The British Navy and the Tobacco Trade of Virginia and Maryland

The tobacco trade between Virginia, Maryland, and England was the most important transoceanic trade of the seventeenth century. It employed more ships, more men, and brought a larger return to the exchequer than any other branch of English commerce. A survey of this trade will furnish some insight into conditions on board ship in the period, and a good illustration of the convoy policy pursued by the English government.

Striking evidence of the importance of the trade in the eyes of the rulers of the British Empire is found in the fact that in 1691, a war year when the needs of the Royal Navy required a curtailment in the number of ships and sailors engaged in the merchant service, the Virginia trade was allotted 45 per cent of the tonnage and 30 per cent of the men permitted to sail for all ports. That 125 of the 300 ships allowed to the merchant service in that year were assigned to the tobacco trade was in part due to the desire of the Treasury to collect the £200,000 in customs which the return cargoes would bring. Nevertheless, the number 125 represented a reduction of serious proportions in the size of the fleet which annually sailed to Virginia and Maryland.

In the enormous growth of that fleet may be seen a justification of the Navigation Acts, which had a twofold purpose: (1) to build up the merchant marine and the personnel available for service in the Navy, and (2) to make England the clearing-house for colonial products. One clause of those acts required that colonial tobacco must first be carried to England, and carried only in English ships manned by English crews. In 1636 twenty-one ships were sufficient to carry home the tobacco crop of Virginia and Maryland. By the end of the century the average annual fleet numbered 175 vessels, employing 2,500 seamen. To the mercantilist pamphleteer, indeed to nearly every Englishman, the tobacco trade furnished a complete proof of the wisdom of England’s policy. It had swelled the national income and had been a prolific “nursery of seamen.”

The seamen whom it “nursed” must have needed, although it is improbable that they felt, some sense of nation building to compensate for the hardships they suffered. The Virginia voyage was a hard one, dangerous for ship and crew. The Atlantic crossing was long—it averaged 75 days out and 45 days homeward—and arduous. The climate of the Chesapeake, if the ships were delayed very far into the summer, menaced vessels with the ship- worm and the crews with various fevers. Logs of the period present a story of sickness and death and tedious waiting, rarely mitigated by adventure or humor.

Typical is the experience of Edward Rhodes, mate of the Baltimore, who set out from Gravesend on December 16, 1672. Six weeks were spent in the English Channel waiting for the tobacco fleet to assemble. By the middle of January three seamen, a passenger, and the doctor had died. On the twenty-second the quartermaster died. More cheerful was St. Valentine’s Day, when “a woman layd in on bord.” A month later another passenger died. Cape Henry was finally sighted on April 13. The next four months were occupied with going from plantation wharf to wharf, loading tobacco. After a fair return voyage of 38 days Land’s End was sighted. On September 18 the Baltimore ran into Plymouth, and three days later was driven on the rocks while trying to clear the harbor. Of the cargo only a small part was saved. The ship went to pieces. Mr. Rhodes ended his log with this prayer: “Finis. I pray God send me better fortune the next voyage. I went from Plymouth to London by land. Cost me 5 pounds.”

The next voyage was comparatively uneventful, but in the passage of 1674-75, when Rhodes had risen to the command of his own ship, two passengers died, one fell overboard, and another “had his other legg cut ofe his other being cut ofe sometime before.”

To these regular difficulties of the Virginia voyage must be added the dangers arising from war and piracy. Of the 61 years from 1652 to 1713 England was formally at war during 28. And the pirates of the French coast and the Mediterranean, whose boldness occasionally led them into the English Channel itself, left little safety for unprotected shipping even in times of nominal peace.

Encounters with privateers and men- of-war were sometimes amusing or exciting.

A French privateer hailed three detached ships of the Virginia fleet in October, 1675, fired two shots across the bows of one, and ordered her captain to come aboard. Why he escaped so lightly we do not know, but the only punishment inflicted was that he was forced to pay for the powder and ball used in the two shots!

More exciting and more profitable was the adventure that befell the crew of the Little Bartlett in 1672, during the Third Dutch War. Four days before they were due to reach the Virginian coast they were hailed by an English ship. When the master, Nicholas Prim, and part of the crew rowed over to find out what was wanted, they discovered that the English ship was a prize in the hands of the Dutch. The inquisitive Englishmen were made prisoners, and the Dutch sent a long-boat full of men to seize the Bartlett. This division of forces was unwise. The captives in the English prize overpowered their Dutch captors and took the ship to New England. At almost the same time the crew of the Little Bartlett were turning the tables on their captors and were sailing on to Virginia.

But such incidents did little to make up for the toll of ships, cargoes, and men which every war and constant privateering exacted.

In 1677, to cite one especially tragic case, the pirates of Algiers, in the English Channel itself, seized thirteen ships of the tobacco fleet and took their crews—161 in all—prisoner. A year and a half later the relatives of these miserable men were still petitioning the House of Lords to effect their ransom. In the middle of the year 1679 another Algerian raid cost several ships.

Privateers sometimes made captures almost under the nose of the British fleet. In June, 1711, a gale temporarily blew offshore Admiral Hardy’s fleet which was blockading Dunkirk. Eight privateers slipped out and, before anything could be done to stop them, captured 16 out of 22 homeward-bound Virginia ships. This loss was the culmination of a series of disasters during the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1710 four ships out of a fleet of 10 were burned in the Channel, and, in January of 1711, the French had taken 9 Virginia ships and one out of two convoying frigates.

Even more dangerous, perhaps, were the Dutch men-of-war. In 1667 four of these raiders took a tobacco ship off the Virginia coast, then ran into the James River. Here, after defeating the protecting frigate Elizabeth, they seized 18 ships. They finally sailed away with 11 laden captures. This loss affected especially the merchants of Bristol, who had enriched the Dutch with 6 ships carrying 3,300 hogsheads of tobacco, in the preceding two years. Nearly as bad was the damage done in the Third Dutch War, when the Dutch burned 6 ships and made prize of 5 more, again in the James River.

The tobacco ships sometimes suffered from the zeal of their own navy. In May of 1689, the Averilla, Abraham Wild, master, was within 6 hours’ sail of the English coast, homeward bound, when she was stopped by the man-of-war Henrietta. Six of the Averilla’s “best and ablest men” were impressed, “thereby rendering the rest of the miserable ship’s crew, which were only thirteen—uncapable of sailing the ship, and defending her, in case of an attack.” The master assured the captain of the warship that if he were convoyed to port the entire crew would be willing to enlist, but the plea was disregarded. The very next day the Averilla was captured, undermanned as she was, by a French privateer.

The same fate, incurred for the same reason, met the Barnaby in September of 1689.

It was also not infrequent that English men-of-war, having recaptured a Virginia ship previously taken prize, would loot her of a great part of her cargo. This is not surprising, perhaps, in view of the fact, reported to the House of Commons, that there were sometimes “brewers’ clerks put in for commanders by the Admiralty.”

The heavy losses in the tobacco fleet naturally led to various attempts at protection.

Some effort was made to enable the merchant ships to protect themselves. To this end they were often armed, and sometimes given letters of marque which would entitle them to make reprisals. In 1653 at least 20 such private men-of-war were chartered. Of a fleet of 53 tobacco ships ready to sail in 1694, 49 were armed. The average number of guns per ship was 14. When we learn, however, that the crews averaged 18 men, we are led to conclude either that the “guns” were so small as to be scarcely worthy of the name, or that the Royal Arsenal had found a good market in which to dispose of some antiquated ordnance no longer of any use to the Navy, and fit to serve rather as a mental comfort than as a real defense. The only adequate protection must have come from the Royal Navy.

An efficient convoy system was hard to maintain, and the English government, as well as the Virginia merchants, was never satisfied with the results of its efforts.

One difficulty was that, in the days of sail, it was next to impossible to keep together a large fleet for the duration of the Atlantic crossing. The experience of the Baltimore in 1672, when she left the Downs in company with 140 sail and made Cape Henry with only 10 in sight, was not exceptional. Nor were wind and weather altogether responsible for this tendency to scatter. Commanders of convoys sometimes made no effort to keep their charges together. There was always a temptation for the fast sailers to slip away, thus beating their slower companions to market and gaining a better price for their cargoes of tobacco in England, or of manufactured goods in Virginia.

Another difficulty lay in the magnitude of the natural conditions involved—a 3,000-mile distance between stations, which rarely could be covered in less than 2 months. When convoys were delayed, merchant captains were anxious to get their ships out of the worm-infested waters of the Chesapeake, and to cut down their wage and insurance bills by getting to England as soon as possible, convoy or no convoy. Relief of warships on the Virginia station, scheduled to act as convoys for homeward bound fleets, was often delayed. Thus, in 1701 the Shoreham, waiting to be relieved by the fourth-rate frigate Southampton, was retained in Virginia for the defense of the colony, while a fleet of 49 tobacco ships had to sail to England without protection.

The Virginia trade was also especially difficult to protect because of the length of time the tobacco fleet spent in the Chesapeake and its tributaries. Although it tried for years, the English government was never able to persuade the colonists that their system of lading was economically wasteful. The same large ships which made the Atlantic crossing would go up and down river and creek, picking up 50 hogsheads of tobacco at one wharf, 10 at another, 5 at another, etc., doing the work that could have been done more cheaply by small boats before the fleet arrived. The result was that the Virginia voyage, with time at sea averaging but 4 months for the round trip, occupied nearly a year.

This posed an awkward dilemma for the government. Reasonably sure protection could be afforded only if the warships remained with the tobacco fleet from the time it left England until it returned home. This procedure would involve a very great expense. To keep a frigate at sea cost about £400 a month. The usual number in a convoy would be 4 warships for 60-70 merchantmen. At least two such fleets a year would be required to transport the crop. The total expenditure would therefore amount to nearly £40,000 a year, and even then some losses would be sure to occur. To this expense would have to be added the quicker depreciation caused by the shipworm of the Chesapeake, and the consequent need for more frequent reconditioning. On the other hand, if reliance were placed on a convoy at each end of the trip, leaving the merchantmen to protect themselves for the remainder of the voyage, faulty contact would ensue. With no radio, with inaccurate instruments of navigation, and with an uncertain motive power, there was every chance that a convoy putting out from Plymouth to meet the homeward- bound fleet and guide it through the danger zone of the English Channel might miss it entirely.

Faced with this dilemma, the government never adopted a settled policy. In the case of an exceptionally large fleet, or in time of unusual danger, full convoy for the entire round-trip voyage was sometimes provided. Such complete protection was granted reluctantly by the Navy, whose first care was the safety of England herself. In 1696, for example, the convoy was ordered to remain in the colonies for 110 days only. An urgent plea by the merchants was necessary before the frigates were ordered to remain until lading was completed.

As if all these problems were not enough, the British government had also to contend with the fact that the interests to be protected could not decide on a settled policy. For various reasons of self- interest the London tobacco merchants wanted one thing, the traders of the western ports—Bristol and Whitehaven—another, the shipowners another. Even the planters of Virginia and Maryland were not united.

And, lastly, an adequate convoy system was an achievement far beyond the abilities of the infant bureaucracy which called itself the Admiralty. Besides the prevalence of graft to a degree which seemed commonplace at the time, but which would be incredible in any modern navy, there was much downright inefficiency. Two examples out of the many available will suffice for illustration.

In 1696 the Admiralty ordered two ships to be ready to sail for Virginia in October in order to convoy home a fleet which would be ready to sail in February. On December 31 the ships were not yet ready.

A more flagrant instance, which was the subject of an investigation by Parliament, occurred in 1705-1706. In October, 1705, 60 tobacco ships sailed for Virginia convoyed by 2 men-of-war who were to remain in Virginia until re-enforced. It was promised that in January, 1706, two additional frigates would be dispatched to help convoy the fleet home. Those frigates did not sail until May and reached Virginia in August, after several of the tobacco ships had been rendered unfit for service and after all the owners had already paid out their total freight receipts in wages and stores. As the merchants complained to the House of Lords,

to compleat their misfortune, they were forced to make a winter passage home; and, by the badness of the weather, etc. sixteen or more ships were sunk or foundered in the sea, and about eight thousand hogsheads of tobacco lost; other ships, with above two thousand hogsheads . . . more, were taken, and carried into France; and divers of the ships were forced back to America; and since, returning without convoy, are lost, and not heard of.

All these losses and the whole problem of convoys were thoroughly investigated by Parliament in the session of 1707. The result was a law (6 Ann c. 65) regularizing the convoy system. So many frigates were to guard the Channel, so many were to patrol the Virginia station, so many were to sail in company with the tobacco fleets, etc. But no law is self-enforcing, and great losses continued. The effective action of American commerce raiders in the War of Independence and the War of 1812 shows that, even after Britain was the undisputed ruler of the seas, she was still unable to protect effectively her ocean-borne trade. Efficient convoying was impossible before the days of rapid communications and steam propulsion. When those days arrived, the tobacco trade of Virginia and Maryland was no longer England’s responsibility.

He was not one of those suspicious Commanders who believe that no subordinate can act intelligently. If he demanded the strictest compliance with his instructions, he was always content to leave their execution to the judgment of his Generals: and, with supreme confidence in his own capacity, he was still sensible that his juniors in rank might be just as able. His supervision was constant, but his interference was rare.—Colonel Henderson, Stonewall Jackson.