NO, 2 LAST CRUISE OF H.M.S. LOO — PETERSON 9 



Preparations for the cruise proceeded swiftly. On June 20, the day 

 after Utting wrote his letter concerning the guns, the Admiralty 

 ordered the Captain to "make out" his pay hooks "to the 30 June, 

 1742." ^^ Five days later admiralty orders "ahout carrying candles up 

 and down the ship and drawing off spiritous liquors and an order to 

 cause the men's allowance of rum to be diluted with water when in 

 the West Indies" were issued.^" The order directed that "whenever 

 the ship's Company under your command are served with Rum, 

 Brandy, or any other spirituous liquor, instead of Beer, the same be 

 constantly issued out to them by the Purser upon the open Deck, and 

 nowhere else ; and that you do order all officers and others under your 

 command, never to draw off any arrack,^^ rum, brandy, or other 

 spirituous liquors in places under deck, but always upon open deck." ^^ 



bore the crowned rose, a device placed on royal guns during the reigns of the 

 Tudors and the Stuarts. The Loo's 6-pounders were therefore cast before the 

 death of Queen Anne in 1714. Thus they would have been at least 30 years old 

 at the time of the loss of the Loo — a fact borne out by Utting's statement on their 

 condition. 



3^ ADM 2, vol. 60, p. 34. A year's delay in paying the men was a common 

 (even usual) occurrence at this time. 



2^ Ibid., p. 41. These orders stemmed from the loss of the Tilbury, 60 guns, in 

 the West Indies through fire on September 21, 1742. The incident was reported 

 by Adm. Edward Vernon in a letter to Thomas Corbett written on the flagship 

 Boyne in Port Royal harbor, Jamaica, October 3, 1742 (Admiralty In-Letters, 

 ADM I, vol. 233, extracts.) *T am heartily concerned for the melancolly 

 account lately brought me by Captain Lawrence late of the Tilbury, who came 

 in here the 24 September in the Island Sloop, with part of his officers and men, 

 another part remaining on board the Defyance, in execution of my orders, and 

 upwards of a hundred of them having perished in the sea or fyre, on her acci- 

 dentally taking fyre, and burning, and sinking in the sea, amongst which are the 

 Master, Boatswain, and Gunner, and a Marine Officer. But I cant proceed to 

 enquire in it at a Court Martial, til the return of the Defyance, many evidences 

 that saw the first of it, being absent in the Defyance, so all I can say of it at 

 present is, that it took its rise from a Marine soldier's snatching to get a bottle 

 rum, out of the Purser's boys hand, who had a candle in the other hand, declar- 

 ing he would have a dram, and in the struggle with the boy, the bottle falling 

 and breaking, and the candle with it the rum took fire, and communicating to 

 more in the Pursers cabbin where the fyre first began, that could not be extin- 

 guished by all their diligence afterwards, tho they say, they threw all their 

 powder into the sea." Admiral Vernon at the same time submitted a copy of a 

 general order he had published to his forces two years before requiring that the 

 rum ration be served to the men on deck, and that it be diluted with water. The 

 new concoction became known as "grog" after Admiral Vernon who was called 

 "Old Grog" from his habit of wearing a "grogram" cloak. "Grogram" was a 

 coarse material of silk and mohair. The name is derived from "gros-grain." 



^^ A drink distilled from rum. 



38 Admiralty Out-Letters, ADM 2, vol. 59, p. 380. 



