MARITIME HISTORY 



shows that, as a rule, the vessels plundered were of too small value for the matter to be taken up 

 by the government, but that the offence was open and had attained a national notoriety is proved 

 by Congreve's public reference to it in six lines of the epilogue of The Mourning Bride, published in 

 1697. For that to happen Sussex must have been earning its reputation for many a long year 

 previously. The habit of wrecking died hard ; as late as 1836 the coastguard officer of the district 

 reported that when a ship came ashore in Seaford Bay some hundreds of persons assembled for the 

 purpose of plunder. Historically the custom of wrecking among the people may be traced by 

 descent and permeation as an extension of the legal, if iniquitous, right of wreck granted to indi- 

 vidual landowners ; fishermen and others soon learned to keep as much as possible for themselves, 

 and, if necessary, to help to make wrecks. 



On 30 June, 1690, the English and Dutch, under Lord Torrington, fought Count Tourville 

 off Beachy Head, and lost the battle, the allied fleet being seen in retreat from Rye. A dismasted 

 man-of-war, the Anne, was run ashore off Pett Level, and fired by her captain to avoid capture, the 

 crew being brought into Rye, where there was much panic, to assist in the defence, which was to 

 be maintained by guns, protected by a breastwork of deal boards, on the beach near Camber Castle. 

 Two Dutch ships were burnt by the French in Pevensey Bay, and two more were ashore on the 

 White Rocks at Hastings, in which town the Dutch landed 250 wounded. On 4 July the French 

 bombarded the place, where there was instant expectation of a landing, and the women and 

 children were sent inland. 1 On 5 July Tourville was off Rye again, and the next day, when 

 his boats were seen taking soundings up the harbour, a landing was regarded as certain. The 

 French admiral, however, sailed down Channel. Although the French fleet departed, the coast 

 remained infested by privateers, and in 1692 the Hastings fishery was said to be in danger of ruin 

 from them ; these privateers also carried Jacobite emissaries to and fro, the Dungeness and Rye 

 levels being favourite points of arrival and departure. 2 In 1677, war with France being thought 

 imminent, Parliament granted a sum of money for the construction of 30 men-of-war ; they were 

 all large ships and none was built in Sussex. Again, in 1691, Parliament voted the money 

 for 27 war ships, all too large for Sussex to launch, but it will be seen 3 that about this time the 

 Shoreham builders, Thomas Ellis, Nicholas Barrett, 4 William Collins, Thomas Burgess, and Robert 

 Chatfield, were busy in the construction of fifth-rates and smaller ships. 



The vast increase in the navy necessitated by the war with France caused a concomitant 

 demand for docking accommodation to which the royal yards were unequal. Plymouth had been 

 founded, but there was still room for another dockyard and no doubt if the national finances had 

 been in better condition it would have been established. In 1698 two members of the Navy Board, 

 assisted by three masters of the Trinity House, went along the south coast to visit and report upon 

 the capacity of the harbours as stations for the proposed additional yard. 5 Of Rye they wrote that 

 it was ' not capable to be improved by any tolerable charge for any service of the navy ' ; for two 

 miles there was not more than from two to four feet in the fairway at low water. At Pevensey 

 they found that as late as four or five years previously vessels of from 50 to 60 tons could go up 

 to the village, but that the haven was now closed and ' irrecoverably lost.' Newhaven was 

 dismissed as 'very inconsiderable,' and Shoreham 'admits nothing improvable,' having a dry bar at 

 low water. It was true, they said, that 3OO-ton ships were built there, but a favourable oppor- 

 tunity had to be awaited to get them to sea. Chichester Harbour was described as dangerous to 

 enter, and no fit place for a naval establishment. 



Although the French privateers had haunted Sussex waters between 1689 and 1698, they 

 could have caused little fear on shore if we may judge by the state of the Seaford defences when 

 the war of the Spanish Succession commenced. There were six or seven heavy guns in the gun- 

 garden of the town, but they were either dismounted or sunk in the ground for want of a platform. 6 

 The merchants, as in all wars, expected complete protection from the enemy, and the losses suffered 

 led to bitter criticism of the Admiralty. Beachy Head was still the favourite poise for the French 

 privateers, and during the winter of 1706-7 many English merchantmen were taken there. Off 

 Rye, on 15 October, 1706, two privateers were in sight, two on the I7th, two on the 22nd, 

 and four on the 24th ; off Eastbourne, in November, privateers were to be seen every day, and 

 sometimes eight or ten of them. 7 This state of things led to petitions to Parliament in which 

 these precise dates and particulars are given, but no doubt the same conditions existed, more or less, 

 throughout the war. In September, 1708, a privateer was lying off Brighton quietly awaiting the 

 ransom money for a prize ; another was continually off Seaford, so that the inhabitants thought it 

 * a shame and dishonour ' that such a thing should be allowed to persist. 8 



1 Kenyan MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), 242. 



* S.P. Dom. Wm. and Mary, 24 May, 1692. s Appendix of Ships. 



4 Barrett was also building at Harwich ; probably he was a Londoner who hired yards at both places. 



6 Sloans MSS. 3233. ' Treas. Papers, Ixxxi, 94. 



7 Admir. Rec. Var. ' Ho. Off. Admir. 22, 27 Sept. 1708. 



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