MARITIME HISTORY 



at the risk of their lives. The west country was swept bare of men ; on 

 2 2 August Lord Russell wrote to the Privy Council that in Dorset and 

 Devon the fishing boats were ' manned ' by women ' which I think hath not 

 been seen.' West-country privateering was so successful, and so dangerous 

 to our relations with neutrals, that in April, 1546, Henry ordered that no 

 privateers should sail from Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, and that all at 

 sea should be recalled."* Poole had its share of this success, judging from a 

 question relating to the payment of prize money which came before the 

 Council."^ In 1545 a French fleet was outside Portsmouth and the opera- 

 tions there are recorded in all local and general histories ; but it appears that 

 they were also on the Dorset coast in 1544, although that fact has escaped 

 notice. A witness giving evidence in 1580 mentioned that the French 

 attacked Lyme in 1544 but were beaten off;"' possibly the new defences 

 saved Weymouth a similar experience. It has been observed that the 

 burgesses of Lyme obtained a grant in 1535 to enable them to repair the 

 Cobb, which was then described as made ' with great timber pight and pyled 

 very deep in the ground, filled in with great rocks and stones between the 

 said timber.'"' Melcombe, in 1543, was again pardoned nearly the whole 

 of the money due for its tenths and fifteenths, and therefore was evidently 

 in no flourishing condition. 



The occurrence of piracy and wrecking becomes more noticeable 

 during the reign of Henry VIII, not because the offences were more preva- 

 lent — there were probably fewer cases than during preceding centuries — but 

 because documentary evidence is more plentiful and because suppression was 

 attempted more seriously. Henry was no more likely to allow his authority 

 to be contemned at sea than on land ; and to make it felt at sea, even in time 

 of peace, was one way of enforcing the maritime supremacy of England he 

 had always in view. No single life could have been long enough to see 

 complete success, but the steps he took mark a great advance in the organiza- 

 tion of repressive measures, and only the application or extension of them 

 was left to his successors. It had been found that the existing system of 

 trial for piracy was nearly useless, the offender having to confess before he 

 could be sentenced, or his guilt having to be proved by disinterested witnesses 

 who, naturally, could seldom be present at sea. By two statutes, 27 Hen. 

 VIII, cap. 4, and 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 15, such crimes were in future to be 

 tried according to the forms of the common and not, as hitherto, the civil 

 law. Probably for the better administration of these statutes and for other 

 reasons — the execution of a treaty with France concerning depredations at 

 sea, the strict protection of the king's and Lord Admiral's rights in wreck and 

 other matters, the registration of the ships and men available and the levy of 

 seamen, the examination of ships going to sea touching their armed strength 

 and the peaceful nature of the voyage, the exaction of bonds from captains 

 and owners as security for good conduct, and the safe keeping of prizes and 

 prize goods — it was deemed advisable to have round the coast permanent 

 representatives of the Lord Admiral who should be of higher social rank and 

 armed with greater authority than the deputies who had hitherto visited each 



'" Acts ofP.C. 13 April, 1546. '" Ibid. 14 Oct. 1546. 



'" Exch. Spec. Com. 715. 



'" Exch. Misc. ■^. This construction is shown in the Cottonian map of 1539. 



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