Scurvy 1 THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SEAFARING WORLD: THE AGE OF SCURVY AN ENGLISH SAILOR RELAXED in an alehouse with companions after a long voyage from the West Indies. After over a year away, he wanted to celebrate his safe return. The merchant ship had returned to Portsmouth with a load of spices and exotic wood. It had been a good run; the winds and weather had been fair and the incidence of disease low. Still, he was lucky to have survived, and several of his fellow mariners had not. He had been ashore for several days, paid out by his captain, and he was enjoying his liberty, spending his hard-earned coin. Downing the last of many mugs of ale, he was surprised to find a shilling at the bottom. Something did not seem right, but he had had much to drink this night.

Blessing his good fortune, he pocketed the coin, bade farewell to his drinking companions, and staggered from the crowded interior out onto the dark street, heading for a flophouse. He was followed from the alehouse. Three more men waited for him in the shadows. Armedwith clubs and with stern expressions on their faces, they surrounded him, leaving no room for escape. With dawning horror, the sailor realized his predicament. He felt the coin in his pocket, the King''s Shilling, and belatedly knew that it had been placed in his drink, and that the men of the press gang would swear he had gladly taken it and agreed to join a ship''s company. The men grabbed him and dragged him, protesting and struggling until a thump on his head silenced him, towards the harbour. A man-of-war had sailed into port and was looking for recruits.

The sailor, like countless others, had now joined the Royal Navy. Life was so hard in the navy, the chance of death so high, and the demand for human fuel so insatiable during times of war that sailors in sufficient quantities to navigate the lumbering warships would rarely sign on voluntarily. It was far safer and more rewarding to sail on merchant ships. The navy''s need for men was at least double, perhaps triple, the number of able-bodied seamen who willingly served. Ships were chronically short-handed. Offering a bonus to new recruits failed to provide the needed seamen. A quota system, whereby each county was responsible for furnishing to the navy a specified number of sailors, failed. Beseeching men to do their duty for their country also failed.

Short of raising wages and improving conditions, the navy could guarantee a ready supply of sailors only by taking them by force. Famous fighting captains who were believed to have good luck, and who could boast of a good chance of prize money from capturing enemy ships, could announce their need for sailors on posters about town and receive a stream of able seamen eager to join the ship''s company. But most captains had to resort to the notorious Impress Service. As a consequence, in eighteenth-century Britain men frequently disappeared from seaport towns and villages. Wandering alone one evening, they would be clubbed, dragged aboard a ship in port, and "recruited" into the navy. Wives were often left wondering what had become of their husbands, and children of theirfathers. Many were never seen by their families again. Press gangs patrolled the narrow warrens and alleys of the poor dockside quarters, searching for anyone alone or too drunk to flee, sailors preferably, but during wartime any reasonably able-bodied men would do.

Sometimes the new recruits were rounded up by land-based agents of the Impress Service, who were paid a commission to deliver men to whichever ship lay in port. On other occasions, captains were empowered to search for men themselves, employing gangs usually consisting of four stout seamen armed with clubs and--officially, at least--one lieutenant armed with a cutlass, ostensibly used to impress bystanders with his martial appearance and social respectability. They would sally forth from the ship after darkness in pursuit of their quarry. Many of the "recruits" brought in by the press gangs had little or no experience at sea. Although officially the Impress Service had the legal right to deliver only "seamen, seafaring men and persons whose occupations or callings are to work in vessels and boats upon rivers," on short notice nearly anyone would do (providing they weren''t influential or wealthy). Once shipboard, the men were subject to the law of the sea, and to leave was desertion. Desertion was punishable by death. The impressed sailor, if he was lucky, could look forward to years of harsh, brutal service at sea.

If he was unlucky, he would die without ever setting foot on his native soil again. The naval historian Sir Harold Scott wryly observed that "it was a curious anomaly: the security of citizens depended on the Fleet. The manning of the Fleet was, therefore, a prime necessity, and the citizens--the pressed men among them, at least--were ''made slaves'' in order to keep them free." Up to a third of a ship''s company could be made up of men pressed from land or taken from incoming merchant ships. The majority of the men newly rounded up by the Impress Service, as might be supposed, were not the pick of the country; they were primarily spindle-legged landlubbers, vagrants, or tramps in the poorest of physical health. The press gang might also roust out the sick, malnourished, or elderly, or receive from local magistrates convicts who were given a choice between severe punishment or the king''s service. Seamen aboard incoming merchant ships were also at risk of impressment. The Royal Navy stopped these ships and claimed any men on board, preferably those who had already served in the navy, beyond the absolute minimum needed to sail the vessel.

But not all men in the navy were pressed or convicts. Many joined willingly: for a chance to see the world or out of patriotic duty. But some of those inclined to volunteer would do so only at the end of a particularly harsh winter, when a secure place to sleep, regular, if paltry, pay, and the promise of a daily meal overcame their fear of possible death and the inevitable loss of freedom. Once shipboard, duty was paramount. Discipline was strict, authoritarian, and often violent. There was a great social gulf between the commissioned officers and the common crew, and the captain was a virtual dictator while at sea. It was an age of severe punishments; life was cheap, and the concept of workers'' rights lay in the distant future. Even minor crimes such as theft would be dealt with harshly, usually by flogging with the dreaded cat-o''-nine-tails.

Crimes that seem relatively innocuous, such as disrespect for a superior officer or inattention to duty, were very serious shipboard, where the lives of all depended on each other; these could be punished with a dozen or even a hundred or more lashes--sometimes enough to kill a man. Because there were no standards for punishment, individual captains wielded great power over their crews. Some were known for being brutal martinets, lashing and beating sailors far in excess of their crimes, while others rarely resorted to the lash. Another common but lesser punishment was known as starting; an officer would whack a sailor with his cane if he thought he was moving too slowly or was showing belligerence to authority. Lashing and starting were most prevalent on ships with great numbers of convicts and pressed men, and they created a tense and gloomyatmosphere that was poor for morale and health. The threat of corporal punishment hung over every man''s head. Most of the newly pressed recruits in the navy were not mariners and had never been to sea before. Although they all lived and slept together and ate the same food, there was a hierarchy even amongst the common sailors.

While a contingent of skilled able seamen performed all the difficult tasks, such as climbing the rigging and setting the sails, the unskilled men, sickly or weak, were good only for hauling on a rope or swabbing the decks. Not only did they have no nautical skill or inclination, but many of the new recruits, and especially those who had recently come from prison, were already afflicted with one of the many illnesses common in the Age of Sail. Even the able seamen on the majority of ships were barely fit for the harsh realities of life at sea, and conditions became worse when the pressed sailors (morose and melancholy at their dreadful fate) and the convicts (delirious from typhus or dysentery) were taken on board and housed with the rest of the crew, thereby spreading discontent and disease throughout the ship''s company. Mariners in the eighteenth century suffered from a bewildering array of ailments, diseases, and dietary deficiencies, such that it was next to impossible for surgeons or physicians to accurately separate the symptoms of one from those of another. Niacin deficiency caused lunacy and convulsions, thiamin deficiency caused beriberi, and vitamin-A deficiency caused night blindness. Syphilis, malaria, rickets, smallpox, tuberculosis, yellow fever, venereal diseases, dysentery, and food poisoning were constant companions. Typhus, or typhoid fever, was common on every ship. Spread by infected lice in the frequently shared and rarely cleaned bedding, typhus was so prevalent in the navy that it was known as "ship''s fever" or "gaol fever.

" Man-of-war and merchantman, both were a cozy den for disease. Life shipboard was not conducive to curing or avoiding any of these varied ailments, and indeed was an ideal environment for spreading them. The sailor''s wooden world was infested with refuse,trash, rotting flesh, urine, and vomit. The mariners were either crammed into their quarters like sardines in a box or slept, occasionally in good weather, sprawled like hounds on the deck. The holds were crammed with vermin, festering and spoiled prov.