The Royal Navy During the War of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War
When a sailor was swimming on the surface of the open ocean, his horizon was a mere 1.1 miles away. But climbing to the maintop— about 100 feet above the water on a 74-gun ship—extended the distance he could see to nearly 12 miles. The height of any object on the horizon, whether ship or shore, also increased that distance. Perched in the rigging of a large ship, a lookout might see the sails of another large ship at 20 miles, even if the ship was hull-down (with only its sails visible above the horizon).
Height was the key. Yet a person's range of view could be affected by many circumstances, such as fog or even loud distractions on deck. At long distances, the atmosphere could create strange refractions, causing mirages.
For a naval man, there is a direct analogy between climbing the mast to extend the horizon at sea and climbing up the hierarchy of command to view the wider operations of the Navy. The top of the Royal Navy hierarchy was not in a ship at sea, but ashore, in London. It was only from there that one's vision was global, encompassing the Navy's numerous theaters of operation and distant exploits. And it was from there that the Navy's basic directions emanated— everything from grand strategy to pay, from ship construction to uniforms, from navigation charts to food allowances. Officers of the Crown, including naval officers like Jack Aubrey, were ultimately governed by Parliament, the King's Cabinet, and the King himself.
For all those who served in the Navy, King George III stood at the pinnacle of command. Not only was the King a symbol of sovereignty, but he also played a tangible role in day-to-day affairs. Maintaining the prerogative of the Crown to appoint its own ministers, George III was an important influence on national policies and was certainly able to prevent the government from taking measures in which he did not acquiesce. Although after his first bout with insanity in 1788, George III began to leave an increasing amount of business to his ministers, he retained considerable influence over national policy and ministerial appointments throughout the years of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.
In the King's name and through his authority, the prime minister and the other ministers in the Cabinet collectively exercised the executive power of government through the means provided by Parliament. In this, the Cabinet was controlled on one side by the King and on the other by Parliament. When a cabinet was appointed and received the King's support, it could normally expect the support of a majority in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords as well as a victory in the next general election, providing that it did not prove incompetent, impose undue taxation, or fail to maintain public confidence. When any of these were joined by public outcry over a defeat in battle or disappointment in foreign policies, Cabinet ministers were clearly in political danger.
Because of its representative nature and its exclusive ability to initiate financial measures, the House of Commons was the stronger of the two Houses of Parliament, but the House of Lords, usually siding with the King, retained enormous power. Its assent was essential to the passage of any law. In the 18th century, when most Cabinet ministers, including the head of the Navy, were Lords, it was normal for the Cabinet's views to be more in harmony with those of the House of Lords. Together, the two could kill inconvenient measures arising in the Commons.
The Cabinet dealt with questions of broad naval policy and strategy, including finance, ship construction, and logistical support, obtaining funding from Parliament and sometimes even giving broad operational directives to the Admiralty and to senior naval commanders.
Traditionally, the Crown vested the powers and functions of the Admiralty in the office of Lord High Admiral. An ancient office of state, it had not been held by an individual since 1709. Instead, these powers were delegated to a board of seven men who were the "Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral." Of these seven, three were usually naval officers, called professional Lords, and four civilians, or civil Lords. In theory, each commissioner was equal in authority and responsibility, but in practice the person whose name appeared first on the document commissioning the board was the senior member, or First Lord. During this period, the First Lord was more often a civilian member of the House of Lords than a naval officer.
First Lords of the Admiralty, 1788-1827
John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham - Jul. 16, 1788-Dec. 19, 1794
George John Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer - Dec. 19, 1794-Feb. 19, 1801
Admiral John Jervis, 1st Earl of St. Vincent - Feb. 19, 1801-May 15, 1804
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville - May 15, 1804-May 2, 1805
Admiral Charles Middleton, Lord Barham - May 2, 1805-Feb. 10, 1806
Hon. Charles Grey, Viscount Howick - Feb. 10, 1806-Sep. 29, 1806
Thomas Grenville - Sep. 29, 1806-Apr. 6, 1807
Henry Phipps, 3rd Lord Mulgrave - Apr. 6, 1807-May 4, 1810
Charles Philip Yorke - May 4, 1810-Mar. 25, 1812
Robert Saunders Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville - Mar. 25, 1812-May 2, 1827
Source: J. C. Sainty, Admiralty Officials, 1660-1870 (1975).
In 1805, Lord Barham was the first to assign specific duties to each of the professional Naval Lords, leaving the civil Lords to handle routine business and sign documents. Under the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the senior official was the First Secretary of the Admiralty. Usually an elected member of the House of Commons, he was the senior civil servant. More often than not, it was the First Secretary who communicated the decisions of the Commissioners to naval officers in the fleet, although from 1783, a Second Secretary assisted in carrying out the administrative burdens of the office.
The heart of the Admiralty was the Admiralty Office on the west side of Whitehall. It was a neighbor of the War Office, which administered the Army at a building called the Horse Guards, both overlooking St. James's Park to the rear. In this location, the Admiralty was close to the nerve centers of national power: 10 Downing Street (the Prime Minister's residence), the Treasury, the Houses of Parliament, St. James's Palace, and the residence of George III.
Designed by Thomas Ripley, the Master Carpenter to the Crown, the Admiralty Office was built between 1725 and 1728 to replace one that had stood on the same site. Masked from the unruly mob on the street by a stone screen added in 1760, the brick building's tall portico and small courtyard were often filled with arriving or departing naval officers and chastened messengers bringing news from the fleet.
It was a place where naval officers' careers were made or lost. As O'Brian describes a visit by Jack Aubrey to seek a commission from
Lord Melville in Post Captain, that tension is palpable: "The plunge into the Admiralty courtyard; the waiting room, with half a dozen acquaintances—disconnected gossip, his mind and theirs being elsewhere; the staircase to the First Lord's room and there, half-way up, a fat officer leaning against the rail, silent weeping, his slab, pale cheeks all wet with tears. A silent marine watched him from the landing, two porters from the hall, aghast."
The Admiralty Office's oak-paneled boardroom was the site of the Admiralty Commissioners' daily meetings. Saved from the earlier building, a working wind-direction indicator mounted on the wall over the fireplace served as a constant reminder of the fleets at sea, while charts covering the walls kept the Commissioners abreast of the various theaters of action. Together, the Commissioners deliberated at a long table, preparing the fleet for war, selecting its commanders, and making officer assignments. While the Board itself did not make strategic decisions, the First Lord was involved in this process as a member of the Cabinet, and the Admiralty Secretary often forwarded the Cabinet's instructions on strategy and fleet operations to the fleet commanders.
The Admiralty managed a wide range of other administrative and judicial duties as well. For this, the First Secretary of the Admiralty supervised a bustling office with many clerks, visitors, and activities, making it a prime target for spies; indeed, security leaks were a problem.
In 1786, the growing Admiralty bureaucracy expanded into a new yellow brick building joined to the Admiralty on the south. Here on the ground floor were three large state rooms for the First Lord's official entertaining. Above that, two floors housed mainly the private apartments of the First Lord but also the Admiralty Library.
The Admiralty was not the only office that managed naval affairs. There were a variety of other boards and offices in London that dealt with specific aspects of the Navy. The most important of these was the Navy Board.
The Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy, who formed the Navy Board, worked in the Navy Office building at Somerset House in the Strand. They were concerned with three main areas: (1) the material condition of the fleet, including building, fitting out, and repairing ships, managing dockyards, purchasing naval stores, and leasing transport vessels; (2) naval expenditure, including the payment of all salaries and auditing accounts; and (3) the health and subsistence of seamen. The last function was delegated to subsidiary boards, also located at Somerset House:
An entirely independent board at the Ordnance Office with locations both at the Tower of London and at the Warren, next to Woolwich Dockyard down the Thames from London, the Ordnance Board was responsible for supplying both the Army and the Navy with guns and ammunition. Headed by the Master-General of the Ordnance, this board contracted with private foundries to make cannon; supervised gunpowder plants at Faversham and Waltham Abbey; managed the arsenal at Woolwich, where guns were received, tested, and issued; and appointed and supplied gunners to ships. The Ordnance Board worked closely with the Admiralty, its principal channel of communication on sea affairs, in determining with the Navy Board and its subsidiaries the specifications of arma-
ments for naval vessels and in coordinating the timely delivery and convoy of supplies as well as the construction and victualing of Ordnance vessels.
Together, these offices and boards managed the support and direction of a large number of officers, seamen, and ships. Today, as then, it is difficult to ascertain exactly how many men were in the Navy. Parliament authorized a certain number in its annual vote, a certain number were assigned to vessels, and then there were actual musters, where the men on board each ship were counted. These muster counts varied from month to month and often were not completely kept or fully compiled for the Navy as a whole.
The Navy of the period was made up of a wide variety of ships with various specific roles to play. Some were designed for combat, others for support activities. The most important combat vessels were those designed to fight an organized enemy fleet in a line of battle; they were called line-of-battle ships or ships of the line.
Navies had developed the line of battle in the 17th century. Simply described, it involved sailing ships in a line, bow to stern, as the most efficient way of concentrating their gunfire, at the same time protecting the ships' weakest points. The bow and stern were the least protected parts of the ship, carrying only a few guns, and volleys received there could damage the ships' weakest structural points if aimed low at the rudder, stern, or bow, or, if aimed high, could travel the whole length of the deck, killing men and wreaking havoc with the sails and rigging.
It was these factors that made the tactic known as "crossing the T" so effective. In this maneuver, one battle line passed, at an angle, through the opposing battle line, each ship firing its broadsides at the enemy ships' sterns, bows, and masts and along their decks. This maneuver was not an easy one to undertake because the approaching ships were themselves vulnerable to heavy gunfire. It helped to have the weather gauge, that is to say, to be to windward of the opposing fleet, because that allowed the swiftest approach and the advantage of choosing when to initiate the engagement. But one could not always dictate one's position when encountering an enemy, or, for that matter, predict wind shifts. In general, however, while the British preferred the weather gauge, the French more often preferred the lee, because they tended to concentrate on reaching a destination to get troops or to convoy merchant ships rather than on seeking battle.
There were some other significant national differences in naval gunnery. Most prominent among them, perhaps, was the fact that in general the French fired at the masts, rigging, and sails of British ships, aiming to disable the enemy's motive power, while the British usually fired on the French warships' hulls. It was far more difficult to hit the hull of an enemy ship, but piercing the hull often created the heaviest damage, possibly sinking the ship.
Most battles took place at relatively close range. They often didn't begin until the ships were as close as 1,000 yards, and sometimes this distance was reduced to 500 yards when the guns were double-shotted (firing two rounds at once). Closer ranges were termed "musket shot range" (within 300 yards) and "pistol shot range" (within 50 yards).
Sometimes, ships of the line were engaged in blockade operations, designed either to keep the enemy's ships in port or, alternatively, to draw them out to fight. There were two types of blockades: close and open. An open blockade, usually by smaller ships of the line off an enemy port, such as Toulon in the Mediterranean or Brest in northwestern France, gave the impression that the port was not carefully watched or that there was a chance of battle success for the enemy. At the first sign the enemy fleet gave of moving out of port, a fast ship was sent to bring up the blockader's battle fleet to engage them.
A close blockade with ships of the line, such as the one Nelson conducted off Cadiz in July 1797, was difficult, dangerous, and tedious work for the blockaders. Such a blockade was meant to keep an enemy fleet at anchor in port. Jack Aubrey was typical of many officers who expressed their displeasure in such work. Not only did it lack the elan of battle, but it was difficult to control a large line of battle in shallow and confined waters close to shore.
The biggest ships in the Navy, the first-rate ships of the line, were all armed with 100 or more heavy cannons on either two or three decks. In 1807, they carried a total complement of about 837 naval officers and men, plus 170 Royal Marines (a special corps of soldiers who served on naval vessels and were called the Royal Marines from 1802). The largest British ship of this period, carrying 120 guns, was H.M.S. Caledonia, launched in 1808. Nelson's flagship, the 100-gun H.M.S. Victory, was among the biggest ships when it was launched in 1765. In addition to being fighting ships, these large ships had additional naval roles, often carrying an Admiral and his staff either at sea or in port and serving as symbols of naval power and diplomatic prestige.
The next class of ships of the line, the second rates, carried 90 to 98 guns, usually 98, on three decks, and a total complement of about 738 naval officers and men, and about 150 Marines. Most naval officers did not like these three-deck ships, since they did not perform as well as either the first or third rates under sail. When Admiral Lord Keith was commanding the Mediterranean Fleet (1799-1802), he preferred as his flagship the two-deck third-rate ships Audacious and Minotaur to the Foudroyant, a three-deck second rate.
Third rates, also ships of the line, usually carried 64, 68, 74, or 80 guns on two decks. Among these, the 74 predominated, carrying a complement of 590 to 640 naval officers and men, plus 125 Marines. Fourth-rate ships carried 50 to 60 guns on two decks and were technically rated as ships of the line, but during this period they were rarely used in the line of battle. In fact, they were rapidly disappearing from the fleet, having been used in peacetime largely as flagships for small overseas squadrons or as large vessels for patrol work. A fourth rate carried a complement of about 343 naval officers and men, plus 59 Marines.
Frigates. Like destroyers in modern navies, frigates were the most glamorous ships. They were the fleet's fast fighters, involved in all sorts of duties and high drama. Not part of the line of battle, they fought the majority of single-ship actions, convoyed merchantmen with valuable cargoes, raided rich enemy fleets, served as the eyes of the battle fleet, and carried earth-shattering news from all quarters of the globe. There were many different types and designs, but nearly all were fifth rates with 32 to 48 guns on a single deck. Some of these, known as razee frigates, were built as larger ships but had upper decks removed to create single-deck frigates. A fifth rate carried a complement of 215 to 294 naval officers and men, plus 42 to 48 Marines.
In this period, the United States Navy earned a reputation for the quality of its frigates, the most famous, the 44-gun U.S.S. Constitution, being launched in 1797. The military successes of the Constitution and her compatriots, the Chesapeake, Constellation, Congress, President, and United States, rocked the morale of the British Navy during the War of 1812.
There were some sixth-rate frigates of 20-some guns in the Royal Navy, the most common type carrying 28 guns. Jack Aubrey's Surprise was one of these. A sixth rate carried a complement of about 135 to 195 officers and men, plus 30 Marines.
Unrated Ships and Vessels. A wide variety of other types of warships did not fall under the system of rated ships, the principal ones being sloops, bomb vessels, fireships, brigs, cutters, and gunboats.
Sloops. Unlike the current sailing sloop, which carries only a single mast, in the Royal Navy at this time a sloop of war had two or three masts, all carrying both square and fore-and-aft sails. When it had two masts, it was said to be "brig-rigged," and with three, "ship-rigged." Sloops varied widely in appearance, but they carried 10 to 18 guns and were generally commanded by sea officers with the rank of Commander. There were more than 200 of these ships in the Navy during the latter part of this period. Sometimes they carried out the patrol duties of frigates, but, being relatively small, they were also commonly used close to shore for raiding and cutting-out expeditions to capture particular ships. Sloops ranged in their complement of men from 42 to 121 officers and men, with 15 to 20 Marines.
Bomb Vessels and Fireships. Only a small number of these very specialized ships existed in the Navy. Designed to carry heavy ordnance for bombarding cities and fortifications, bomb vessels were named for volcanoes or some other entity that evoked fire and brimstone. When not being used for this purpose, they were employed as sloops. Fireships, also used as sloops when not in their special role, were intended to be set on fire and sent in among an enemy fleet to ignite its ships. No vessels were actually used for this purpose during these wars, but several were kept in readiness. One fireship was used to fire rockets in 1809. Bomb vessels carried a complement of about 67 officers and men, and fireships carried 45 to 56 officers and men.
Brigs. A brig was a smaller version of the brig-rigged sloop of war, and its distinctive feature was square sails on two masts. Brigs usually carried 14 short-range carronade guns and were commanded by Lieutenants.
Cutters. Designed for speed, these vessels carried about ten guns and a lot of sail. Most of them bore both square and fore-and-aft sails on a single mast. Some, however, used a distinctively American schooner rig taken from a type used at Bermuda, having a very large triangular sail, and, with only four to six guns, were categorized as schooners. Cutters carried a complement of 45 to 60 officers and men.
Gunboats. The term "gunboat" comprised a wide variety of vessels that were used primarily for local defense. They were relatively small and carried at least one or two guns mounted in the bow or stern. The smallest being not much bigger than a ship's boat and the largest approaching the description of a cutter or schooner, gunboats carried a complement of 45 to 50 officers and men.
Yachts. This type of vessel was not a pleasure vessel, but a relatively fast, sleek sailing craft designed to carry high officials on state visits. They carried a complement of 50 to 67 officers and men.
The Royal Dockyards and Ropeyards
The capacity to construct and repair ships was vital to the Navy. By the 1750s, Britain's dockyards had become the largest industrial organization in the world and remained so until the vast changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. A key part of these establishments, which were under the authority of the Navy Board, were the ropeyards that manufactured the miles of cordage required to rig and operate the ships of the Navy.
At home, the largest concentration of these dockyards was in southern England, at Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, but there were also a number strategically located around the world, the largest being at Malta in the Mediterranean, Halifax in the North Atlantic, Jamaica and Antigua in the Caribbean, and at the East India Company outposts at Bombay in the Indian Ocean. In 1814, they employed a total of 17,374 civilian yard officers and laborers. During the two wars, they built 119 ships (supplementing those built by commercial dockyards) and repaired and outfitted many more.
Sea officers came from every class of society, but without a doubt promotion was dependent upon one's being liked by senior officers and having connections.
In O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels this is readily apparent, and usually to Jack Aubrey's disadvantage. In Post Captain, at Aubrey's disastrous interview with Lord St. Vincent, the First Lord of the Admiralty, St. Vincent rebukes Aubrey for his doggedness in pursuing post rank and for the attempts of his father and others to curry favor on his behalf: "General Aubrey has written forty letters to me and other members of the Board and he has been told that it is not in contemplation to promote you. . . . Your friends pepper us with letters to say that you must be made post. That was the very word the Duke of Kent thought fit to use, put up to it by Lady Keith." Throughout the novels, Aubrey's connections and actions are double-edged swords. Others far less accomplished than he at warfare but neater in their personal affairs and with better connections are promoted faster and receive the plum assignments.
All sea officers held written documents that gave them their rank and authority. The most important officers received commissions from the Admiralty, and the less important officers, 'such as Surgeons and Masters, received warrants from the Navy Board or other authorities. Normally, these commissions were given for each assignment or appointment, not just upon first receiving the rank.
Admirals. Admirals, also known as flag officers because they flew a colored flag denoting their rank, were in the highest category of sea officers. They had long been divided into three sets of three groups each. There were three squadrons, each of which flew a different colored ensign. In order of seniority, they were the Red, White, and Blue squadrons. Each squadron had an Admiral, Vice-Admiral, and Rear-Admiral. An Admiral commanded the main body of the squadron and flew the Union flag at the mainmast head; a Vice-Admiral commanded the van and flew his flag on the foremast; and a Rear-Admiral commanded the rear and flew his flag at the head of the mizzenmast.
In the first part of these wars, however, the position of the most senior post, the Admiral of the Red, was not filled, as it was reserved by tradition for the Lord High Admiral personally or for the most senior Admiral. From 1805, the positions of Admiral of the Fleet, newly created, and Admiral of the Red, coming next below, were filled. At his death in 1805, Horatio Nelson, as a Vice-Admiral of the White, was about halfway up the Admirals' hierarchy.
Between the Admirals and the established lower officers was another category, the Commodores.
Commodores. This rank was neither permanent nor a necessary step for promotion between Captain and Rear-Admiral. A Commodore was a Captain holding temporary command over a squadron, who had authority similar to that of a Rear-Admiral. Instead of a flag, a commodore flew a swallow-tailed broad pendant, also called a broad pennant. After 1805 there were two distinct types of Commodores: (1) a senior Captain who was appointed Commander-in-chief of a station or a detached squadron and therefore outranked any flag officer who came within his jurisdiction, and (2) a senior Captain appointed by his Commander-in-chief to command a division under him. All Commodores reverted to the rank of Captain upon hauling down their broad pennants and relinquishing their duties.
Captains. A sea officer with the rank of Captain, also called Post-Captain, reached this "post rank" by being appointed to command a "post-ship," one of the first- to sixth-rate square-rigged ships. The term "post" was used to differentiate from officers who commanded unrated vessels and were called captains, even though they may have been only Lieutenants or Commanders in naval rank or even masters of merchant vessels. A Post-Captain's seniority started on the day he first took command of a rated ship, and if he lived long enough to reach the top seniority, he was, by tradition, entitled to flag rank, that is to say to be made an Admiral. This bottleneck created some obvious difficulties for the Admiralty, which in 1747 circumvented the tradition of automatic promotion by simultaneously promoting Captains they preferred not to have at sea to Rear-Admirals and retiring them without ever having them serve at sea as a flag officer or add the distinctive Red, White, or Blue Squadron color to their rank. Officers in this situation, such as Admiral Haddock in O'Brian's Post Captain, came to be known as "yellow" Admirals.
Commanders. The next rank below Captain was Commander. The institution of this rank in 1794 caused some confusion, since up to that point, any commanding officer was properly the commander of his vessel, regardless of his rank, and was called captain.
From 1794 onward, those promoted to Captain came only from among those who held the rank of Commander. Officers holding the rank of Commander commanded sloops of war, vessels smaller than rated ships but larger than the cutters and gunboats commanded by Lieutenants.
Lieutenants. The most junior of the traditional sea officers' ranks in the Navy, a Lieutenant was originally the Captain's deputy, literally a "place-holder." While a small nonrated ship might have only one Lieutenant, a first rate carried up to six. So it was common for a Lieutenant's commission to specify his relative position, for example as First, Second, or Fourth Lieutenant on a particular ship. The Admiralty issued a new commission every time a Lieutenant's relative position changed. For promotion above the rank of Lieutenant, a sea officer often needed either to have the patronage of an Admiral or political influence in London or to distinguish himself in some extraordinary manner as an officer. That is why a positive mention in a Captain's letter following a victorious action was so important.
Midshipmen. Ranking just below Lieutenants, Midshipmen were not commissioned sea officers. From 1794, all newly rated Mid-
shipmen were considered to be prospective commissioned sea officers, but this was not the case before that year. During the period of O'Brian's novels, there were still a number of Midshipmen in the service who were of the pre-1794 type and had no aspirations of being Lieutenants. After 1794, the regulations required that one must serve two years as a Midshipman as well as pass an examination to become a Lieutenant. From 1802 to 1814, Midshipmen who served as second in command to a Lieutenant commanding a small vessel such as a gunboat or cutter were called sub-lieutenants.
Cadets. There was a very small group of prospective commissioned sea officers who held this title while attending the Royal Naval Academy (after 1806, the Royal Naval College) in Portsmouth for up to three years of training before going to sea as Midshipmen.
Masters. Holding warrants, Masters were generally of a lower social class than those who aspired to become commissioned sea officers, but in pay and status they were closely equivalent to Lieutenants. They were specialists in navigation and pilotage, and in order to serve in successively larger ships, had to pass progressively more difficult examinations set by Trinity House, a corporation chartered in 1514 to superintend pilotage, maintain buoys, and license seamen. Masters were qualified to stand deck watches and to command naval vessels engaged in operations other than combat. By 1808, they were considered "warrant officers of commissioned rank" and joined sea officers in messing in the wardroom. They were assisted by Master's Mates.
Surgeons. The Navy Board qualified Surgeons through an examination at the Barber-Surgeons' Company, and they were responsible to the Sick and Wounded Board under the Navy Board. They were the only medical officers on board individual ships, but the Navy Board did appoint Physicians to serve with large squadrons and at naval hospitals. From 1808, they, like Masters, were considered equivalent to commissioned officers. They were assisted by Surgeon's Mates, who after 1805 were called Assistant Surgeons.
Pursers. Receiving warrants from the Admiralty, Pursers were responsible to the Victualling Board but were not required to be examined. In the double capacity of an official and a regulated private contractor, the Purser managed the supply and issue of victuals, clothes, and ship's stores. Pursers were frequently assisted by Purser's Stewards and Purser's Yeomen. In 1808, they, like Masters, obtained equivalency with wardroom officers.
Chaplains. Also holding warrants from the Admiralty, Chaplains were examined by the Bishop of London before being accepted by the Navy. From 1808, they obtained wardroom status and from 1812 were qualified to receive pensions. The Articles of War required that religious services be performed every Sunday according to the rites of the Church of England, but religion was not widely and openly accepted among the ranks as an important factor in the Navy. Some naval officers took up the Anglican evangelical movement in this period and tried to bring religion to seamen, but many sailors thought these officers brought bad luck to their ships and derisively called them "blue light" ships.
Chaplains often also served as teachers, though some ships did carry Schoolmasters qualified by Trinity House and holding warrants of a lower status from the Admiralty. They were assigned to teach all young people on board ship. Originally on the same pay level as Midshipmen, Schoolmasters had their pay raised in 1812.
Boatswains, Gunners, and Carpenters. These warrant officers were usually less educated than Masters, Surgeons, and Pursers and were not wardroom officers. Boatswains were specialists in sails, rigging, ground tackle, and the skills associated with cordage, held Admiralty warrants, and were responsible to the Navy Board. Gunners were warranted by the Ordnance Board and were responsible to it for the ships' guns and ammunition, while Carpenters were primarily concerned with the maintenance of the hull, masts, and yards and were responsible to the Navy Board. Unlike the others, Carpenters often began their careers as apprentice civilian workers in the dockyards before qualifying for warrants from the Navy Board to serve at sea. The Carpenter, Boatswain, Purser, Gunner, and Cook were considered "standing officers" of a ship, and in principle, warranted to it for the ship's lifetime, whether she was in commission or not.
Cooks. In the 17th century, Cooks held warrants, but at the beginning of the 18th century, they descended to an inferior status. Usually untrained seamen, they were often recruited from the ranks of the injured and disabled.
Daily Life on a Warship
The daily routine of life at sea was monotonous. By tradition, the day officially began at noon, when the date and day of the week were changed on the log-board. Just before noon on a clear day, the Master, Master's Mates, and Midshipmen measured with their quadrants the angle of the sun as it reached its highest point off the horizon, thus determining latitude and correcting the time kept by any chronometers on board. Noon was reported to the Captain, and eight stokes were struck on the ship's bell, followed by the Boatswain's "pipe to dinner," executed on his high-pitched silver whistle.
The day itself was divided into watches of four hours apiece, measured by a sandglass and marked by a ringing of the bell: eight bells at twelve o'clock, one bell at twelve-thirty, two at one o'clock, three at one-thirty and so on, until eight bells was reached at four o'clock, and the cycle started again.
Sailors stood their duty hours in watches, four hours on and four off, throughout the day and night. Shortly before four a.m., the Quartermasters, who had among their duties keeping time and steering the ship, awoke the Midshipmen, Mates, and the Lieutenant of the watch coming on duty, and shortly thereafter, the Boatswain stood at the hatchways and piped "All hands," and shouted: "Larboard (or starboard) watch, ahoy. Rouse out there, you sleepers. Hey. Out or down here." Stumbling out of their hammocks, the members of the watch quickly dressed and came on deck for muster before going to their assigned stations. They relieved the wheel and the lookouts, hove the log to determine speed, and recorded all the information on the log-board.
Shortly after four a.m., the Carpenter and Boatswain came on deck to begin their repair work, while the Cook lit fires in the galley and began the preparations for breakfast, often the oatmeal gruel called "burgoo" or "skillagolee," an unloved concoction frequently of poor oatmeal and bad ship's water. (Sometime after 1805, Cooks were able to serve it with butter or molasses to make it more palatable.) Another breakfast offering was dark, thick "Scotch Coffee," burned ship's biscuit boiled in water.
At about five a.m. the watch began to wash down the decks and polish the planks with a heavy holystone. Nooks and crannies were polished in the same way with small bits of the same type of stone, called prayer books. Following the holystoners came other sailors with brooms, swabs, and buckets to dry the decks, while others polished the brass fittings so that they gleamed in the first rays of dawn. Other seamen flemished down the lines into neat and orderly coils.
At seven a.m., this work was about finished, and the decks were drying as the First Lieutenant came on deck to supervise the remaining work of the day. At about seven-thirty a.m., the Boatswain's Mate piped "All hands, up hammocks," and the rest of the crew came on deck. After the last of the hammocks were stowed, the Captain came on deck and eight bells were struck for eight o'clock. With his approval, the Boatswain piped breakfast for the crew. After half an hour, they returned to their duty, and the new watch came on deck, bringing with them bags and chests from the lower deck to allow cleaning there.
During the forenoon watch, between eight a.m. and noon, many of the crew worked in "messes," groupings based on their mess tables, preparing the main meal of the day, to be served at noon. Others might have helped the Master and the Captain of the Hold restow the provisions in the warship's small hold, below the orlop deck, to make the ship sail more efficiently. Or they might have performed some other maintenance chores such as retarring the rigging or repairing a damaged cannon. Those not on watch could sleep, socialize, or mend their clothes.
By eleven, six bells, the Captain, having examined the Midshipmen's logs and the Gunner's, Purser's, Boatswain's, and Carpenter's accounts and having conferenced with the First Lieutenant and others, might call all hands to witness punishment, in which case the Boatswain rigged a grating for flogging a seaman.
After the observance of noon, dinner was served to the crew, who used sea chests as benches while eating. Later, the fife might play a tune on his flute while the crew received their liquor rations from tubs on the main deck and took them down to the mess tables below. The issuing of grog, a mixture of rum and water, began in the 1740s as a means to control liquor consumption in the Navy. The men usually received two rations a day totaling a pint, but it was
not the only drink. Beer, rationed out at the rate of a gallon a day, was far more popular than grog but usually available only in home waters or up to a month out at sea. In the Mediterranean, the seamen often received a pint of wine as their alcohol ration.
While the crew ate at tables below deck on weekly rations of . ship's biscuit, salt beef, pork with pea soup, and cheese, the officers had better fare. In the wardroom, they ate together sitting on chairs at a well-set table, each often attended by a servant. Instead of sharing the rations the Admiralty provided the crew, the officers appointed one of their own as the mess caterer, and he purchased their food ashore, using their mess subscriptions. Sometimes these mess subscriptions, billed to each officer, ran as high as £60 per year (more than half a Lieutenant's annual pay) and allowed officers to enjoy such luxuries as tea, sugar, and wine.
At one-thirty p.m., the watch on deck was called to duty, leaving those off watch to do what they wished, or, alternatively, all hands were called to be exercised for ship's drills: fire, boarding, sail handling, gunnery, etc.
At four in the afternoon, the watch changed again. This four-hour period was divided into two two-hour watches, called dogwatches. During this time, a short evening meal was served, along with the second portion of grog. Just before sunset, the drummer beat to quarters and all hands reported to their battle stations for inspection by the officers. At this time, the Master of Arms often arrested anyone who was being rowdy or who had managed to drink too much of a friend's rum. Offenders were put on the black list and often placed in irons through the next day. After the ship was reported as being in good order, the men were released from their battle stations and recovered their hammocks from stowage in the netting.
At eight o'clock, the watch was changed, those just finished turning in for a few hours of sleep before the middle watch (midnight to four a.m.). Lights were extinguished so that the ship could not be seen from a distance, and the Master at Arms began his series of nightly rounds through the ship. All was quiet, except for the regular sentry reports of "all's well" from various stations.
And so the pattern continued day after day, month after month, year after year, broken only by battle, the occasional call at port, or an emergency that required all hands to work together in maneuvering the ship.
The War of the French Revolution involved the formation of two coalitions against France and nearly a decade Of fighting before a temporary peace was concluded in 1802. After a year of uneasy truce, however, war broke out again, this time continuing for more than a decade. To differentiate the two wars, the first is called the War of the French Revolution; the second, the Napoleonic War. Each of these, in turn, had its own subdivisions.
At first Britain hesitated to get involved. As the revolution swept across France and the Bastille fell to the mob in 1789, the British government explicitly refrained from any involvement in the internal affairs of France. London abandoned this detachment only at the end of 1792 and took little direct action until after Louis XVI's execution in 1793. Finally, the French republican government, having started wars with Austria and Prussia the previous year, declared war on Britain and on the Dutch Republic on February 1,1793, and British leaders confirmed the necessary course of action.
The War of the First Coalition, 1793-1798
Joining as partner in the First Coalition with Austria, Prussia, Holland, and Spain, Britain chose a diffuse strategy. Following precedents from the period of 1689 to 1714, Britain tried to starve France into submission. At a time when France was facing a major crop failure, the Admiralty sent orders to stop all French merchant ships and any neutrals carrying grain to France. It was this order that sent Admiral Lord Howe in search of French Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, then convoying American grain from the Chesapeake Bay. Engaging him on the "Glorious First of June" in 1794, Howe's line of battle sliced through the French line and engaged it from leeward, capturing six ships and sinking one. But Howe paid little attention to the merchant ships, which reached France with the much-needed grain.
In the West Indies, Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis with Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Grey set about capturing French colonies. Moving rapidly, they took the island of Martinique in February 1794 and then Guadeloupe. But the French quickly retook the latter. In 1796, Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Christian continued British successes by capturing the islands of St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada. And in February 1797, Rear-Admiral Henry Harvey and Lieutenant-General Ralph Abercromby took Trinidad from the Spanish.
In the Mediterranean, Admiral Lord Hood's squadron took advantage of Toulon's discontent with the new revolutionary regime, seizing the city and, with it, France's most important naval dockyard for the Mediterranean fleet. But British forces were unable to maintain their position and soon withdrew all the way to Lisbon, Portugal, too far away to function as a base for effective naval operations in the western Mediterranean. When a revolt on the island of Corsica, led by Paoli, suggested that the island might serve as a base for blockading Toulon, Hood orchestrated an amphibious assault in 1794 to achieve that end. It was there, while directing fire on land at Calvi, that Captain Horatio Nelson was wounded and lost the sight of his right eye. Although British forces took the island, they were forced out again just two years later.
At that point in 1796, the Royal Navy retired from the Mediterranean to await another opportunity. Some members of the coalition interpreted Britain's withdrawal as a failure to support the alliance. Under this pretext, Austria withdrew from the coalition in 1797, joining Holland, Prussia, and the Dutch Republic, which had already made peace in 1795. From 1797 to 1799, Britain remained France's only opponent.
Operating from Portugal's Tagus River in 1797, Admiral Sir John Jervis learned that the Spanish fleet was sailing northward to join the French at Brest, possibly intending to invade Britain. With a fleet of 15 ships of the line, Jervis found the Spanish fleet of 27 ships, commanded by Don Jose de Cordova, 24 miles southwest of Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, on February 14. Jervis led his line, close-hauled, past detached units of the Spanish line, intending to reverse course and attack from the windward gauge. While this maneuver was taking place, Nelson, fearing that the enemy might escape, wore his ship and headed straight for their main body. This unexpected move confused the Spanish and contributed to their defeat. Coming at a very low point in Britain's war effort, news of the victory boosted morale tremendously. Nevertheless, the Navy faced an even greater challenge when sailors of the Home Fleet anchored at Spithead off Portsmouth, affected by some of the ideas of the French Revolution, mutinied in the spring of 1797, demanding better pay and conditions. The mutiny spread to the fleet anchored at the mouth of the Thames, at the buoy of the Nore. Both incidents were quelled without a major disruption, but they created serious doubts over whether British seamen would willingly fight the Dutch or French fleets.
Following the French conquest of the Dutch Republic in 1795, Britain began seizing Dutch shipping to prevent France from using Dutch resources against her. This policy bore fruit in Commodore Peter Rainier's seizure of the Dutch East India Company's settlements at Amboyna and the Banda Islands in the East Indies in 1796 and in Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone's attack on Cape Town in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope in September 1797. On October 11, 1797, a Dutch squadron of 16 ships of the line and eight frigates under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter left the island of Texel on the northern Dutch coast and sought an engagement with British Admiral Adam Duncan. Duncan defeated Winter off Cam-perdown on the Dutch North Sea coast.
By 1798, Austria seemed ready to rejoin the war against France and repeatedly asked Britain to return her naval forces to the Mediterranean. In the intervening years, however, France had strengthened herself in the Mediterranean, and the demand on British naval forces in other important theaters had increased. Still, in the hope of protecting Naples from France and influencing Austria to join a new coalition, the Cabinet in London ordered the Admiralty to send a squadron to the Mediterranean. Lord St. Vincent wisely chose Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson's. The daring move deprived the British Home fleet of its strategic reserve, leaving nothing to meet the French fleet if it broke through the British blockade of the northwestern French port of Brest. At the same time, it left the West Indies vulnerable to the Spanish, and the North Sea to the Dutch.
The stakes were high, but the British had gambled on the right man. With a stroke of good luck, a long, frustrating, and misdirected search blossomed into a smashing victory. With 14 ships of the line, Nelson found the French fleet with 13 ships of the line under Vice-Admiral Francois Brueys at anchor in the protected Aboukir Bay near Alexandria, Egypt. The Battle of the Nile resulted on August 1, 1798. Sailing in shallow water on the shore side of the anchored ships, Nelson succeeded in taking all but two of the French ships and destroying the flagship L'Orient, which blew up, killing Admiral Brueys.
The Battle of the Nile was not enough in itself to mobilize the creation of the coalition needed to defeat the extremely powerful French forces, but the dramatic victory, coming at a critical time for diplomacy, did play a role. Throughout 1799, allied British, Austrian, and Russian diplomats forged a policy for the coalition's offensive. Their strategy called for encircling France with concentric attacks from the Channel, the Alps, the North, and the Mediterranean. But the chief naval component, Admiral Lord Keith's fleet, which was to attack from the Mediterranean, was soon diverted after Bonaparte's great victory at Marengo in June 1800 caused the Cabinet in London to reconsider. Britain's strategic focus shifted from offensive, coalition warfare to one allowing options in case the coalition failed. Land operations in Holland and amphibious attacks in Brittany became relatively more important, and the Mediterranean became primarily an area for defensive action. In September 1800, the successful capture of the island of Malta, lying as it does at a major choke point in the passage between the eastern and western Mediterranean, solidified Britain's defensive positions.
In March 1801, Lord Keith landed General Abercromby's expeditionary force in Egypt to contest French presence there. Abercromby's seizure of Alexandria gave Britain a strong bargaining chip for future peace negotiations. Despite this, it seemed that nothing could diminish France's ability to dominate the Continent. Russia abandoned the coalition and formed a League of Armed Neutrality with the Baltic powers. The assassination of Czar Paul in March 1801 and the British attack on Copenhagen in April of that year served to destroy the league, but Bonaparte's continued military success forced both Austria and Naples to agree to come to peace terms.
Following William Pitt's political defeat, the new ministry under Prime Minister Henry Addington signed the preliminary peace agreement on October 1, 1801. Under the terms of the treaty signed at Amiens in March 1802, Spain regained Minorca, the Knights of St. John recovered Malta under Russian supervision, and Bonaparte evacuated Naples, the Papal States, and Egypt. France gained the most advantages, retaining most of her Continental conquests and giving up none of her overseas gains, while Britain retained only Trinidad and Ceylon, yielding her conquests at the Cape of Good Hope, Egypt, Malta, and in the West Indies at Tobago, Martinique, Demerrara, Berbice, and Curacao.
For Britain, the Amiens treaty was a necessity, but it soon became obvious that Napoleon was not satisfied. He clearly intended to dominate the Mediterranean, capture Russian trade, and exclude Britain from the Levant trade while also threatening her in India. When Britain returned Minorca to Spain, Napoleon quickly moved to annex Leghorn (Livorno) and the island of Elba, appearing only to wait until Britain surrendered her strategic position in Malta before taking even more.
After a short period of peace, war against Napoleon erupted again. This time, it would take a dozen years and three more coalitions before peace was achieved in 1815. The immediate cause of the outbreak of hostilities was Britain's decision in 1803 not to evacuate Malta in accordance with the Treaty of Amiens.
But the new war was not just a renewal of the old dispute. Britain had fought before to contain the French Revolution. From 1803 to
1815, her objectives were different. This time, she fought to defeat Napoleon's bid to unite Continental Europe under his control and to build up French maritime strength in the process. As Napoleon marched his army into Germany, Britain watched. But she also sent a strong squadron under Nelson to the Mediterranean to observe the French fleet at Toulon, an expedition under Sir Samuel Hood to the West Indies to capture St. Lucia, and a squadron under Commodore John Loring to aid black troops rebelling against France on Santo Domingo.
In 1804, the French began to prepare for an invasion of Britain. Simultaneously, Spain joined France, potentially providing naval superiority in the Channel and the Mediterranean. In the face of this, Britain worked to form a Third Coalition. Nelson watched the French fleet based at Toulon, not knowing where they would strike: Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Egypt, or elsewhere. When the French fleet sailed from Toulon, Nelson followed them all the way to the West Indies and back. At the same time, squadrons commanded by Sir Robert Calder in the Bay of Biscay and by Lord Cornwallis in the Channel also helped prevent Franco-Spanish naval forces from joining together to form one superior fleet powerful enough to provide the support Napoleon would need to successfully invade Britain. Checked here, Napoleon canceled his invasion plans and marched his army from the northwest coast of France east against Austria. At Ulm, he quickly defeated the Austrians before Austria could become an effective member of the Third Coalition.
Thwarted in its original purpose of supporting the invasion of Britain, the Franco-Spanish fleet left Cadiz and sailed east to enter the Mediterranean. There, with the French armies in Italy, the fleet intended to help recover Sicily and reinstate French control of the Italian peninsula. The 33 French and Spanish ships of the line under Vice-Admiral Pierre Villeneuve and Admiral Don Federico Gravina, however, were intercepted by Nelson off Cape Trafalgar before they could enter the Mediterranean. On October 21, 1805, with 27 ships of the line and four frigates, a cutter, and a schooner, Nelson destroyed 16 ships and captured four others. Tragically for the British, Nelson was struck by a bullet from the French ship Redoubtable .about an hour after the fighting began. He died three hours later in the course of his greatest victory. His last signal, made at 11:43 in the morning, was "Engage the enemy more closely."
The stunning victory prevented Napoleon from dominating the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, he continued his military success, crushing the Austrians at Austerlitz in December 1805, forcing her out of the war, and ending the Third Coalition.
From 1804 to 1806, British war strategy was built on coalition with other European states, but Britain's Ministry of 1806 and 1807 took a different approach. The new government wanted to take independent action, using overseas and distant naval and amphibious actions to turn the war.
After the Battle of Trafalgar, the weakest point in Britain's Mediterranean naval strategy was Sicily, which she had been defending since 1804. Britain could neither defend so large an island adequately nor afford to give it up. Constantly threatened by French military forces in southern Italy and by the French fleet at Toulon, Sicily remained a deadweight on the Royal Navy. Because of this, the Royal Navy's blockade of Toulon, keeping the French squadron in port, remained a key goal. Meanwhile, to keep France from attempting to dominate Turkey, Vice-Admiral Sir John Duckworth backed British diplomatic negotiations with the Sultan at Constantinople in 1807 by bringing his squadron into the Dardanelles and attempting unsuccessfully to compel the Turks to make peace with Britain's ally, Russia.
In that same year a new Ministry came to power in London and changed the focus of British strategy. It returned to the earlier emphasis on European affairs and began to build a new coalition. With this in mind, leaders in London saw that the Baltic was an area of concern. Fearing that Napoleon might take control of Denmark and the Baltic approaches to the North Sea, the Cabinet ordered Admiral James Gambier to attack Copenhagen in September 1807 and to seize the Danish navy's ships and supplies to prevent their use by the French. Following this, Lord Saumarez sailed in early 1808 for the Baltic to support Sweden against Napoleon.
Napoleon's agreement in 1807 with Czar Alexander I in the Treaty of Tilsit altered the strategic situation for Britain. Shortly afterward, she changed her focus again, this time to southern Europe, sending an army to Portugal, as France attempted to occupy it. As in Denmark earlier, Britain was concerned about the possibility of Napoleon seizing Portugal's navy and using it against Britain. To prevent this, Rear-Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith and his squadron arrived in Portugal and escorted the Portuguese royal family and its navy to safety in Brazil. Following this up with direct military support, the Royal Navy landed troops under Sir Arthur Wellesley in Portugal in August 1808.
As these operations in the Iberian peninsula were beginning, the main thrust of British strategy in 1809 focused on the Low Countries and a large amphibious assault on Walcheren island in the Scheldt River estuary. Through this operation, the British hoped to remove the French threat from Antwerp, reduce the resources that the French could obtain to support their maritime power, and parallel Austria's military campaign against France in the Danube valley. A huge undertaking, the Walcheren landing involved some 44,000 men and 235 armed vessels. But because of bad weather, widespread illness, poor planning, and ineffective leadership, the expedition was a disaster for Britain.
In the autumn of 1809 a new ministry came to power in London; as usual, there were strategic changes, particularly a new emphasis on the war in Portugal and Spain. In 1810, Napoleon made his last serious attempt to shift the balance in the Mediterranean, with a determined attempt to seize Sicily. This challenge and the necessity to continue supporting forces in the Iberian peninsula made the Royal Navy's task even more complex. A revolt in Spain offered an opportunity to expand operations out from Portugal, and this theater became the British focal point.
In other areas in this phase of the war, the Royal Navy provided differing contributions to the war effort. Small warships and privateers became key elements as they attacked French merchant ships and protected British trade. At the same time, Napoleon's Continental blockade threatened to damage the British economy and industrial production, which was the basis for her war effort and allowed her to provide financial subsidies to allies as well as to maintain her own military and naval power.
Between 1808 and 1810, British expeditions captured French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Santo Domingo, while other expeditions sailed from India to take the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and Reunion, in a successful move to stop French privateers based in those islands. This was followed, in 1811, by the East India Company's expedition to the island of Java. By that year, all the places in which Napoleon might reasonably have pressed Britain outside of Europe had been preemptively seized by Britain. Consequently, Britain was safely able to reduce her forces overseas.
However, Britain's emphasis on stringently controlling trade and maintaining her rights as a belligerent in the war against France had an effect on other nations. Between 1812 and 1815, while still fighting Napoleon, Britain faced a war with the United States over neutral trading rights and the impressment of seamen from American vessels. These issues had caused tension earlier, as on June 22,1807, when H.M.S. Leopard—the ship that Jack Aubrey would later command in Desolation Island—had opened fire on the 33-gun frigate U.S.S. Chesapeake, which was carrying American Commodore James Barren to command U.S. naval ships in the Mediterranean. Totally unprepared, the American warship surrendered. But the incident caused a great public outcry against Britain in the United States.
The United States declared war on Britain in June of 1812. While active fighting against Napoleon continued, Britain tried to keep the conflict on a low burner. Nevertheless, the Royal Navy maintained a blockade on the eastern coast of the United States and had to increase convoy protection to prevent attacks by Americans. In the summer of 1812, U.S. Navy frigates enthusiastically engaged British warships. In a series of spectacular single-ship actions, the 44-gun
American frigate U.S.S. Constitution captured the 36-gun H.M.S. Guerriere on August 19 some 700 miles east of Boston and took the 44-gun H.M.S. Java off the coast of Brazil on November 29. On October 25,1812, the 44-gun U.S.S. United States also captured the 38-gun Macedonian in the mid-Atlantic. These victories raised American spirits in a war that was going badly ashore.
As Britain's operations against France in the West Indies ended, British troops and warships were sent from that region to fight in North America. In addition to convoying these troops, the Navy supported British military operations along the U.S.-Canadian border, in the Chesapeake Bay area at Baltimore and Washington, and in Louisiana. Meanwhile, on the Great Lakes, the small vessels that the Americans had quickly built achieved notable success at the Battle of Lake Erie in August 1813. The two countries negotiated peace at Ghent in 1814, neither side winning the objectives for which it had gone to war.
As Napoleon's authority in Europe began to crumble following his disastrous campaign in Russia in 1812 and 1813, the Ministry in London seized the opportunity to form a new coalition. Naval activity increased in northern European waters to support military activity there, but the emphasis on defense in the Mediterranean and support of the offensive in the Peninsula remained until Napoleon's abdication in the spring of 1814.
War of the Fifth Coalition
The peace lasted for nearly a year, but Napoleon broke it with his escape from Elba and return to power for what is now known as the Hundred Days. In the face of this new crisis, the Ministry and the allies chose to concentrate British military forces under the Duke of Wellington in the Low Countries, traditionally an area of strategic concern. Just before Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo and his final abdication, the British squadron in the Mediterranean laid plans to support a rebellion in Provence against France. Although that proved unnecessary, British naval power had already proved what it could do. It had contributed significantly to the broader strategic effort that carried the allies to victory over Napoleon on land. In the years that followed, Britain dramatically reduced her naval forces in a long period of peace but still remained unchallenged as the possessor of the most powerful navy in the world.