Laws regarding Impressment

my understanding is that small beer was brewed by reusing the mash from the regular beer - and unless they had a much more effective way of malting the grains than we do, now, or added sugar to the wort, both your figures are awfully high. It's been a while, so I don't remember, but I think beer yeasts tend to start dropping out between 8-10% alcohol.

I'll try to deal with these more or less in order;

Steady kind of depends on what you mean. Sailors were in high demand, so finding a job was comparatively easy especially during the wars of the 1700's as both merchant and Navy ships were drawing from the same workpool. You also had the option of serving in the fleets of other nations (as long as Britain wasn't at war with that country).

Job security was a different matter, as you only served on a ship for one voyage and were not assured of being employed after that. Nor for that matter assured of getting paid at the end of a voyage. Merchant Captains seem to have encouraged sailors to depart a ship before it came into port because they then were not legally required to pay them. In the Royal Navy the wages were lower than in the merchant service, and often paid by chits or years late. But you did get paid eventually, and it is notable that the Navy did what it could to pay the men as soon as possible - complaining to a former Captain usually worked wonders.

Officers were a different matter entirely. The standing officers stayed with a ship regardless of if it was in service or not, but commissioned officers were employed for the same length of time as the crew. Unlike an able seaman an officer could find it next to impossible to find employment after a cruise, since there were maybe ten times the number of officers than there were places for them. Although officers did get half pay, for the lower ranks that wasn't really enough to live off and even Captains could have problems making ends meet.

In fact at the end of the various wars it was usually the officers who suffered more than the men. Seamen were always in demand, and could find employment on merchant shipping after a war. Officers however found it even harder to get employment since the number of active ships was sharply reduced when the shooting stopped. Some, especially senior or well known/successful officers, could find employment in other navies. (The Imperial Russian Fleet was commanded by an Englishman at one point, while Thomas Cochrane served in the Chilean, Brazilian and Greek Navies at various times)

So in many ways the common sailor had a much easier life than the officers.

***

Yes, the 'plates' were basically square wooden trays with high sides into which the food was ladled, and from where the expression 'three square meals' comes from.
Not sure if they were square because that saved on storage space, or simply because square trays would be far easier to mass produce.

***

Alcohol allowance was a gallon of small beer in home waters or a pint of rum further away. Provision was given for other types of alcohol to be substituted if neither was available - pursers were encouraged to buy locally available produce as this not only provided fresh food which kept the crew healthier but was also cheaper. In the Mediterranean for example sailors were often issued three bottles of wine.
This was usually worked out amicably between the Purser and the crew where official tables were not provided.

***

Hammocks were brought up from below and lashed into netting along the sides of the bulwark, where they provided some protection during battle. Naturally this mean that they were exposed to the elements, so could and would get wet when a ship was sailing. They were, it seems, usually taken below during really bad weather.

The dryness of a ship depended on the ships age, condition and design. Ships that had large gaps between the planking or allowed the timbers to 'work' (ie move) tended to take in a lot of water. Since sailors of the period slept at the bow that could mean that water got into the sleeping berth.

What the sleeping berth did have was warmth. A small wooden room with a low ceiling and packed with a hundred men or more doesn't exactly have a problem with heating.

***

Slops were issued on first entering a ships complement (ie being put on the books as a member of the crew, rather than as a passenger). The cost of the slops was deducted from the sailors wages at the end of the Voyage, but this doesn't seem to have been a major problem either because most professional sailors didn't need clothing (they already owned a set, probably from their last time on a man of war) or because they didn't exactly have anything else to spend their money on while at sea. (Gambling was prohibited)

If you lost or damaged your issued clothing for a valid reason, for example from being injured in battle, it appears that you didn't have to pay to replace it. I also get the impression that slops that were simply worn out though heavy use could, likewise, be replaced without cost. Although I'm not clear on the situation in regards replacing damaged or worn out clothing.

***

The quality of ships doctors varied, from butchers who had a warrant and could read and write well enough to keep records and read medical books. All the way through to fully fledged Physicians who held medical degrees.

Medical treatment was, however, free except in the case of venereal diseases for which a sailor would have money deducted from their wages at the end of a voyage.

***

Shore leave was not always given, and seems to have been the major gripe sailors had about the Royal Navy. Captains were, understandably, wary of giving shore leave (at least in home ports, and often even abroad) because it was the perfect opportunity for men to abscond. The BEST Captains however usually granted shore leave where ever possible, understanding that men were unlikely to run under captains who were known to be generous with shore leave. (At least one Captain noted that the first thing he usually did on taking command of a ship was to grant shore leave. Those men who ran would have run anyway, while the rest figured that if he was that generous with leave there was not much point in running. The number of deserters on ships commanded by such Captains was initially very small, maybe a dozen out of crews some 300 strong. And after that usually zero.)

Another trick Captains often used was to give the men small amounts of money as an advance on their wages, enough to get a few drinks in, before granting leave. (Men were not actually paid until after a ship was laid up at the end of a voyage)

***

Longevity and good health are not that surprising. The Navy had a vested interest in keeping sailors healthy. So they did everything they could to promote good health through good food (they spent more on getting good quality provisions than they did on the ships themselves), and by keeping the ships as clean as possible.

In other navies of the period it was not unusual to find excrement on the deck, in the hold and more or less everywhere else. In the Royal Navy the only place you'd realistically find such a mess was the hold (more specifically the bulges), and then only because the animal pens located under the forecastle would drain some of their...material...into the hold no matter how often they were cleaned out.

As for provisions outside the Royal Navy...you probably don't want to know what they were like. But to give something of an example. When ever the French joined up with Spanish ships, even if they had only been at sea for two weeks, they usually had to beg for provisions as their own were inedible.

A Naval career was a career....
As I say, a lot of work at that time that was shore based was seasonal farm work, or, basically what I do now, roll from job to job as needed.... 'cept I get better paid.....
If you were at sea for six to twelve months, you were at least getting fed, and that was worth more than say three weeks work and nothing for the next month.

The options for the type of person who would be employed as a ships hand were ships hand or nothing.
Therefore, one at the end of a voyage, unless you have absolute guarantee's you were needed for the next on the same ship, many sailors would hang about in port waiting for the next ship to hire.

Its a sort of mercenary life, you go to the highest paid, or best ship you can find.
Best ship, one that looked sea worthy under captain who didnt take unnecessary risks...
Many ships were lost because a greedy captain took on too much cargo in heavy seas.
Which is where the Plimsoll line came from.
(Thats the line on a ships bow painted to denote if its sat lower in the water than that, its not "Safe")

There was a trade route on a Canadian lake where many ships were lost due to idiot captains taking too much cargo during winter high seas, they would be OK during summer, but winter, the ships would ice up, extra weight, slight high wind, and over you go... enough to get lake water over the sides.... one way trip to solid land, straight down.

"On overseas stations you just didn't have sailors you could press (as the law only applied to British nationals), the populations were often not large enough to provide men for a man of war and a Captains reputation was probably unknown (And if the Captain did have that good a reputation chances are that his crew wasn't going to run anyway.)"

right - so better the bad crewmen bolt at a home port than at an overseas port.

it is one of those things - the best time to find out you have a problem is before it becomes relevant.

Cook is a good example of how it was possible for a man of good ability to raise up though the ranks in the Georgian Navy. He started in the Merchant service, then entered the Royal Navy as a Masters Mate.

This is probably why he was a good Captain, rather than just a good seaman. Having come up through the ranks he would have understood the 'common' sailor better than many if his contemporaries, and certainly would have been aware that sailors themselves had long since known that the best way to avoid Scurvy was to have lots of fresh vegetables. (The Royal College of Physicians dismissed the idea purely because it came from the 'unlearned' and was 'empirical' - which was shorthand at this period for a scam.)

Cooks dealings with the cultures he met were in line with the culture that he came from, and in many respects was considerably more enlightened and respectful than any of his peers. Many of his contemporaries would have been far less respectful than Cook was. Remember that it wasn't until 1816 that Europeans started to ask if slavery of any ethnic group was acceptable, and then only because of an accident. The fleet that was sent out to deal with the Barbary States was originally only intended to order the release of white slaves. But the decree signed by the Regent that spoke of slavery was broadly worded, meaning that it applied to slaves of all colours.

Claiming land, even if it happened to already have people living there, was a standard practice and was often symbolic and legal rather than from a desire to actually do anything with those places. By claiming Australia in the name of King George he denied it to France, Denmark and Spain. This was also the period in which the power of a country was based on the amount of land it controlled, especially overseas. This is why Spain was considered a superpower even though the country was in a state of near constant debt and most of its money ended up in the hands of Dutch bankers. (In fact it was the Dutch who were the real 'superpower' of the 1600's and early 1700's, since the money that Spain was using to support its Empire largely consisted of loans from the Dutch.)

It wasn't until after the American Revolution that Britain started to view global power and empires in terms of trade, rather than land. And those overseas possessions it either retained, took or developed after that point were to support trade routes. Either as useful bases for ships to re-provision or as bases for men of war who patrolled the shipping routes.



It kind of depended on how many men you had to start with and when you were meant to put to sea. A 'bad' crewman could, in most cases, be turned into a useful (or at least not worthless) member of the crew after a few months at sea. In fact the longer a ship was in service the less likely it was for men to run, since they became part of a community, even if no shore leave had been granted. (Assuming a Captain who wasn't too harsh, and excluding those who didn't fit in for one reason or another).

The problem for Captains was that ships, especially during major wars, were already undermanned and often close to the minimum number of men needed to put to sea. If the number of men was close to the minimum then a handful of deserters could easily result in you having to explain to the Admiralty why you couldn't put to sea, and what the hell possessed you to grant leave - something that could wreck your career and leave you on shore for the rest of your life.

It was only Captains who were confident that they would not lose that many men, or who confident they would be able to replace them quickly, who would be willing to take the risk. And most were neither of the above.

Since seamen on merchant ships were simply employees, there was no punishment or penalty for desertion (other than getting a reputation for being unreliable and possibly missing out on some pay).

In navy service things were different. For example, in the Royal Navy, the Articles of War (which despite the name were also in force in peacetime) stated that the punishment for desertion was death. Not only that, the punishment for inciting someone else to desert was death too. Although it should be noted that after 1788, the Articles were amended to allow the Court Martial to reduce the punishment if circumstances permitted. However, the possibility of clemency wasn't available if the deserter ended up with the enemy (or pirate or rebel), where the only punishment was death.

Yes, but, the native Australians were not that happy about it, and it seams that they were never any push-over on the subject, as they see it, someone from a tiny whiney likkle european island smaller than New Zealand steps one foot on their shore and claims the whole lot for someone they never heard of?....

They were not all that happy about it.

Then we start sending them Convicts.....

No one ever asked them for permission.

we must face the fact that we caucasians were not the best of houseguests, having a tendency to consider ourselves a superior lifeform; and the natives as something slightly to the side of livestock.

That's hardly a caucasian trait, more a human one. It's been true throughout history in all corners of the world. You'd be very hard pressed to find anywhere that one race or tribe hasn't lorded it over another when they got the chance. In such cases, they invariably excused their behavior with the belief that they were superior and therefore had the (God-given) right to act that way.