Under the Bloody Flag
Page 31
Reprisals and piracy during the 1580s and early 1590s
The war of reprisals which flourished during the later 1580s and 1590s was a powerful example of the Elizabethan regime’s ability to exploit private resources to weaken the enemy. A campaign of sustained plunder inflicted severe damage on Iberian trade and shipping, compensating for the disruption to English commerce, while providing employment for unemployed mariners and occasionally producing spectacular profits for promoters. But this was an improvised and indiscriminate way of waging a maritime war. English vessels sailing on reprisal voyages were subject to uncertain and self-interested supervision by the Lord Admiral and his officials; once at sea the conduct of English men-of-war essentially depended on self-regulation. From the outset, therefore, the maritime war was at risk from disorderly and illegal depredation. The vessels of friendly and neutral states were exposed to repeated spoil by English predators, on the grounds that they were supplying Spain with provisions identified as contraband. At the same time the sea war masked, but could not conceal, piratical enterprise of varying forms. Indeed, it created the conditions for an undercurrent of piracy to persist with increasing vigour into the early seventeenth century.38
To a considerable extent this private war at sea was promoted and planned by the merchants of London. Although the length of the war allowed for a considerable turnover of promoters and adventurers, overseas traders and shipowners played a leading role in maintaining the business of reprisals. A significant group of these adventurers had been heavily involved in the Iberian trades before the outbreak of hostilities. Among the London trading interest many seemed to represent a younger generation of merchants whose ambitions, aggressive drive and increasing interest in the potential profit of long-distance enterprise encouraged commercial expansion, while paving the way for a revival of interest in colonization after 1603. The more successful promoters, who included members of the Levant and Barbary Companies, combined commerce with plunder in a specialized but flexible form of enterprise, which was particularly suited to ventures that required larger, heavily armed vessels, such as in the Mediterranean and African trades.39
In London, John Watts was one of the most active merchant supporters of the sea war. By 1585 he was a well-established trader with extensive commercial interests in Spain, as well as with the Canary Islands and the Azores. Claiming losses of £15,000, as a result of the confiscation of five vessels in Spanish ports, Watts was soon involved in sending out ships on reprisal voyages. His partners included merchants and shipowners with similar interests, such as John Bird and John Stokes, with whom he sent out at least five ships against Spain during 1585 and 1586, though he was more regularly associated with members of his own family and household. As in the case of other leading adventurers, Watts’ interest in reprisals merged imperceptibly with the public, more official war at sea. He was a leading supporter of the expedition to Cadiz in 1587, during which three, possibly four, of his vessels served. Two of these ships stayed on the coast of Spain, following Drake’s return to England, seizing a number of rich prizes. During the Armada campaign, Watts served aboard one of his own ships, leading the scramble to share in the capture of a Spanish vessel which had run aground near Calais. Thereafter he became one of the leading promoters of ventures to the Spanish Caribbean. During 1595 four of his vessels sailed on Drake’s last voyage. The failure of that expedition was offset by the profit from James Lancaster’s daring raid on Pernambuco in Brazil, in which he was heavily involved. Furthermore, in 1598, he was a prominent supporter of an expedition led by George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, which raided Puerto Rico. Among Cumberland’s fleet, six vessels were owned by Watts.40
Although Watts was one of the most important promoters of reprisal ventures, there were a number of powerful and wealthy merchants in London who developed similar interests in the sea war, including Paul Bayning and Thomas Cordell, and who tended to reap most profit from it. In addition there was a much larger group of more modest merchants from London and some of the leading ports in the south-west, especially Bristol and Plymouth, who sustained a serious interest in promoting reprisal ventures, turning the Spanish war into a profitable business enterprise, while providing the regime with the maritime equivalent of a voluntary militia, made up of strong, well-armed vessels which were capable of inflicting serious damage on the enemy.
Merchant promoters were not the only adventurers to try their hand at the business of reprisals. The appeal of profit, honour and glory, in a godly and patriotic cause, mobilized a varied range of adventurers. They included men with a professional interest in the sea or seafaring, such as naval officials and other royal office holders, as well as sea captains who owned or partly owned their vessels. Among the former were well-connected promoters, including the Lord Admiral and his brother-in-law – Sir George Carey, governor of the Isle of Wight – Sir John Hawkins and other captains in the Queen’s Navy, including Sir Walter Ralegh and Sir Robert Cecil. The latter group included experienced captains such as William Parker of Plymouth, who led several expeditions to the Caribbean, culminating in a bold attack on Porto Belo in 1601, and Christopher Newport, who was involved in a series of voyages to the West Indies in the service of merchants such as Watts.41
At the other extreme to such experienced and professional promoters was a small but significant group of landowners, or men of landed background, whose interest in the sea war, while rooted in the promise of financial gain, was encoded with chivalric ideals of knightly service. Their leading representative was Cumberland, who in 1600 claimed to have spent £100,000 in sending out his own fleets against Spain. Partly seeking to salvage his debts through the plunder of the enemy, Cumberland had two ships at sea during the first year of the war. They were followed by a second voyage in 1588, though neither met with much success. In these early ventures Cumberland regularly employed vessels owned by the Queen alongside his own, occasionally commanding in person, combining private ambition with public duty. During the later 1590s, however, he became associated with leading London merchants, such as Watts, Cordell and Bayning, who were among his chief supporters for an ambitious expedition of 1598 which led to a successful, though unprofitable, raid on Puerto Rico. Unusually, as a result of the association, Cumberland became a prominent proponent of the Londoners’ shifting view of the war, as an opportunity to deploy English sea power for commercial aggrandisement within the seaborne empires of Spain and Portugal. Despite some striking successes, he failed to restore his fortune, lamenting at the end of the war that he ‘threw his land into the sea’.42
Although leading promoters of such backgrounds helped to shape the private war at sea, they were supported by a much larger number of smaller investors who were of particular importance in the lesser provincial ports such as Rye, Poole, Dartmouth and Barnstaple. The economic structure of reprisal ventures, which came to maturity during the 1580s and 1590s, facilitated the development of a substantial passive investment in the business which mobilized or exploited the resources of adventurers of modest means. As a joint stock venture based on a customary distinction between shipowners, victuallers and the ship’s captain and company, there was ample opportunity for shipwrights, carpenters and other craftsmen, shop keepers, butchers and bakers, ale-house keepers and others to contribute to fitting out a vessel for a reprisal voyage, in exchange for a share in captured prizes. This structure spread the risks of reprisal ventures across local communities. At the same time it widened support for the war, generating a self-interested patriotism that was dependent on plunder and increasingly liable to provoke disorderly or piratical enterprise.
The scale of reprisal ventures amounted to a form of national sea power. Expeditions sent out by well-funded partnerships rivalled royal fleets in size, strength and capability. Moreover, the practice of consortship at sea brought together significant numbers of men-of-war of considerable force. But the private war of reprisals was not a national conflict. Geographically it was restricted to certain region
s of England, while its social base was sectional in character. Evidence for the three years following the Armada campaign, from 1589 to 1591, indicates that English adventurers were involved in promoting about 100 reprisal voyages a year, involving about as many vessels. Though subject to short-term fluctuation, this capability was sustained throughout the war. In 1598 more than eighty recorded voyages occurred. These are minimum estimates, based on limited and patchy evidence. Nor do they include the potentially significant number of unlicensed vessels operating along a porous borderline between legitimate reprisals and disorderly, piratical enterprise, which grew in volume during the closing stages of the conflict.43 In sum, the actual number of vessels annually engaged in lawful and disorderly depredation, as well as in piracy, fluctuated between 100 and 200, and in some years it may have been even greater.
This private sea war was heavily dominated by London, with the support of Bristol, Plymouth and other ports in south-west England. Approximately one-half of the recorded total of 236 ships sailing on reprisal from 1589 to 1591 came from London, Plymouth and Bristol; the proportion was more than 70 per cent when other ports along the south-west coast, from Poole westwards, are included. The importance of London grew during the course of the war. By 1598 it accounted for half of the eighty-six vessels known to have been operating with letters of reprisal. This trend was accompanied by an apparent decline in activity within the south-west, especially at Bristol. London’s leading role was underscored by the tonnage of shipping employed in the war. While small ships of less than 100 tons accounted for more than half of all vessels sent out on reprisal during the early phase of the conflict, London contributed about two-thirds of the small number of larger and stronger ships, of 200 tons and above. By the closing years of the war, as the number of smaller vessels declined, London’s share of the latter had increased significantly, accounting for more than 80 per cent of such ships operating during 1598.44
As might be expected, given its potential targets, the sea war attracted little or no interest in ports and harbours along the east coast or the north-west. In addition, neither Welsh nor Irish adventurers appear to have been heavily involved in sending out ships on reprisal. Indeed, Irish vessels were vulnerable to English attack on the grounds that they were trading with the enemy.
Although an impressive volume of shipping was employed during the sea war, it represented a mixed force made up of miscellaneous vessels of varied tonnage, armament and manning. Many were small or modest trading ships adapted or converted to carry more men and ordnance. Such ships increased in size during the 1580s and 1590s, especially those which were engaged on long-distance trading voyages into the Mediterranean, creating a body of strong, well-armed vessels readily adaptable to the functions of private men-of-war. A small number of larger vessels were constructed to serve in the latter capacity; appropriately named, they were comparable in most respects to the Queen’s ships. One of Cumberland’s vessels, the Red Dragon, built to serve as a warship in 1595 and subsequently re-named the Malice Scourge, was of 600 tons burden. But successful plunder often depended as much on speed and manoeuvrability as on strength and armament. As a result small vessels such as the Catherine of Weymouth, of 35 tons and armed with four small ordnance, continued to operate very successfully, much as many pirate ships had done during the 1560s and 1570s.45
These vessels were engaged in the plunder of Iberian trade and shipping, within and beyond Europe. Many of the hunting grounds visited by English men-of-war were regular haunts for pirates, whose knowledge and experience of sailing in familiar and unfamiliar regions helped to pave the way for the more extensive and organized campaign of reprisals after 1585. The Channel, western approaches and the Bay of Biscay were regularly infested with large numbers of lesser predators, involved in short raids on vulnerable trading and fishing vessels that were increasingly indiscriminate in the selection of targets. Larger vessels haunted the coasts of Spain and Portugal, particularly at headlands and capes, preying on coastal traffic, and occasionally consorting together in anticipation of meeting richer prizes returning from the Caribbean, Brazil or the East Indies. In December 1587 forty English vessels were reportedly sailing about Cape St Vincent, effectively laying siege to the coast and taking booty worth 250,000 crowns. Two years later there were reports of 100 English ships off the Cape, taking ‘every ship, French or Spanish, that seeks to pass’.46 Voyages to the Canary Islands and the Azores were an outgrowth of this raiding which also encouraged transatlantic venturing. During the 1590s English ships in the Mediterranean began to combine trade with plunder, though it rapidly became disorderly and piratical in nature.
Although hunting grounds within European waters attracted most of these raiders, the Caribbean also became a frequented haunt for ships sailing on reprisal. The incursions of English men-of-war during the 1580s and 1590s turned the region into a dangerous and defensive frontier zone for the Spanish monarchy. In effect the conflict at sea was a means by which transatlantic piracy was transmuted into lawful plunder, in a way that represented an unofficial extension of sea power in the service of commercial as well as predatory ambitions. Within a widely scattered and exposed region, which Spain struggled to defend, English predators rapidly developed the experiences of pirate groups from the 1570s. As during the early wave of illegal depredation, moreover, they benefited from the occasional assistance of renegades or native groups. During the war at least 235 men-of-war, accounting for seventy-six expeditions, sailed to the Caribbean, while the actual total may have been well in excess of 100 expeditions and 300 vessels. After a slow start, reprisal ships of varying size and armament swarmed in the West Indies, raiding local shipping along the coasts of Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica, the Tierra Firme coastline – especially east of Cartagena – and within the Gulf of Honduras. The palpable threat to commerce and shipping, as demonstrated by the presence of thirteen English vessels off Havana in 1592, revived widespread alarm and anxiety among Spanish officials and settlers. Despite attempts to improve local defences, settlements even in sensitive strategic areas remained dangerously vulnerable to English assault.47
The character of activity in the West Indies acutely revealed the underlying strengths and weaknesses of English depredation. Although the Spanish repeatedly identified the English as corsairs, questioning the legitimacy of operations within the Caribbean, in practice many of those involved in such raiding were among the leading supporters of the war against Spain. But they were not the spearhead of an offensive maritime campaign which was organized and controlled by the state; instead they operated in a private and strategically uncoordinated capacity. Though sanctioned by the regime, the monarchy was directly involved in only two major ventures of 1585 and 1595, both of which had mixed results. In these circumstances plunder and profit overshadowed tactical or strategic purposes. Furthermore, there were occasions when English men-of-war were as much competitors in the search for Spanish prizes as they were collaborators in a war against the enemy. The mixed groups of raiders who haunted the Caribbean during these years may have been among the more dynamic element of the war effort, but they were also opportunistic, fragmented and ill-disciplined in character.48
The evidence for several ventures sent out from 1588 to 1591 demonstrates the dangers and difficulties of prize hunting in the West Indies and beyond. The 1588 voyage of the Examiner, set forth by John Watts with his brother, Thomas, as captain, was marked by an undercurrent of discontent between the master and the latter. It culminated in a violent attack on Thomas, who was left with a crippled arm as a result. In the following year an expedition led by John Chidley, a gentleman from Devon, originally intended for the South Sea, ended disastrously due to the outbreak and spread of disease, demoralization and mutiny. Although the expedition broke up after the death of Chidley, one vessel, the Delight, sailed on for the Straits of Magellan, only to turn back in the face of the continued loss of life. It returned to England with only six of the original company of ninety-one men and boys alive
. Such dangers were compounded by the ever-present threat of Spanish hostility. Thus in June 1591 the Content, a man-of-war sent out by Sir George Carey, was caught off the western coast of Cuba by a fleet of enemy warships. The ensuing conflict raged from seven o’clock in the morning until eleven at night. The ship was badly damaged, while one member of the company was killed and two others were wounded. The number of casualties might have been greater, but for the fact that at least ten of the crew had taken refuge in the hold. A change in the weather, described by one of the survivors as a gale from God, enabled the Content to evade further action.49
Despite such dangers, English reprisal ships seized an impressive haul of enemy prizes. Within the first three months of the conflict twenty-seven Spanish ships were seized, while more than 1,000 vessels may have been taken during the war years.50 A significant number of neutral vessels were also taken, allegedly because they were trading with the enemy in contraband goods. In addition, an unknown number of ships were piratically spoiled or seized. According to the regulations governing the conduct of the sea war, all captured vessels were to be returned to England to be adjudged as lawful prize by the High Court of Admiralty, but there were powerful motives and opportunities for the companies of men-of-war to dispose of their captures illegally in overseas markets, especially in the ports of south-west Ireland and north Africa. During the first two years of the war, plunder from at least fifteen vessels, most of French origin, was brought into Irish ports and sold, often with the approval of local officials. The booty included a ship taken by Captain Courtenay, which was laden with sugar, wool, oil and an abundance of silver.51
Even so, reprisal ships operating within the confines of the regulations returned with varied and sometimes rich returns. There were wide fluctuations in the seizure of enemy prizes, ranging in annual value from £100,000 to £200,000. The most common type of prize, accounting for about one-half of the total number of captured cargoes, was made up of European commodities, particularly wine, timber, corn and fish. The more valuable prizes were of American goods, including sugar, hides, logwood, ginger, gold, silver and pearls, though ships laden with treasure were rarely taken. In total they accounted for more than three-quarters of the total value of prize cargoes. Because of their size and armament, few vessels returning from the East Indies were captured. However, one of the richest prizes taken during the war was a Portuguese carrack, the Madre de Dios. This huge prize was captured in 1592 off the Azores, on the return voyage from the east, but only after a prolonged conflict involving five of Cumberland’s ships acting in consortship with a fleet of men-of-war, in which the Queen had an interest, and other reprisal ships. The value of the cargo, of spices, jewels, perfumes and gold, was close to £500,000, but the prize was so extensively pillaged that Cumberland and the other promoters were left to share out £140,000. For the principal adventurers, this may have barely covered the cost of the venture.52