

MARITIME HISTORY 



but the amount was subsequently reduced considerably ; the assessments were : Hastings ^29, Rye 

 18 12s. 8d., Winchelseaji8 181., Pevensey 31 IQJ. 6</.,and Seaford 4 iSs. 1 The strained rela- 

 tions existing between the king and his subjects caused the former to give some attention to the coast 

 fortifications, but Camber Castle was now quite inland, being a mile from the sea. 2 Nothing there- 

 fore was done, and in 1643 it was open to the sky and to any one who wished to help himself to 

 timber and lead. 3 In spite of this description there was an order of the House of 26 August, 1642, 

 to remove the guns from the castle to Rye. 4 As for the ship-money fleets, local history throws 

 more illuminating side-lights than general history on the disastrous incapacity with which the 

 squadrons which cost Charles his throne and life were used merely as a pageant. The deposition of 

 the master of a Rye passage boat, which had been plundered by a Dunkirk privateer, mentions 

 . that he had seen 34 others on the coast, and that there was always one stationed permanently 

 outside the harbour. 6 The same story was echoed from Newcastle to the Land's End ; the fleets 

 paraded pompously and uselessly, had not cleared the Channel of privateers and Algerian pirates, and 

 could not even make the Dutch fishermen take the licences they had been equipped to force upon 

 them, although the failure in this respect was carefully concealed. 



All the more considerable ports, the worst sufferers by Charles's naval maladministration, stood 

 by the Parliament even in royalist counties, and although inland Sussex may have held a divided 

 allegiance we read that 'on the seaboard the Parliamentary cause was supreme.' There could have 

 been no doubt about the zeal of the Rye people, for they sent a large quantity of lead from the ruined 

 Camber Castle for the use of the Parliamentary troops. 6 Six guns from Rye were transferred to 

 Shoreham in 1643,' and it was probably the inutility of Camber Castle and the unarmed state of 

 Rye that led to a proposal in 1645 to build a fort at Dungeness to protect the harbour ; 8 this was 

 rejected, not as needless but for want of money. In 1646 there was an idea, on the royalist side, 

 of landing at Hastings the French troops the queen was trying to obtain abroad, but Waller's move- 

 ments inland put an end to the plan. During the Civil War, while the weak Parliamentary fleet 

 was occupied with more important duties than police work, the Dunkirk and Ostend privateers sail- 

 ing under a royal commission enjoyed profitable times, and Beachy Head was one of their favourite 

 lurking places. 9 As the new government could not afford to lose the goodwill of the coast towns 

 one of their first preoccupations, when ships were available, was to provide protection for the 

 merchant and fishing fleets ; in 1649 we find an order to convoy all the Sussex boats bound for the 

 North Sea. 10 In the following year the Council of State, in view of the many complaints of vessels 

 taken on the coast of Sussex, ordered an inquiry into the conduct of the men-of-war captains held 

 responsible ; u it was long since any such firm hand had controlled naval action. In March, 1652, 

 convoy was ordered for the Sussex fishery, and in July, 1653, in the midst of the Dutch war, the 

 Brighton owners petitioned for a convoy for 50 boats sailing for the North Sea, and no doubt 

 obtained it. 



The first Dutch war of 1652-4 was very popular among English seamen, but Sussex took 

 little part in it beyond the provision of men. The era of the armed merchantman had not yet 

 passed away, but the minimum limit of such ships was now 200 tons and the county had none such 

 for the fleets. The pressure upon the government yards, owing to the necessity for turning out 

 fighting ships as fast as possible, led to the employment of every private yard available, and one 

 fourth-rate, the Dover, was built at Shoreham in 1654, but by a London builder who apparently 

 hired extra accommodation for a time at an out-port. The Dover was the first man-of-war of the 

 modern navy built in Sussex. 12 When, later, the question arose of building more war ships at 

 Shoreham, it was remembered that although the shipwrights there turned out good work in smaller 

 merchantmen, the Dover when launched could hardly, for want of water, be got out of the harbour 

 to go to Chatham to be fitted. 13 The opening scene of the war was enacted within hearing, if not 

 within sight, of the Sussex coast. On 18 May, 1652, Blake, who had been lying in Rye Bay for 

 a week previously, was off Fairlight, whence he moved up to Dover to encounter Tromp, anchoring 

 in Rye Bay again after the action. Six days later came an order to press all able seamen between 

 fifteen and fifty years of age ; at first there was no difficulty in obtaining men, although there was 

 more trouble afterwards when fleets grew larger and the counter-attractions of privateering, and the 

 higher pay offered by private owners, took effect. By March, 1653, only elderly and useless men 

 were left at Rye, and Frenchmen were being hired to man the fishing boats. 1 * Vice-Admiral 



1 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, ccccxxiii, 93. "Ibid, cccxxx, 20. 



* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. iv, 213. * Commons Journals, ii, 742. 



4 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, cccclii, 63. The captain, two officers, and fifteen of the crew of the one which 

 boarded him were Englishmen. 



'Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. iv, 214. 'Ibid. 213. 



8 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, 1 1 March, 1645. 'S.P. Dom. Interreg. I August 1649. 



10 Ibid. 22 June, 1649. " Ibid. II September, 1650. " See Appendix of Ships. 



" S. P. Dom. Chas. II, clxiii, 69. " Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. iv, 220. 



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