With the restoration of Charles II. (1660–1685) the modern
period in the history of the navy began. The first steps were
taken to form a corps of officers. Lads of gentle birth were
sent on board ships in commission with a letter of service—from
which came their popular name of “king’s letter boys”—to
the captain, instructing him to treat them on the footing of
gentlemen and train them to become officers. After the Dutch
War of 1664–67 a body of flag-officers were retained by fixed
allowances from the crown. This was the beginning of the halfpay
list, which was extended by successive steps to include
select bodies of captains and lieutenants, and then all commissioned
officers. The process of forming the corps was not
complete till the end of the reign of Queen Anne (1702–1714).
Special training and a right to permanent payment are the
essentials of a state service. The fleet was, at least in the earlier
part of the reign, used for the promotion of British interests and
the protection of trade in distant seas. One squadron was sent
to take possession of Bombay, which formed part of the dower
of Queen Catherine. Tangier, which was acquired in the same
way, was occupied as a naval station till the cost of maintaining
it proved excessive and it was evacuated in 1685. A series
of effective attacks was made on the Barbary pirates, and ships
were stationed in the West Indies to check piracy and buccaneering.
Until 1673, when he was driven out of office by the Test
Act, the king’s brother James, duke of York, afterwards James II.,
held office as lord high admiral. He proved an able administrator.
The navy office was thoroughly organized on the lines
laid down by the earl of Northumberland, and revised “sailing
and fighting instructions,” as well as a code of discipline, were
issued. During the latter years of the reign of Charles II. the
administrative corruption of the time affected the navy severely.
The fixed charge for ordinary and extraordinary expenses which
had risen to £300,000 a year was mostly wasted, under the lax
or dishonest supervision of the commission appointed by the
king after his brother left office. James II. (1685–1688), who
kept the admiralship in his own hands and governed largely
through his able secretary, the diarist Samuel Pepys, did much
to restore its efficiency. The navy he left was estimated to
consist of 173 ships of 101,892 tons carrying when in commission
42,003 men and armed with 6930 guns.
The evolution of the navy was completed by the Revolution of 1688. It now, though still called royal, became a purely national force, supported by the yearly votes of parliament, and governed by parliamentary committees, known as the commission for discharging the office of lord high admiral. A lord high admiral has occasionally been appointed, as in the case of Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne, or the duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV. But these were formal restorations. As no organic change was made till 1832, it will now be enough to describe the organization as it was during this century and a half.
The discipline of the navy was based on the Navy Discipline Act of 1660 (13th of Charles II.). The act was found to require amending acts, and the whole of them were combined, and revised by the 22nd of George II., passed in 1749. Some scandals of the previous years had caused great popular anger, and the alternative to death was taken from the punishment threatened against officers who failed to show sufficient zeal in the presence of the enemy. It was under this severe code that Admiral Byng was executed. In 1780 an amending act was passed which allowed a court martial to assign a lighter penalty.
The government, political and military, was in the hands of the admiralty. The administration was carried on in subordination to the admiralty by the navy board and the other civil departments, the victualling board, the board of transport, the pay office, the sick and hurt office and some others. At the head were the flag-officers, who were divided as follows:—
| Admiral of the Fleet. | Vice-Admiral Red. | Rear-Admiral Red. |
| Admiral„ of the„ White. | Vice-„Admiral„ White. | Rear-Admiral„ White. |
| Admiral„ of the„ Blue. | Vice-„Admiral„ Blue. | Rear-Admiral„ Blue. |
The Red, White and Blue squadrons had been the divisions of the great fleets of the 17th century, but they became formal terms indicating only the seniority of the flag-officers. It was the intention of parliament to confine the flag list to these nine officers, but as the navy grew this was found to be impossible. The rank of admiral of the fleet remained a solitary distinction. The captains, commanders and lieutenants were the commissioned officers and received their commissions from the admiralty. Promotion from them to flag rank was not at first limited by strict rules, but it tended to be by seniority. During the war of the Austrian Succession, in 1747, a regular system was introduced by which when a captain was promoted for active service—to hoist his flag, as the phrase went—he was made rear-admiral of the Blue squadron. Captains senior to him were promoted rear-admiral in general terms, and were placed on the retired list. They were familiarly called “yellow” admirals, and to be promoted in this way was to be “yellowed.” Promotion to a lieutenant’s commission could be obtained by any one who had served, or whose name had been on the books of a seagoing ship, for five years. Whether he entered with a king’s letter of service or from the naval academy at Portsmouth, as a sailor or as a ship’s boy, he was equally qualified to hold a commission if he had fulfilled the necessary conditions and could pass an examining board of captains, a test which in the case of lads who had interest was generally a pure formality. He was supposed to show that he knew some navigation, and was a practical seaman who could hand, reef and steer. As captains were allowed a retinue of servants, a custom arose by which they put the names of absent or imaginary lads on the books as servants and drew the pay allowance for them. It was quite illegal, and constituted the offence known as “false musters,” punishable by dismissal from the service. But this regulation was even less punctually observed than the rule which forbade the carrying of women. Till the beginning of the 19th century many distinguished officers were borne on a ship’s books for two or three years before they went to sea. The navigation was entrusted to the sailing-master and his mates. He had often been a merchant captain or sailor. The captains and lieutenants were supposed to understand navigation, but it was notorious that many of them had forgotten the little they had learnt in order to pass their qualifying examination. As the navy was cut down to the quick in peace, the supply of officers was insufficient at the beginning of a war, and it was found necessary to give commissions to men who were illiterate but were good practical seamen. Officers who had not begun as gentlemen “on the quarter deck” were said to have come in “through the hawse hole”—the hole by which the cable runs out at the bow. Some among them rose to distinction. The accountant’s work was done by the purser, who in bad times was said to be often in league with the captain to defraud both the government and the crew. The medical service in the navy during the 18th century was bad. The position of the surgeons who were appointed by the navy office was not an enviable one, and the medical staff of the navy was much recruited from licentiates of Edinburgh, or Apothecaries Hall. Finally it is to be observed that when a ship was paid off only the commissioned officers, masters and surgeons were entitled to half-pay, or had any further necessary connexion with the navy.
The crews were formed partly by free enlistment and partly by impressment. When these resources failed, prisoners, criminal and political, were allowed to volunteer or were drafted from the jails. The Patriotic Society, formed at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, educated boys for the navy. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars the counties were called upon to supply quotas, which they commonly secured from the debtors’ prison or the workhouse. A ship was supposed to be well manned when she had one-fifth of her crew of marines, and one-third of men bred to the sea. This proportion of seamen was rarely reached. As the navy did not train its men from boyhood in peace, the genuine sailors, known as “prime seamen” and “sailor men,” who were the skilled artificers of the time, had to be sought for among those who had served their apprenticeship in the merchant service. They never enlisted voluntarily, for they disliked the discipline of the navy, and the pay was
