The Sailor King and I

My grandfather, the painter Charles Hopkinson (1869-1962), was a contemporary and  friend of the English essayist, novelist, and Poet Laureate John Masefield (1878-1967). The two shared a love of the sea (as every schoolboy knows, Masefield wrote “Sea-Fever,”  which begins “I must down to the sea again,” though almost everyone who quotes it thinks he meant to write “I must go down to the sea again...” Wrong).  

Hopkinson proposed a fourth verse for Masefield’s poem “Cargoes,” which contrasted the glamour and beauty of an ancient Phoenician galley and a Spanish galleon with the grime and grit of a “dirty British coaster.” Hopkinson’s addition celebrated the “Saucy Yankee schooner with her high-peaked mainsail, thrashing down to Gloucester in a Northeast gale.”  Masefield loved it.

 In August 1919 Masefield gave Hopkinson a handsome house present, a leather-bound copy of the 1784 edition of William Falconer’s An Universal Dictionary of the Marine. I acquired the book, which I had long admired, from Hopkinson’s estate some 30 years after his death.

The dictionary, commonly just called “Falconer,”  was first published in 1769, the year of Falconer’s death in a shipwreck. It went through four major revisions, the last greatly expanded in 1815.  Facsimile copies of the book have been made, and there are now several digitized versions.

   

The book was immensely popular among sailors, shipwrights and naval architects, and routinely carried aboard British naval vessels throughout the age of sail. It not only provided thousands of definitions of nautical terms and tactical maneuvers; it contained many fold-out plates, illustrating marine equipment and armament, diagrams of naval maneuvers, navigation methods, and construction details. My edition has a dozen such plates, filled with exquisite drawings, charts and diagrams. Those plates have been cut out of many of the other existing copies, perhaps by shipwrights needing them as guides for construction details, but, happily, mine is intact.

The book also contains a glossary of French nautical terms, and scattered throughout, amplifying various definitions, are comments reflecting the prevalent attitude of Britons toward their neighbors across the Channel, with whom they had been almost continually at war since 1756. Here’s an example:

“RETREAT, the order or disposition in which a fleet of French men of war decline engagement, or fly from a pursuing enemy.”

A footnote helpfully adds: “As it is not properly a term of the British marine, a more circumstantial account of it might be foreign to our plan.”

I have spent many pleasant hours flipping through the pages of my copy, admiring the feel of the paper, enjoying the definitions, and fascinated by all the detailed drawings.

But the most interesting distinguishing feature of the book, aside from Masefield’s gracious inscription to my grandfather, is the old bookplate glued to the flyleaf. I had admired it at once; it depicts the seal of the Order of the Garter, a belt inscribed “Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense;”  (Evil to Him who Evil Thinks). Within the garter are the initials, “W. H.” and above it is a royal crown.

This whetted my interest, of course. I knew of the Order of the Garter, established in 1348 by King Edward III and still one of the world’s most exclusive clubs today. Its members are the King or Queen of England, the Prince of Wales, no more than 24 Knights or Ladies Companion of the Garter, Royal Knights and Ladies (members of the immediate Royal Family), and “Stranger” Knights and Ladies (Kings or Queens of other countries).  There are currently 39 in all categories. But I didn’t think the insignia of the Garter included a crown, unless its holder was a member of the British Royal Family.

Presumably all of the members of the British Royal Family have been and are members of the Order, but how many would own or want a copy of Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine?

Careful students of the swashbuckling sea-stories by Patrick O’Brian will at this point raise their hands and cry “I know! I know!” because in many of the series’ 21 volumes appears the figure of Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence, fourth son of George III. In fiction and in life he was somewhat of a rake – and an Admiral. “Prince Billy” actually served at sea, commanded Naval vessels, and would certainly have wanted a Falconer’s in his cabin and on his nautical bookshelf ashore. When he was crowned King William IV in 1830 (he was succeeded by his niece Victoria upon his death in 1837), he became known as “The Sailor King.”

William IV, The "Sailor King." Note the Order of the Garter on his left  arm and leg

 For years I sent fruitless inquiries to various experts in heraldry and English royalty: is this The Sailor King’s bookplate? Nobody seemed to know.

Then I did the smart thing and asked Greg Gibson, an antiquarian bookseller, purveyor of all sorts of maritime arcana, and one of the smartest people I know, if he had any idea how to find the answer to this question. Of course he did. While we were chatting in his cozy, cluttered office, he swung around in his chair, typed out a query to a group of his colleagues on his computer, and five minutes later handed me this:

Thanks, Billy. I'll take good care of it.

A Watergate Memento

A few weeks ago the progressive advocacy organization Common Cause held a meeting in Washington, DC to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of Watergate. Shortly thereafter I received this handsome certificate in the mail: 

Of course I was tickled to be so honored, though by the time I learned I was on the list, it almost seemed that there were more people on it than off it.

I had saved an old Washington Post article, dated December 21, 1973, that contained the list of 490 names of new Nixon enemies, on top of an earlier list of 216 names, and after rummaging through many old files, I found the clipping, yellowed and brittle, but still legible.

The headline caught my eye then, and still amazes me now. It declared, “Shultz, IRS Ignored Dean Bid for Audit of ‘Enemies’.” George P. Shultz, Richard Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury, simply told White House Counsel John W. Dean and, in effect, President Nixon himself, to stuff it after Dean had presented the list to the IRS Director Walters in September, 1972.

By the time the story came out, both the IRS commissioner, Johnnie Walters, and John Dean had resigned. But what was interesting was that Shultz himself had ordered Walters to ignore Dean’s request for a special IRS audit of Nixon’s enemies. I don’t recall anyone saying at the time that  this was a act of courage, or at least of integrity, but it certainly was a reason to admire George Shultz, and to be grateful that the IRS wasn’t poring through my tax records.

Why was I on the list? In the 1960s and early 1970s I was the director of a small lobbying organization that played a role in the congressional effort to deny the Nixon Administration funds for a nationwide antiballistic missile system. We almost succeeded; the Senate vote was a 50-50 tie, which was not enough to win but sent a clear message that the program was in trouble.

Then, in 1972, I was on a defense advisory task force for Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern.  One day a Washington Post photographer showed up at McGovern’s house to record a meeting of the task force – clearly a photo op designed to show he was educating himself on important national security matters. The photo that appeared next day in the paper was pretty clearly posed, and columnist Joseph Alsop, as I recall, ridiculed the whole affair as a farcical staged event.

 

When the second enemies’ list came out, almost everyone in the picture was in it, more or less in the order listed in the caption. That’s me, third from the right, listening to Sen. Frank Church. (If I’m not mistaken, everyone else in the photo has since died, though I haven’t kept in touch with McGovern’s secretary Pat Donovan – who was spared by the list makers).

As news continues to unfold about IRS workers examining the applications of right-wing organizations for non-profit status – seized upon by Republican critics as “auditing” them – it’s worth noting the distinctions between Nixon’s transgressions and Obama’s supposed involvement in the current brouhaha. There are plenty of them, not least that while Nixon not only knew of but ordered many of the Watergate abuses, President Obama was not aware of the possibly improper actions of a few misguided bureaucrats until he read about them in the papers, long after the mistaken actions had been found out and corrected. Were it not for the blood lust of the Obama-haters in Congress and the right-wing media, there would have been no reason for him to know that a few low-level bureaucrats had made a mistake.

Whether the so-called “Watergate Reforms” that followed the scandal have endured, and whether the political landscape has improved markedly in forty years is another question.  You could argue that the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, for instance, has done far more damage to the American political process than Nixon and Watergate ever did. 

Don't Give Up the Ship?

From the Boston Globe, May 19, 2013, Page K2     Don't give up ... oh, never mind Behind the iconic American slogan, a military loss - and a PR win By TOM HALSTED       200 YEARS AGO, on June 1, 1813, in the midst of a bloody sea battle between an American and a British frigate a few miles north of Boston, one of America’s most memorable wartime slogans was born. As the mortally wounded Captain James Lawrence of the US frigate Chesapeake lay dying in his cabin, his crew locked in hand-to-hand combat on the quarterdeck above, he is alleged to have uttered the memorable words: “Don’t give up the ship!”       His rallying cry, published a few weeks later in a Baltimore newspaper, became the unofficial motto of the US Navy for decades thereafter, long predating “Remember the Maine” or “Remember Pearl Harbor.” Just two months after the battle, a bright blue banner emblazoned with Lawrence’s words flew at the masthead of a namesake vessel, USS Lawrence. Its captain, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, won a decisive victory on Sept. 10 over British naval forces in the Battle of Lake Erie.       Given the way it has echoed through the years, you might think Lawrence’s memorable plea marked a heroic moment in the history of American armed forces. It didn’t. Not only did Lawrence’s surviving crew give up the ship almost immediately after his exhortation; historians and military analysts would later conclude that Lawrence had disobeyed orders to avoid combat in the first place, then committed a series of tactical blunders that all but guaranteed he and his ship would lose.      Rather than a heroic stand, what took place that day and after was one of the most spectacular—and fraudulent—public relations coups in American military history. It was carried out with the full support of the public. And to look back on what really happened, as it has been pieced together by historians since, is to appreciate how little has changed about one aspect of war: our need to transform even the most pointless losses into a noble, defiant message.      IF TELEVISION had existed, the battle between the Shannon and the Chesapeake would have been a prime-time event. The skirmish took place about a year into the War of 1812, which had broken out over several grievances with Britain, including onerous trade restrictions imposed by the British and the illegal boarding of American vessels in search of British deserters. Once war was declared, the British Royal Navy began hobbling American trade by blockading ports, including Boston, with warships based in Nova Scotia.       In late May 1813, Captain Philip Broke sailed the HMS Shannon, flagship of the blockading British squadron, into Massachusetts Bay alone, knowing the Americans had only one frigate ready for sea in Boston. On June 1, the Chesapeake rose to the bait.       Unlike most sea battles, which take place far from land, the whole encounter seemed made for public consumption. Spectators lined the rooftops in Boston and along the North Shore, and commanders of both ships repeatedly had to warn a boisterous spectator fleet of yachts and small boats to stay clear.      The first shot was fired at 6 p.m., the last at 6:11. The colors were struck at 6:15. The roar of cannon fire, the stabbing flames from the cannons’ mouths, and the smoke of battle could be heard and seen all along the coast.      Nearly every American observing the preparation for battle was confident the Americans would win. American ships had astonished the world in recent months by repeatedly defeating supposedly superior British naval forces, starting when the US frigate Constitution defeated the HMS Guerri?re. In Boston, plans were laid for a banquet to celebrate the anticipated victory of the Chesapeake over the Shannon, including places at the table for the defeated British officers. But none of the guests ever arrived.      It should have been clear at the outset that Lawrence was terribly outmatched. He had taken command of the Chesapeake only two weeks before, and that reluctantly; he had wanted and felt he deserved command of the famous Constitution, then in drydock for repairs, and had no experience working with the young officers, who were new to the ship. Half his crew was also new, untrained in working together, and all were angry that they had not been paid for weeks. Some reports asserted that many in the crew were drunk on June 1.      Broke, by contrast, had had command of the Shannon for more than seven years. His crew knew him so well that they could work the ship with scarcely a command being uttered. Their gunnery, enhanced by special sights designed by Broke himself, was among the best in the fleet. So, despite the Americans’ confidence, the stage was set for their crushing defeat. Broke provided it, but he got plenty of help from the American captain. Broke brought the Shannon within a few miles of Boston, and then hove to, waiting for the Chesapeake to come out. Lawrence came down upon the near-stationary Shannon from upwind, and, in what can only be interpreted as an act of bravado, swung the Chesapeake around to lie parallel to the Shannon, giving both ships an opportunity to exchange lethal broadsides.       The carnage was enormous. In less than 15 minutes, 40 members of the Chesapeake’s crew were killed and 96 wounded, while the Shannon had 34 killed and 56 wounded.       The Chesapeake’s headsail sheets and wheel were quickly shot away and she drifted helplessly downwind toward the Shannon, where sharpshooters in the Shannon’s fighting tops could rain down fire on the American frigate’s deck. A shot felled Captain Lawrence, who was taken below, where he uttered the famous words, according to the doctor who was attending him.       As the ships collided, Broke seized the opportunity to lead a boarding party onto the Chesapeake’s quarterdeck. In the hand-to-hand fighting that followed, Broke, too, was badly wounded by a saber cut to his skull. But the Americans’ colors were soon hauled down, the Royal ensign raised above them, and the battle was over.       BYANY NORMAL measure, Lawrence should have been held responsible for a costly and unnecessary defeat. He had had strict orders to avoid contact with the enemy and instead to slip through their blockade in order to harass enemy merchant ships in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. These he totally disobeyed, losing a frigate and his life in the process.       His famous exhortation, too, was breached immediately. With no American officers on deck to formally surrender, the British officers now in command of the Chesapeake’s quarterdeck simply declared the fighting over, raised the British colors over the American flag, and imprisoned the surviving American crewmen below decks. The two ships sailed off in tandem to the British naval headquarters in Halifax, Nova Scotia, leaving the American spectators dumbfounded.       No American heroes emerged from the engagement. The first and second lieutenants were wounded, the fourth lieutenant killed. Third Lieutenant William Cox was never able to regain the deck after taking Lawrence below, and was therefore made the scapegoat, convicted of leaving his place of duty, and dismissed from the Navy in disgrace. (His family and descendants tried for years to clear his name. Finally, in 1952, President Truman pardoned Cox and posthumously restored him to his former rank.)       Lawrence died en route to Halifax. Having committed a succession of bad decisions that all but guaranteed the loss of his ship and many of her crew, he should have been disgraced. Instead, he was lionized: given a funeral in Canada with full military honors, buried there, then disinterred and brought back to Boston for another funeral, reburied in Salem, dug up once more, and finally buried for good at Trinity Church in New York.       Though the true disgrace was Lawrence’s, the American public would not allow it. They had wanted a victory on June 1, and if they could not have a victory, at least they wanted a hero—and a story that helped them find nobility in defeat. The details of the war might seem distant, but the impulse to create heroes in the wake of pointless loss is as familiar as Custer’s Last Stand or the saga of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Two centuries ago, we were already seeing the picture we wanted—and, in that spirit, Lawrence’s failures were forgotten and his memory reshaped to position him as the hero he always wanted to be.          Tom Halsted, a Gloucester writer and sailor, is the great-great-grandson of James Curtis, a midshipman who, as a 15-year-old, was Lawrence’s aide-de-camp on the Chesapeake.