The life at sea, Part 2

Some of this is also a bit of silly humour, so I'll ask that you bear with me. ;) If you do find it amusing, you may chuckle along with it too!

Title: Young Nelsons, Boy Sailors during the Napoleonic Wars 1793 - 1815
Author: D.A.B. Ronald
Year published: 2009

Wayward behavour of the Prince Midshipman.

(p 41) Forgotten in all the euphoria, at least temporarily, by the king and queen, were the mounting signs of their son's wayward behavour, including reports filtering back of his brawling on the streets of Gibraltar, arrest by a military patrol and night spent in town jail.

Naked bayonets? (as opposed to clothed? :p)

(p 44)[...] these men to be armed with naked bayonets and  dressed in sailor's habits: they are not to wait for anything but immediately execute their orders.

Other boys come aboard - gunner's wife to meet them.

(p47)They, however, were destined not for their own cabins but, with any luck, for the gun room where, for a few days, they might be shielded from the stark realities of lower-deck life by the maternal ministrations of the gunner's wife.

Portsmouth Naval Academy (for the gentlemen and noblemen)

A standard certificate was issued, upon their graduation:
(p49) 'Whereas Mr. -- has been educated at the Royal Academy at Portsmouth and is well qualitifed to serve His Majesty at sea, you are hereby required and directed to receive him on board H.M. -- under your command and enter his name as one of her complement.'

Little officers to be learn to draw.

(p 53) For Francis  Austen and, more especially, James Trevenen, learning how 'to draw the appearance of head lands, Coasts, Bays, Sans, Rocks and such like' was still a vital skill they would need at sea.

Schooling, for some

(p 59) The Academy duly closed in 1806.
(p 60) In 1808 the Academy was replaced by the Royal Naval College, also at Portsmouth.

Even young gentlemen need to pipe-clay

(p 81) [...] where my attention was attracted towards two young gentlemen hard at work pipe-claying (cleaning with pipe-clay) their smalls by the light of a small tallow candle.

His eyes change, see!

(p88) [...] 5 feet 5 inches; white, soapy complexion, bleached oakum hair, high cheek bones, and deep ditches beneath them; eyes indigo, or pepper and salt. Just as the sun or light chose they should be; a nose nothing particular, only it seemed to belong to me: no brands, marks, or scars.

Nelson

(p94) Nelson: 'Well Sir, I am going a race to the mast head, and beg I may meet you there.'

Marines teach Middies

(p98) [...] when we were under tuition of the Sergeant of Marines at the latter training, and noticing the slightness of my person, asked me if  I did not feel the ship's musket too heavy.  I replied that I was trying to make best of it.

Life at sea, part 3

Learning even more about the lives of midshipmen, their obligations and rights. There is also a mention of a Captain Sawyer. Those who know Hornblower, might recognise the name. ;)

Title: Young Nelsons, Boy Sailors during the Napoleonic Wars 1793 - 1815
Author: D.A.B. Ronald
Year published: 2009

Middies obligations.

(p106) [...] acting as one of the midshipmen of the watch to visit the lower part of the ship every half hour to see that there is no unauthorised light burning, and that all is quiet; he reports all well or otherwise, to the officer of the watch.  Other responsibilities meant mustering the seamen at divisions and supervising their deck duties.

(p107) Other less controversial but still demanding duties for a midshipman included acting as signal-officer or as aide-de-camp to the captain on the quarterdeck, in which instance he was charged with carrying messages round the ship and also between ships. [...] The midshipman studies and lazes about, but also 'pretends' to cook, his pretensions to cookery most likely only brought on because the 'blackguardly, rascally son of a sea-cook' was the bane of the midshipmen's mess, his poor cooking the constant butt of insults, [...]

Bad behaving Midshipman.

(p106) [...] a mid-shipman on board our ship of a wickedly mischievous disposition, whose sole delight was to insult the feelings of the seamen, and furnish pretexts to get them punished. He was a youth not more than 12 or 13 yeas of age; but I have often seen him get on the carriage of a gun, cal la man to him, and kick him about the thighs and body, and with his fists would beat him about the head; and these, although prime seamen, at the same time dared not murmur.'

More naughty middies:

(p 126) David Casey, a lieutenant serving on the Ambuscade in the Caribbean in early 1797, but still only 18, fell foul of  'a certain young Midshipman of my watch ( a very ill conducted youth, highly connected and a great favourite of the Captain)'. As a result, David was court-martialled, demoted to midshipman and transferred out of the Ambuscade. He at least had some temporary satisfaction knowing, as he pointed out in the tract he wrote in 1839, that 'the young gentleman who caused my misfortune was soon found so ill conducted and troublesome as to oblige his quitting the Ship; the same evening of my trial he was heard to boast (and was complain'd for it) that he had broke one  Lieutenant and would break others.

Punishment of middies - kissing the gunner's daughter and its instruments.

(p127) The ritual, graphically known as kissing the gunner's daughter, involved the culprit being strapped to a gun and flogged, the instrument of punishment graduating from the cane, through the cat of five tails - a boy's cat - to the cat of nine tails, the young miscreant often being obliged to prepare these for himself.

Jeffrey Raigersfeld recalled how he and his fellow midshipman ran 'wild and riotous' and 'four of us were tied up one after the other to the breech of one of the guns and flogged upon our bare bottoms with a cat-o'-nine-tails, by the boatswain... No doubt we all deserved it' but, crucially, 'were thankful that we were punished in the cabin instead of upon the deck.

Mastheading - when?

The misdemeanours deserving this punishment could be as trivial as Jeffrey Raigersfeld not being' quick and expert in my answers' on navigation, or being quarter of an hour late on the 4 o'lcock  watch in William Dillon's case [...]

Another of them punishments:

[...] in the case of a midshipman court-martialled for robbing a Portuguese boat in 1798 'sentenced to be turned before the mast, to have his uniform stripped off him on the quarterdeck before all the ship's company, to have his head shaved, and to be rendered for ever incapable of serving as a petty officer.'.

Captain Sawyer and his evils.

(p 138) Further symptoms of this indiscipline were apparent in a court martial on Captain Sawyer in which 'the proof being so strong against Capt Sawyer, having a fondness for young men and boys, that he broke from ever serving in His Majesties service.'