Nelson & His World

'I passed my time as well as I could here, till the Admiral could spare my ship to cruise, which was not till the 28th of this month, [October 1747] and seeing the inconvenience of so large a ship, I offered Captain Horne of the Superb £400 to change with me, as he had little chance of cruising but he would not. So the 28th in the evening, the Admiral bidding me write out my own orders, he signed them and I went that evening to sea in order to cruise off Malta, Cape Bona and Pantalleria, all of these being the best situations to interrupt any of the enemy's ships bound to, or from, the Levant.

There was nothing remarkable during the first fourteen or fifteen days of my cruise, but chasing neutral vessels and exercising my men, till 13th November when I took a vessel without a living creature aboard; found her floating.'

This is a quote from Augustus Hervey's Journal (Ed Davied Erskine, Chatham Publishing, 2002) which I have resumed reading after the interruptions of the summer. Hervey was from an aristocratic family and a notably eccentric one; was he a law unto himself or were practices such as seeking to bribe a colleague to change ships, or writing one's own orders common ones? As for the floating empty ship.... Hervey thinks it a remarkable experience. I wonder if there are other, similar discoveries on record (apart from the Mary Celeste, of course.)

Anna

The question you raise vis-a-vis Augustus Hervey is an interesting one – namely, how far was the normal system of ‘interest’ and string pulling in the navy supplemented by discrete ‘massaging’ and the payment of ‘incentives’?
Although one of the pleasures of our area of interest is that the plethora of official documents makes it easy to learn the detail of everyday life and action in the navy, there are a number of topics they do not cover. The presence of women on ships is one; this is another. I fancy therefore that we will only be able to arrive at an answer by accumulating anecdotal evidence from private correspondence and journals. Perhaps we would be doing the naval world a favour if members could note any examples they come across noted them on this web site! Here is my penny’s worth.
Confidential letters written home from the S America station in 1822 by Midshipman Charles Drinkwater (son of Nelson’s friend Col John Drinkwater) reveal that the two officers who topped the Admiralty List for promotion to captain (Commander the Hon Frederick Spencer) and to commander (Lieutenant Thomas Porter) ‘want promotion very bad.’ Fortunately, Captain Thomas White of ‘Creole’ was over 60 and willing to go. In Charles’s words ‘they together made up £5000 which of course has made Captain White very ill and so he is going home.’ White was invalided out; Spencer was promoted into his job; and Porter into Spencer’s.
The following year, Drinkwater learnt that he was top of the List for promotion to Lieutenant and that Lieutenant Frampton of ‘Doris’ was sick but would not go and pay his fare home. Drinkwater discretely arranged for his Prize Agent to pay the requisite sum into Frampton’s bank account. As a result, Frampton agreed to be invalided out and Drinkwater was promoted into this job.
These incidents took place within one detached squadron of a dozen ships within the space of two years. If the same thing was taking place in the same proportion throughout the navy, the amount of ‘massaging’ would have been enormous!

Brian

Many thanks for that interesting reply, Brian. As you say, one of the fascinating aspects of the period is how much there is still to discover, and whether we can draw any general conclusions from individual incidents. I'll certainly look out for similar examples of 'backhanders'. Hervey's offer of £400 was a fair sum, was it not? About a year's salary?

I came across another example of a superior officer allowing a junior one to issue orders in his name in the biography of Thomas Trotter, 'Physician to the Fleet' (Vale & Edwards):

'Dedicated to his profession, inexhaustible in his reading, convinced that the good health of seamen was vital to the effectiveness of the navy, and with a fund of ideas on the causes of diseases like scurvy that had crippled fleets in the past, Trotter was keen to put his theories into action. With the steady support of the commander in chief, he was not disappointed. Howe's confidence was such that he allowed Trotter to issue orders in his name without previous approval; and invariably backed any recommendation he made to the Admiralty.'