Englishmen at Sea: Labor and the Nation at the Dawn of Empire, 1570–1630
Eleanor Hubbard (Yale, £25)
WHOSOEVER commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.’ There was never a more succinct statement of Britain’s (at least, England’s) grand strategic policy than that articulated by Sir Walter Raleigh.
It was sad that he had to write it when in prison for plotting against James I and sadder still that he met his end by the axe on account of an act of aggressive seafaring that amounted more or less to piracy. His men had exceeded his orders, and violated the terms of the long looked-to peace treaty with Spain. In Elizabeth’s day, they would have been fêted. Piracy, like treason, is ultimately a matter of dates.
Elizabethan privateering— a privateer is a private citizen commissioned by the state via ‘letter of marque and reprisal’ to take enemy ships—attracted thousands of Englishmen to the sea. Under Elizabeth, war with Spain vastly extended the nation’s maritime purview, as did her colonies in the New World and trade in the Far East. That extended interest was far beyond the capacity of the Navy to safeguard, so privateering augmented England’s fighting power and could be highly profitable.
Here, Eleanor Hubbard charts the course of pirates, privateers and the pre-pepysian Navy ‘at the dawn of Empire’ (the Honourable East India Company was founded in the exact middle of her chosen period). It is by no means an altogether pretty picture. Letters of marque do not make piratical practices morally admirable. Nor was Tudor and early-stuart life at sea, even in their majesties’ ships, the stuff of In Which We Serve. Rape, both male and female, and other gratuitous violence is commonplace.
This is primarily an academic study, extensively referenced and well indexed, but with no illustrations or maps. For the most part, however, it is free of the growing peculiarity of academic English, and often as lively as the actions it describes. Indeed, it is an engrossing read.
This was ‘a transformative moment for England in the world,’ says Prof Hubbard. One wonders if Global Britain in a Competitive Age, the Government’s integrated review of security, development and foreign policy, will prove to be another.
Allan Mallinson
Piracy, like treason, is ultimately a matter of dates