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At present they were discouraged by the battle of Almanza, the miscarriage of the expedition against Toulon, the loss of sir Cloudesley Shovel, and the fate of four ships of the line, destroyed or taken by a squadron under the command of messieurs Forbin and Du Guai Trouin, two of the most enterprising sea-officers in the French service.
Then he erected a battery, from which he battered the wall in breach: but this method appearing tedious, he called a council of war, composed of the land and sea-officers, and laid before them the plan of a general attack, which was accordingly executed next morning.
In 1700 the rate of pay of sea-officers was again reduced. It was far less than that of the French; the French admiral having 1500 pounds per annum for his table-money, whereas the English admiral had only 365 pounds, no allowance whatever being made to other admirals, unless commanders-in-chief.
They unanimously granted, as a present supply in the then critical exigency, towards enabling his majesty to maintain and keep together the army formed last year in his electoral dominions, and then again put in motion, and actually employed against the common enemy, in concert with the king of Prussia, the sum of one hundred thousand pounds; for the ordinary of the navy, including half pay to the sea-officers, they allowed two hundred and twenty-four thousand four hundred and twenty-one pounds, five shillings and eight-pence; towards the building and support of the three hospitals for seamen at Gosport, Plymouth, and Greenwich, thirty thousand pounds; for the reduced officers of the land-forces and marines, pensions to the widows of officers, and other such military contingencies, forty thousand nine hundred and twenty-six pounds, seventeen shillings and eleven-pence; towards building, rebuilding, and repairs of his majesty's ships for the ensuing year, the sum of two hundred thousand pounds; for defraying the charge of two thousand nine hundred and twenty horse, and nine thousand nine hundred infantry, together with the general and staff-officers, the officers of the hospital and the train of artillery, being the troops of the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel in the pay of Great Britain, for sixty days, together with the subsidy for the said time, pursuant to treaty, they assigned thirty-eight thousand three hundred and sixty pounds, nineteen shillings and ten-pence three farthings.
Walsingham: "abhorring the rough, brutal, swearing, grog-drinking, tobacco-chewing, race of sea-officers, the Bens and the Mirvans of former times, Captain Jemmison, resolving, I suppose, to avoid their faults, went into the contrary extreme of refinement and effeminacy.
We ought to be always alive to the necessity of economy. The only limit to economy of money in any plan of naval organisation is that we should not carry it so far that it will be likely to impair efficiency. Those who are familiar with the correspondence of the great sea-officers of former days will have noticed how careful they were to prevent anything like extravagant expenditure.
What representations these deputies made, further than complaints of some irregularities in the conduct of the British sea-officers, we cannot pretend to specify; but as the subject in dispute related entirely to the practice of the courts of judicature, it did not fall properly under the cognizance of the government, which hath no right to interfere with the administration of justice.
The Tower where the lions and other savage animals are kept is on the right hand, on the outside the ditch, as we enter the fortress. These consist of lions, leopards, tigers, eagles, vultures, and such other wild creatures as foreign princes or sea-officers have presented to the British kings and queens. Not far from the Tower stands London Bridge.
The fact conveys an impressive lesson; for if the intelligence, decision, and kindness, which, with few exceptions, characterize our sea-officers, can effect such happy results where they operate on the most unpromising materials, it is clear, that whatever faults the lower classes in England display must be attributed, in a great degree, to the neglect or misconduct of those, whose station in society, as it gives the power, imposes the duty to guide them.
This ought to induce sea-officers to prefer their own proper business to amusement, since, with all this knowledge, we were forced to make the main land of Chili, in order to find this island, and did not strike it at the last without considerable difficulty.
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