LES ROLES D'OLERON

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case the sailor was advised to submit, and to hide himself from the Master's sight, in the forecastle; but if the Master followed him there, then the sailor might stand on his defence, for the Master ought not to pass into the forecastle after him. The Thirteenth Clause provided that, if any differences arose between the Master and a sailor, the Master ought to "deny him his mess" (that is, make him go without his meal), thrice, before he turned him out of the ship.

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Articles relate to the regulations for mooring the ship; and to injuries resulting from one ship fouling another.

The Sixteenth Article required the Master, when the ship was ready to load, to ask the crew, "Will you freight your share yourselves, or be allowed for it in proportion with the ship's general freight?" And the sailors were bound, then and there, to answer, and to make their choice.

By the Seventeenth Clause, the sailors from Brittany were to have only one meal a day from the kitchen; but those from Normandy were to have two meals; and when a ship arrived in a wine country the Master was to provide the crew with wine.

The Eighteenth Article related to the payment of the wages of the sailors; and it was held that the whole of the wages was not due until the ship was safely brought back to her destination.

The Nineteenth Article provided that, if the engagement between the Master and the sailors was broken off by war, pirates, or the command of the king, the seaman was entitled to have a quarter of his wages for the whole time of his engagement.

The Twentieth Clause enacted that, when in a foreign port, only two sailors from the ship might go on shore at one time; and they might take with them one meal of victuals, "as much as they can eat at once," but no drink. They were bound to return to the ship so that she should not lose a tide; and they were to be held responsible for any damage resulting from their default in this respect.

The Twenty-first Clause related to detentions, and to the payment of demurrage.

The Twenty-second Clause relates to the selling of goods from on board to provide for the ship, in which the laws of bottomry (or borrowing money on the security of the ship) were enforced.

The Twenty-third Clause enacted that if a pilot, or a “lockman" (a term applied to harbour pilots), undertook to take a vessel into port, and the vessel miscarried through his ignorance, and he had no money to make recompense for the damage, or otherwise to render full satisfaction, then he was to lose his head and

:

The Twenty-fourth Clause gave to the Master, or any of the mariners, or to the merchants on board, full power to cut off the head of the offender, without being bound in law to answer for it.

The Twenty-fifth Clause provided that all pilots, who in connivance with the Lords of the coast, or who, to ingratiate themselves with such Lords, ran a ship on shore, should be

hung on high jibbets near the place where these accursed pilots brought the ship to ruin: and which said jibbets are to abide and remain to succeeding ages in that place, as a visible caution to other vessels that sail thereby."

The Twenty-sixth Clause provided that the Lord of the place who should permit such crimes, or who should assist others in such villainies, so that he may have a share in such wrecks, shall be apprehended, and all his goods confiscated and sold, in order to make restitution; and "he himself shall be fastened to a post or stake in the midst of his own mansion-house, which, being fired at all the four corners, all shall be burned together: and the walls of the house shall be demolished, the stones pulled down, and the place made into a market-place for the sale of hogs and swine only, to all posterity."

Article Twenty-seven relates to losses from any accident which might result from the ship being badly found.

Articles Twenty-eight, Twenty-nine, and Thirty, adjust the respective shares in fishing-boats, when worked in partnership: and also relate to the salvage from shipwrecked vessels, in which the right of all shipwrecked persons to their own goods is fully maintained.

PUNISHMENTS FOR OFFENCES

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The Thirty-first Article provides that any wreckers who plundered a ship, and who, to gain possession of the goods, “should murder and destroy poor shipwrecked seamen, should be plunged into the sea till they be half dead, and then drawn out from the sea and stoned to death."

The remaining Articles deal with such matters as goods washed ashore, wrecks, and so forth. The Forty-fifth Clause is quaint. It provides that a ship, having to cut her cables and proceed to sea through stress of weather, is still entitled to the cables and anchors; and "any person detaining them from their lawful owners, shall be reputed a thief and a robber."

The Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Articles apply to the timbers of wrecks, when the crews should be all lost, or perished. The pieces of the ship were declared still to belong to her original owners, notwithstanding any custom to the contrary, "and any participators of the said wrecks, whether they be bishops, prelates, or clerks, shall be deposed, and deprived of their benefices "—and if lay people, then they were to incur the penalties previously recited.

Swearing and gambling would seem to have been, from quite early times, weaknesses to which seamen were particularly prone. In Richard I.'s expedition to the Holy Land, he ordered that if any seaman on board any of the ships should be found playing at dice, or any similar game, he should be plunged into the sea, three mornings successively, as a punishment.

Swearing, on board ship, in the middle ages had reached such a pitch that Pope Paul III. issued, in 1543, a decree prescribing the most severe penalties for "this most damnable custom," which penalties were renewed in another decree issued, in 1582, by Pope Gregory XIII.

Moncenigo, in 1420, flogged every common sailor guilty of blasphemy, or even of swearing; and fined "every sailor of the poop, steersman, officer, or gentleman, a hundred sous, who should be guilty of a like offence." Many offences of seamen were, in the middle ages, punished by the whip, or the cato'-nine-tails; but receiving a ducking overboard three times successively was, perhaps, one of the most common forms of

punishment. This mode of punishment was first used by the English in the twelfth century; the offender being, by means of ropes, lowered down on one side of the ship, passed under the bottom, and hauled up again on the other side. This was known as "keel-hauling," a name which has survived till the present day.

SHIPPING UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS

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CHAPTER II.

British shipping under the Plantagenets-The action off Sandwich in 1217 -Pirates in the Channel-Letters of Marque-The Great Fleet of Edward III., 1340-List of the ships-The coal trade of the northShipping under Richard II.-Navigation Act-Defence of the country by the merchant ships, 1406-Maritime affairs under Henry V.-The fleet for the invasion of France-Important change in the Mercantile Marine during the reign of Richard III.

DURING the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the English monarchs, constantly engaged in continental wars, had entirely to rely on merchant ships for fighting purposes; but as the office of the ship was simply to convey the archers and the other soldiers who were the real combatants, the particular kind of vessel employed was of no very great moment. It was such a fleet-composed, for the most part, of ordinary merchant ships-that engaged the French ships off Sandwich in 1217. On the 24th of August in that year a fleet of eighty large vessels, under the command of a famous pirate, known as Eustace the Monk, put to sea from Calais with reinforcements for Prince Louis, who then was in England.

Hubert de Burgh, a resolute and able man, with an English fleet of forty sail, left Dover, and met the enemy off Sandwich, the English commencing the attack by "a dreadful discharge of arrows from the crossbow-men and the archers." The British ships rushed against the enemy's vessels with their iron beaks, sinking many of them; and the sailors, “availing themselves of their position to windward, threw pulverised quicklime into the French ships, whereby their men were blinded."

In this celebrated action the ships contributed by the Cinque