A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



which had given our men-of-war much trouble in Corsica. They were recommended by Lord 

 St. Vincent as useful to support such defending force as might be at hand at the moment of descent, 

 but their construction was not begun until after the renewal of the war in 1803. In Suffolk their 

 erection was commenced in 1808, 1 and those in the county we/e lettered from L to Z, with three 

 more, AA, BB, and CC. They were armed either with three 24-pounders on traversing platforms 

 or with one 24-pounder and two 5l-in. howitzers ; except M, O, P, S, U, Z, and BB, they also 

 had batteries in front of them, mounting from three to seven 24-pounders. 2 At Aldeburgh there 

 were three batteries on the beach, and at Lowestoft north, centre and south batteries, the last 

 mounting twelve guns, dated from 1805. 3 Of the towers, L and M were at Shotley ; N at Walton ; 

 O and P at Landguard ; Q, R, and S along Felixstowe Bay ; T, U, and V at the mouth of the 

 Deben ; the others, except CC, which was just south of Slaughden Quay, were along Hollesley Bay. 

 After the war M, W, X, Y, and Z, were let to private tenants; V was sold in 1820 to Lord 

 Dysart, to whom the ground belonged, and BB in 1822 ; some of the towers were used by the 

 coast blockade. 4 All three batteries at Lowestoft had been disarmed and the ground let on lease ; in 

 1822 the tenant of the centre battery was under arrest for stealing pigs. 



About 1797 there was a movement to establish a lifeboat at Lowestoft for the memory of a 

 great storm in 1770, when thirty vessels were driven ashore on Lowestoft Sands and all the crews 

 drowned, was still vivid. 6 Dunwich was considered to be another suitable place ' if it were sufficiently 

 inhabited by seamen.' According to the Annual Register boats were stationed at Lowestoft and 

 Bawdsey in 1 80 1, but if that is so it is difficult to understand why one of the fourteen boats voted 

 by Lloyds in 1802 was also sent to Lowestoft as well as one to Aldeburgh. 6 However this may 

 be, the results at Lowestoft were not satisfactory — ' motive? have been suggested but they are too 

 disreputable to be believed ' 7 — and it was decided to remove the boat elsewhere if the Lowestoft men 

 continued to hang back. In 1 821 a lifeboat was built at Ipswich by public subscription and 

 stationed at Landguard ; 8 how long this boat continued there is not known, but a new one was 

 supplied by the Admiralty in 1845. In 1825 the 'Suffolk Association for saving the Lives of Ship- 

 wrecked Seamen ' was founded, and this body placed boats at Sizewell Gap and Woodbridge Haven 

 in 1826. Manby's mortar apparatus was supplied to Orfordness and Lowestoft in 1809, the year 

 after its first practical trial at Winterton ; no further issues were made until 1815 and 1816, when 

 Kessingland, Easton, Dunwich, and Aldeburgh were similarly equipped. 



No Suffolk built man-of-war became especially famous in naval annals, but the earlier ones were 

 stoutly built vessels for they were worked hard and long before they came to their end. Those 

 whose names commemorated Commonwealth victories were rechristened at the Restoration, but as the 

 Royalists had no victories to recall the new names lacked particular significance. It will be noticed 8 

 that the Advice, Basing, Maidstone, and Kingfisher all fought desperate actions with Algerine squadrons 

 and their experience is emphatic of the dangers of the Mediterranean in the seventeenth century. In 

 the case of the Kingfisher the lieutenant, Ralph Wrenn, who fought the ship after Kempthorne was 

 killed, was awarded a gold medal and chain. Of the Maidstone's {Mary Rose) action there is a 

 picture in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, and her captain, another Kempthorne, afterwards 

 became an admiral. John Ashby, another captain of the Mary Rose, became one of the leading 

 admirals of the second rank during the earlier part of the reign of William III. Edward 

 Russell, subsequently Lord Orford and the victor of La Hogue, some time commander 

 of the Reserve, is the only one of the captains who rose to fame and high rank, although 

 some of the others became notorious if not famous ; for even among these few ships we find 

 illustrations of the low standard of discipline and personal honour characterizing the majority of naval 

 officers during the Restoration period. In 1669 Captain Wilshaw, of the Preston, was forgiven a 

 fine of ^282 IOJ. laid upon him for embezzling prize goods. A year earlier the crew of the 

 Reserve petitioned to be transferred to some other ship, as Captain Gunman sold the provisions and 

 ammunition to foreigners, used the Reserve as a merchantman, and flogged them if any of the goods 

 he shipped were missing. The redeeming quality of these men was that although ignorant, lazy, 

 drunken, and dishonest they were usually staunch fighters and, genially as they regarded each other's 

 ethical transgressions, they were severe enough when sitting in court-martial on a fellow captain who 

 had lost his ship to the enemy, a severity which was the saving salt during an epoch of which the 

 tendencies might have been permanently ruinous to naval efficiency. The depositions of the court- 

 martial on the loss of the Mary Rose show that Captain Bounty wasted three days waiting off 

 Plymouth for his wife and went far out of his course because paid to convoy a Genoese merchantman, 

 thus falling in with a French squadron. But he fought for seven hours to save the English traders 

 in his charge, and did enable them and his consort the Constant Warwick to escape. He was 



1 Add. MSS. 21040, fol. 2. ' VV.O. Ord. Engineers, cxlvii. 5 Ibid. Rents, xxxviii. 



4 Ante, p. 237. i B.M. Suffolk Cuttings, 1304 m. fol. 183. 



6 Martin, Hist, of Lloyds, 21 5. ' Ipswich journal, 13 Oct. 1804. 



e B.M. Suffolk Cuttings, 1035 1, g. I. 'Appendix of Ships. 



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