Surgeon's Mate-The Diary of John Knyveton, Surgeon in the British Fleet During the Seven Years War 1756-1762

SURGEON’S MATE

March 9, 1756: Vast excitement this morning at the breakfast table, the carrier bringing a portentous packet sealed with a huge red stamp for yr. obdt. Servant, the which was a communication from my Lords of Admiralty that thanks to the interest of Captain Amherst I have been appointed second surgeon’s mate aboard our old consort, the first rater* Ramillies, now fitting at Portsmouth for an expedition to Minorca. Must confess I was somewhat disappointed that having served the required period of four years I was not now made full surgeon, but there may be chance of this aboard so great a craft, though my pay has been reduced to thirty shillings a month. Brother George and Lydia overjoyed at my news, poor good folk, they have been very kind, but I think began to despair of ever seeing my back. And so up to my room to enter this and pack what few gears I possess, shall give my blue spotted neckerchief to Peter, and my paste buckles to young Joan, and a sixpence to the infant, and then to take the Guildford coach, and hey, for salt water! Hestley has been a pleasant resting place these eleven weeks, but shall be glad to tread ship’s planking once again.

March 11: Aboard the Ramillies, and glad enough to get here, after a journey vilely tedious from the bad state of the roads and the incessant challenges of patrols in guttural German. For so great has this threat of invasion grown that poor King Geordie, getting no help from parliament, has had to hire his own countrymen to help him, and there are upwards of four thousand Hanoverians and Dutchmen stationed now in Kent. The first night I did not get beyond Winchester, and the next day the wagon was delayed by a wheel being torn off by the mud of the roads, and I in a sweat lest I miss the ship. But on reaching Portsmouth found her moored to a sheer hulk whilst the riggers and carpenters worked on her spars, and so put off in a barge filled with seven foxed* officers and stores, and spent an hour tracing my senior Doctor Payne to make report of my arrival, the decks cluttered with gear and the new men coming aboard. The Ramillies a mighty craft, with her black and yellow sides and brown gun-ports, and the huge three tiered stern works all gilded and carved, very different from the Lancaster, and utter confusion on ship the bosun and his mates swearing and damning all and sundry to get the stores shipped, and the musketeers driving on shore the harbour women, and the gunner and his mates seeing to the ordnance, and riggers and carpenters everywhere, and cattle being driven down to the manger forrard of the main deck, with crates of poultry, one of which burst so that feathers flew all ways over the kegs of powder and barrels of salt pork and bags of flour and vegetables. Was directed to Doctor Payne’s stateroom, which is abaft the after cockpit, but he not there, and then when I find him he too busy to do more than grunt at me, and so I wandered away and acquainted myself to Mr. Westrall, first surgeon’s mate, a youth of frank and open countenance, who invited me to share his cabin, the which I took kindly of him, for the other two mates must sleep in the after cockpit with the volunteers and king letter boys, and the impudent young squibs of junior midshipmen. Our cabin starboard of the butt of the after mast, and lighted by a powder hoist from the after magazine beneath the cockpit, but this Mr. Westrall informs me must be kept shut at sea, so that we shall live by rush-light.

March 13: We have not yet sailed, there still being much to do, and also the other ships of the fleet are not yet prepared. But navy discipline is observed aboard, we rising at eight bells to the pipe of the bosun’s mates, and their shouts of Watch Ahoy, Rouse out there you sleepers! Hey, Out or Down Here! whilst the quarter masters run down the after ladders to awake such officers are on board, and the cook to prepare breakfast whilst the men scrub down the decks and stow away their hammocks in the canvas bulwarks each side of the spar deck. But their labour is always lost in the torrent of dirt which pours upon the ship as the workmen descend upon us for the day; and much abuse thereby from the bosun’s mates, and two-three fights to set the day’s duties a-going.

We are very short-handed, and the press gang has been ashore daily, dragging on men whom we the surgeon’s mates examine for the lues veneræ and the scab; and since so far we have rejected sixty-two out of a total of two hundred odd presented to us, much blasphemy from the officers of the watch.

March 19: Today thanks be to G—d we have moved away from the sheer hulk into open water, and we may now get some rest. The noise these past days has been appalling, though I learn the Ramillies is a crank craft, and much might yet be done to perfect her spars and rigging, and leaking also like a fish basket. We have only ninety guns instead of the hundred for which the ship is pierced, and little enough powder for these, nor men to work ’em. But the expedition to Minorca has been hurriedly planned, for the Duc de Richelieu threatens the island with a great fleet and a large army, and Admiral Byng will hoist his flag aboard us, and the Admiralty have bidden him make all speed.

Now we are last afloat, the officers are sternly insisting on strict discipline, and four men have been flogged for laziness and the supplejacks of the bosun’s mates very active. Each day a loblolly boy beats a pestle in a mortar forrard of the foremast and those that are sick repair to us for treatment. But as yet we have had few patients, the officers declaring the sick can wait till they are at sea to be dosed, the ship must be worked now, and not enough hands to make steering sail.

March 21: A pressgang ashore today to make complaint to the authorities that we have not enough men, and returning snaps up a few lusty lads from the market, and sundry abrasions and cuts thereby to be treated.

March 22: We have set sail for St. Helens off the Isle of Wight, and the sickbay on the starboard side of the focsle at last completed to Doctor Payne’s satisfaction, a boy pressed to keep it’s stove well stuffed with fuel.

March 25: In response to our complaints, the port today sent us one hundred and forty elderly paupers from the neighbouring parishes under guard of a file of soldiers, the parishes doubtless glad to see ’em go. These being country folk are cleanly and not too infested with vermin; not so fifty-sixty rats from the gaols and stews, which have also been rounded in and sent to us. All day we have been examining them, and fights very frequent, some being drunk and others in a vile dangerous mood of despair.

March 27: Off St. Helens, and the weather clear. Today the rest of the officers came ashore, but there is still need of men. The press gang has again been ashore, and a dozen wights captured and brought on ship more or less insensible; and more fighting between them and those recently pressed, so that Captain Gardiner orders a man from each deck to be given fifty lashes, as example to the rest. Our pumps going steadily, and stores coming aboard.

March 29: Do wonder whether we shall ever sail to relieve Minorca and some ribald talk that weeds have anchored our bottom to the sea bed. The water from St. Helens springs being good and keeping longer than all save London river water, all ship’s boats put off today to fill the water casks; and one sailor attempting to desert, was shot by a quarter master and killed.

April 2nd: Today all hands were mustered and those with shore cloathes had ’em burnt, they being very dirty. We the surgeon’s mates to make a second examination of the men, and separating the most noisome, set them to washing each other down with buckets of hot sea-water and oil of tar; and the barber to shave all their heads. The third Lieutenant, seeing our work, comes up to me and says, by G—d he is glad of our action, for, says he, the stench from the gun deck when the wind changes is fouler than a stable to those berthed aft. Slops were served from the sea-chests but ’twas found the rascally contractors had cheated us, there being for the full complement of nine hundred men, only two hundred worn and ragged suits, and ninety seven only fit to wear. But we being undermanned, there being only five hundred hands on ship, the tailors did cut these up, so that each is decent in a pair of red britches and a blue and white chequered shirt; and for the striped waistcoats and grey coats the bosun’s mates threw the dice on each deck for the men, and thereby bitter complaint from those whom Fortune did not favour, and a file of musketeers called and three men whipped, and no dinner.

April 3: Captain Gardiner has already hoisted his swallow tailed pennant to show the ship is in commission, and today comes aboard Admiral John Byng, with his chaplain and footman and valet, two cages of canary birds, several sea chests, and sundry casks of apples against the scurvy, and his flag is run up to the main top-gallant masthead. Tom Bowling our bosun today observes to me we must take lessons in deportment and ship a dancing master, for, says he, split my keel if ever I sailed with so much quality before; there being beside the Admiral, the Earl of Effingham and General Stuart and forty sprigs of officers in scarlet and gold to reinforce the Minorca garrison, the most of whose officers I learn are on furlough; and the flotilla is to ship also a regiment of foot and a hundred volunteers to fight the mounseers; and the officers wives and mistresses coming on ship and the sailors ordered by the quarter masters to make a sweet music, so that the Ramillies has today resembled a fashionable promenade in Ranelegh Gardens, though it’s serenity somewhat disturbed by the stores which are still coming aboard and the clanking of the pumps and the Jews who hang about in boats offship seeking payment for their bills or offering long term loans at a ruinous interest to the common seamen, but kept off the gangway by a file of musketeers.

April 6: Today the fleet has weighed anchor, the Ramillies in the van, and some trouble to make steering sail, the most of the hands being quite new to the sea; but since five years ago my Lord Newcastle cut down the navy total of men to 10,000, (though this has since been increased) our ships are very undermanned and the officers must make shift with what they can get.

But faithful Tom Bowling and his mates tickling the rogues up with their supplejacks, the spars were soon manned and sail shaken out; and one seaman slips on the mizzen cross trees and falling to the cross jack, slides down the great yard to fall a dead man under the nose of the helmsman at the wheel under break of the poop; and he so startled, the Ramillies begins to yaw, and the master calls another to man the helm, and then in an ecstasy of fury to kick the helmsman round the quarter deck; and a dozen other men bruised by slipping in the rigging to lie where they fell upon the spar deck, till the master roars at ’em and calls upon G—d to witness his trials, and they are carried below on the backs of the least injured to the sick bay where we attended ’em, and the masters mates soon whipped ’em up on the spars again. The fiddler very nimble with his bow, seated upon the capstan, and the look-outs posted, the cables running along the lower gun deck cleared and the anchors catted.

Men see beauty in many things, but my heart strings are ever pluckt to view the great black ships spread their snowy wings of sail and move majestically forward over the heaving seas; more especially when the sky is clear, as on this early spring afternoon.

Besides the Ramillies, there are the Buckingham, under Admiral West our second admiral, 70 guns, the Culloden 74 guns, the Captain and Revenge of 70 guns, the Trident and Intrepid 64 guns, and the Lancaster, Kingston, and Defiance, each mounting 60 guns, all of them undermanned since they have been commissioned in great haste and the Intrepid, Captain, and Culloden not well found. But we are to join with another squadron at Gibraltar, so trust we shall give the Frenchmen a trouncing.

April 7: Course set down Channel and a fair wind. Doctor Payne called all us surgeons mates to his state-room to take a glass of wine with him and discuss our future duties, and make the acquaintance of our mates. Then with him to see the sick bay and make report to Captain Gardiner, and afterwards to confer with the bosun and tell off certain elderly and infirm seamen as sick bay attendants.

April 8: To make a muster of all those sick, and to pass through the decks giving instruction in the use of the tourniquet to stop hæmorrhage, that is, explained to the common seamen and midshipmen the art of slipping a lashing round the bleeding limb of a wounded chum.

April 11: This being our first Sunday at sea, all hands were mustered after breakfast and sitting on buckets and barrels and spars on the main deck, the officer of the watch and the master conning the ship; Captain Gardiner reads to the men the Articles of War, and the Chaplain afterwards to preach a prosy sermon about God’s benefits, the which are doubtless obscure to the seamen, and to ask a blessing on our expedition, and to pray confusion and damnation on the French; men of God not infrequently being of a bloody mind, as I have had occasion to note, though their behaviour in the cock-pit even as helper is oft most womanish. Afterwards the captain, and the senior officers, and the chief officer of the watch, to make a complete examination of the Ramillies, inspecting each deck in turn, and the after and fore magazines, the sail room and stores, and every room in the ship; the bosun being in attendance, and ordered to scrape certain thick sea mold from the beams of the lower gun and orlop decks, these being very damp and much water in the bilges.

April 17: Little to enter, shaking down in my new quarters, yawned, read, played hazard. Some amusement from a wag who tied a charge of slow fire to the tail of one of the ship’s cats, and loosed it in the military officer’s mess at supper time; the cat has escaped, but a steward was nearly shot.

April 18: Divine Service, for the ship on deck, for the Admiral in his cabbinn. A fair dinner of beef and greens, which the cook says will be the last we shall get till we return, damn his eyes. A surly brute.

April 19: Performed a fair amputation of the left arm of a sailor, newly pressed, Joseph Cruttenden by name, he having been sent with others to repair the mizzen yard slings, and the rope breaking, snaps his Os Humeri in two places and into the elbow joint. Mr. Westrall was about to perform it, as the custom is, by the circular method, but as time was not pressing, I suggested we applied radical treatment by the flap; whereupon he smiled, and handed me over the knife; the sailor remarking: Take your time, gentlemen, I am in no hurry at all; so deciding to remove the limb half-way up the bone, cut first a large flap largely composed of the belly of the Bicapitis Muscle, beginning from below the place intended to make the incision, and raising enough to cover the stump; then Mr. Westrall pulled this back, Mr. Beck, fourth surgeon’s mate, holding the arm fully extended, Joseph Cruttenden leaning back against the brawny chest of a chum, and I sawed through the bone, securing the vessels with thread ligatures, and sewed over the flap with six strong stitches, clapping a dossil of lint into the inferior part. It is customary then to clap on such a common Defensative Ext. Bole. Sang. Dracon, Mastich. cum Aceto or similar dressing, but having only a little Oleum Terebinthinæ, applied this, and girded with a strong cross bandage and compresses. Mr. Westrall pleased to commend my skill, and indeed I think Cheselden could have done little more; the operation taking only four minutes by Mr. Beck’s watch, and little blood being shed. We worked throughout by rushlight; Cruttenden being first fortified with a swig of rum, and then chewing a plug of tobacco; I think he should do well.

April 22: Joseph Cruttenden does well, and I think the wound will mend rapidly, the stitches sloughing out so that there will be no need to pull at them.

April 25: My operated man continues to do well, and Doctor Payne has approved my work. Terrible noise tonight from the after cock-pit, those midshipmen new to the sea being made to sing songs against pain of drinking a quart of bilge water.

April 26: In the Bay, and making heavy weather of it, the Ramillies and her consorts shipping water and make but slow progress. Our pumps manned day and night, and some repairs to the mizzen and foremast rigging, it being old and in places rotten. The main gun deck is oft awash, but little reaches us. ’Tis mighty strange to be aboard such a huge craft, in our cabbinn we reck little of the conning of the ship, there being none of the infernal tossing of the Lancaster, only a slow heave and go and the endless creak of timber.

April 27: The freshwater has gone turbid and the sea-water has leaked into it, though I think it was put in dirty barrels. But the men are content since there is a gallon of ale per day per man, and still plenty of fresh potatoes and salted pork, and banyan days* only on Monday and Fridays. The bosuns are whipping some discipline into the crew, who poor wights are as sour faced a bunch of rats as ever I did see. Many are weak