MARITIME HISTORY 



the mackerel boats. 1 Southwold and Aldeburgh joined with Wells and Yarmouth in 1656 in a 

 petition direct to Cromwell to the effect that they had thirty-five Iceland fishing ships at sea under 

 insufficient convoy, and asked that it should be strengthened, as they had already lost many vessels 

 taken by the Dunlcirkers. 2 Lowestoft had little trade, and was therefore the more ready to engage 

 in politics ; in 1656 there was supposed to be a plot in the town and neighbourhood to receive a 

 royalist force from over-sea. 3 



Following the Dutch war came the war with Spain and the operations in the West Indies. 

 The struggle with Holland had been comparatively popular to the end, but the general knowledge 

 of the unhealthiness of the West Indies, and the terrible losses from sickness among the troops and 

 crews under Penn and Venables, rendered it impossible to obtain men without a rigorous use of 

 the press-gang. The sympathies of the local officials were with the men, for, with the new spirit 

 of freedom permeating all classes, impressment was no longer regarded as something almost inevitable : 

 to be evaded if possible, but if not, to be accepted as unavoidable. Moreover, many of the magistrates 

 and officials round the coast were engaged in maritime trade, and it was contrary to their commercial 

 interests to have their districts swept bare of sailors. The lieutenant in command of a press-gang 

 landed at Aldeburgh reported that he was abused by the bailiffs and constables and stoned by the 

 people, who routed his men. 4 At Southwold the bailiffs and constables assisted the seamen to 

 escape, and arrested a soldier of the troop of horse acting with the impress officers : ' the officers of 

 the town were so base that they (the impress party) could not get a man. In fact, as our people 

 searched one part of the town they got into the other, although they searched with candles.' 5 At 

 Ipswich the press-gang was 'much abused by the townsmen, and the constables were afraid to 

 assist.' 6 These incidents happened in 1656, and although there was no tropical service to be 

 feared in 1659 the same repugnance existed, though for different reasons. In February, 1659, 

 Captain Edmund Curtis of the Newcastle saw the bailiffs of Ipswich, who told him that there were 

 but few seamen in the town ; to which he replied that that could not be true because there were 

 IOO ships in the river fitting for sea. The next day, unknown to the bailiffs, Curtis sent up a press 

 gang ; the townsmen attacked the gang, rescued their prisoners, and brought the man-of-war's men 

 before the bailiffs, who disarmed them and sent them back to the Newcastle. 1 A month later 

 another officer appeared at Ipswich; he reported that the men 'fly into the woods and up the hills 

 as from the face of an enemy, leaving some of their ships and boats under sail adrift. ... I do not 

 know the grounds of their great disaffection for the service.' 8 The reasons were plain enough : 

 besides the personal interests of the local officials in saving the men, the Commonwealth was 

 now in such financial straits that it could not feed the crews serving in the state's ships, far less 

 pay them. It may be remarked here that the use of Ipswich canvas in the Navy extended greatly 

 during the Commonwealth, and, as long as the Admiralty could afford to pay, must have afforded 

 profitable occupation to many in the town. 



The east coast was the first part of England to be lighted systematically, and its priority was no 

 doubt due to the needs of the continuous collier traffic passing to and fro. Here and elsewhere, 

 there was a long struggle for monopoly between the Trinity House and private speculators, both parties 

 to the contest being moved by the hope of profit rather than the requirements of navigation. The 

 early history of the Suffolk lights is very uncertain ; that at Lowestoft, at first called the Stamport 

 as showing the entrance to the Stamport or Stanford Channel, was the earliest to be erected. It has 

 been assigned to 1609, and this date is probably correct as there is a petition for it, signed by many 

 Suffolk seamen, referred by the Privy Council to Sir Thomas Crompton, Judge of the Admiralty 

 Court, who died in 1608. This petition is followed by others, which can be assigned to 1608-13, 

 complaining of the weight of the Trinity House charges, so that the light must then have been 

 working. 9 A paper of 1621 says, however, that it was built by Thomas Bushell, who may have 

 been the mining engineer of that name. 10 It seems that it was put up in or very soon after 1609, 

 because on 30 May of that year the Privy Council addressed a circular to the customs officers of all 

 the ports between London and Newcastle, stating that beacons, buoys, and lights were wanted ' at 

 Stamport near Lowestoft,' and that it had been agreed between the Trinity House and the principal 

 shipowners that all vessels belonging to such ports should pay ifd. a voyage, which was to be col- 

 lected with the customs. 11 According to this it must have been under the control of the Trinity 

 House from the beginning, and Bushell's connexion with it is shadowy. Only one light, the 

 lower, was erected originally, but the fact that the Stanford Channel frequently shifts in position 

 within certain limits soon made apparent the necessity for a second light. Therefore in 1627 



1 S.P. Dom. Interreg. i, 12 May, 1649 ; iii, 28 Dec. 1649. 



* Ibid, cxxviii, 44. * Thurlae S.P. v, 407, 512. 



4 S. P. Uom. Interreg. cxxii, 131 ; cxxiv, II. 5 Ibid, cxxiv, 12 ; cxxxiv, 18. 



6 Ibid, cxxxv, 40. ' Ibid, cci, 14, 21. * Ibid, ccii, 14. 



9 Cott. MSS. Otho E, ix, fols. 446-52. 



10 S. P. Dom. Jas. I, cxix, 121. "Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. viii, App. i, 242. 



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