A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



with the supply of men for Lord Thomas Howard's fleet to the Azores. The Ports claimed to be 

 exempt except for their 'service,' although 'of late by Her Majesty's prerogative and by Her Highness's 

 commission mariners have been taken up within the Ports for Her Highness's service.' l It was late 

 in the day to put forward the mediaeval 'service,' which they had ceased to provide and was 

 now useless, as an excuse for failing to share the obligations due from the rest of the country. The 

 subject of thifTr privileges as a whole was under debate in the House of Lords in March, 1593.* 



In December, 1595, the Cinque Ports were warned that they would be required to furnish 

 four ships, to be manned, armed, and provisioned for five months at local charge, to serve with the 

 fleet the next spring, although the object was not stated for it was not then decided by the 

 government. 3 On this the Ports petitioned for some relief, and the assessment was reduced to two 

 ships and two hoys. 4 They then resolved among themselves that of these four vessels, Romney, 

 Rye, Winchelsea, and Hastings, with their members, -were to prepare two; a further subdivision 

 assigned 50 tons of shipping to Rye, 40 to Hastings, 1 5 to Winchelsea, and eight to Seaford. 6 

 The Cinque Ports ships were only used as transports, but many independent privateers and traders 

 accompanied the fleet on the chance of plunder or freight from Cadiz. Among them was the 

 Hercules, 150 tons, of Rye, a newly-built vessel, and no doubt there were others from the Sussex 

 ports ; the Hercules sailed again in the Islands voyage of 1597, but the county had for long supplied 

 men rather than ships. A petition of 1598 states that in 1588 and 1596 the Cinque Ports sent 

 j,20O men, a fair proportion of whom no doubt came from the Sussex section. 6 Thomas Lake, a 

 jurat of Hastings, commanded a ship at Cadiz in 1596, where he was engaged in the action which 

 preceded the entrance into the harbour and the capture of the city. He brought home a ' monu- 

 ment ' from one of the Spanish ships, which was placed in the south chancel of St. Clement's 

 Church. 7 The Sussex people were in better case during the Spanish war than in previous 

 centuries, for raids were not to be expected and their coast and ports did not tempt a far-off enemy 

 as a base for invasion. Their chief vexation was from privateers, and in 1596 the Ports volunteered 

 to fit out six ships and a pinnace to clear the eastern Channel, but, as in 1587, they made conditions 

 which were not acceptable to the government. 8 



A series of appeals from the mayors and jurats of Rye to the Privy Council, during the reign 

 of Elizabeth, for help in restoring the harbour, show its progressive deterioration, but small draught 

 vessels like the fishing boats would be the last to be affected by the shoaling. So many Cinque 

 Ports boats followed the North Sea fishery that in 1575, when the Lord Admiral sent two ships as 

 convoy, he required the Lord Warden to levy a rate in aid within the liberties ; Rye, as one of the 

 ports principally concerned, protested against this as an evil precedent.' The pamphleteers who 

 wrote on the North Sea fisheries during the reign of James I do not mention the Cinque Ports, nor 

 those of Sussex, among the English towns interested, which shows that however important locally 

 their share can have been but of small national moment. In 1619 the jurats of Rye protested 

 ' their miserable poor estate ' in consequence of the decay of the harbour by reason of which their 

 trade had gone and the fisheries were following, so that there were hundreds of fishermen reduced 

 to beggary ; 10 only a few fishing-boats were ' yet remaining.' As this statement was made in 

 response to the assessment for the Algiers fleet it may be regarded as emphasizing the worst side 

 of matters. 



The peaceful reign of James I gave little occasion for military or naval levies, therefore there 

 are few references to the Ports. Rye had long been one of the recognized channels of com- 

 munication with France, and when commissioners were appointed in 1608 to examine all passengers 

 inwards and outwards, the town was linked with Dover and Sandwich as the only three licensed 

 places of arrival and departure. 11 A little later Pevensey and Winchelsea were added. These 

 instructions, so far as Rye, Dover, and Sandwich are concerned, were repeated in 1628 and 1640 ; 18 

 the Rye passage-book, between i August, 1635, and 30 March, 1636, shows 215 names. Rye 

 remained the customary route for Dieppe, and in 1644 one of the passage-boats, with cargo to the 

 value of 3,000 and ' persons of quality' on board, was taken by a royalist privateer from Wey- 

 mouth. During Elizabeth's reign and afterwards it was also the postal route, 13 but letter carriage 

 was prohibited in 1636 in consequence of an agreement between the English and French authorities 

 to confine it to Calais and Dover. 14 London and the other great ports were now monopolizing 

 ocean trade, and there was only a coasting traffic left for the smaller towns which had formerly a 

 share in such over-sea trade as then existed. Mr. R. G. Marsden has compiled a list of trading 



I Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. iv, 98. * Ibid. 104. 



* Acts of P.O. 21 Dec. 1595. 4 Ibid. 8 June, 1597. 



* Hasting MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), 356. ' Cecil MSS. viii, 543. 



' Hastings MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), 360. ' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. riii, App. iv, in. 



' Ibid. 49. " Egerton MS. 2584, fol. 139 ; Add. MS. 5705, fol. 82. 



II S.P. Dom. Jas. I, xxxviii, 14 ; xliii, 34-7. " Rymer, FoeJ. rviii, 1042 ; xx, 423. 

 " Lewins, Her Majesty's Mails, 9. " Add. MSS. 6344, fol. 40. 



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