People: The Fighting Admiral

Over at the ever popular History Crushes Tumblr site - if you're not following them, you really should - the above portrait of Admiral Sir John Harman popped up. The person who submitted him as their history crush indicated that they had Googled "British Admirals" in images and - without knowing anything about him - had promptly fallen in love with Sir John.

The serendipity here is amusing; at least to me. Back in college (when dinosaurs roamed the world) I did a paper analyzing Harman's contribution to the Four Days' Battle of June 1 through 4, 1666. Where that paper got off to I cannot say, but I have some vague memories of the Admiral and thought him a fitting, and swashbuckling, addition to Triple P's roll of famous fighting seamen.

Sir John Harman first shows up in written history in relation to the Battle of Portland fought at sea in February of 1652. At the time he was in command of HMS Welcome, a man-of-war of 40 guns and about 200 crewmen. This would indicate that Harman had been at sea for some time prior, placing his date of birth no later than the early 1630s. It is most probable that he was born earlier than that.

Some historians connect Harman's family with the Harmans of Suffolk, some of whose members commanded ships for Cromwell during the Commonwealth. If this is the case, Sir John may have come up the ranks in the Restoration navy rather than starting his career as an officer. Another hint in this direction is that his family may have built and owned ships used by Charles II's navy.

Whatever the case, Harman was an able naval thinker who did not shy away from a fight. Most of his life at sea was spent battling Holland in the First and Second Anglo-Dutch Wars. As frequently happened with capable commanders, Harman rose quickly in rank during war time. By1665 he was in command of Royal Charles, which flew the white flag of the Duke of York who was Admiral of the White at the time. It was in Royal Charles that Harman saw his first victory over the Dutch.

When the battle was winding down, the Dutch fleet began to flee and Harman gave chase with other Royal Navy ships following his lead. Admiral Sir William Penn, who was aboard Royal Charles and therefor technically outranking Captain Harman, had taken ill and retired to his cabin. He and the Duke of York, who was also aboard, ordered the chase called off. One of the Duke's gentlemen, a man named Henry Brouncker, was sent on deck to relay the order to Harman.

The Captain would not take orders from a man he would later refer to, in the ensuing enquiry, as a "genlteman-in-waiting" and continued the chase. Exasperated, no doubt, by the continuous harping of Penn and the Duke, Brouncker - on his third trip up to the quarterdeck - lied to Harman saying the Penn was gravely ill and in danger of death and that the Duke had strictly forbidden the chase. Harman, with much grumbling, shortened sail and allowed the Dutch to escape.

The later enquiry put all fault for the "shyness of the fleet" on Brouncker. Harman, on the other hand, was awarded a knighthood and made Rear Admiral of the White. His flag was hoisted aboard HMS Resolution and he promptly set out to escort merchant convoys from the far east. In early 1666, Harman and his flag were shifted to HMS Henry (or Henery according to Pepys diary). It was aboard this ship that his greatest adventure would occur.

During the Four Days' Battle, Henry was a particular target of the Dutch, doubtless owing to the accuracy of her guns and the fighting spirit of her crew. Fireships were sent against her, causing fire aboard her so severe that some 50 members of her crew jumped overboard. Most lost their lives to drowning, preferring that to burning alive.

They should have hesitated to end their lives, however. Harman roused his remaining crew and fought off and sunk the fireships while simultaneously putting out the fires aboard Henry. According to Pepys, Harman's leg was broken when a mast of one of the fireships fell across Henry's deck. Though Henry was obliged to limp home for a refit, the victory that claimed so many English lives - including Harman's superior Vice-Admiral Sir William Berkeley - was accredited in no small part to Harman.

Sir John's broken leg became troublesome, possibly festering as it healed, and he retired from service for six months. By March of 1667 he was back in action again. He took command of England's West Indies station. He spent time at Barbados and engaged the French on more than one occasion after their capture of Martinique. Through his efforts, England acquired the holdings of Cayenne and Surinam as well.

In 1673 he was back in English waters and promoted to Vice-Admiral of the Red. He again saw action against the Dutch, but his health was failing. One legendary story tells of Harman engaging the famous Dutch Admiral De Ruyter. Too ill to stand, Harman had an armchair nailed to the quarterdeck and there he sat throughout the battle, seemingly impervious to the shot the whizzed past him from every angle.

This was his last hurrah, however. After being appointed Admiral of the Blue that same year, he retired to his home where he died in October of 1673. He was survived by his wife, the heiress Katherine Harinan Harman, a son James who would die a captain battling Barbary corsairs, and a daughter. This daughter, curiously enough, married Dauntesey Brouncker, Earl of Stoke, a relative of her father's near nemesis, Henry Brouncker.

Regardless of setbacks and long years away from home, one would be hardpressed to find a more capable fighting captain than Admiral Sir John Harman. And yeah; he was dashingly handsome, too.

Header: Admiral Sir John Harman by Sir Peter Lely via FYHC on Tumblr

History: Fear Of Fire

It is a truth as old as sailing itself: sailors are afraid of fire. To this day a fire aboard ship is something that will get the adrenaline pumping in every man jack on deck as surely as combat. That awful unwelcome guest must be smothered as soon as possible or the consequences can be catastrophic. And that's in a ship made of steel.

When ships were made of wood it wasn't just the wood you had to worry about. Ships were routinely filled with flammables such as tar, pitch, alcohol and of course black powder. Even in the most unkempt freebooter these items were generally kept in separate areas and a powder room or magazine was designated only for the storage of that necessary combustible. But not everyone is careful, or sober, aboard every ship and accidents unfortunately happen. We'll deal with this subject in the heat of battle in another post but here are some infamous accidents that did no one any favors aboard the ships they struck.

Jean Baptiste Labat in his 1722 Voyages Among the Islands of America tells the story of a "rogue" gunner aboard a British ship who was secreting barrels of black powder among the splinter netting and rolled up hammocks. His plan was to sell "the King's powder" for his own profit. Unfortunately some stray spark, most probably from the galley stove on the gun deck, ignited one of the barrels and sixty of the gunner's fellow seaman were killed in the ensuing explosion. The gunner, who survived the firestorm, was hanged.

Before the late 18th century, when ships lanterns were installed in all but the most ill-fitted out ships, open candle flames were not uncommon. Men also smoked aboard ship, particularly pipes, and then there was that pesky need to cook food. A bucket of tar or pitch could easily catch fire by accident. There is also documentation of barrels of rum being opened and stray sparks falling into them setting the liquor aflame. Barrels of alcohol have been known to explode in such situations.

There are repeated and awful descriptions in maritime literature from witnesses of such accidents. They speak of men screaming in agony as they jump overboard, whether they could swim or not, or literally blowing up when the fire reached the powder magazine. Burns were not an uncommon injury aboard ship what with the unstable nature of the sea. Galley stoves were frequent culprits as were cannons but a ship on fire was a true terror for the men, boys and animals aboard. One witness, in a boat near HMS Queen Charlotte when she exploded while at anchor off Leghorn in the Mediterranean in 1800, described the "loathsome sweet smell" of burning flesh.

In navies, the danger was sometimes doubled by the urge to be prepared. Some fighting Captains would keep their guns loaded in preparation for battle. If fire got out of control on such a ship, the cartridges filled with black powder in the cannons would "cook off". The guns would discharge their shot and hit or even sink boats heading for the ship to try to affect rescue. This was another factor in the horrible loss of life aboard Queen Charlotte.

Probably the most famous and impressive of all accidental fires aboard a buccaneer occurred on New Years Day 1669 on Henry Morgan's flagship Oxford. Morgan had called a meeting of his Captains, as he always did before setting out on a raid, and with 12 ships and 900 men in attendance he led a counsel while at anchor off Ile a Vache. (Cow Island, a speck of land south of what is now the port of Les Cayes in Haiti, was so named because the Spanish had "seeded" it with cattle for the benefit of their navy; the buccaneers, of course, took full advantage of the largess.)

Once an agreement to sack Cartagena (a mission that never materialized thanks to what happened next) was made, Morgan his Captains and their men began to celebrate. Huge bowls of rum punch were brought out for the captains and the common sailors dipped into hogsheads of rum on deck. Soon most if not all the buccaneers were drunk and the 26 gun Oxford resembled nothing so much as a yacht on a holiday cruise. You know, if one of those things was full of firearms and combustibles.

Alexander Exquemelin tells us that the boys "...drank many healths and discharged many guns as the common sign of mirth among seaman used to be." The sun set in the west and candles were lit so that the party could continue. Morgan presented a fine feast in his cabin and, just as supper was commencing, a thunderous crack was followed by a massive explosion. The powder room had been touched, somehow, by flame.

Half the captains at table with Morgan were killed instantly. The other half, Morgan included, were thrown into the sea but almost miraculously survived. 200 men lost their lives in the explosion itself and others died later from splinter wounds and burns. Oxford was a total loss.

Morgan's unbelievable escape was the talk of the Spanish Main. Most Spaniards agreed that such impossible luck signalled that Morgan was indeed the Devil incarnate. The people of Cartagena, however, whose city was quite literally saved by a freak accident, saw the whole thing as a miracle. Their patron, Nuestra Senora de La Popa, had caused the explosion herself so that Morgan's raiders would leave their city alone.

Divine intervention or no, it didn't stop Morgan's famous raid on Panama. And fires aboard ship, regardless of her nationality or occupation, continued to be the bane of every sailor afloat. Who can begrudge them a healthy dose of respect, and fear?