THE NAVY IN THE DAYS OF ELIZABETH.

Evening Star, Volume III, Issue 839, 13 January 1866, Page 2

THE NAVY IN THE DAYS OF ELIZABETH.

Thanks, also, to Sir William Monson, we know how the British sailor was fed on board her Majesty’s ships under Queen Elizabeth-. There were four “flesh days” in the ; week, during which he had beef and pork, with peas alternately. On fish days he had salt fish, ling, or cod, with seven ounces of butter and fourteen ounces of cheese. His allowance of beer was handsome, a gallon daily, or a quart at every meal. There was a surgeon on board each ship, who had a mate under him Sir William contrasts the cleanliness of our vessels with that of the often finer and larger vessels of the Spaniards, which, he says, were “foul and beastly.” At thO same time there were complaints of the pursers and their abuses—complaints which lasted for generations. Sometimes the beer stank, the butter was rancid, and the cheese populous. These articles vanished from the naval dietary, however, in the course of time ; while the purser was succeeded by the genteel “paymaster” of our age, who. would as soon think of picking a messmate’s pocket as of swindling one of the ship’s company, either in the matter of slops or pay. Whatever the harshness, however, with which the seamen of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries was treated—and one of his punishments, we may mention, was to have his tongue “gagged or scraped” for blasphemy —he was already observed to be fond of grumbling. >Sir William Monson loved him much, had confidence in him, and lost no opportunity of advancing his interests. But he tells him of his faults with fearful plainness of speech, and that in the course of a generally complimentary dedication. —Cornhill Magazine. , .