May 9, 191 8 
Land & Water 
13 
mess-deck. Bent almost double to keep from butting the 
low-swung hammocks, I tripped the more easily over a box 
of empty tins, and fell with one arm sousing elbow-deep 
into what proved to be a tub of "frozen" grease. Surveying 
the draggled cuff of my jacket in the morning my servant 
pronounced his verdict without a moment's hesitation. 
"Tumbhn" into 'Boney Joe's' pickin's last night, sir, was 
you," he said with a grin ; "we's alius doin' it oursel's." 
On a number of other occasions certain syrenic notes 
which came floating up to my cabin from the mess-deck 
were variously ascribed to '"Boney Joe' doin' 'is rounds," 
" 'Boney Joe' cadgin' for grease," and " 'Boney Joe' singin' 
'is 'Momin' 'Ate.'" I had several pictures of "Boney 
Joe" in my mind, but not one of them came near to fitting 
the handsome, strongly built, and thoroughly sailorly man- 
o'-war's-man wliom Mr. C introduced to me as the 
bearer of that storied name on the following morning. Only 
a sort of scallywag twinkle in his eye revealed him as a 
man who liked his little joke. 
Mr. C was called away at this juncture, and left cock 
of his own dung-hill "Boney Joe " became at once his own 
natural self. The sailorly man-o'-war's-man disappeared in 
an instant, and only one of the drollest characters in the 
British Navy remained behind. "I'll be showin' you 'ow I 
goes out to drum up me bone trade," he said, throwing an 
empty sack over his shoulder, and replacing his be-ribboned 
cap with a crumpled Homburg hat. "Now, 'er's wot I sing 
tu 'em. Made it up mysel', too." 
With a quick double-shufHe, he began footing it up and 
down the junk-cluttered deck of the "bonatorium," singing: 
'Eave out all yer dead an' dyin', 
'Eave out all yer bones an' fat, . 
'Eave out the stiff o' ' LittI' Willie,' 
An' I'll give you my 'at. 
" Why celebrate Little Willie ?" I asked in perplexity. "I 
don't trace the connection between the 'dead and dying,' 
and 'bones and fat,' and the— the earthly remains of the 
Crown Prince." 
"I ain't celebratin' 'em," explained "Joe" ; "I'm abomi- 
natin' 'em, so to speak. My reference is to the dead an' 
dyin' sojers th' Kaisur cooks up to make glysreen frum. 
I brings in Willie jest to make 'etn ieel how they'd like it 
if 'twas their turn next." 
There is a "Boney Joe" on every ship of the British 
Navy to-day. We could do with a few more of him in 
civil life. 
Climax of the Two Great Wars: By j. Holland r 
ose, Litt. D. 
IN a former article I sought to compare the military 
and naval situation of Great Britain relatively to her 
enemies in the years 1810-11 and 1917-18, which may 
be considered the climax of the two struggles. 
Now I am concerned with questions of food supply, 
•commerce, and finance at the two periods. As before, 
I i leave the reader mentally to supply, many present 
■details, and I concentrate attention chiefly on the years 
i8ro-ii. 
There can be little doubt that Great Britain then occupied 
a position respecting food supply sounder than she now does. 
The population was about one-third of the present numbers 
and the potential area for tillage greater. Owing to agri- 
cultural reforms and improvements in the breed of oxen and 
sheep, British farming was . far the best in the world. In 
fact, we were just in the position best suited to face Napoleon's 
• continental blockade. Further, he never sought to prevent 
food coming to our p>orts, but rather encouraged such imports 
in the belief that he was harming us by draining away the 
reserves of gold.* Such a course of action now seems 
singular ; but we must remember, firstly, that the England 
of those days grew enough corn in average seasons to suffice 
for 49 weeks out of the 52, whereas home-grown corn usually 
lasts for about 10 weeks only. To Napoleon, then, a policy 
of starvation may well have seemed impossible. Secondly, 
he was a mercantilist of the crudest type, and believed that 
a great volume of imports weakened a country ; and as our 
credit .declined somewhat in 1810 he sought to increase the 
drop by allowing imports of com at the then high prices. It 
so chanced that bad harvests occurred in all the years 1809-12 
of the Napoleonic ascendancy. Ill-luck in weather condi- 
tions has certainly dogged us during this war ; but our 
forefathers had to face four bad harvests in succession at a 
time when the great conqueror was excluding them from 
intercourse with all the Continent except Turkey and parts 
of the Spanish Peninsula. Accordingly, the average price of 
wheat rose from about 45s. the quarter (pre-war price 
previous to 1793) to 95s., 103s., 92s. 5d., and 122s. 8d: 
in 1809-12. t 
Drastic expedients were adopted to assuage the dearth. 
The distillation of spirits from grain was prohibited in those 
years, as it had been in 1795, 1800, and 1808 ; and public 
opinion demanded the prohibition. At a large meeting of 
the inhabitants of Liverpool on November 4th, 18x1, the 
Mayor being in the chair, it was unanimously resolved, on 
the motion of Mr. John Gladstone (father of the statesman) 
that a petition be drawn up requesting prohibition by royal 
prerogative until the assembly of Parliament. It ran thus ; 
". . . In times like the present, when no dependence can 
be placed on receiving supplies of foreign corn, it becomes of 
the first importance to husband to the utmost the crops of 
this country." . . . (unless prohibition be soon reinforced) 
"the distUlers will have laid in their stocks of grain for the 
• For proofs see my Napoleonic Studies {fj. Bell & Sons, 1904), 
jjp. 196-221. 
t Porter, Progress of the Nation, sec. ii, ch. i. Tooke's estimates 
are higher. 
season, a large proportion of which will either be distilled or 
converted into a state unfitting it for the food of man."* 
There was need for drastic action. Owing to Napoleon's 
rigid enforcement of his Continental System and his annexa- 
tions in 1810, intercourse with the Continent almost ceased 
in 1811, and whereas in 1810 we imported nearly ij milUon 
quarters of wheat and wheaten flour, not much over a 
quarter of a million entered our ports in 1811, when the 
harvests throughout Europe failed. The narrowness of our 
sources of supply (viz., France, Germany, and Poland in peace 
time) was in itself a source of danger. Australia then raised 
barely enough corn for her infant settlements, and America 
sent mere driblets. In 1810, William Cobbett, who had 
been over there, asserted, with his usual perverse dogmatism : 
"America never did, and never can, give us any very large 
supply." He therefore prophesied that the quartern loaf 
would sell at 2s. 6d. by Christmas. It sold at just half that 
price (as his Political Register testifies), and remained at that 
figure till the autumn of 181 1, when it rose to is. 6d., and 
more still in 1812. Best Danzig wheat then fetched i8os. 
the quarter at Mark Lane — a price, I believe, never exceeded. 
The collapse of Napoleon's power in 1814 brought the average 
to less than 73s. — approximately the same as in 1807. Thus, 
the unfortunate coincidence of a run of bad seasons with the 
climax of the Napoleonic System brought England in the 
winter 6f 1811-12 to the verge of starvation, though he never 
designed to starve us. On July i6th and August 6th, 1810, 
he issued instractions for the export of com from Italy to 
Malta and England, as such a step would help Italian finance. 
In 1811-12 he seems either not to have known of our dire 
straits or to have clung to his notion of raining us by 
increasing the excess of imports over exports.J In either 
case, his action, or inaction, saved us from a crisis of extreme 
gravity, which, as will shortly appear, produced deep dis- 
tress among the poor. But that state of things was wholly 
exceptional, and due to the causes just explained. 
A comparison of the average price of wheat in 1809-12 
with that for 1917-18 shows the f.,llowing average prices : 
In 1809-12, 103s. 4d. per quarter (at Tooke's estimates, 
105s. 5d.) ; in 1917-18, about 75s., with a tendency to a 
gradual rise. Government control has doubtless checked this 
tendency. Still, the fact remains that Germany's sub- 
marines, operating against these crowded islands, have not pro- 
duced the dearth which characterised the years 1809-12. 
The failure, hitherto, of the submarine campaign could not 
be more signally demonstrated. Sir Eric Geddes stated on 
November ist, 1917, that the net reduction in British mer- 
cantile marine in the four preceding months had been 30 per 
cent, less than he had estimated in July. Furthermore, 
wheat — the most vulnerable of our necessaries — sells at Uttle 
• T. Tooke, Thoughts on the High and Low Prices of the Years 
1793-1822, app. vii. 
t W. Cobbett, Political Register, for June 23rd, 1810, and Tables 
of Prices. 
I Cobbett writes {Polit. Register ior November 23rd, 1811) : 
' ' Napoleon is . not fool enough to prevent the exportation of com 
while it brings him back our hoarded gold." 
