PART II. CHAPTER I. THE GUNNERY TRAINING SHIPS. The Excellent, at Portsmouth, and Cambridge, at Devonport, are used as ships for training both officers and men in gunnery. The former take here a course in order to qualify as gunnery officers; the latter as seamen-gunners or as trained men. In each case a considerable increase of pay accompanies the qualifying certificates. The Excellent occupies the more important place, as on board of her most of the officers take their gunnery course. The training of the men is the same in each, a fixed course being laid down for general guidance. Moored head and stern with the Excellent, and connected with her by a bridge, is the Calcutta, another line-of-battle ship, and used as a supplementary vessel, the number of men in the Excellent being sometimes very great. There are at present at Portsmouth and Devonport about 1,900 men undergoing this training. The number under training varies with the exigencies of the service. If the demand for men is great, they stay from three to six months only; otherwise some may stay on board as much as three years. None but good-character men are taken, as time and care cannot be wasted in disciplining unruly persons. The course includes the study of fuses, cartridges, primers, powder, projectiles, and indeed everything connected with the subject of practical gunnery. There is also at Portsmouth one of the new-class gunboats used for firing afloat, and in connection with the numerous torpedo-boats, for torpedo practice. There is both morning and afternoon drill during every day of the week excepting Saturday and Sunday; on Friday there is a general exercise at quarters. For infantry and musket drill the men are landed on an island near by, used specially for this purpose. The seamen-gunners receive in this last a very careful training, enabling them, as I have before said in speaking of the services done by them in the training ships, to act as drill officers in every capacity. The facilities for study are very good; models of every article used in the service being in the model-rooms, where the seamen-gunner classes are taught. A man on foreign service may be rated acting seaman-gunner by passing an examination which by no means covers the ground gone over in the Excellent. He is obliged, in order to receive his full rating, to take the course laid down afterwards. An ordinary seaman cannot be rated able seaman until he has been examined by a gunnery officer and is proved to possess a good knowledge of the various drills. The rating of seaman-gunner carries an increase of pay per annum: With a first-class certificate, £6 1s. 10d.; with a second-class certificate, £3 10s.; the rating of trained man carries with it £1 10s. 5d.; so that, apart from the better position obtainable on board ship, there is a considerable money value attached to the higher ratings. The gunnery training of the man, combined with that received as a boy, turns out a highly-trained class of men, which now includes about half the blue-jacket class of the Navy. There are at present about 3,000 seaman-gunners and 6,000 trained men. Service on board the gunnery ships has a good effect upon the discipline of the service at large: men while there are on their good behavior, the chief punishment of an offender being that he is not kept; and a lengthened term of good conduct, which has been uniformly so for many months, is very likely to continue as a matter of habit. It is now almost certain that before long barracks will be used instead of these ships, and indeed for all the purposes to which depot and receiving ships are now applied. Of the 18,638 men classed as blue jackets 8,000 are ordinarily in harbor ships, and it is claimed that this is nearly always a period of deterioration which could be changed into one of benefit by having them in barracks ashore. Many claim, too, that the early education given the boy class can be better given ashore than afloat, having, of course, tenders attached to the shore establisments for use in seamanship exercises. There would certainly be great economy in this, as no method of housing men is so expensive as on shipboard. Captain Burney, than whom no man is better able to give an opinion, is very emphatic in his condemnation of ships, and it seems as far as morals, health, and economy are concerned, there is no gainsaying it. There must always be many prejudices in favor of ships, and there are undoubtedly some advantages, but the weight of benefits is considered by many prominent naval men in England to be in favor of houses ashore. CHAPTER II. THE NAVAL RESERVE AND ITS TRAINING. This organization, which binds together to some degree, though not nearly so closely as some would have it, the Royal Navy and the merchant marine, has, at present, a total enrollment of 17,067 men, of whom 11,930 are of the first class. It is generally conceded that in the event of a great war there would be difficulty in manning all the ships necessary, unless there were a force of this kind to draw upon. There has never been, since the reserves were first organized, more than forty years since, a necessity for calling them into active service, so that the men have been in receipt of considerable pay for which actual return has never been rendered. Great endeavors have been made of late years to render the reserve popular, and the efforts seem to have met with success, many of the men of the fishermen class having been enrolled in late years. These men are particularly valuable as having a fixed residence and being well-trained seamen, as far as mere seamanship goes. The reserve is divided into first, second, and third classes. In the first class the retainer is £6 per annum; in the second, £2 10s., and a suit of uniform clothing; in the third, the suit of uniform only. The regulations for entry into the reserve are that an applicant must be of good character, and in good health, and must not be above thirty years of age, excepting in the case of men from the Royal Navy who have been discharged with good characters; these may (if able seamen) be received up to thirty-five years of age. An applicant for the first class must prove at least five years' sea service within the preceding ten years, and of these five at least one as able seaman. Every applicant must show that he has been to sea within four months of his application, and must declare his intention of following the sea at least five years longer. If he cannot prove his services, he must satisfy a board of two naval officers of his knowledge of seamanship. Every applicant for a second-class reserve must show three years' sea service, and of this time at least six months as ordinary seaman. Men in the coasting trade, or who are in vessels making short voyages, are preferred in these two classes. |