Manning the Royal Navy & Mercantile Marine, Also Belligerent and Neutral Rights in the Event of ...

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Chapter I

Feab op Invasion. — Expense thereby incurred. — Volunteer Movement. — Value op Arbitration where Practicable. — Must still be Prepared for War. — German Ships op War (Note). — War-like Preparations in Europe. — Our Maritime Strength as Compared with other Nations. — More Perfect Organisation necessary. — Value op Large Ironclads Considered. — The Destructive Power op Torpedoes and Torpedo Boats, the Latter described. — Relative Cost. — Should the use of " Infernal Machines " in any form be allowed in War ? — How are our Merchant Ships to be Protected ? — Scarcity of Seamen. — Difficulties considered as to their Training and Maintenance for Active Service and as Reserves.

CHAPTER H.

Trained Seamen op Foreign Nations. — How far they can be depended upon. — DiFFicuLTms with our own Seamen. — Early Impracticability op Impressment. — Schemes to procure Volunteers for the Navy and Reserves for War, 1691. — Act of Parliament passed for that Object, 1696. — Gross Neglect of the Interests op Seamen, 1697 to 1719. — Schemes for Registry Offices, by Mb. John Burohett, 1719 ; by Sir Robert Walpole, 1740; and by Lord Barrington, 1749, Act 20, Geo. IE., Chap. 88. — First Training-Ship for Boys (Marine Society), 1756. — Intolerable Nuisance of the Press-gang, 1770. — Further Schemes proposed, 1774-1777.— Pitt's "Quota BUI," 1798.— Impressment Continued. — Its Legality Considered (Note). — Lord Melville's and Lord Collingwood's Suggestions, 1805. — Failure of Register Ticket Scheme op 1844. — Continuous Service System, Introduced into the Royal Navy, 1853. — - Training-Ships Established by the Admiralty to Create a "Standing Navy." — State of the Seamen of the Royal Navy, 1854.

Vlll. CONTENTS.

CHAPTER HI.

Royal Commission of 1859 on Manning.— Creation of the Royal Natal Reserve Force recommended. — Its Conditions. — Attempt to improve Naval Coast Volunteers. — Reserves from Coastguard, &c, &c. — Cost of the Whole Scheme (Note). — The Author, as a Member of the Commission, dissents from a considerable Portion of its Report. — His Reasons. — Number of Seamen mustered by France in the Crimean and German-French Wars. — Visit of Mr. Ward Hunt and Sir Charles Adderley to Germany. — Possible Failure of Scheme of Royal Commission in the Event of War. — Reasons. — Number of Seamen Entered from 1st January, 1861, to 80th June, 1876. — The State of our present Reserves as Compared with any previous Period. — Not Sufficient Able Seamen in the Merchant Service to Fall back upon. — Number of Persons in that Service and how employed (Note). — Reasons why there is a Scarcity of Able Seamen. — Views of the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships, 1871-72, so far as regards Manning and the Apprenticeship System.

CHAPTER IV.

Recommendations of Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships Worthy of Further Consideration by Government. — Views of Shipowners. — System of Apprenticeship previously to 1850. — Objections to it. — Number of Boys and Apprentices at Sea, 1872. — Opinion of the Registrar-General of Seamen. — Shipowners are themselves MUCH TO BLAME FOR THE PRESENT SCARCITY OF ABLE

Seamen. — Great Loss of Life and Property through Incompetent Seamen. — Government also to blame. — Reasons why Apprentices are not engaged. — Extension of Training- Ships to receive destitute Boys. — Number and Particulars of those now established (Note). — The Social Aspect of the Question considered. — The " Cumberland " Training- Ship. — How conducted. — Number of Boys on Board, and where they came from (Note). — Other Industrial School-Ships. — Where Stationed. — Reformatory Vessels, such as the "Akbar," "Clarence," and " Cornwall.* ' — The Marine Socdsty Training- Ship "Warspite." — Number of Boys sent from her to Sea. — Admiralty Regulations for receiving Boys. — Feltham Industrial School-Ship " Endeavour." — Number of Boys received. — Various other Details.

CONTENTS. IX.

CHAPTER V.

Necessity op the Royal Navy Acting in Concert with the Mercantile Marine. — " Continuous Service " System fails to secure Extra Seamen in War. — Cost to the Country at present of training boys for the navy and main- TAINING Reserves of Seamen (£1,100,000). — Insuffiency of Shore Drills. — Number of Able Seamen in Royal Navy and Merchant Service. — Number that there should be. — How to be obtained, trained, and maintained. — Various Tables showing the Number of Apprentices that could be

trained under different scales. modified apprenticeship

Scheme suggested. — How Apprentices are to be obtained

and trained. increase and organization of training- ships ;

Merging those of the Admiralty with the General probationary Schools for Boys Destined for Sea, recommended. — How a Continual Flow of Trained Seamen may be maintained for the Navy and Merchant Service from Youth to Old Age. — Wages to Seamen considered. — Inducements to enter the Navy Reserve Forces. — Pensions : Estimated Cost of the proposed more Efficient Scheme. — (£405,000) Showing a Saving to the Country of £695,000 per annum. — Scheme for enabling Merchant Vessels to defend Themselves in the Event of ^Var. — Proposal for Merchant Officers to serve for a certain Period in the Royal Navy, should they Desire it.

^ CHAPTER VI.

Maritime Rights of Nations. — Their Early Origin. — "Free Ships make Free Goods," conceded by the Dutch in 1654; and by the English in 1780. — Right of Search repudiated by the United States, 1812. — Paris Declaration, 1856. — Imperatively necessary for the Interests of Great Britain. — Reasons. — The United States decline to become Parties to the Declaration, unless all private Property (Contraband of War excepted) be made free from Capture at Sea. — Their Reasons. — The Loss we sustained by -the Exercise of the Rights of Blockade during the War with Russia, 1854-55. — The Desirability, in the Interests of Great Britain, of

adopting the principle laid down by the united states.

Debate in House of Commons. — Lord Palmerston's Opinion. — Opinions of Mr. Richard Cobden on the Subject, addressed in various Letters to the Author, 1856-60. — Our Position in

X, CONTENTS.

the Event of War, Considered. — Impossibility of protecting our Maritime Commerce. — Declaration of 1856 has placed us between the horns of a dllemma : as we cannot "Retrograde," What is our course? — The Advantage of moving* Onwards considered. — What constitutes Contraband of War ? — Convention with United States of 1871 (" At.arama " Claims), an Important Step in Advance.

OUE MAEITIME DEFENCES.

CHAPTER I.

Although Great Britain, from her insular position, is much more secure against foreign aggression than any other European nation, the posibility of invasion has ever been a source of the deepest anxiety to her people, and frequently of needless alarms. Indeed, from the time when Napoleon I. commenced that career of territorial conquest which ended in his exile to St. Helena, we lived in the midst of alarms. Nor did these cease with his overthrow, or when all that was mortal of that restless conqueror lay entombed far away from the strife of nations. I shall not stop to enquire into the cause, but since then we have expended many millions on fortifications and otherwise, for the protection of our shores.

Although events have proved that for more than halfa-century the vast sums of money thus expended, as well as the further expenditure on our Army and Navy, might, in a great measure, have been saved, I am not prepared to coincide with those writers who attempt to show that our preparations for war have on every occasion been a waste of our national resources. Far from it : our warlike attitude, while it no doubt induced other nations to increase their armaments, may, in more than one instance, have prevented war, for nations prone to war are, in the motives which actuate their conduct, frequently not unlike the common burglar who calculates the risks before he pounces upon his prey. Indeed, I go so far as

2 OUB MAKITIME DEFENCES.

to admit, though I have considered the rumours of invasion in my own time as something worse than idle, that the Volunteer movement a few years ago, while tending to place at ease the minds of timid people, produced a material effect on these would-be invaders, and banished the thought of invading this country if it were ever seriously entertained by any Government.

I am no alarmist ; on the contrary, I entertain the opinion — held by too few men who have taken part in public affairs — that all differences between nations should be settled by arbitration. But while holding that opinion, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that human nature is as prone to quarrel as ever. In our courts of law litigants frequently expend, in contesting money payments, a very great deal more than the sum at issue, to obtain what they call "their rights." Ludicrous cases occasionally occur, especially amongst my own countrymen (Scotsmen), where a litigant will carry a question respecting the position of a ditch or hedge, of practically no value to either of the contending parties, from the Court of Session to the House of Lords to decide to whom the ditch or hedge may belong, or who should clean the one or trim the other ; and hundreds, and even thousands of pounds sterling are sometimes expended in the settlement of a question involving an outlay of a few shillings.

As it is with individuals, so it is with nations, and I suppose it is for these reasons that monarchs and princes, born to rule and accustomed to have their own way at home, as well as oppressed nationalties, still decline to settle their disputes by any means short of war. It, however, says little for the progress of civilisation that they do not attempt, by every means short of national honour, to settle their differences amicably, instead of mustering legions of innocent men, who are frequently altogether ignorant of the cause of dispute, to bring it to an issue by the sacrifice of their lives and the ruin of their homes — in

ABMAMENTS OF EUROPE. 3

a word, by the same brute force, which savages still adopt, and only differing from it by more scientific and more wholesale modes of destruction.

Although sharing at the time with many other persons the feeling that £3,000,000 was much too heavy a penalty for us to pay for the loss the mercantile community of the United States sustained by our negligence during the late unfortunate war in that country, I should rather, when it was decided we were wrong, have paid ten times that penalty than have gone to war. So far from being lowered in the estimation of all good and wise men by the course we adopted, it redounded to our honour as a nation. Great Britain certainly stands much higher now than she would have done had she gone to war and won her cause by force of arms-Mx) say nothing about the suffering and loss that war would have entailed on the people of both countries.

Nevertheless, with all my hatred of war and anxiety for peace, I can see few signs of the time when nations are to beat "their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks." On the contrary, the gloomy hosts of war appear to be gathering round us, more darkly and densely than ever. What mean those vast armies which the nations of Europe are now collecting ? For what purpose does Germany increase her legions of armed men, and seek for seaports to construct stupendous ironclad ships* of war? Wherein lies the necessity of Kussia,

* Germany has thirteen ironclads afloat, three of which are turretships — viz., the Preussen, Friedrich der Gh-osse, and the Qrosse Kurfurst. The first of these was built at the private dockyard of the Vulcan Company, at Stettin, and was launched in November, 1878; the second named was built at Ellerbeck, near Kiel, and launched in September, 1874 ; the third named was built at Wilhelmshafen, and launched in September, 1875. They are full-rigged vessels, and constructed after the model of the Britjsh ship Monarch. There are also three broadside frigates — viz., the Konig WUhelm, built at the Thames Ironworks, and reckoned to be the most powerful in the fleet ; the Kronprinz, built by

B 2

France, and Italy, with few or no colonies, and only a comparatively small maritime commerce to protect, expending huge sums of money in the construction of vessels of that description ?

These are questions not easily answered, unless we find their solution in the deep-rooted animosity which exists between France and Germany, of in what is known as the perplexed and critical "Eastern Question," wherein we may unhappily be involved, against our will, at any moment. In such an unfortunate contingency, this island offers so many temptations that,, however improbable, invasion is not an impossible event ; and, considering the enormous amount at stake, we must ever be prepared to resist any attempt to land a foreign army on our shores or to blockade our ports.

If our strength be measured by our wealth, by the number of ironclads we have now afloat, and by our resources in other respects as compared with other nations, we are, perhaps, more powerful now than we were when " all the world was in arms against us." But the relative positions of nations have, since then, materially changed in various important matters. Nor must we flatter ourselves with the too popular notion that money can do everything, and that we could turn our resources to account between the time when war was declared, and when operations actually commenced. A complete organisation of our forces, active and in reserve,

Samuda ; and the Friedrich Karl, built near Toulon. Then there are two casemated frigates, the Kaiser and the DeuUchland, both built by Samuda, and delivered at Wilhelmshafen last year. There are also three ironclad corvettes, the Leipzig and Hansa, both built by the Vulcan Company, near Stettin, and the Elisabeth ; the monitor ArminiuSy and the little armoured vessel Prince Adalbert, make up the thirteen, the former built in France, and the latter by Samuda, at Poplar. The- corvette Elisabeth has just undergone a thorough repair at Dantsic, and was commissioned on June 1, instead of October 1, as was at first intended. She is now taking in her provisions and ammunition, and

NECESSITY OP BEING PREPAKED FOR WAR. 5

and a thorough knowledge of how these and our vast indirect resources could be promptly and effectually applied, would be of more importance to us on the outbreak of war than the large capital at our command, however serviceable that might be in the long run. One great cause of our weakness in 1854 was the want of this organisation ; yet, so far as regards reserves of trained seamen and the prompt utilisation of merchant ships and private dock-yards, we are really in no better position now than we were then.

Unfortunately, the great Continental Powers are now armed ready for war at a day's notice, and by means of the telegraph and steam, by land and sea, these forces could be concentrated at any given point in Europe, even at the most available parts of our shores within four, or, at most, six days, from the time of the declaration of war. Thus, a combination of Powers arrayed against us would necessitate on the first brush of war the employment of the whole of our immediately available resources to repel invasion, and to protect our great entrepots of maritime commerce, on which we depend, not merely for supplies, but for our daily food.

In the meantime, how are our Colonies, our coal depots, and our vast fleets of merchantmen to be protected? Herein rests our weakness, which unfortunately increases with the improved appliances of war, and the extraordinary extension of our Mercantile Marine.

proceeds shortly to Philadelphia. The turret-ship Preussen has just made her trial trip at Swinemunde, and the result is reported to be satisfactory. Besides the above-mentioned vessels actually afloat, there are several on the stocks and in various stages of progress, and these when finished will raise the fleet to a very respectable degree of strength. The fortified places, both on the German seacoast and inland, are now about to be enlarged and strengthened, the places mentioned being D ant sic, Konigsberg, Glogau, Nievre, Memel, Pillau, Kolberg, Swinemunde, Stralsund, Friedrichsort, Sonderburg, Diippel, Wilhelmshafen, the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, Cologne, Coblentz, Spandau, Cuestern, Fosen, and Thorn. — Army and Navy Gazette, June, 1876.

By the declaration respecting Maritime Law, adopted by the European Powers assembled in Congress at Paris, on the 16th April, 1856, protection is now afforded to enemies' goods under a neutral flag, and to neutral goods. To that declaration I shall hereafter very fully refer. In the meantime, I may frankly admit, and I do so with satisfaction, that the progress of nations and other events had rendered it imperatively necessary; but unless we can induce all nations to take one step further in advance and adopt the proposal more than once officially offered by the United States, that private property, wherever found, should be free from capture, our maritime commerce would, in the event of war with that country, be swept from the seas.*

As the future action of the United States is, however, a matter of conjecture, it behoves us to consider how we should stand, under existing circumstances, in the event of a great European war. So far as regards ships, our means of defence have materially changed. Within the last few years we have expended very large sums of money in the creation of huge ironclads, or floating citadels, each of which, when fully equipped, costs somewhere about half-a-million sterling. But have we ever asked ourselves the question, how these huge flotillas are to be employed in the event of war. If for the protection of the Thames, Mersey, Solent, and Medway, or the blockade of the principal forts of the enemy, we should do well to enquire what their value would be to us in even these important services, considering their cost? Some of them are to mount guns of 81 tons weight — unquestionably huge instruments of destruction

* I brought this grave matter tinder the notice of the House of Commons in 1857, and again March 14, 1860, and a letter I addressed to Lord John Eussell, the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on this subject, was ordered to be published. (See Parliamentary Paper. Belligerent Bights— No. 151. Session 1860.)

IRONCLAD SHIPS. 7

— but will they be as efficient for the purposes I have named, as vessels of greater speed, and of only one-quarter their cost ? I doubt it. Nor do I exclude from my doubts such vessels as the Inflexible and Dreadnought, which are each, I understand, to mount four of these guns on turrets, and to cost, ready for sea, £750,000 ! ! In the destruction of fortifications, as at present constructed, an 81-ton gun would unquestionably make fearful havoc, but against earth mounds of ample depth, or batteries on the Moncrieff system, it would be very little more effective than the old 64-pound gun; while its efficiency — considering its cost — for the purpose of protection, would be far from complete. A swift ship could run the gauntlet past one of these floating citadels without much chance of being hit by its ponderous shot. I question, if in action, each of these guns could be fired every ten or fifteen minutes, and that space of time represents, in a swift steamer, three or four miles, when an enemy's cruiser, if not hit (and the chances are five — if not ten — to one in her favour), would be out of range before a second round could be fired.

Although an ordinary vessel could not attack them with much prospect of success, it could evade them, and play terrible havoc with the property they were meant to protect. For these reasons I am disposed to think that we have recently been expending much more money on these ponderous floating batteries than their value to us in the hour of need would justify ; and it is a matter hardly to be questioned that we have, in a great measure, adopted this policy because other nations are building ships of like huge dimensions.

Instead of troubling ourselves about what other nations do, I think we should consider what is requisite for our own wants. Such has been our wisest policy in all commercial matters, and we shall do well to adhere to it in our preparations to meet the eventualities of war.

Tactics and science will now have more to do with the Settlement of disputes between nations than actions fought at close quarters " in line of battle/' Indeed, the French are said to have quite given up the idea of fighting in line or formation. The indomitable bull-dog courage of our seamen will now be of much less avail than it was at Copenhagen or Trafalgar; and the swift ship, longrange, and scientific gunner, will carry the day in naval engagements. Let us face these facts. It is necessary we should do so, more especially as another instrument of destruction, much more terrible than the largest ironclad has now been discovered. The power of torpedoes, and their value for the protection of harbours, have been known for some years.* They are, however, now to be employed in another and apparently very effective and destructive form.

Messrs. John J. Thornycroft and Co., of Chiswick, have already constructed torpedo boats for the French, Austrian, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Governments. In the Frontispiece will be found an illustration of one of these ready for action. She is 67 feet in length, by 8£ feet in width ; she is built of steel, and is rifle-proof in the parts containing the machinery and the crew engaged in working the torpedoes. On her trial trips she steamed in smooth water 18 knots an hour, and maintained that rate of speed for two consecutive hours. The cost of each of these vessels, fully equipped and ready for sea, is about £4,000. There are two poles, about 40 feet in length, ready to be projected from the bows, and to the end of each

* Besides the Star torpedo, worked from a boat, we have Harvey's towing torpedo, easily managed in a swift steam vessel of small size ; and the Whitehead fish torpedo, the most formidable engine of destruction yet invented. These are now made 19 feet long, with a speed of from 20 to 22 knots per hour, which they maintain for 800 or 1,000 yards. They can also be discharged from the broadside of a ship, going fall speed, from a carriage placed in the upper or gun deck of the ship.

TORPEDOES AND TORPEDO BOATS. 9

of these is attached a torpedo,* or copper cone, resembling in form a pine-apple, which is charged with either 33 lbs. of gun-cotton or 25 lbs. of dynamite. This cone explodes the instant it strikes a solid body, or it can be exploded by anyone on board the boat by means of a firing key on the wire connecting the cone to the battery. By a very simple process these torpedo poles can be run out beyond the boat's bow, and instantly lowered to an angle at which the end of the torpedo cone would strike a ship's bottom, or they may be 'projected from the boat's side so as to strike a ship at from 6 to 9 feet below the water-line T fhen the torpedo boat is running alongside, and should the officer in charge think the cone will not strike the ship, he can fire the charge by means of the firing key on board. In. either case the force of the explosion, even when fired within 3 feet of the ship, would be so great as to sink almost instantaneously the largest armour-clad. By experiments which have been recently made, a torpedo ■charged to the limited extent named, made a hole through a ship's bottom 7 feet in width, and 18 feet in length ! In a word, tore up, in the most frightful manner, the plating ; and planking of the vessel against which it was exploded. A ship costing half-a-million sterling, and with, what is far more precious, 600 to 700 men on board, might thus be instantaneously destroyed by a torpedo boat costing only £4,000, and with less risk to herself than might be supposed ; for experiments have shown that the explosion of the torpedo cannot in any way injure the vessel which ♦carries it, unless she gets entangled with the wreck of the ship she has destroyed. f

* The torpedo gear is so arranged that an attack may be made directly a-head of the boat, in which case the boat mast be stopped and backed off her enemy immediately after the explosion, or on the broadside, when the boat may be kept going a-head all the time, and so saving the time which would be otherwise lost in stopping and backing.

i The importance of speed in such an operation as sinking an iron-

These are facts of momentous importance to us as a nation, and worthy of the greatest consideration before we construct any ships to carry 81-ton guns. The more so when we know that the larger the vessel the more she is likely to fall a prey to torpedes or swift torpedo boat. Indeed, her size would cause her to be more susceptible to attack, and her slower speed would render it more difficult for her to get out of the way of an active enemy.

However secondary the expense when compared with safety, it should receive immediate consideration by our statesmen, as we are already heavily taxed for the cost of naval armaments, to, I fear, comparatively little purpose. One hundred of these craft, or one thousand Whitehead torpedoes, could be constructed at less cost than we have expended on our last floating citadel.

But let us consider the question in the aspect of humanity. It is true that the professed object of war is to " burn, sink, and destroy/ 1 In itself it was horrible enough in the days of our forefathers, but it has become much more horrible since science, which was meant to improve and elevate the human race, has been turned so largely to account for its destruction.

Civilised nations have, however, limited the use of wholesale means for destroying human life. To poison the wells of an enemy's country, or to throw red hot shot into their towns, have hitherto been denounced as the

clad can scarcely be overrated. The difficulty of hitting a moving target is well known to those who have tried to hit the running deer at Wimbledon ; and the velocity of a torpedo boat running at 18 knots is over 30 feet per second. High speed also gives men confidence, by affording them a chance of returning safely from a necessarily dangerous expedition, and thus lessens the difficulty of finding men for such work.

Another important matter in such operations is silence, and this is secured in Messrs. Thornycroft and Co.'s boat by making the engines condensing, so that the puffing noise in the chimney, which is almost a distinguishing feature in the ordinary steam launch, is entirely done away with.

INFERNAL MACHINES. 11

extremes of barbarity; and the application of other terrible instruments for destroying lives in mass, invented in our time (known as "infernal machines"), has been repudiated by all nations with indignation and scorn.

But wherein is the difference between such instruments and torpedoes ? If the principle as applicable to the laws of humanity is sound in the one case, it is equally so in the other. Statesmen have always held that combatants should have a fair chance of displaying their bravery, or, at least, of defending their lives. Indeed, the open, stand-up fight has ever been considered one of the " glories of war." But while the use of torpedoes must put an end to the former mode of conducting maritime warfare, it may, happily, have the effect of repressing war which would then become so terrible that princes and statesmen, as well as nationalities, would hesitate long before they embarked in it.

How, indeed, could we order 600 men, for instance, to coop themselves up in a large armour-clad ship to be drowned like rats, without any chance or hope of defending themselves against the horrible ravages of such an infernal instrument as a torpedo ? To attempt to enforce our orders might produce the most disastrous results. Our seamen are reluctant even now to enter for these ships, and the fate of the Captain and Vanguard has materially increased their reluctance; they much prefer a smart frigate, where their individual skill and bravery can be displayed to advantage ; and were it not for the continuous service, I doubt if our armourclads could be manned in peace : how then would it be in war? But there are still other matters requiring consideration.