration was discharged in October alone. Yet the total debt was not reduced by any great amount, and increased substantially the following year. It is clear from this that the half million pounds had been applied to the debt to secure the Navy’s credit, allowing it to contract a further debt. So in one sense the surplus had been indirectly applied to the repair of the fleet. These financial manoeuvres were commonplace. Grenville had employed many such means to fund the Navy and secure its credit in 1763–4. Now, however, MPs wanted more assurance that money was applied to the specific purposes for which it was voted. It was not sufficient for North to state, as he did to Luttrell, that even if he and Sandwich were inclined to embezzlement, they were in no position to touch a penny of it.43 They were responsible for the public money, but none of it passed directly through their hands. The government found itself criticized no matter what supplies were called for. North had promised to reduce the establishment of men to its former levels, but when he announced the expected reduction he found that there Table 7.1 Navy and transport course 1770–144 Date contracted

Date paid

Amount

March–June 1769 July–March 1770 April–Oct. 1770 Nov.1770–April 1771 May–June 1771

July 1770 Aug. 1770 Apr. 1771 Oct. 1771 Dec. 1771

£135,972 £406,999 £302,286 £493,633 £123,004

42

Navy and transport course outstanding

Dec. 1770 £550,379

Dec. 1771 £471,277 Dec. 1772 £766,352

ibid., vol. 20, p. 226. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 1386. 44 NMM: ADM B 183, 13 July, 1770, 6 August 1770, ADM B 185, 5 April, 1771, 4 October, 1771, 3 December, 1771, 26 December, 1771, Commons Journals, vol. 33, p. 299, 437, vol. 34, p. 264. 43

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was no pleasing some of his critics. Buller moved for 16,000 men to be voted in December 1774, for the year 1775, and Thomas Townshend then wished to be informed why 20,000 had been called for in the previous estimate if 16,000 were sufficient for the present.45 The following day, Lord John Cavendish stated that he could not reconcile the reduction in the number of men with the speech from the throne announcing the alarming situation in America.46 Year after year since 1771 there had been apparent inconsistencies between what was demanded for the Navy and the state of international affairs.47 This established a background of suspicion. At the very best, the North government seemed inept; at worst it was corrupt. It is hardly surprising that the significant matter of the missing half million pounds surplus of 1771 would not go away and would provide a platform for accusing Sandwich of embezzlement.

1775–8, Early mobilization – Hawke, Sandwich and the management of the Navy Suspicion grew in Parliament as it was discovered that money was being voted for the repair of ships and the repairs not carried out. This was hardly a revelation to anyone familiar with the nature of the Extraordinary estimates, but it gave unwelcome ammunition to the critics of the government. The sums were often substantial and had a certain ‘shock’ value that served to heighten the drama of the moment and underline the near criminality of the king’s servants. The questions raised in Parliament became more detailed and more specific. Facts and information, much of it accurate, some of it misinformed, and all of it highly selective was now being paraded before both Houses to prove the mismanagement of naval affairs by Sandwich, and by implication his ministerial colleagues. Evaluating expert information required experience of naval matters. The information was produced as the disquiet about the Navy moved from the civilian members of Parliament to sitting naval officers and their relatives. This shift was due to two reasons. First, toward the eve of the war with the colonies, the effective strength of the fleet began to decline alarmingly as a direct result of Sandwich’s policy of using only thoroughly seasoned timber for building and repair. This caused a temporary delay in new construction. Also, well-intentioned interference in the mode of paying dockyard workers

45

‘Debate in the Commons on the Navy Estimates, 12 December 1774’, Parl. Hist., vol. 18, p. 54. 46 ibid., vol. 18, pp. 55–6. 47 Nicholas Tracy suggests that the reduction in the naval estimates was due to a ‘measure of confidence felt by the North Administration’. Tracy, Navies, p. 119. A measure of incompetence might be equally appropriate. 181


and shipwrights was causing unrest and resulted in a large-scale walkout in 1775. Naturally this was of great concern to naval officers. Second, many allusions on both sides of the House had been made about former Admiralty administrations, in particular that of Hawke. For instance, in 1772 Pulteney had complained that there were too many new ships being built and that ‘the negligence of a former board has driven the present into a contrary extreme’.48 Remarks such as this were welcomed by Sandwich as they provided unsolicited defence of his conduct. This and comments on the use of green timber for construction both during and after the Seven Year’s War provided Sandwich and North with some justification for high naval expenditure and the condition of many of the Navy’s ships. One result, however, was the criticism both direct and implied of two of the most respected naval officers of the age, Sir Edward Hawke, Sandwich’s immediate predecessor at the Admiralty and the late Lord Anson who had filled that post during the Seven Years’ War. The circle of their service connections was great and hardly a naval officer in either House had not served with one or the other. Many of these officers were also ‘whigs’ in the same sense that Anson and Hawke were, that is, men who found less favour under George III.49 With regard to the present strength of the fleet, it seemed as clear as crystal to many in the Navy that Sandwich was failing to do what Anson and Hawke had achieved with smaller resources. Now both he and North had the temerity to lay the blame for their present difficulties at the feet of these great men. Furthermore Sandwich seemed averse to taking expert advice, paying little attention to the naval corps at large. Except for those naval officers in his immediate circle such as Hugh Palliser and Maurice Suckling, both appointed as Comptrollers of the Navy Board, Sandwich apparently gave greater weight to the advice of civilians, such as the shipbuilder William Wells. It was Wells who had written to the First Lord to advise that building with green timber was the main cause of the deterioration of the fleet.50 To be fair, Sandwich had considerable personal experience of his office, was a master of his business, and had many innovative and ultimately beneficial schemes to implement, yet the cutting criticism of Captain John Luttrell must certainly sum up some of the frustration of his professional colleagues:

48

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 17, p. 540. Daniel Baugh, ‘“Too Much Mixed in this Affair”: The Impact of Ministerial Politics in the Eighteenth Century Navy’, in New Interpretations of Naval History: Selected Papers from the Fourteenth Naval History Symposium ed. Randy Carol Balano and Craig L. Symonds (Annapolis, 2001), p. 37. 50 NMM: SAN F/2/12. However it should be noted that on the subject of green timber Sandwich did have a paper written by Captain William Brereton about 1771. SAN F/33a/8. 49

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It would take me till midnight to enumerate the various instances of bad management, ignorance and extravagance that have followed one another since the noble lord who now presides at the head of the Admiralty was appointed to such office; proceeding in part, I am sure, from his not taking the advice of a very able and respectable sea officer, who is a lord of that board, but obstinately following his own naval ideas and being unable or unwilling to discern, that though a subtle statesman, he is but an ordinary seaman.51

The point was well made and concluded with a witty double entendre, much to the enjoyment and appreciation of the assembled members. The Commissioner alluded to by Captain Luttrell, the ‘respectable sea officer who is a member of that board’, was Augustus Hervey, a close friend of Sandwich.52 Sandwich ignored naval opinion it would seem, even from officers to whom he claimed friendship. It was an insult to the naval profession. Sandwich had antagonized a significant part of the naval profession, by failing to consult board members and criticizing his predecessors. By 1776 this had become such a sensitive issue that, speaking in support of Sandwich, Lord Palmerston, also a board member, wished it known that ‘in commending the noble earl’s assiduity and talents, he would not be understood to detract in any degree from the praise due to Lord Hawke, with whom he had likewise been in office’.53 This was not to be the last instance of Sandwich mismanaging the sensitivities of naval officers. There were always the tricky problems of patronage and promotions that the present climate made more than usually difficult. Then, in 1778, he was held to blame for the Keppel–Palliser affair, apparently for the only reason that he was Palliser’s patron. Sandwich was, however, at a natural disadvantage. His overall abilities and administrative experience were undoubtedly greater than Hawke’s and certainly equal to Anson’s, but he was not a seaman. It was the natural enough opinion of many naval officers that no mere civilian, whatever his experience, could pretend to a knowledge of maritime affairs greater than those who hazarded their lives at sea. John Luttrell warned North in 1775 of putting too much faith in the information of a man with little more maritime knowledge than himself.54 In addition to the suspicions of Parliament over naval expenditure, Sandwich had further to contend with the natural prejudice of naval officers against the civil branch of the Navy. Captain Luttrell’s remarks were made during the debate on the supplies for 1776.55 This debate marked both a shift in emphasis and the participation

51 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 18, p. 842. Captain John Luttrell was the brother of Temple Luttrell. Another brother in the Navy, Lieutenant James Luttrell, also sat in the Commons from December 1775. 52 Hevey’s friendship with Sandwich did not continue long. Elevated to the House of Lords as the Earl of Bristol, Hervey became one of Sandwich’s most vocal critics. 53 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 18. p. 1452. 54 ibid., p. 842. 55 Cobbett gives no specific date for this debate, ibid., pp. 842–6.

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to a much greater degree by a naval officer. Luttrell made a lengthy criticism of the Sandwich administration but altered the focus from manning and appropriation in general, to more specific concerns. Apart from ignoring the advice of the naval officers on the Admiralty Board, Luttrell accused Sandwich of wasting the public money on annual visitations to the dockyards during which artificers were kept from their labour, gunpowder was wasted on needless salutes, and during which Sandwich claimed distinctions to which he was not entitled. As arguments, they added little to Luttrell’s credit. His further observations were more damaging, however. Why, for instance, had the First Lord sent the royal yacht, at the cost of one thousand pounds, to Lisbon to fetch his son when he could have taken passage in a packet for £50? Why, after the First Lord’s dockyard visitations and careful inspection of the fleet, were the best ships sold for £1,000 when the worst seemed to have been repaired at a cost of £40,000? Why, if over the past five years, £2 million had been granted to the repair of the Navy above the normal allowance for wear and tear, had the debt of the Navy increased by half a million pounds?56 More specifically, Luttrell pointed out the example of the Africa, sold in 1774 for £900 even though he claimed she could have been made as new for £3,000.57 This was a debatable point but, when Luttrell brought up the subject of the Dragon, his criticism was justified and was to be borne out by the ship’s subsequent history. Apparently, £33,000 had been voted to repair this ship in the space of four years yet she was laid up unfit for service without having had any repair carried out. In all, the Dragon was to have £37,000 voted for her repair between 1771 and 1775. According to a survey of 1773, the actual sum needed exclusive of stores was £7,000, yet no repair was ever carried out.58 This example reflected the nature of the Extraordinary estimates as a vehicle for obtaining a supply from Parliament and the discretion of the Navy Board to adjust its building and repair priorities. Because of increasing parliamentary pressure over expenditure the Navy Board’s discretionary powers were now becoming less acceptable to the Board of Admiralty. An undated memorandum of Sir Hugh Palliser remarked: The loose manner in which the schemes of work for the ensuing years are made by the officers of the respective Yards, and inserted in the extra estimates laid before Parliament, gives room for many reflecting observations thereon in

56

ibid., pp. 842–3. ibid., p. 843. NMM: PST49, vol. 2, f. 186. The Africa had been launched in 1759 and received a small repair in 1767. She needed another small repair in 1773 but her defects proving greater, she was sold in 1774. 58 NMM: PST49, vol. 2, f. 176, vol. 5, f. 51. The Dragon was fitted as a receiving ship in 1780 and sold in 1784. 57

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Parliament – gives an appearance of great mismanagement, and furnishes a handle to Opposition to say the money is not laid out for the purpose for which it is granted.59

A further significant observation made by Luttrell concerned the introduction of task work into the dockyards. Task work was a more efficient use of labour because artificers were paid for the work they performed instead of a fixed daily wage. This, it was argued, was an incentive scheme as it not only increased their potential earnings but in theory reduced overall relative wage costs by an increase in productivity. The work would be performed more quickly. Therefore either fewer artificers were needed or more work could be performed by the existing establishment. This allowed for better planning.60 Because of these obvious advantages, Sandwich, in April 1775, had attempted to impose task work on the shipwrights. It was opposed almost universally and was in any event very difficult to administer properly. Dockyard officers opposed it as, heaven forbid, payment by results might later be imposed on themselves. Artificers disliked it for a number of reasons. First, although earnings were increased, this was not always the case. This was because task work also did away with working extra or overtime, which had traditionally subsidized the low wage rate. It was also difficult to assess a proper rate of payment for a particular task and, as well as this, there was the problem of payment for men being moved from one task to another as work priorities changed. Weather conditions could affect output and therefore the men’s pay, something they did not have to concern themselves about when on a day wage.61 There was a general apprehension among artificers that the increase in productivity meant that fewer workers were potentially needed and this undermined their ability to withhold their labour when making demands of the Navy Board. As a result, there were widespread strikes over the summer of 1775. Luttrell blamed Sandwich for insurrection in the dockyards. Given the way task work was implemented, without sufficient thought and proper communication, this criticism is entirely justified. Luttrell termed

59

Barnes and Owen, Sandwich Papers, vol. 1, pp. 275–6. Palliser was an Admiralty Commissioner and former Comptroller of the Navy Board. While at the Navy Board he had not corrected what he later termed ‘absurdities in the extra estimates’ and blamed the Surveyor for the situation. In making recommendations to prevent future criticism of the administration it is apparent that he was led by political considerations. 60 James Haas, ‘The Introduction of Task Work into the Royal Dockyards, 1775’, Journal of British Studies, VIII (1969), pp. 44–68, p. 44. When the idea had been tried out at Chatham in 1749, the dockyard officers were cautioned about allowing the artificers to be absent if they completed their work early. The idea was to increase the output of the yards not allow leisure time to the workers. NMM: CHA/E/9, 13 December, 1749. 61 R. J. B. Knight, Portsmouth Dockyard, pp. xliv–xlv. 185


it a destructive manner of building and repair that would increase expense and ruin the fleet.62 This was an exaggeration and uttered for effect, but the stoppage came at a very bad time. It appears that not one of the many points raised were answered during the debate. Lord North merely repeated that the building policy during the war had caused great expense. Lord Hinchinbroke, Sandwich’s son, did little to assist the administration by insisting that his father had been in the unlikely situation of having no other way of bringing his brother home from Lisbon. The government benches were obviously ill-prepared to counter specific criticism. Luttrell’s attack on Sandwich should not be deemed political although it must be noted that most of his family were also in Parliament and opposed to the Administration.63 Much later in 1782 Luttrell was to defend Sandwich, describing him as active, capable, diligent and attentive, and ascribing his difficulties to Hawke’s predecessor, the Earl of Egmont, and the ‘niggardliness’ of Parliament.64 His attack on Sandwich in 1775 was based on a genuine concern about the management of the Navy and motivated chiefly by the administration’s attempts to defend its conduct by blaming Hawke. It is noteworthy that in his later defence of Sandwich, Luttrell made a point of stating that the fleet in 1771 was not in good condition but that this was the fault of Egmont and not the fault of Hawke. Luttrell had served under Hawke in the channel fleet in 1761, commanding the sloop Druid.65 More significantly, Luttrell was a correspondent and associate of Lieutenant Robert Tomlinson. Tomlinson’s naval patron was Hawke and he was active in assisting Hawke in compiling material to defend his administration. He also supplied information to prominent members of the Opposition, in particular Sandwich’s former friend Hervey, now the Earl of Bristol, as well as to Shelburne and to the Luttrells. It was Tomlinson who had supplied John Luttrell with information on the unnecessary sale of the Africa.66 Tomlinson 62 Parl. Hist., vol. 18, p. 843. This innovation in working practices had been discussed many times, briefly introduced in 1749, but not introduced widely into the Royal Yards until 1775. It had previously been opposed by workers, the Navy Board and by naval officers. This is an example of what Luttrell referred to as Sandwich following his own naval ideas instead of the advice of serving officers. 63 John Luttrell’s father Simon went into opposition in 1775, being disappointed in his ambition for an earldom. John’s brother Henry generally supported the ministry and was an opponent of Wilkes. Two other brothers, Lieutenant James Luttrell and Temple Luttrell, entered Parliament in 1775 and both were fierce opponents of North’s ministry. L. Namier and J. Brooke (eds), The History of Parliament, the House of Commons 1754–1790, 3 vols (London, 1964) vol. 3, pp. 65–71. 64 Namier and Brooke, History of Parliament, vol. 3, p. 67, Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 22, pp. 898–9. 65 MacKay, Hawke Papers, p. 381. 66 Luttrell to Tomlinson, 8 August 1776?, J. G. Bullocke, The Tomlinson Papers (London, NRS, 1935), pp. 111–12.

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had a close professional connection and numerous obligations to Luttrell. His son Nicholas Tomlinson was soon to be taken into the Charon in 1779, where Captain Luttrell immediately promoted him to midshipman.67 The point here is that service connections with Hawke, concern about changing work practices in the dockyards, and the management of the Navy in general provided sufficient reasons for Luttrell, as a naval officer, to speak out. His personal politics were a secondary consideration. The break with the American colonies in 1776 was the catalyst for a change in the nature of the criticism directed towards Sandwich and the North administration. There developed a largely political emphasis. By the time that the naval estimates for 1777 were debated in November 1776, the American colonies were in open rebellion. Although nothing specific was charged against Sandwich in this debate, a further significant shift took place. In this debate, the chief protagonist was not John Luttrell but his brother Temple.68 The primary topic of the Opposition was the war in America. It was argued that the sending of forces across the Atlantic weakened the home defence and that there were insufficient men to man the guardships if France entered the conflict. Temple Luttrell objected in particular to the withholding of information by the administration on the grounds that it was considered ‘highly improper thus publicly to expose the weakness of our Navy’. He argued that it was unlikely that France was ignorant of the condition of Britain’s Navy and that this excuse for making ‘the grossest impositions’ and ‘deep-laid fictions’ with ‘sanctimonious composure’ and ‘dauntless effrontery’ turned a vice into a virtue. For this outburst, he was called to order by the Attorney General. 69 Luttrell then made it known that he intended to make a motion for a return of the state of the Navy, followed by an address to His Majesty to remove the Earl of Sandwich from the Admiralty. This was not simply a personal attack on Sandwich, nor did Luttrell’s motion in this instance reflect genuine concern for the Navy. There was a different agenda here, connected with the conflict in America and a desire to bring down the ministry. Luttrell observed that, ‘to give the first commissioner of the naval department the palm of specious falsehoods while he had so many competitors in the ministerial fraternity, was indeed no trifling compliment’.70 Lord Mulgrave, an Admiralty Commissioner, rose in defence of the ministry declaring that a parliamentary enquiry would be welcomed and that he would be willing to second the motion as it would tend to vindicate the First Lord and show him to be a capable servant of the

67

Bullocke, Tomlinson Papers p. xvii. Captain Luttrell had vacated his seat in favour of his brother James, a lieutenant in the Navy. Temple Luttrell was also corresponding with Tomlinson. 69 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 18, p. 1450. 70 ibid., p. 1451. 68

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crown.71 Lord North objected to the Earl of Sandwich being attacked in his absence.72 Luttrell insisted that his accusations were not unsubstantiated and that it would be found that Sandwich had been granted twice as much as any of his predecessors and that therefore the fleet should be in better condition. His resolution was agreed to and he moved that accounts be brought before the House so it could be seen that: when it was officially alleged, that we had 23 ships of the line fit to take the seas, and many more in great forwardness, and that our fleet at home was then a full match for the combined squadrons of France and Spain . . . [it] was a dangerous, wicked and wilful imposition on Parliament and the whole nation.

He went on to say that: if the people of England knew the real state of our marine power, and resources, and the great superiority of our natural enemies in these seas, they would scarce suffer so many ships and men to be dispatched to the furthest quarter of the globe, even on a more rational and profitable pursuit than the reduction of our American colonies to despotism, before we had secured the seat of our empire from invasion and ruin.73

‘. . . a more rational and profitable pursuit than the reduction of our American colonies to despotism’, reveals Luttrell’s true aim. This emotive and highly charged invective made a target of North’s government. The instrument of that government’s destruction was to be the state of the Navy and the disgrace of Sandwich. The motion was seconded and approved by members of the Opposition but the supporters of the administration ensured that it received a negative without division. A number of points had caused this change of emphasis and direction in the naval issues under debate, in particular the politicization of the state of the Navy. First, and most importantly, the American rebellion had cemented the divisions already apparent over the ministry’s handling of the colonies. It was alleged that the despatch of forces to America had weakened the home fleet and exposed its inadequacy. Second, the chief critic in the Commons was now a civilian with naval connections and access to naval information

71

Lord Mulgrave was Constantine Phipps, a naval officer, member of the Royal Society and close friend of Sandwich. He was the Admiralty’s principal spokesman in the Commons, his title being an Irish peerage. Phipps had commanded the expedition of the Racehorse and Carcass to Spitsbergen in 1773. The young Horatio Nelson served on this expedition. 72 An odd response considering that Sandwich would have been unable to make a reply to these remarks as he sat in the House of Lords. 73 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 18. pp. 1453–4. 188


and informed opinion. Furthermore, information was now being withheld by the government. Accounts to which the House was usually entitled were not forthcoming on the grounds of security. Now, a major enquiry had been called for, a significant development, but this had been blocked by the friends of the administration. Once called for, insistence on a full enquiry was unlikely to recede. The debate on the sea service supply for 1778, returned to some of the former issues but not before Colonel Barré, a leading Opposition spokesman and associate of William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, objected to the voting of a supply without information respecting the strength of the fleet. John Buller, the Admiralty Commissioner moving the estimate, had been interrupted by the Attorney General while giving this information. This was on the grounds that it was imprudent to make known either the weakness or strength of the Navy. Barré was supported in principle by Lord Mulgrave who said that it was in any event of no consequence, for if France knew the strength of the fleet, ‘it was the best security for a continuance of their pacific dispositions’.74 Again the main spokesman for the Opposition was Temple Luttrell. The substance of his speech clearly demonstrated a deep distrust of the government. It was the administration collectively that was corrupt and dishonest, not Sandwich in particular. Luttrell made the incisive observation that the augmentation of the Navy by the voting of 60,000 men was a fraud because this number, although paid for by Parliament, could not possibly be employed. The fact that the administration chose to withhold information on the nature of the service on which the men and ships were to be employed served to underline his point. He likened it to the removal of ten or twelve thousand stand of arms from the Tower to Whitehall with no prospect of raising the men to use them.75 Luttrell was perfectly correct in asserting that the Navy could not possibly employ 60,000 men. It is doubtful that even with the ships available, the fleet could mobilize that quickly. Ships had to be brought forward from the ordinary, and providing they were fit for sea, be fitted, rigged, armed and stored before they could be fully manned. Then there was the question of whether sufficient men could be obtained within the coming year to reach a manning level of 60,000. Apart from that, the money to be voted would assume an immediate establishment of 60,000 not a gradual increase towards that target, and some of the money voted for wages would therefore never be spent on wages at all. The implication was that it would be spent at the discretion of the First Lord, and the larger the number of men voted, the more ‘discretionary’ funds would be available to him.

74 ‘Debate in the Commons on the Navy Estimates, 26 November 1777’, ibid., vol. 19, p. 447. 75 ibid., p. 448.

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To prove his point further, Luttrell demonstrated that there were not enough ships available to employ these men and that this was specifically the fault of Sandwich’s management. Once again, the ‘illiberal reflections’ made about Lord Hawke by Sandwich and his supporters were brought into play. Sandwich was attacked for the large-scale use of foreign oak. Luttrell predicted that those ships built under Sandwich would not last any longer than those built by Hawke, ‘although the very advanced expense which had been allowed to the present board went far beyond all former precedents’.76 Furthermore, despite the voting of a large number of seamen for which the country was to pay, it was proving difficult to recruit or impress those needed. Luttrell pointed out that between September 1770 and the following February, Hawke had fully equipped and manned thirty-five ships of the line, and in 1755, Anson had mobilized enough men and ships to send a squadron to America. It was now asserted by Sandwich that there were thirty-five battleships ready for sea, but Luttrell defied the First Lord to produce a list of more than twenty fully manned and ready. He showed that the number of seamen presently employed could not man the forty-two ships in commission and that many vessels on active service had a reduced complement.77 Luttrell made a specific example of the Worcester having sailed with 387 men instead of 500. He moved that no more than fifty or at most fifty-five thousand men be voted and summed up his argument by stating ‘let the nation pay for no more than these till these are bona-fide in your employ.’78 Luttrell’s arguments were contested by Buller. He now revealed the number and distribution of the fleet, although this information was disputed. Palliser commented that if the Navy was as weak as Luttrell insisted then France and Spain would have attacked already. The debate became more heated as Lord Mulgrave criticized Luttrell’s arguments calling them illogical. He went on to comment on a number of trivial points connected with specific naval officers, and thus turned the dialogue from a debate to something more personal and wholly inappropriate for a debating chamber. To this, Luttrell returned some personal remarks, supported by his brother James. It was evident that the real issues were becoming clouded by political and personal rivalries. Despite Edmund Burke’s attempt to steer the debate back to the matter in hand, further comment was on peripheral or unrelated subjects, before the resolution was agreed to. The main point to emerge from this debate was closely related to the former debates on appropriation. The administration was not trusted with the grants that had been voted by Parliament. There was in the view of the Opposition, an increasing tendency for the government to ask for more than

76 77 78

ibid., p. 449. ibid., pp. 448, 450. ibid., p. 452. 190


was strictly needed, presumably to dispose of as it pleased and not to expend on the specific items to which Parliament appropriated the sums. There was still the unresolved matter of half a million pounds, which those opposed to the ministry insisted was still unaccounted for. Whether justified or not, mistrust of the King’s ministers was understandable as was the dissatisfaction with the methods employed to disperse the grants made for the Navy. However, the political temperature had been raised significantly and matters that would formerly have reflected genuine concern for reform and good government, were now the currency of political rhetoric.

1778, Reaction against Sandwich The year 1778 was in many respects crucial in the deliberations over the state and management of the Navy. It must have been one of the most testing and miserable years of Sandwich’s political career. It was also the year that marked the entry of France into the struggle of the American colonists. Early on in the year there were a number of unfortunate remarks and admissions made by friends of the administration; remarks seized upon by the ever watchful Temple Luttrell. In February, the Ordinary and the Extraordinary estimates were moved by John Buller. Luttrell rose to state that in the debate of the previous November he had been accused by Mulgrave of being too severe toward the First Lord of the Admiralty. He was now ready to support his views with substantial proof.79 Buller had stated that the sums asked for differed little from the grants of the preceding years. Luttrell disputed this. The Extraordinary grant exceeded any other by £50,000. It was alleged that the ordinary estimate was sufficient to support 250 vessels out of commission yet there were only eighty of that description. It was at this point that an intervention by Wellbore Ellis let fall an unfortunate observation.80 Ellis stated that maintaining a Navy was an expensive business and that the Admiralty was only responsible for what it drew out of the Treasury and not for what was voted by Parliament for specific purposes. He went on to note that at the close of the last war in 1763, the fleet had been worn out, and that for a few years of the following peace, the estimates would have been higher accordingly. Luttrell congratulated Ellis for speaking against the naval administration more than he might have presumed to. He agreed that expenditure after a war was necessary and that both Grenville and Egmont would have been justified in demanding more. The present demand was nearly half a million pounds, yet when Lord Sandwich had come to the Admiralty there had been

79

‘Debate in the Commons on the Navy Estimates’, 13 February, 1778, ibid., vol. 19, p. 726. 80 Ellis had been a former Admiralty Commissioner from 1747 to 1755. 191


a period of eight years’ peace. Since 1771 Sandwich had been given over £2 million for the building and repair of ships, £800,000 for the care of ships in reserve, and £600,000 for stores. This was exclusive of the sums granted to replenish the stores at Portsmouth after the fire there. More money had therefore been granted by the nation to the noble earl by this country on the extraordinary estimate alone, than would have built from the stocks, rigged and completely equipped for sea . . . 100 men of war. And what is the actual condition of your ships at present? Of the whole navy of Great Britain, no more, at the utmost, than fifty of the line of battle, can possibly be found fit for sea. . . . Lord Hawke, when he resigned his office, left 80 of the line in good condition of which 59 were fully manned for war.81

One might dispute Luttrell’s figures, in particular the hundred men of war, but it was a point well made and there was no denying that Hawke had not knowingly let the fleet deteriorate and had left some eighty ships to his successor. Luttrell went on to make an example of the extraordinary grants made towards the repair of the Namur, Defence, Arrogant and the Dragon, all of which exceeded the cost of building them anew. In the case of the Dragon, £27,000 had been granted with an additional £10,000 for stores. Yet she remained at Portsmouth without a single sum having been spent on her. Her repair record confirms this allegation.82 With great candour, Lord Mulgrave admitted the charge. No money had been spent on these ships; it had financed other naval services: ‘the estimate was the usual mode of raising money, but was never meant to state the purposes the money was to be applied to . . . if it was a crime, it was one that had been often practised, ever since the reign of James II’.83 Luttrell commented that there must have been great extravagance somewhere. He then countered Mulgrave’s defence that the Admiralty’s discretionary powers were founded on precedent. He directed the Commissioner’s attention to the Address of the House to Queen Anne, in 1711, concerning abuses ‘similar to these . . . which proves that the money granted upon specific estimates must be applied to the purposes therin set forth unless, upon proper official application, the Parliament agree to a different appropriation thereof’.84 It was at this point that the famous scene took place in which Edmund Burke hurled the book of naval estimates at the Treasury bench exclaiming that these fictitious estimates treated the House with contempt. The government received a sharp rebuke from Opposition’s finest orator.

81 82 83 84

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, pp. 728–9. NMM: PST 49, vol. 2, f. 176, vol. 5, f. 51. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 729. ibid., p. 730. 192


When former ministers had ventured to impose they had the modesty to endeavour to conceal the crime; it remained for the present to have such confidence in their power, as to risk an acknowledgement of their prodigality, and to set at defiance the principles of the constitution, and the authority of Parliament.85

Mulgrave’s admission that the money voted by Parliament was not applied strictly to the services for which it was intended was a damaging admission on the part of a government minister. Although, as Mulgrave had asserted, the naval administrators were acting according to custom and precedent, insofar as the Navy had usually applied its grants generally rather than specifically, this was less acceptable at his time.86 It was less acceptable for two reasons. First, the King’s ministers were not trusted. Military action against the American colonies was deemed by the Opposition to be an act of despotism and it was feared that liberties in America and in Britain were likely to be further eroded. One might go so far as to anticipate Dunning’s motion of 1780 in which it was asserted that the power of the Crown was increasing to a dangerous degree. In one sense we can see the Opposition’s insistence on stricter financial control of the Navy department as a check upon ministers; an assertion of the rights of Parliament and the principles of the constitution. The Navy was the focus for this because of the vast sums involved, and the wide discretionary powers of the Admiralty Commission. Second, it was apparent to many that ministers could not be trusted to spend the public money wisely. This was, it seemed, confirmed by the condition of the fleet. In the view of the administration’s critics, the facts were inescapable. More money had been entrusted to Sandwich than his predecessors had ever had, yet fewer ships were on the commissioned list and fewer could be deemed seaworthy. Ships were being broken up or sold faster than they were replaced. The rate of replacement was slow because Sandwich was insisting on using properly seasoned timber in new construction. Naval officers questioned his priorities. More to the point, why had so much been spent with so little to show for it and what were ministers really doing with the public money? It is here that we can combine the practical difficulties faced by the naval administration with the political realities. That Sandwich had substantial financial resources at his disposal is beyond doubt. These were needed to repair and replace a fleet made up of obsolete vessels and others approaching the end of their useful life. This was part of a natural cycle of decay in the fleet. This particular cycle had become critical due to a high concentration of building during the Seven Years’ War. There was nothing actually wrong with the ships

85

ibid., p. 730. The reasons for the Navy expending its grants in this fashion are explained in Chapter 3. See also, John Hatsell, Precedents and Proceedings in the House of Commons, 3 vols (Dublin, 1786) vol. 3, pp. 152–3. 86

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themselves. Sandwich’s defence, that the ship construction of the Seven Years’ War was somehow inferior, was wrong. It was an easy defence but far too simplistic an explanation for the problems now facing the Navy. It was simply the logistics of a situation in which, over the space of five to seven years, the rate of decay was likely to exceed the rate of repair unless some extraordinary measures where taken. The sums now being appropriated for the Navy did nothing more than reflect the true cost of maintaining Britain’s seapower. Luttrell had stated that Egmont would have been entitled to ask for more money but had not. However, Luttrell was unaware that the Treasury had ensured that between 1763 and 1765, the Navy had been supported financially with additional provision. In this sense then, the argument that Sandwich had more money but had less to show for the expense loses some of its force. Yet to admit that a certain amount of secret funding had existed in the time of Grenville’s administration would not have been expedient in the political climate of the mid-1770s. If these financial exercises had taken place back then, how was Parliament to know whether these practices still continued? The key word within these considerations was secrecy. It was anathema to the Opposition. Ministerial secrets, secret influence, the withholding of information, the blocking of calls for parliamentary enquiries, misinformation, inconsistencies and even lies uttered by ministers, fictitious naval estimates, money appropriated to services for which it had not been granted, were all complaints levelled at an unpopular government. To add to the clamour at this time was unthinkable. In this context, Mulgrave’s admission that money had been diverted and that this practice was not only common but was sanctioned by precedent gave tangible foundations to those twin pillars of opposition to North’s government; secret influence and unconstitutional behaviour. The admission of Lord Mulgrave in the debate of 13 February 1778 did far more than expose the government to accusations of misappropriation and unconstitutional behaviour. Sandwich’s credibility as a competent head of the Admiralty was now seriously questioned. Luttrell had cited four instances of money appropriated to the repair of ships being diverted elsewhere. With the fleet under strength at a time of possible war with France, such action was in the eyes of Sandwich’s critics, proof of his incompetence. Just over a week later, on 25 February, the Duke of Bolton, himself a naval officer, moved in the House of Lords that the Surveyor of the Navy be called to the House to be examined.87 In reply to the motion, Sandwich said that with regard to the state of the Navy:

87 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 815. Admiral Harry Powlett, 6th Duke of Bolton, had been a supporter of North’s ministry but was now in opposition over the conduct of naval affairs.

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he cared not how closely the subject was investigated; but viewing the matter as a statesman, he could not withhold his objection to the present motion. It was not possible for it to answer any good purpose, and if carried might do much mischief.88

Bolton stated that he wanted information only on those ships in commission. It was feared, however, by the Lord Chancellor Earl Bathurst, that once in attendance and under examination, the Surveyor would divulge secret matters. The government’s apparent obsession with secrecy was again brought into play. The Duke of Richmond pointed out that it had been resolved to enquire into the state of the Navy before the recess. ‘Before that resolution was come into, was the hour to object, not the present.’ Furthermore, Sandwich’s present objection could not be reconciled with his declaration on a former occasion. Then he had stated that ‘the navy was in so flourishing a condition, that he cared not who knew it; that he wished foreign powers were acquainted with it, as he was sure it would actually tend to preserve us from any possibility of war’.89 It was inconsistencies such as this that made it appear that security was being used as a means of avoiding an enquiry rather than a genuine concern for the safety of the country. The motion was however defeated. On 2 March 1778, the Lords debated the Duke of Bolton’s motion on the state of the Navy. Bolton put forward three resolutions: the first on the fleet in America, the second and third on the home defence. On the subject of the home defence he complained that he could not provide the House with any information as his previous motions had received a negative. These motions had been calls for the state of the ships in ordinary and for the attendance of the Surveyor of the Navy.90 Bolton then summarized the numbers of ships that, according to the ministry, were fit for service and compared this with intelligence on the fleets of France and Spain. From the papers before the House he also showed that the ships presently in service were undermanned and that, if properly manned, the thirty-five ships stated by the administration would be reduced to twenty-eight. He alleged that the combined fleets of the Bourbon powers numbered eighty-three and that Britain needed to have 100 ships of the line to defend itself. Then taking precisely the same line of argument that Luttrell had used in the Commons, he showed that Sandwich had been entrusted with three and a half million pounds for building and repair, sufficient to construct a fleet of 100 ships of the line. Bolton’s additional complaints concerned operational matters. Sandwich disputed Bolton’s figures but his own were far from encouraging. There were thirty-five ships fully manned, a further seven manning and nine

88 89 90

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 815. ibid., p. 817. ibid., p. 820. 195


more now in commission since the papers had been moved for, a total of fifty-one.91 He went on to explain about the ‘ruinous’ state of the Navy when he came to the Admiralty, and the rotting of ships built with green timber. He had restricted the shipbuilding of the East India Company, broken a combination of timber merchants, obtained foreign oak as a temporary measure, and had stockpiled timber sufficient to last for three years. As far as operational matters were concerned, there he acted in a ministerial capacity; ‘the measures were deliberated upon elsewhere; and if he did his duty, as obeying the orders he received, he was by no means responsible for the events’.92 Sandwich was pressed on a number of points by the Duke of Richmond, in response to which he again listed his achievements and outlined the deplorable state of the Navy on his taking office. Unfortunately, this was once more a direct criticism of Lord Hawke and the Earl of Bristol rose to defend his fellow officer. Augustus Hervey, Earl of Bristol, a former friend and member of Sandwich’s Admiralty Board, was at this time a bitter opponent. Sandwich had also criticized Hawke’s management of the guardships and had outlined the steps he had taken to replace them with sound vessels. Bristol, however, protested that the guardships had been paid off because they had been a considerable time in commission and that the officers were due for replacement.93 This explanation contradicted the statement Hervey had made on this same subject when he had been an Admiralty Commissioner in 1772. Then, like Sandwich, he had stated that the guardships had not been properly maintained under Hawke’s administration. This was a personal attack under the guise of defending a fellow naval officer. The summary of the above debate outlines just a few of the points directed against the First Lord. Many were points of detail, minutia and trivial observations, but the overall impression remains that, with the possible exception of Bristol, these attacks were not personal and were only coincidentally of a political nature. There were real and largely justified concerns about the state of the nation’s defence. Sandwich had become the focus not only because he was the head of the Navy. The apparently personal nature of the criticism was a reflection of the inconsistencies in his defence, the apparent misrepresentation of information, and his reflections both direct and implied on Admiral Hawke. There was no direct accusation with regard to his probity, but considering the previous debates on appropriation and the failure 91

ibid., p. 827. ibid., pp. 829–30. This remark clearly shows the division of responsibility for the Navy between different departments of government. The Secretary of State directed naval operations often in consultation with the King, the Cabinet and a trusted Admiral, and issued instructions to the First Lord of the Admiralty. 93 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, pp. 832–3. Bristol’s assertion was correct. Most of the guardships had been in commission since the Peace of Paris in 1763. See PRO: ADM 7/651, ‘State of the Guardships 1764–1770’. 92

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to adequately account for surplus for 1771, it was understandable if some members of the House – and some historians – subsequently saw all of this as proof of dishonesty. The reluctance of Sandwich, and the government generally, to have a full and open enquiry on the Navy, their inconsistencies, and their often insufficient explanations can be explained to a great extent by the international situation. It was expected that France would soon support the Americans and declare war. In fact on the very day of the debate, 2 March, North had agreed with Sandwich that military preparations should commence. Within days, intelligence was received that a general press was in force at Toulon and that d’Estaing had taken command of the fleet there.94 It is apparent from Sandwich’s papers that some sort of double bluff was being played by both powers. Sandwich received intelligence on the French and Spanish Navies through Lieutenant Samuel Swinton who corresponded with an agent in Paris. In return, this agent was supplied with misinformation on the state of Britain’s fleet. Swinton asked Sandwich to supply him with any information ‘which your Lordship may think it would be serviceable to Government to make public in France and other foreign countries’.95 The intelligence accounts of the strength of the Bourbon Navies far exceeded those given in the House of Lords by the Duke of Bolton. Swinton’s account listed 113 ships of the line but made no mention of their condition or readiness for sea. He himself thought the numbers grossly exaggerated and his explanation for this is particularly interesting in that it demonstrates that Sandwich’s opposite number in the French marine was suffering similar tribulations. I think it is extremely possible that these lists have been sent to him [the agent] with design by some people in power, perhaps by Mons. Sartine, either by way of gasgonade to alarm us or to give (at this juncture) a pompous list of the French navy to his own nation, to make them have a high opinion of their own force and of his attention to his duty in the department which he is at the head of, to induce them to believe that he has not misapplied the late loan which M. Necker with difficulty procured for the repairing and equipping of the Royal Navy . . . allow me to give a list of the English Navy through the same channel . . . it can at least have no bad effect . . . as comprehensive as possible (big and small, old and new, ships built and building).96

Clearly if false information was being supplied to Paris on a regular basis, a full parliamentary enquiry on the state of Britain’s Navy was not convenient. 94

Tracy, Navies, pp. 156–8. Swinton to Sandwich, 10 March, 1778. Barnes and Owen, Sandwich Papers, vol. 1, p. 424. 96 12 March 1778, Barnes and Owen, Sandwich Papers, vol. 1, pp. 424–5. Sartine was Minister of Marine and Necker was the Finance Minister. 95

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The clamour of the Opposition over the withholding of information, might even have lent weight to any false reports sent to France. So when the Duke of Bolton tried to ridicule Sandwich in the Lords by sarcastically stating that ‘he [Sandwich] does not choose to disclose the ruinous state of our navy, in 1770, lest it may convey information to our enemies, in 1778; nor of its flourishing state in 1778, lest France might come at the dangerous and important secret,’ it may have served a useful purpose, even though Bolton was further convinced that ‘France . . . had the most minute account of the state of our navy nearly up to the very instant at which he was speaking.’97 Sandwich’s own list of the Navy indicates that there were more ships in fit condition than the total he had stated to the Lords; fifty-eight were at sea and a further fifteen in good condition, in all seventy-three. Sandwich clearly had information that put him in a better light but had up until that time chosen not to use it.98 In his reply to North’s letter of 2 March, Sandwich had stated ‘there is no longer any fear of alarming France by our preparations.’99 It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the concern with secrecy and the need for security was genuine, at least in the eyes of the government. The blocking of enquiries and the lack of consistency was not necessarily a ploy to avoid being brought to account by either Sandwich or his colleagues. Little of further substance could be brought against Sandwich in the subsequent debates of both Houses. With nothing further to charge the guns of the Opposition, old complaints were paraded before Parliament. In the Commons debate on the state of the Navy on 11 March, it was once more the missing surplus of 1771 and the misapplication of the extraordinary estimate that occupied the attention of members. Again Temple Luttrell was the principal spokesman for the Opposition. What made this debate remarkable was not so much the nature of the argument but the wealth of detail provided by Luttrell to the House on policy and financial matters. The detail was extremely accurate although the way it was used reflected a certain amount of selectivity and misinterpretation.100 It is apparent that

97

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 987. ‘An Abstract of the Royal Navy on January 1st. 1778’, Barnes and Owen, Sandwich Papers, vol. 1, p. 422. No great reliance should usually be placed on such lists, however; if this particular list is extended to the end of 1778, taking into account the ships launched, repaired, lost or broken up during the course of the year, the total number of ships in good condition stands at seventy-nine. A projection using the year 1714 as a base line combined with an analysis of data from the Admiralty Progress Books indicates a total of seventyseven at this time. On this basis, the figures held by Sandwich were accurate. 99 Tracey, Navies, p. 158. 100 For instance Luttrell stated that under Grenville the Extraordinary estimate had never exceeded £200,000 whereas now it was over £400,000. This takes no account of extraparliamentary provision of which Luttrell would have been unaware. 98

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these debates were becoming a war of attrition in which it was hoped that the weight of evidence would remove Sandwich and quite probably the entire ministry from their positions on the government benches. Coincidentally, however, some of the remarks passed by Luttrell serve to illustrate many of the problems Sandwich was grappling with. In a lengthy and convincing defence of Hawke, Luttrell pointed out that Sandwich had found need to break up no less than forty of the ships he had inherited from his predecessor. This was the basis of the excuse made by Sandwich that he had inherited a fleet on paper from Hawke. Luttrell stated that: ‘Of the forty sail of the line alluded to, twenty-eight were so far from being on Admiral Hawke’s list of ships in good condition, that they were not even on Lord Egmont’s list, whom Admiral Hawke succeeded.’101 Luttrell’s information was not perfectly accurate but demonstrated that Sandwich had inherited many old and obsolete ships, some of which had long ceased to appear on official lists. In fact of the thirty-four ships of the line broken up between 1771 and 1778, three were of foreign build and nineteen had been launched earlier than the end of 1750.102 Of the remaining twelve, ten had been launched between 1751 and 1759, mostly before the Seven Years’ War, one in 1762 and one in1763.103 When Sandwich was criticized for breaking up more ships than he built, none of his critics had taken into account the great age of some of these ships. What has been overlooked with the passage of time is that Luttrell now had a personal agenda, one that his attack on the naval administration served to promote. His brother had a professional connection with Lieutenant Robert Tomlinson, and Temple himself was obligated to Tomlinson for obtaining information to discredit the government. This led Luttrell to promote Tomlinson’s ideas on naval manning and timber preservation. Tomlinson had submitted his writings on these subjects to Sandwich and had met with a disappointing response. Tomlinson had therefore employed all the influence he could muster, corresponding not only with the Luttrells but with Bristol and Shelburne. Luttrell highlighted ‘a most criminal neglect’ of a plan for the preservation of timber by a certain gentleman which ‘has not even been favoured by a perusal’. In the same debate, Luttrell deplored the fate of the bill proposed to the House for the encouragement of seamen, when at that moment men were not to be had.104 This bill had been based on Tomlinson’s own writings. Luttrell saw the disgrace of Sandwich as a chance to help Tomlinson. By this

101

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 881. Many of these dated from the War of the Austrian Succession and had remained unrepaired since being surveyed in 1749. 102 Two of them were very old. The 90-gun Princess Royal had been launched in 1711. The 70-gun Stirling Castle had been launched in 1723 and converted to a hulk in 1739. 103 Figures have been compiled from the Admiralty Progress Books. 104 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19 pp. 883, 890. 199


stage of the proceedings, all measures both fair and foul were now being enlisted to remove Sandwich and topple the North administration. Tomlinson and Luttrell were not the only individuals whose personal agenda coincided with opposition goals. There were now emerging other disaffected officers in the naval service who, for personal reasons, wanted to discredit the First Lord. Captain John Blankett was typical of the type of officer who held a grudge against Sandwich, though it is unlikely that Sandwich was even aware that he had caused some offence. Blankett was interested in exploration particularly the Pacific and had submitted a number of memoranda to the first lord concerning the seas off Japan and suggestions for the exploration of Patagonia.105 Sandwich was happy to promote any such venture but not inclined to commit public funds and naval resources to unofficial expeditions. When Blankett applied for leave to go on a fact-finding mission to Russia, Sandwich wrote: The leave you intend to apply for will certainly be granted; but I must repeat to you that nothing that has passed between you and me is to be considered as binding me in the most distant engagement, either to undertake a voyage of discovery to the North-west of America; or (if such a voyage should be undertaken) to the appointment of any officers to be employed on such an expedition: and your voyage to St. Petersburg must be understood as merely your own act in search of knowledge and information without being found on any advice or encouragement from me.106

Two years later in 1776, a newspaper reported that: The voyage to the South Sea to be prosecuted by Captains Clarke and Cook, is to attempt a landing on California, whose inhabitants were originally from Japan. . . . These discoveries were made by an ingenious lieutenant of the Navy [Blankett] at a great expense of time and money, who travelled to Russia and other countries to qualify himself for the voyage; his papers he candidly submitted to the First Admiralty Lord who as candidly used them for his purposes and generously sent other officers to perform the expedition.

This newspaper clipping was sent to Sandwich by Blankett himself with a covering letter in which he ‘disclaimed every kind of knowledge of its insertion,’ and continued ‘whatever reason I may have to be dissatisfied, I disdain illiberal abuse and invective tho’ I have been urged to it by several anonymous letters’.107 There can be no doubt that James Cook, not Blankett, was the right choice to send on any expedition to the Pacific coast of North America. Yet 105 106 107

NMM: SAN F/5, f. 38, SAN F/4, f. 1. NMM: SAN V/12, f. 310, Sandwich to Blankett, 1 May 1774. NMM: SAN F/36, f. 24. 200


even without the benefit of hindsight and the known abilities of Cook, Sandwich must have formed an opinion that Blankett, though a capable sea officer, was unsuited to the task. Jeremy Bentham, writing in 1781 said this about Blankett. he took me into his confidence, and consulted me about a nonsensical project of his for discovering polished and commercial nations where Cook had been, and found none: the most absurd idea, supported by the most absurd arguments, in the most confused method, and in the most slovenly and awkward style.108

It is hardly surprising therefore that Sandwich would not engage his active support for Blankett’ projects. Yet despite protestations of innocence, Blankett clearly harboured considerable ill-feeling. Bentham further wrote that Blankett had been employed by Shelburne to report on conversations at the Admiralty.109 It is further evident from his letters to Robert Tomlinson that he was not just assisting Shelburne and Luttrell with information to attack Sandwich, he was helping to co-ordinate it. In a letter of 26 September 1781, he requested that Tomlinson compile specific sets of figures on shipping, prices of naval stores, and expenditure in order to make specific charges against the First Lord that a non-professional would immediately understand and appreciate.110 However, although it is clear that some of the attacks on Sandwich were personally motivated, we should not as a consequence of this dismiss all of the criticism made by opposition speakers. In the debate of 11 March 1778, there was much damning evidence presented to Parliament. The evidence was weighty, it was lengthy, and in such volume that any reasonable member of parliament and any later historian could be forgiven for taking much of it at face value. The scale and the detail of the evidence was almost beyond belief and hard to refute without recourse to a minute examination of Admiralty and Navy Board records. A single example from a subsequent debate illustrates this. On 31 March, the Lords debated Lord Effingham’s motion relative to the state of the Navy.111 Effingham proposed a minute examination of Admiralty business to demonstrate amongst other things ‘that the business of the naval department, for some years past, had been made a matter of private jobbing’.112 Effingham went back to the year 1772 and compared the items of expense on the ordinary estimate with the expense as it then stood. He showed that

108

C. N. Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas (London, 1954), p. 142. Parkinson, War, p. 142. 110 Bullocke, Tomlinson Papers, p. 62. 111 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, pp. 980–96. Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham, had been a military officer but had resigned his commission rather than fight the Americans. 112 Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 19, p. 982. 109

201


whereas the expense of clerks, fixed by an Order in Council of 1727, was £34,000 it had, from 1773 onwards, during Sandwich’s tenure, increased to £46,000 with no reason assigned. To drive the point home and to counter any defence made by Sandwich, he then remarked that even if the increase of £12,000 was justified, ‘the former order could not be revoked by a lesser power [meaning the Admiralty] than that by which it was made’. The charge then, on just this one issue, hinged on both financial and constitutional mismanagement. One can easily imagine the impression such detailed criticism would make in the Lords, and on those who would both then and later read the accounts of these proceedings. The constitutional point is open to debate. It is true that a minister of the Crown could not revoke an Order in Council, yet it could be argued that the order had not been revoked at all. The order still stood; the amount had not been lessened or removed. In this instance, the amount appropriated to pay the Commissioners, secretaries, officers and clerks, and contingencies of the Admiralty office had been increased. The fact that the First Lord of the Admiralty drew a salary under this item of expenditure was undoubtedly the sole reason for an examination of this article. It was highly inappropriate for the First Lord to augment a sum from which his salary was drawn. The point was well made and Lord Effingham wished to determine whether or not Sandwich had gained personally from this. The constitutional point was not answered, or at least an answer was not recorded in the printed account of the debate. However in response to the question, and to justify the increase, Sandwich announced that an additional number of clerks had been added to the establishment. These clerks had long been employed but the expense had never appeared on the estimate until 1773, having previously been accounted for under some other heading. This of course can be checked and is confirmed by a Navy Board letter. While preparing the ordinary estimate for 1773, the Board had written to the Admiralty informing them that the same sum for Admiralty Office salaries had been charged for as far back as they could trace, yet the actual expense, and numerous other standing charges, far exceeded this to the amount of some £12,000, for which it had been usual either to add to the Navy debt or to make good out of other services. The Navy Commissioners requested permission to add the additional sum to the Ordinary estimate in order to make the standing charge correspond with the actual expense.113 Not only does this letter explain the additional expenditure, but it also demonstrates clearly that the increase had been initiated by the Navy Board. It was not proposed by Sandwich or anyone else at the Admiralty. The Admiralty was not responsible for drawing up the naval estimates, it merely approved them and submitted them to Parliament. It was not possible for any First Lord to line his pockets as the purse strings were not in his hands.

113

NMM: ADM B 187, 24, November 1772. 202


1779, A criminal prosecution? While opposition naval officers concentrated on the detail of Sandwich’s management of naval affairs and continued to enquire into missing sums such as the surplus of 1771, other members, notably Charles James Fox, took up the broad constitutional issue. The blocking of enquiries undermined the investigative power of the Commons. Parliament ‘confided in administration . . . the trust is conditional; we who have delegated the power, reserve a right to withdraw our confidence’.114 Fox very cleverly undermined Sandwich by stating to the Admiralty Commissioners seated on the government benches that as they were not admitted to the councils with the King and their advice was not sought, they were in no way culpable themselves and therefore did not need to defend their own conduct ‘as a proof of the innocence of the First Lord of the Admiralty’.115 In this way Fox sought to isolate Sandwich from his fellow Commissioners and friends. The debates, in particular Fox’s motion of censure of 3 March 1779, began to take on the nature of a criminal prosecution. Any prosecution of course could not have been undertaken until enquiries had taken place. Such enquiries continued to be blocked, convincing those in opposition that criminal matters were being concealed.116 This was a particularly noisy debate. When it was requested that Keppel’s answers to several questions be taken down in writing as evidence, Lord North and Grey Cooper objected. No notice had been given of an examination of witnesses, and no criminal prosecution could take place without information on the nature of the accusations. It was reported that the resulting uproar in the House was so great that the clerk was unable to record the proceedings properly. Both North and Sandwich, one in the Commons, the other in the Lords, defended their conduct by recourse to the concept of collective responsibility. This effectively absolved one individual from blame. With the weight of opposition criticism falling so heavily on Sandwich, this seemed the best, though a potentially dangerous form of defence. North stated that Fox’s censure was not of the First Lord ‘but of all his Majesty’s confidential servants’. Sandwich acted ‘ministerially, the noble earl might be obliged to execute officially what he had previously disapproved of in council, being over-ruled by a majority of the King’s servants’. It was ‘manifest injustice’ to censure ‘any one particular member of the cabinet, without involving the whole in its consequence’.117 Such a defence might have been thought of as treason in a former time. The idea of the King’s servants forming some sort of cabal, or setting

114 115 116 117

Cobbett, Parl. Hist., vol. 20, p. 177. ibid., pp. 181–2. ibid., pp. 185–6. ibid., pp. 197–8. 203


themselves up in such a way that an individual could not be dismissed, seemed far removed from proper constitutional government. In the same debate, Edmund Burke declared that relative to the collective responsibility of ministers . . . a language . . . equally new in that House and out of it . . . amounted in fact to an avowed irresponsibility, both individually and collectively . . . whatever any minister had done, or hereafter might do, he was by no means answerable for; because the evil or mischief transacted was transacted in the company of others.118

In a sense, Burke was quite correct, but circumstances brought about by what amounted to a war of attrition against the government, now dictated that the notion of collective responsibility had to be used in defence of both Sandwich and the Ministry. It was not a new idea but its assertion in this fashion was. Matters had come a long way from concern about the Navy. It was now a matter of the political survival of those in office. The criticism of his administration in 1778 and 1779 should have destroyed Sandwich’s political career. To all these cares was added a private tragedy with the murder of his mistress in April 1779. It is a wonder then that he survived at the head of the Admiralty until 1782 when North and his government finally resigned. Sandwich was clearly a political liability in a very weak government. His judgement, competence and probity had been questioned, yet he remained in office for a further three years. This is not as remarkable as it sounds. North, Sandwich and the other ministers of the crown had bound themselves collectively. Circumstances had forced them to resort to a collective and common defence. If the opposition had succeeded in removing Sandwich from office, the North government would, in all likelihood, have gone with him or soon after. King George would not have welcomed a change of government. On several occasions, North had tendered his resignation but the King had insisted that he continued to serve him as his first minister. George had not got rid of the Rockingham ministry in 1766 only to have them return to government now. Sandwich therefore had to be kept in office to ensure the survival of the government. We can see therefore that the criticism of Sandwich’s naval administration was not a simple affair. The nature of the debates on the Navy altered over several years as it moved from a genuine concern over the effects of new initiatives, to objections about remarks made against Hawke, then to apparent financial, administrative and constitutional irregularities, and finally to a concerted effort to topple ministers by resort to personal and politically motivated criticism directed at one man, the Earl of Sandwich. However, after peeling back the layers of these criticisms, the historian of the Navy is left with one great issue of importance: the state and condition of the fleet prior to the outbreak of war with France in 1778. 118

ibid., pp. 235–6. 204


Statistical evidence on the state of the Navy supports many of the initial short-term criticisms of Sandwich’s administration but it also confirms and supports the long-term view that the policies he was following were correct.119 This solves the apparent dichotomy of why Sandwich, as such an able administrator, should have received such an avalanche of criticism from naval officers and politicians, and such a bad reputation from many historians. He could have done much to help himself personally but he apparently put his duty to the Navy and his loyalty to his ministerial colleagues before his own reputation. We can further see that in the twentieth century, after the publication of many of Sandwich’s papers and the improvement of his reputation, it seemed logical for historians to charge the previous administrations of Hawke and Egmont with neglect. This charge was apparently supported by the remarks of Sandwich and North in their defence and further supported by the known financial stringency of Grenville’s ministry in the 1760s as well as the hurried wartime construction of ships in the 1750s. In both respects, the content of these debates has been misunderstood. The situation of the Navy was never due to financial or material neglect and certainly not to corrupt and dishonest practices. The Navy of the 1760s and 1770s was in many respects a victim of its own growth and success.

Was Sandwich right? There is a vital link between all three periods (1749–50, 1763 and 1771–5) when the British fleet faced a crisis due to the deterioration of the fleet. The Earl of Sandwich had been First Lord of the Admiralty between 1748 and 1751 at the time of the first large survey of the Navy. He was First Lord again between April and October 1763 when he had calculated that five years would be needed to restore the fleet.120 Sandwich must have been aware of the fact that the Navy was gripped by a cycle of decay caused chiefly by periods of intense wartime construction. Recourse to the private sector to build warships had intensified the cyclical problem. The naval dockyards did not have the capacity to build all of the new ships needed by the Navy but the use of private builders for new construction created a large fleet for the royal dockyards to keep in good repair. The overdue expansion of the royal yards at Portsmouth and Plymouth, undertaken at the insistence of Egmont in 1765, had gone far in improving the situation. These were large-scale capital works and were only nearing completion as the war with America and then France got underway.

119

The statistical evidence is gleaned from an analysis of the ship surveys and the building and repair records of the fleet found in the Admiralty Progress Books. 120 NMM: SAN F/1, f. 34. 205


However, this did not solve the problem of the uneven workload caused by cyclical decay. Sandwich could have resorted to what Anson had done and build his way out of the situation, but this would create problems for the Navy in future years. Concentrated bursts of building activity of ships with limited life spans would prove expensive and periods of depleted fleet strength could be expected at ten to fifteen year intervals. Although with hindsight we can now see that the difficulties he faced were not as severe as those faced by Anson and Egmont (see Appendix 7), Sandwich must have seen it as a serious ongoing problem that needed a new initiative. This initiative came in several forms. It was a blending of those undertaken by the Anson and Egmont administrations and fresh ideas. Like Egmont, Sandwich made sure that repair work was prioritized, but like Anson he believed that new building was preferable to extensive repair. It was not simply a case of getting rid of the old ships and building new ones. This did not solve the problem of recurrent decay. The ships predating the Seven Years War construction were of inferior dimensions and many had not been touched for a decade or more. This was not neglect but rather sensible management. These ships could not, in the opinion of successive administrations, be economically repaired and to break them up meant an expenditure of time and scarce resources. There was a limit however to space and the naval ports must have been full of hulks that had now begun to give an impression of decay rather than strength. Their sudden disposal over a short number of years was alarming, even though a large number of them were no longer on the Navy list. The new construction could not possibly match the rate of disposal. Nor was it desirable simply to build as many new ships as possible as Anson had done. If the cycle was to be broken, the longevity of ships needed to be increased. To increase the durability of warships meant that more care had to be taken on all aspects of their construction and maintenance. Building could not begin until the timber had been thoroughly seasoned, and the timber stocks being built up by Sandwich needed at least three years to achieve this. The slower pace of construction not matching the rate of disposal, when combined with the large number of old ships being broken up formed one of the chief criticisms levelled at Sandwich. Earlier in the century (see Chapter 4), new ships had replaced old ones on a one-for-one basis and the battle fleet remained fairly static in terms of numbers of ships. The fleet, now much larger, was likely to grow even more and the old methods of managing the size and condition of the fleet were no longer appropriate no matter what older officers like Hawke and his supporters said. Sandwich’s thinking was that the cycle would be broken if the Navy’s ships were better built and needed less maintenance. Innovations, like the coppering of ships bottoms, would make additional demands placed upon the yards, though in the long term it would reduce maintenance with ships being docked less frequently. This, along with larger yards, a continued use of private builders and ships that lasted much longer would make the maintenance of the battle fleet much more efficient and cost effective. 206


Sandwich was absolutely confident that his policy was correct. Investment was made in facilities to improve the storage and seasoning of timber. The cost was in one sense a saving exercise for if the average lifespan of the fleet could be extended, then less annual investment would be needed to maintain it. There was thus a powerful argument in support of this policy but it did little to assure those who saw a diminishing fleet and were concerned that in the event of war the Navy would not have enough ships to mobilize. Unfortunately this is precisely what happened. It is difficult to criticize Sandwich for the substance of the policy he wanted to pursue. However, his judgement is at fault over the timing of these innovations. With both the French and the Spanish building up their fleets in the 1770s and the trouble with the American colonies becoming more apparent, it was unwise to follow a maintenance regime that demanded a period of settled peace. His apparent narrowness of focus is more puzzling considering his pressure on North to maintain a strong Navy. Sandwich had sufficient confidence that his initiatives would succeed for him to draw up (circa 1774) ‘a list of ships that have been built and are building according to the late regulation [building with properly seasoned timber] whose duration may be compared with those that were built before the regulation was observed.’121 This list was produced long before it could have been known if the new regulation would produce the desired result. Although firm conclusions cannot be drawn using such a small sample, it is worth examining the list to see if Sandwich’s confidence was justified. Table 7.2 indicates that a substantial improvement in the durability of ships took place. Table 7.2 Sandwich’s list of ships built according to the new regulation, using properly seasoned timber (Although the sample is small, the list presents an improvement from 1772 onwards.) Begun

Launched

Ship

Durability in years

1769 1769 1769 1769 1769 1770 1771 1772 1772 1773 1774 1774 1776

1777 1775 1775 1777 1775 1776 1777 1778 1774 1781 1778 1781 1782

90 Formidable 74 Bedford 74 Berwick 64 Lion 64 Stirling Castle 74 Culloden 64 America 74 Alfred 64 Nonsuch 74 Warrior 74 Alexander 64 Anson 64 Polyphemus

15.25 9.2 11.0 9.4 Lost Lost 8.6 20.0 No major repairs recorded 21.0 17.0 14.0 No major repairs recorded

121

PRO: ADM 7/660, f. 77. 207


Those ships begun in 1769 would not have commenced under the new regulation but would have been completed under it. A marked improvement is evident for those begun in 1772 and afterwards. Whether this improvement continued with further construction is difficult to determine. Sandwich produced no more such lists. The fullness of information in the Admiralty Progress Books is also diminished after this time. Furthermore, it is difficult to determine if the ships built by contract during the War of American Independence followed the regulation laid down by Sandwich. Common sense suggests that private builders would not have done so. However, Sandwich’s approach to the problem was logical and farsighted if mistimed. In the long term the policy would have produced the desired effect of reducing maintenance costs and removing the cyclical crisis that the Navy was facing at that time A settled period of peace would have established the fleet on the sort of footing it found itself on the outbreak of war with revolutionary France in 1793. For Sandwich, the break with America came at the wrong time. The decay of the fleet by the early 1770s was not simply a consequence of the construction programme of the Seven Years’ War. Nor was it caused by the neglect of Egmont or Hawke. Only a handful of the sixty-five ships of the line built during the Seven Years’ War could be termed ‘green ships’. Sandwich inherited a looming crisis created by a host of factors most of which could not have been foreseen by him or his predecessors. It would have been difficult for any contemporary to have predicted that large-scale decay in the King’s ships in the 1740s would have created such a cycle of future problems. There were so many factors at work. The interval and frequency of wars, changes of policy, innovations in working practices and administrative methods, and even environmental and climatic factors all played a part in creating, over a considerable number of decades, a series of crises that came to a head when Sandwich was at the Admiralty. Sandwich built on both his own experience and that of Anson, Egmont and Hawke. Although he was clearly misinformed on many of the causes of the problems he faced, the path he pursued would, given time, have been beneficial for the Navy. However he had to labour under an additional problem not faced by either Anson or Egmont in 1749 or 1763. In 1749 the true condition of the fleet had remained confidential. In the 1770s it became a matter of heated parliamentary debate and as a result Sandwich’s achievement was overshadowed by misinformed criticism, a lack of communication, and an unsuccessful war.

208

8

Conclusion

When John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, left the Admiralty at the end of March 1782, the war with America was lost. Cornwallis had surrendered his army the previous October and, in the following spring, the North administration collapsed. With the colonies lost, Britain turned her undivided attention to the defeat of America’s allies. This was now a maritime war with no distraction of fighting on the American continent. On 17 April 1782, in the very month that Augustus Keppel took over as the First Lord of the Admiralty, George Rodney crushed the French at the Battle of the Saintes in the West Indies. Britain had been defeated in America but at much the same time had been at war with France, Spain and the Netherlands and faced the hostile neutrality of the Baltic powers. Britain’s European enemies gained virtually nothing from the war. Once the issue of American independence was decided, a strong Navy ensured success in Britain’s maritime war. Despite being a political liability and discredited, Sandwich must be acknowledged for producing a strong Navy at the end of this unpopular and disappointing conflict. Sandwich’s administration suffered from being the focus of political discontent against the North government and the dispute with the American colonies. In previous decades the Admiralty would have been allowed to get on with its work with little interference from Parliament. Sandwich suffered unprecedented probing into the affairs of the Navy. He was expected to account for his every action and was blamed for matters that were beyond his control or not within his responsibilities. Some of the criticism was justified but in the later stages of his administration, particularly after the entry of France into the war in 1778, the criticism was entirely politically motivated. Sandwich had inherited the stewardship of a strong Navy in 1771. Sandwich called it a ‘paper fleet’ and this defence was to some extent political rhetoric on his part. He did, however, inherit a fleet facing a new stage in a recurrent problem. The fleet began to deteriorate during the early 1770s. There were also many very old and unserviceable vessels that needed to be disposed of. The combination of these two factors caused consternation and alarm among some naval officers. The effective size of the fleet, that is the number of ships fit for active service, began to dwindle and the rate of decay outpaced the rate of renewal. This was part of a pattern of cyclical deterioration that can be traced 209

CONCLUSION

back to the middle of the eighteenth century and beyond. In 1749, the battle fleet had been reduced to thirty ships of the line and three foreign prizes in good condition and fit for service. Long war service, operations in the tropics, poor timber quality and unusual environmental conditions had conspired to cause accelerated deterioration of the fleet. Two-thirds of the battle fleet needed repair or replacement, a task the dockyards could not hope to cope with on peacetime estimates. Yet George Anson managed to bring the fleet up to strength within five years of taking over at the Admiralty in 1751. This was achieved through administrative and financial innovation, and the use of the private sector in building new warships. His actions, absolutely necessary as they were, created a situation where many new ships, built within a narrow number of years, were likely to require repair or replacement at some future date. That future date fell within the early years of Sandwich’s administration in the 1770s. The difficulty for Sandwich had been exacerbated by the course of action followed by Anson’s successors, the Earl of Egmont and Sir Edward Hawke. Whereas Anson had built up the fleet as the Seven Years’ War approached, or rather as it began, Egmont’s approach was to make the fleet strong as soon as possible at the conclusion of the war and then keep it that way. Egmont was able to achieve this because the fleet, though in a poor state after the Peace of Paris in 1763, required repairs many of which could be carried out quickly. This was in contrast to the ending of the previous war in 1749, when most of the fleet required long and expensive repair. Hawke continued Egmont’s work and through financial innovation and reform under both administrations it appeared that the Navy had been renewed with moderate expense. As the Navy declined into the next part of a cycle of decay, it appeared that Sandwich, with more generous financial resources was unable to do what his predecessors had achieved with far less. It was under Sandwich that the true cost of maintaining British seapower became apparent. However, this was seen as waste, inefficiency and corruption and gave ammunition to the critics of the government as the country slid into conflict with the American colonies. The war stretched naval resources as Sandwich and his colleagues grappled with the problem of a deteriorating fleet and a hostile Parliament. The decay of the fleet was, however, not as severe or as deep as that faced by Sandwich and Anson after the peace of 1748, or that faced by Egmont in 1763. Sandwich had to mobilize the fleet twice during this particular phase of the cycle, once against the American colonies and then again in 1778 against France. Both his predecessors had faced the threat of war as they rebuilt the fleet but, with the exception of 1755, when recovery was well in hand, neither had faced a mobilization. Even so, the Navy in 1778 was in a far better state than one is led to believe from the debates held in the House of Commons. In 1778, according to Sandwich, seventy-three ships of the line were in condition for service or commissioned. By 1780, there were at least eighty-three ships of the line fit for active service. These figures compare favourably with all previous wars. 210

CONCLUSION

Another theme that emerges from this study is that Britain’s seapower depended on sustained financial investment. John Brewer in the The Sinews of Power (1989), demonstrated that Britain was a fiscal-military state sustained by taxation and a developing bureaucracy. However, it was not just money that was needed. It is clear from the naval estimates that Parliament almost never granted sufficient money to cover the Navy’s annual expenditure. Much more important was effective financial management. The need for better management required more capable bureaucrats and administrators. More capable administrators meant innovation, a degree of reform and a more managerial mentality. This was all made possible by the flow of information, by reports that allowed many of these administrators to assess the Navy’s needs and to take action. The driving force behind this was threefold. The first was the amount of money given for the naval service. Parliament only supplied the Navy with an annual grant that was barely sufficient, and frequently less than sufficient. There was a reluctance to tax the nation and its commerce too heavily and this reluctance could be deemed a political decision. More significantly, Parliament could not vote all the money needed by the Navy, because to grant an open-ended supply undermined the constitutional basis of state finance. Parliament held the executive in check by holding the purse-strings of the state and paid retrospectively for whatever the State spent on the Navy, holding the ministers in charge accountable. Parliament never knowingly starved the Navy of cash but the Navy was expected to keep its expenditure to a minimum and balance what Charles Jenkinson, in 1767, termed security with economy. The need to make this balance a reality required men of considerable administrative ability and imagination. The second driving force also involved Parliament. Keeping the executive in check meant scrutiny of State activity and in particular scrutiny of State expenditure. This was never easy, but, in the case of the Navy, its financial state was open to the view of those MPs who could be troubled to look. Estimates, statements of debt and other various reports provided a global but shallow view of the Navy’s state and condition. As naval expenditure increased throughout the eighteenth century, so the Navy’s debt tended to escalate. This led, particularly after 1749, to more reports, many of a particular nature. This additional paper work required better clerks and better record keeping. More importantly, the availability of information allowed the Admiralty in its own right to call for more reports and information from the Navy Board. These were called for not just to satisfy Parliament but, more importantly, to better manage the Navy’s activities. The third driving force was the Admiralty itself or rather those at its head. The early part of the century saw capable administrators as First Lord of the Admiralty, particularly Charles Wager. However, by the middle of the century, George Anson had transformed the Navy, both as a fighting force and as a civil department of the State. He was well supported at various times by men like Sandwich, Grenville and Boscawen. Better information on the condition 211

CONCLUSION

and activities of the Navy, the respect of both the naval and the political establishments as well as powerful family and political connections, made Anson the foremost administrator of the century, followed closely by his associate, Lord Sandwich. Anson made the Navy more professional. This applied as much to the civil branch of the Navy as the military side. This achievement made it possible for Egmont and Hawke to keep effective charge of the Navy’s administration. They were followed by Sandwich, a civilian who knew as much about the Navy as anyone. At the heart of all this was a financial imperative. Sound financial management, strong and competent leadership (in most cases) at an Admiralty that was developing more authority and a managerial role, went far in keeping Britain ahead of its maritime rivals. Most crucially the dockyard expansion at Portsmouth and Plymouth, long needed and contemplated, but finally pushed through by Egmont, continued from 1765 into the early 1780s. It was not sufficient just to use private yards to build warships in wartime. The infrastructure of dockyards required substantial expansion so that the larger fleets being built could be adequately maintained. This, along with better construction and quality of the ships themselves, could ensure that the cycles of strength and decay brought about by wartime building did not create severe and recurrent problems in fleet numbers. Since 1750 Anson, Sandwich, Egmont and Hawke had served the civil administration of the Navy well. Despite the loss of America, British naval power was still intact and better prepared to face the coming challenge of Revolutionary France in the last decade of the century.

212

Appendix 1: Extraordinary estimates 1750–76 Year

Building ships

Repair ships

Docks and Additional Total buildings materials requested

Total granted

1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776

143,606 99,568 91,233 – 97,690 117,498 204,594 233,673 209,000 227,052 214,400 205,891 221,979 197,877 202,486 159,930 126,699 140,606 136,962 166,123 111,403 146,232 214,652 242,131 258,381 185,093 228,110

46,451 36,231 17,014 – 16,640 16,507 – – – – – – – – 54,253 137,787 113,475 100,038 103,593 75,987 132,284 115,759 88,020 99,144 93,264 67,046 61,259

7,839 4,458 – – 3,500 – 600 – – – – – – – – 9,000 37,126 57,500 37,400 40,303 40,000 58,756 48,267 41,279 49,084 45,240 49,782

197,896 140,257 100,000 – 100,000 100,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 100,000 200,000 200,000 277,300 298,144 277,954 282,413 283,687 423,747 375,939 421,554 420,729 297,379 339,154

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 30,000 – – – 103,000 25,000 40,000 20,000 – –

197,896 140,257 108,247 – 117,830 134,003 205,000 233,673 209,000 227,052 214,400 205,891 221,979 197,877 256,739 306,717 277,300 328,144 277,954 282,413 283,687 423,747 375,939 421,544 420,729 297,379 339,154

The Extraordinary estimates are not an accurate guide to real expenditure but they do indicate the intentions and expectations of the naval administration. The additional materials purchased in 1767 and 1772–4 were bulk contracts for hemp, timber and masts. The materials purchased in 1771 were to replace those destroyed by fire at Portsmouth. Particularly notable in the period after the Seven Years’ War is the emphasis on the repair of ships and the investment in docks and buildings.

213

Guns

74 74 74 Sloop

90 64 64 32

90 90 70 70 64

Place where

Deptford

Woolwich

Chatham

Barfleur Prince George Orford Somerset Raisonable

Queen Prudent Intrepid Alarm

Marlborough Egmont Resolution New

Ships names

Building Building Large Large Building

Building Building Building Small

Building Building Building Building

Nature of their repair

In hand In hand In hand September next In hand

In hand In hand In hand In hand

In hand In hand In hand In hand

Taken in hand

December 1768 Uncertain September next Uncertain Uncertain

July 1769 August 1768 Uncertain Uncertain

August next Uncertain Uncertain July next

Completed

Time when may be

12,000 6,000 8,000 1,000 6,000

3,960 – 1,133 – 1,000

1,000 500 – 1,000

£ 6,294 – – 1,543

£ 15,000 8,000 3,000 2,600 12,000 5,760 3,000 2,500

Rigging and stores

Hulls, masts, and yards

Charge of their

15,960 6,000 9,133 1,000 7,000

13,000 6,260 3,000 3,500

£ 21,294 8,000 3,000 4,143

Total

An Estimate of the Charge of what may be necessary for the Buildings, Rebuildings and Repairs of Ships of war in His Majesty’s Yards and other Extra Works, over and above what are proposed to be done upon the heads of Wear and Tear, and Ordinary, in the Year 1767; prepared pursuant to an Order from the honourable House of Commons, dated the 22d past.

Appendix 2: Extraordinary estimate, Navy Office, 2 February 1767

100 74 74 64 64 60 Sloop

74 74 64 64 64 60

Portsmouth

Plymouth

50 32 20

Sheerness

60 50 20

Royal George Dublin Royal Oak Trident Bienfaisant Montague New

Ajax Elizabeth Worcester Africa Modeste Pembroke

Portland Lowestoffe Rose

Panther Salisbury Deal Castle

Large Middling Building Building Middling Small Building

Building Building Building Small Middling Small

Building Small Small

Large Building Small

In hand In hand In hand In hand April next June next In hand

In hand In hand In hand In hand In hand In hand

In hand In hand May next

In hand In hand April next

September next Uncertain Uncertain Uncertain Uncertain Uncertain Uncertain

Uncertain Uncertain Uncertain March next Uncertain Uncertain

Uncertain Uncertain Uncertain

December next Uncertain Uncertain

10,000 6,400 3,500 10,000 4,000 5,000 1,600

16,000 5,000 3,500 2,000 10,000 7,100

4,000 1,664 1,674

7,000 3,000 1,695

970 2,680 – 2,000 4,369 2,429 1,349

3,000 – – 3,839 3,000 3,000

– 1,647 2,055

3,371 – 2,512

continued

10,970 9,080 3,500 12,000 8,369 7,429 2,949

19,000 5,000 3,500 5,839 13,000 10,100

4,000 3,311 3,729

10,371 3,000 4,207

240,644 57,500 30,000

Grand Total 328,144

187,993 52,651

Viz. The sum of Three hundred Twenty-eight thousand One hundred and Forty-four Pounds G. Cokburne. Tho. Slade. J. Williams. E. Mason. T. Brett. Rd. Temple.

ABSTRACT For the Ships Hulls Rigging and stores For other Extra works on Docks, Buildings, Etc. For purchasing a Quantity of Hemp to replenish His Majesty’s Magazines

For Purchasing a Quantity of Hemp to replenish His Majesty’s Magazines Grand Total

Towards building new Rope Houses and storehouses for Hemp, the former being much out of Repair, and too small for the Service of the Port Towards building and repairing Careening Wharfs Towards repairing Careening Wharfs, Etc. Towards levelling Saffron Island, and building new Careening Wharfs

At Plymouth

At Jamaica At Antigua At Portmahon

Towards repairing, deepening and enlarging the Bason Dock for receiving large Ships of War Towards making a new Stone Dock within the Bason or Wet Dock, of Dimensions proper for the largest Ships in the Royal Navy, and to take the Opportunity of doing the Outer Part thereof, whilst the Water is kept out of the Bason, for carrying on the work of the Bason Dock Towards making Ground at the North Part of the Yard

At Portsmouth

Repairs and Improvements on Docks, Wharfs, and other public Buildings, in His Majesty’s several Yards

328,144

57,500 30,000

16,000 4,000 2,500 1,500

9,000 500

24,000

– 400 5,000 4,500 75,650

211,580

200 4,900 25,000 22,098 365,198

28,600 5,000 1,000 35,000 13,500 16,000 100 1,300 175,000 32,000 5,000 313,000

Total

There will remain to be applied to the payment of Recalls of H.M. Ships or to the further payment of the course

200 1,500 5,000 1,500 54,375

5,000 1,000 200 – – 8,000 50 425 25,000 6,500 –

December

And whence deducting the above estimate

– 1,500 5,000 2,500 46,700

5,000 1,000 200 – – – – – 25,000 6,500 –

November

561,627 15,750 576,778 365,198

– 1,500 5,000 4,986 108,111

5,000 1,000 200 35,000 13,500 – – 425 35,000 6,500 –

October

There remains to come in from the Exchequer of the current supplies of the Year 1765, exclusive of Chaplain’s Bounty And of 1,500,000 granted towards paying the debt on the Course of the Navy

– – 5,000 8,612 80,362

On Account of the Victualling Short allowance Necessary money and Contingencies Bills of Exchange and Imprests On Account of Sick and Hurt Seamen Total

September 5,000 1,000 200 – – 8,000 50 – 40,000 6,500 5,000

August

Imprests and Bills of Exchange 8,600 Flag pay, slops and surgeon’s necessaries 1,000 Bills for piloting 200 Half pay of Sea Officers 1st Jan-30 June 1765 – Half year’s pension due Midsummer last – 2 Quarters Salary Admiralty and Navy Board to Christmas 1765 – 2 Quarters Salary Overseers, Storehouses to Christmas 1765 – Pensions to superannuated shipwrights to 31 Dec. 1765 450 To pay HM ships and carry on recalls 50,000 Half pay and subsistence to marines 6,500 Pensioners Greenwich –

For What Service

An estimate of the Moneys that may be wanted on Account of the Navy in the remaining part of the year . . . signified by Mr. Jenkinson’s letter of 27 June last.

Appendix 3: Estimate of monies needed (ADM B 177, 5 August 1765)

APPENDICES

Appendix 4: ‘Plan of Expense of His Majesty’s Navy for the Year 1768’ (ADM B 181, 27 May 1768) Ordinary Salaries of Admiralty, Treasurer’s and Navy Offices Stationary ware Contingencies Law charges Pensions – superannuated Sea Officers Salaries of the Officers and Clerks of the Yards and wages of Watchmen and Warders Half pay of Sea Officers Half pay of Marine Officers Bounty to Chaplains Repairs to the several Offices Coals and Candles Travelling Charges Total Wear and Tear Value of Stores and Materials to be purchased for His Majesty’s Ships and Yards Wages to inferior Officers and Workmen of the Dockyards Value of Stores and Materials to be purchased for the Ropeyards Wages to inferior officers and Workmen of the Ropeyards Works by contract in Yards Imprests to the Yards to defray contingent charges Bills of Exchange His Majesty’s Yards abroad Captains of His Majesty’s ships Exchequer fees Transporting stores, Ballasting and Unballasting

31,860 5,000 10,000 2,000 27,052 18,071 90,000 15,900 1,231 2,000 1,000 1,500 257,616

295,778 197,056 68,378 16,000 577,208 37,400 15,000

Total

30,000 10,000 2,000 6,000 100,400 677,608

Wages Wages to Seamen calculated on list of Ships to be employed Expence of Marines Flag pay and table money, secretaries Pilotage Schoolmasters Surgeon necessaries supplied by contract Hire of Watermen, Travelling charges

210,000 78,700 8,500 4,000 300 1,000 400

218

APPENDICES

Allowance to Clerks of the Pay Office for attending Payments and making up ships books Imprests for the carriage of Money Surgeon’s free gifts

3,600 600 1,500 308,600

Sick and Hurt Total Victualling

21,000 329,600 220,518

Expense compared with grant, 1768 HEAD

Grant

Estimate

More

Less

Ordinary exclusive of rigging, ordinary repairs and harbour victuals

242,636

257,616

15,579

–

Wear and Tear for 16,000 men Harbour mooring and rigging Ordinary repairs Extraordinary

710,202

677,608

–

32,594

Wages to Seamen and Marines

312,000

329,600

17,600

–

Victualling for 16,000 men Harbour victuals

220,518

220,518

–

–

1,484,757

1,485,342

33,179 32,594

32,544

280,800 46,263 105,185 277,954

197,600 22,918

Total Expense more than Grant

585

Note – the grant for the Ordinary is less than that published in the Commons Journals because the charge for harbour mooring and rigging, and ordinary repairs has been transferred from the head of the Ordinary, where it is estimated, to the head of Wear and Tear, where it is expended.

219

APPENDICES

Appendix 5: Account of the course of the Navy (fragment, ADM B 183, 6 August 1770) An Account of sums on the Course prepared by the direction of the Hon. Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury as Mr. Cooper’s letter 2 August 1770 Year

Month

Navy and Transport Bills Carrying Interest

1769

July August September October November December

1770

January February March April May June

Total

Total

Not Carrying Interest

Principle Interest Principle Interest Principle Interest Principle Interest Principle Interest Principle Interest Principle Interest Principle Principle Principle Principle Principle

39,970 933 48,595 972 51,740 962 49,370 658 36,983 370 34,815 232 43,897 146 30,841 41,431 30,649 33,552 30,425

Principle Interest

478,280 4,273

34,000

512,281 4,273

482,553

34,000

516,554

General Total

3,833 2,036 5,226 3,088 3,514 1,299 1,548 2,510 2,030 2,279 3,050 3,583

43,811 933 50,632 972 62,966 962 52,458 658 40,497 370 36,115 232 45,445 146 33,351 43,462 32,928 36,608 34,008

(Amounts have been rounded to £)

Note: This example of the course is a fragment of the original document and does not contain the account of the victualling. As material has been omitted for clarity, some of the totals appear to be incorrect. There is no interest due on the bills registered between February and June as these are less than six months old. Note also that the account is compiled at the direction of the Treasury not the Admiralty. Copies of these accounts were sent to the Admiralty Commissioners for their information. 220

APPENDICES

Appendix 6: A list of the ships of the Royal Navy, 1 January 1763, with the condition of the Navy on survey (ADM 7 553) Name

Condition

Name

Condition

100 Guns Royal Ann Royal George Victory

Large Not surveyed Building

Britannia Royal Sovereign

Good Not surveyed

90 Guns Blenheim Duke London Neptune Prince Princess Royal Union

At sea Not surveyed Building At sea Not surveyed Not surveyed At sea

Barfleur St. George Namur Ocean Queen Sandwich Royal William

Building Not surveyed At sea At sea Building Not surveyed At sea

80 Guns Princess Amelia Princess Caroline Foudroyant

At sea Large At sea

Cambridge Formidable Newark

Small Not surveyed At sea

74 Guns Albion Bellona Centaur Courageaux Defence Dublin Hercules Invincible Lennox Magnificent Mars Norfolk Robust Shrewsbury Superb Terrible Torbay Valiant Warspite

Building At sea At sea Small(in hand) Building At sea At sea Building At sea Building At sea At sea Building At sea At sea Good At sea At sea At sea

Arrogant Canada Cornwall Culloden Dragon Fame Hero Kent Magnanime Marlborough Monarch Ramilles Russell Suffolk Temeraire Thunderer Triumph Prince of Wales

At sea Building At sea At sea Not surveyed Not surveyed Not surveyed At sea Not surveyed Building Building Building Building Building At sea At sea Building Building continued

221

APPENDICES

Name

Condition

Name

Condition

70 Guns Boyne Burford Dorsetshire Northumberland Swiftsure

Building Not surveyed At sea Not surveyed At sea

Buckingham Chichester Grafton Orford Vanguard

At sea At sea At sea At sea At sea

66 Guns Devonshire

At sea

Lancaster

Good

64 Guns Africa Alcide Ardent Augusta Belliqueux Bienfaisant Edinburgh Essex Exeter Hampton Court Monmouth Royal Oak Revenge Somerset Yarmouth

At sea At sea Building Building At sea At sea Middling At sea Building At sea Good Large At sea At sea Large (in hand)

St. Albans St. Ann Asia Bedford Belleisle Captain Elizabeth Europe Prince Frederick Modeste Nassau Prudent Raisonable Trident

Building At sea Building Not surveyed At sea At sea At sea Building At sea At sea At sea Building Building Building

60 Guns Achilles Anson Defiance Dunkirk Edgar St. Florentine Intrepide Princess Louisa Medway Nottingham Panther Plymouth Rupert Windsor York

At sea At sea At sea At sea At sea At sea At sea Good At sea At sea At sea Large Large At sea At sea

America Canterbury Dreadnought Eagle Firm Jersey Lyon Princess Mary Montague Prince of Orange Pembroke Rippon Weymouth Worcester

At sea Large At sea Large At sea At sea Not surveyed Not surveyed At sea At sea At sea At sea At sea Large

222

APPENDICES

Name

Condition

Name

Condition

50 Guns Antelope Bristol Chester Colchester Falmouth Gloucester Hampshire Nonsuch Portland Rochester Ruby Warwick

At sea Middling Good Middling At sea Large At sea Large Large At sea Large Building

Assurance Chatham Centurion Deptford Falkland Guernsey Isis Norwich Preston Romney Sutherland Winchester

At sea At sea Small (in hand) At sea Middling Not surveyed At sea Middling At sea At sea At sea At sea

Large, Middling and Small refer to the size of repair required.

223

Number of ships

0 1710

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1720

1730

1740

Year

1750

1760

Excludes foreign prizes

1770

In condition for service

Ships of the line

1780

Vessels of 100 to 60 guns in condition for service

Appendix 7: British Battlefleet 1714–80

Value

–10

0

10

20

1720

1730

1750

Year

1740

1760

NAO index is exaggerated by a factor of two for clarity

1710

1770

1780

Appendix 8: Environmental impact on the Navy’s ships, 1710–80

NAO Negative index

NAO Positive index

Winter mildness/ severity index

Durability of ships in years

Sea pay to officers and men Flag pay Pilotage Imprests

Salaries of the Admiralty and Navy Boards Salaries officers & clerks of the yards Pensions Half pay, etc

Draws on credit with the Treasury to discharge debt

Navy Board

Parliament votes general naval supplies and a supply to discharge the navy debt Navy bills incurring charges

Navy bills under six months old

The Navy Debt General debt

Cost of Sick and Hurt Bedding and slops

Expenditure on the Wages

Expenditure on the Ordinary

Materials and stores Ordinary repairs Extraordinary repairs Harbour mooring & rigging Bills of exchange Imprests

Wages to dockyard artificers

Expenditure on Wear and Tear

Appendix 9: Naval finance and expenditure

Treasury pays off Navy bills from the remaining credit in the Exchequer or through the voting of an additional supply for the Navy debt or through the conversion of bills to annuities

Treasury

Victualling

Expenditure on Victualling

Votes a supply establishing a credit with the Treasury

Treasury

Treasurer applies for sums

Draws money from the Treasury

Treasurer of the Navy

Navy Board applies for sums

House of Commons Reports opinion of the

Parliament Committee of Supply

Treasurer issues money

Navy Board submits estimates

Appendix 10: The procedure for voting a supply to the Navy

Adjusts and submits estimates

Admiralty

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230

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Index Note: notes, tables and appendices are indicated respectively by ‘n’, ‘t’, ‘a’ following the page reference. ‘An Account of the Navy, Victualling and Transport Bills owing’ 51 ‘The Account of the Sums due on the Course of the Navy’ 51 Achilles 162, 222a Act for Regulating the Office of the Treasurer of the Navy, 1785 44 Acworth, Sir Jacob 73 Admiralty 12–18, 19–25, 147, 164, 202, 211–12 Commissioners 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 24–5, 31, 68, 97, 193, 203 departmental system 29–31 First Lord 16, 19, 20, 21, 27–9, 31, 66 and Navy Board 48, 52, 117, 119 and other departments 25–7 reform 99–102 Secretaries 16, 18, 20 and Treasury 9, 25, 52, 128–34 Africa 156t, 184, 186, 215a, 222a Ajax 120, 156t, 162, 163, 215a Alarm 214a Albion 221a Alcide 222a Alexander 207t Alfred 207t Allen, Captain 162–3 Allin, Joseph 73 America 207t, 222a American colonies 1, 67, 102, 181, 187, 188, 191, 193, 197, 207 Anglo-French Alliance 67 Anson 207t, 222a Anson, George, Baron Anson administration 92, 97, 100, 104, 178, 182, 190, 206, 211, 212 dockyards 2, 3, 91, 93, 94, 210 personality 5, 20, 26, 27, 66, 99 Antelope 223a Antigua 216a

Ardent 222a Arrogant 162, 192, 221a artificers 49, 49n, 53, 76, 90, 95, 119, 151 pay 72, 91, 95, 181 Asia 222a Assurance 223a Augusta 222a Baltic 67, 177, 178, 209 Baltimore, Lord 38 Barfleur 156t, 214a, 221a Barham, Charles Middleton, 1st Baron 16n, 31 Barré, Colonel 189 Barrington, Samuel, 1st Viscount Barrington 32n Bathurst, Henry, 2nd Earl Bathurst 41, 195 Bedford 207t, 222a Bedford, John Russell, 4th Duke of 27, 100 Belleisle 163, 174, 222a Belliqueux 222a Bellona 221a Bentham, Jeremy 201 Berwick 71, 207t Bienfaisant 156t, 215a, 222a Blankett, Captain John 199n, 201 Blenheim 82, 221a Bolton, Harry Paulet, 6th Duke of Bolton 5, 111, 173, 194, 195, 197, 198 Boscawen, Admiral Edward 83, 104n, 211 Bourbon Powers 82, 145, 160, 164, 195, 197 see also France; Spain Boyne 222a Bradshaw, Thomas 164 Brest 26, 162 Brett, Rear-Admiral Sir Piercy 141 Bristol 223a 240

INDEX Bristol, Earl of see Hervey, Augustus Britannia 72, 221a Buckingham 222a Buenos Aires 161 Buller, John 3, 16, 32n, 153, 174, 177, 181, 189, 190, 191 Burford 157n Burke, Edmund 35, 58, 136, 190, 192, 204 Bute, John Stewart, 3rd Earl of 18n, 25–6, 33, 102, 105, 118, 122, 131 Byng, George, Viscount Torrington see Torrington Cambridge 221a Canada 1, 17n Canada 124, 221a Canterbury 222a Cape Passaro 67 Captain 222a Carteret, John, Earl Granville 41 Cavendish, Lord John 181 Centaur 221a Centurion 140, 223a Charles II, King 24 Charon 187 Chatham 223a Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of 129, 131, 137, 140, 189 Chatham dockyard 73, 77, 82, 83, 91, 98, 169, 185n, 214a Chester 223a Chichester 222a Cider Tax 107, 111 Clarke, Captain 200 Clevland, John 18 Colchester 223a Controller of the Navy 44 Cook, Captain James 64, 200–1 Cooper, Sir Grey 51, 203 Cornwall 221a Cornwall, Charles 177, 179 Cornwallis, Charles, 1st Marquis Cornwallis 209 Courageux 124, 221a courts martial 21, 22f Culloden 207t, 221a Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of 30, 131 Customs Service 107 Deal Castle 214a Defence 192, 221a Defiance 222a demobilization 50, 55–6, 57, 105–38, 116

Deptford 223a Deptford dockyard 71, 77–8, 145, 214a Devonshire 82, 222a Devonshire, William Cavendish, 4th Duke of 111 dockyards 21, 97, 99, 119–24, 184 capacity 70, 71–3, 76, 90, 92, 205 condition 66, 101, 135, 139, 168 improvements 101, 136, 154, 212 manpower 53, 72, 90, 91, 181–2 numbers 119, 121, 130 pay and conditions 48, 55, 56, 123, 131, 137 see also artificers; shipwrights productivity 77, 77t, 94, 121–2 stores and materials 55, 55n, 56, 144t, 160, 161, 162, 164, 192, 214 see also timber working practices 95, 101, 120–1, 185, 187 see also fleet; named dockyards Dorsetshire 161, 222a Dowdeswell, William 58, 113, 175, 177 Dragon 157n, 184, 192, 221a Dreadnought 71, 143, 144, 145, 222a Druid 186 Dublin 156t, 215a, 221a Duke 221a Dundas, Henry, 1st Viscount Melville 44 Dunkirk 156t, 222a Dunning, John, 1st Baron Ashburton 193 Eagle 222a East India Company 159, 196 Edgar 161, 222a Edgcumbe, Richard, 2nd Baron Edgcumbe 141 Edinburgh 82, 89, 222a Effingham, Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of 201 Egmont 156t, 214a Egmont, John Perceval, 2nd Earl of 10, 19, 134, 186, 191 First Lord 27, 29, 66, 117, 118–19, 135, 160, 210, 212 dockyards 4n, 56, 119–24, 126, 136, 143, 144, 155, 168, 170, 178, 205, 206 and Grenville 124–8, 137–8 and Treasury 128–34, 147 King’s Friends 32n, 33, 34 personality 3, 17, 28, 118, 137 Elizabeth 156t, 215a, 222a Elliot, Gilbert 32n 241

INDEX Ellis, Wellbore 42, 191 Endeavour 64 Essex 222a Estaing, Charles d’ 197 ‘An Estimate of the Monies Needed’ 48, 49n, 217a ‘Estimate of the Probable Expence of the Navy’ 51n Europe 222a Exclusion Crisis 24 Exeter 222a exploration 200 Falkland 223a Falklands crisis, 1770 47, 139, 140, 154, 157, 159–64, 165, 179, 180 Falmouth 223a Fame 155, 156t, 157, 221a Farrant, Godfrey Lee 17, 17n Favourite 160 Firm 222a fleet condition 1730–50 73–80, 90 1763 107, 115t 1766–70 135, 139, 143, 144–6 1770s 169, 178, 195, 199, 204–5, 209–10 construction 4, 4n, 5, 6, 39, 194 1740s 71, 72 1766–9 156t 1770s 173n, 181, 196, 208 contract building 72, 93, 94, 101–2, 125, 170–1, 205, 206, 210 environmental problem 66, 225a longevity 75, 76t, 79–80, 84–5, 86–7t, 168, 206, 225a mobilization 4n, 54, 55–6, 57, 68, 69t, 70, 181–91 repairs 10, 20, 21, 22, 75, 92, 116, 143, 144, 150, 170, 206 funding 39, 42, 64, 92, 108, 149, 152, 154, 179, 180, 192 size 3, 68, 69t, 70, 93, 224a 1760s 104, 114, 116, 143, 221–3a surveys 73, 78–9, 114, 115t, 157 see also dockyards; named vessels; ships; timber Florida 82 Formidable 207t, 221a Foudroyant 221a Fox, Charles James 179, 203 Fox, Henry 25–6 France 114, 127, 131

fleet 4n, 72, 75, 90, 94, 113, 125–6, 145, 160, 162, 195, 197, 207 relations with 10, 31n, 67, 82, 159–64, 178, 187, 190, 191, 197, 198, 209 George III, King 9, 32, 33, 102, 105, 129, 131, 163, 204 Georgia 82 Gibraltar 162 Gloucester 223a Grafton 222a Grafton, Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of 111 Great Northern War 67 Grenville, George 3, 191, 211 Admiralty, 1762–3 3, 16, 25–6, 33, 44, 55, 102, 107, 114 Ministry 1763–5 48, 103n, 129, 137, 180, 205 and Egmont 28, 124–8, 131, 132, 137–8 guardships 157, 160–1, 177, 196 Guernsey 223a Hales, Dr Stephen 84 Halifax, George Dunk, 2nd Earl of 131, 133 Hampshire 223a Hampton Court 82, 222a Harcourt, Simon, 1st Earl Harcourt 178 Hardwicke, Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of 90, 92 Harris, James 15n Haslar hospital 148 Havana 90 Hawke, Edward, 1st Baron Hawke 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 27, 28, 66, 140 First Lord 103, 139, 141–6, 155, 161, 164, 176, 180, 181–91, 196, 212 fleet 138, 143–6, 155, 155t, 157–9, 162, 168, 170, 171–2, 192, 199 and Sandwich 3, 170, 173, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210 Hawke, Martin 176 health 83, 84 Hector 71 Hercules 169, 221a Hero 221a Hervey, Augustus, 3rd Earl of Bristol 5, 31n, 164, 174, 183, 196, 199 Hinchinbroke, Lord 186 Holland 78 see also United Provinces hospitals 148, 149 242

INDEX Howe, Richard, Earl Howe 3, 16, 31, 31n, 122, 166 hulks 75, 75n, 206 Hunt, Captain 160 impressment 38n India 1, 67 India squadron 177 Intrepid 214a, 222a Invincible 221a Invincible (Fr) 90 Ireland 162 Isis 223a Jamaica 135, 216a James, Duke of York (later James II) 24 James I, King 81 Jenkinson, Charles, 1st Earl of Liverpool Admiralty Board 3, 105n, 137, 139, 141–2, 145n, 147–9, 151–3, 178, 211 King’s Friends 32, 32n, 33, 34, 118–19, 122 Treasury secretary 106, 111, 133 Jersey 145, 157n, 222a Jervis, John, Earl of St Vincent 31n, 140 Kent 157n, 221a Keppel, Augustus, 1st Viscount Keppel Admiralty Board 3, 135, 140, 141, 164 and Sandwich 5, 166, 173, 174, 203 First Lord, 1782 27, 28, 29, 209 Palliser affair 183 King’s Friends 31–4, 118, 122 Knight, Robert, Earl of Catherlough 111n Knowles, Commodore Sir Charles 74 Lancaster 222a Le Conquerant 90 Lenox 156t, 221a Lion 207t Lisburne, Viscount 32n Lively 39 Loan Bill, 1783 29 London 72, 221a longitude determination 64 Lowestoffe 215a Luttrell, James 186n, 190 Luttrell, John 180, 182–3, 184, 185, 186, 186n Luttrell, Temple 179, 186n, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 198, 199, 200, 201 Lyon 222a

Magnanime 90, 221a Magnificent 169, 221a Maltby, Captain 161n marines 49, 49n, 50, 53 Marlborough 156t, 214a, 221a Mars 169, 221a Martinique 160 Mediterranean 178 Medway 73, 222a Meredith, Sir William 141 Middleton, Sir Charles see Barham, 1st Baron Modeste 156t, 215a, 222a Monarch 169, 221a Monmouth 222a Montague 39, 73, 156t, 215a, 222a Mostyn, Savage 104n Mulgrave, Constantine Phipps, 2nd Baron 31n, 187, 189, 191, 192, 193, 194 Namur 64, 74, 192, 221a Nassau 222a national debt 57, 106, 111 national security 7, 105n, 106, 114, 127–8, 145n, 178, 189, 196, 197, 198 Navy Act, 1758 48, 55 Navy administration 1–2, 3–4, 8, 21 management systems 67, 211 reform 102–4, 105, 211 structure 19–23, 21, 21f, 22f Navy Board 18, 21–3, 24, 44, 59, 99n and Admiralty 20, 25, 27, 48, 52, 99, 122, 133 Commissioners 117, 119, 161 contracts 21, 59, 133 dockyards 21, 73, 74, 91, 116, 119, 121–2, 123, 158–61, 164 and Treasury 9, 23, 29, 44, 48, 52 see also Navy finance Navy finance 3–4, 10, 23, 35–65, 99–102, 103, 107–10, 113, 146, 211 appropriation 45, 138, 174–81 reform 132–3, 136–7, 139, 147–8 cash statement 46t, 47, 48, 49n, 52t estimates 35, 36, 37–42, 57, 94–5, 96, 113, 128–9, 140–3, 147, 149, 152, 175, 187, 192 Extraordinary 37, 38–40, 41, 91, 94–7, 120, 124–6, 128, 132, 135, 148, 149, 153, 181, 184, 191, 213a, 214–16a Ordinary 37–8, 44–5, 52–3, 108, 123, 128, 133, 148, 191, 226a 243

INDEX Sea Service 36, 37, 95, 154, 174: victualling 20, 37, 44, 53, 109, 228a; Wages 37, 42, 44–5, 107, 108, 228a; Wear and Tear 37, 38, 44–5, 53, 55–7, 226a expenditure 22–3, 43–52, 94–8, 109t, 211, 226a pensions 48, 123, 151 wages 53–5, 59, 60, 91 Navy course 132–3, 146, 175, 222a Navy debt 39–40, 42, 50–1, 57–9, 60, 63–5, 73, 91, 96, 98, 99, 106–7, 107, 110–11, 112, 126, 132–3, 146, 149, 150, 179, 180, 202, 211, 226a 1762–4 110t redemption 61–3: Navy bills 43, 49n, 59–60, 63, 146, 175: Four Percents annuities 61–2, 111–12, 146 plans of expense 134, 137, 147–53, 153–4, 178, 179, 218–19a supplies 35, 36–7, 41, 91, 109t, 132, 162, 174, 189 Transports 44, 59, 60, 109, 149, 180t and Treasury 23, 110–14 Navy manning 107, 174, 175, 177, 179, 181, 187, 189, 190, 199 see also officers; seamen Navy and Parliament 67, 173–4 Necker, M. 197 Neptune 95, 156t, 221a Netherlands 209 Newark 221a Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of 18, 18n, 21, 93 Newfoundland fisheries 160 Nonsuch 207t, 223a Norfolk 221a North, Frederick, Lord North 3, 28, 47, 58, 166, 167, 173, 176–9, 186, 188, 197, 203–5, 207, 209 North Atlantic, commerce 102 North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) 88 Northumberland 156t, 222a Norwich 223a Nottingham 222a Nottingham, Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of 24 Nugent, Robert 57 Ocean 155, 156t, 157, 221a officers pay and allowances 37, 38n, 52, 53 promotion 17, 20, 21, 24, 49n, 183

Ollivier, Blaise 77–8, 81, 84 ordnance 20, 37 Ordnance Board 22, 84 Orford 156t, 214a, 222a Palliser, Sir Hugh 18n, 153, 182, 183, 184–5, 190 Palmerston, Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount 32n, 153, 183 Panther 156t, 214a, 222a Parliament and Admiralty 21, 22, 25, 209, 210 Committee of Supply 36, 39 and George III 9 and Navy 6, 67, 99–102, 173–4 expenditure 40, 96–7, 147, 181, 211 patronage 12, 13–14, 17–18, 21, 24, 25, 183 Peace of Paris, 1763 1, 68, 114–15 Pelham, Henry 57, 92, 144 Pembroke 156t, 215a, 222a Pepys, Samuel 24, 170 Perceval, Charles George 17 Perceval, Philip Tufton 17 Perceval, Hon. Spencer 17 pilotage 53 Pitt, William (the elder), see Chatham, Earl of Pitt, William (the younger) 100 Plymouth 222a Plymouth dockyard 121, 135, 136, 168, 169, 205, 212, 215a, 216a Polyphemus 207t Port Egmont 160, 161n Port Mahon 135, 216a Portland 215a, 223a Portland, William Bentinck, 3rd Duke of 111 Portsmouth dockyard 73, 82, 95, 124, 163, 192, 214, 215a, 216a improvements 120, 135, 136, 168, 169, 205, 212 Preston 223a Prince 221a Prince Frederick 64, 222a Prince George 214a Prince of Orange 89, 222a Prince of Wales 221a Princess Amelia 221a Princess Caroline 221a Princess Louisa 222a Princess Mary 222a Princess Royal 199n, 221a Progress Books 68n, 73, 84, 85 244

INDEX protection, commerce 66 Prudent 156t, 214a, 222a Pulteney, William 175, 176, 177, 182 Queen 156t, 214a, 221a Raisonable 156t, 214a, 222a Ramilles 17, 221a Regency Act, 1751 30 Registrar 17n Regulating Act, 1782 44 Resolution 214a Revenge 145, 222a Richmond, Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of 195, 196 Rippon 222a Robust 221a Rochester 223a Rochford, William Zuylestein, 4th Earl of 163 Rockingham, Charles WatsonWentworth, 2nd Marquis of 8, 28, 111, 134 ministry 19, 28, 32, 134, 135–7, 204 Rodney, George, 1st Baron Rodney 209 Romney 223a Rose 215a Royal Ann 72, 72n, 221a Royal George 72, 156t, 215a, 221a Royal Oak 156t, 215a, 222a Royal Sovereign 72, 221a Royal William 72, 221a Ruby 223a Rupert 222a Russell 221a Russell, Edward, Earl of Orford 24 Russia 178 St. Albans 222a St. Ann 222a St. Florentine 222a St. George 221a St. Vincent, Earl of see Jervis, John Saintes, Battle of the 209 Salisbury 214a Sandwich 64, 221a Sandwich, John Montagu, 4th Earl of assessment 4n, 10, 28, 66, 205–8, 209–10, 212 First Lord 1748–51 73, 78, 91–2, 97, 100, 120, 205 1763 75, 114, 115–17, 123, 168–73, 205

1771–82 60, 64–5, 138, 139, 153, 154, 157–9, 165–6, 166–7, 173–4, 176, 178, 179, 181–91, 207t: criticism 5, 6, 7, 113, 181, 182, 184, 187, 190, 191–205 personality 2–3, 20, 27, 118 Sartine, M. 197 Saunders, Sir Charles 3, 5, 28, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140–1, 174 schoolmasters 53 seamen numbers 37, 42, 49, 49n, 50, 53, 54, 64, 108t, 151 pay 20, 38n, 43, 48, 53, 54–5, 108t secrecy, state 194, 195 Secretary of State 21, 22, 25, 26, 31 Seven Years’ War 1, 2, 27, 35, 56, 68, 80, 160 war debt 105, 106 Sheerness dockyard 215a Shelburne, William Petty, 2nd Earl of 29, 145, 199, 201 ships see fleet ships’ books 49n shipwrights 70, 72, 76, 116, 135 Shrewsbury 169, 221a Sick and Hurt Board 21, 22 Somerset 74, 84, 156t, 214a, 222a South America 82 Spain navy 4n, 89–90, 145, 160, 161, 161n, 162, 195, 197, 207 relations with 10, 67, 82, 154, 158, 159, 164, 190, 209 Spencer, Lord Charles 32n Spencer, George John, 2nd Earl Spencer 31n Spithead 163 Stanley, Hans 15, 16 Stirling Castle 199n, 207t Stonehouse hospital 148 strategy 21 Suckling, Maurice 182 Suffolk 221a Superb 157n, 221a Surveyor of the Navy 83, 194 Sutherland 223a Sutton, Samuel 83 Swiftsure 222a Swinton, Lieutenant Samuel 197 Tamar 160 taxation 105, 106, 107, 211 Temeraire 221a

245

INDEX Temple, Henry, Viscount Palmerston 14, 15n, 27 Terrible 221a Thunderer 221a timber 73–4, 77–8, 84–90, 120, 157–9, 160, 164, 213 and climate 85, 88–9, 88t dry rot 80–1 green, ship construction 5, 168, 170, 171, 172, 179, 182, 208 preservation 77, 81, 199 seasoning 6, 85, 157, 169, 170, 171, 181, 193, 206, 207 storage 77, 80, 85, 207 ventilation 81–4 wet rot 80–1 Tomlinson, Nicholas 187 Tomlinson, Lieutenant Robert 186–7, 199, 200, 201 Torbay 156t, 221a Torrington, George Byng, Viscount, First Lord, 1727–33 67, 72 Toulon 162, 197 Townshend, Charles 32n, 115 Townshend, Thomas 181 trade, naval protection 66 Treasurer of the Navy 43–4, 49 Treasury 22, 146, 147, 226a and Admiralty 9, 25, 52, 128–34 and naval finance 39, 48–9, 51, 61, 110–14, 126 and Navy Board 9, 23, 29, 44, 48, 52 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748 67 Treaty of Utrecht, 1713 67 Trident 156t, 215a, 222a Triple Alliance 67n Triumph 5n, 221a tropics 79–80, 85 Turk’s Island 127 Union 221a United Provinces 67n see also Holland

Valiant 5n, 221a Vanguard 222a Victory foundered 1744 72 in service 1763 221a Victualling Board 21, 22, 40, 129 Wager, Sir Charles 29, 66, 83, 211 Walpole, Horace 118–19, 140, 141, 142 Walpole, Robert 67 War of American Independence 1, 2, 4n, 10, 163, 187, 209 War of the Austrian Succession 1, 21, 35, 67, 166 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 1739 1, 67 War of the Spanish Succession 67 Warrior 207t Warspite 221a Warwick 223a watermen 53 Ways and Means 40 Wells, William 168–9, 171, 182 West Indies 79, 209 Weymouth, Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount 160, 161 Weymouth 222a Whigs 33–4 Winchester 223a Winchelsea, Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchelsea 27, 71, 74 Windsor 222a Wolfe, General James 140 Wolters, Robert 113 Woolwich dockyard 71, 78, 124, 169, 214a Worcester 156t, 190, 215a, 222a Yarmouth 83, 163, 174, 222a York 222a Yorke, Elizabeth, Anson’s wife 92

246

The British Navy and the State in the Eighteenth Century

The British navy, the navy vigilant

The British navy book

Warfare in the Eighteenth Century

The Eighteenth Century

The Politics of Custom in Eighteenth-Century British Fiction

The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

The British NAVY from within

The British economy in the twentieth century

The eighteenth-century literature handbook

The achievement of the British navy in the world-war

English Press in the Eighteenth Century

Eighteenth-Century British Premiers: Walpole to the Younger Pitt

John Locke and the Eighteenth-Century Divines

Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century

British Maritime Enterprise in the New World: From the Late Fifteenth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century

Richardson's 'Clarissa' and the Eighteenth-Century Reader (Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought)

The Terror In The Navy

The Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century England

The Navy in Action

The Political State Of The British Empire

Reading the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Novel

THE BEAUTIFUL TREE: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century

The Libertine's Progress: Seduction in the Eighteenth-Century French Novel

Tonal Counterpoint: In the Style of the Eighteenth Century

Living by the Pen: Women Writers in the Eighteenth Century

Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century

Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century

Liberty And American Experience In The Eighteenth Century

The British Navy and the State in the Eighteenth Century

The British navy, the navy vigilant

The British navy book

Warfare in the Eighteenth Century

The Eighteenth Century

The Politics of Custom in Eighteenth-Century British Fiction

The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

The British NAVY from within

The British economy in the twentieth century

The eighteenth-century literature handbook

The achievement of the British navy in the world-war

English Press in the Eighteenth Century

Eighteenth-Century British Premiers: Walpole to the Younger Pitt

John Locke and the Eighteenth-Century Divines

Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century

British Maritime Enterprise in the New World: From the Late Fifteenth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century

Richardson's 'Clarissa' and the Eighteenth-Century Reader (Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought)

The Terror In The Navy

The Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century England

The Navy in Action

The Political State Of The British Empire

Reading the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Novel

THE BEAUTIFUL TREE: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century

The Libertine's Progress: Seduction in the Eighteenth-Century French Novel

Tonal Counterpoint: In the Style of the Eighteenth Century

Living by the Pen: Women Writers in the Eighteenth Century

Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century

Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century

Liberty And American Experience In The Eighteenth Century

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