1 00:00:04,840 --> 00:00:07,120 On a summer's day in 1690, 2 00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:10,040 a Sussex merchant called Samuel Jeake 3 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:14,080 looked out towards the Channel from his home in Rye. 4 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:19,720 What he saw filled him with dread. 5 00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:24,680 English warships fleeing pell-mell across the horizon. 6 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:28,400 The country had been at war with France for two years and people in this town 7 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:33,440 knew that just a few days before the Royal Navy had been badly defeated 8 00:00:33,440 --> 00:00:36,000 25 miles up the coast off Beachy Head. 9 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:41,040 So the sight of those English ships on the run could mean just one thing. 10 00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:43,360 The French were coming. 11 00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:49,360 With the Navy beaten, the English could do nothing to prevent a French invasion. 12 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:51,760 The result was inevitable. 13 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:55,040 Church bells rang out in panic. 14 00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:59,480 Jeake wrote about what happened next in his diary. 15 00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:04,120 "A terrible alarm in the town of Rye, the French is coming to land. 16 00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:08,040 "Their intentions were to fire and plunder the town." 17 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:17,240 In desperation, people seized hold of their valuables and attempted to flee the town. 18 00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:19,560 This gate was the only way in and out of Rye 19 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:24,400 and soon this narrow street was clogged with people clinging to their possessions. 20 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:27,680 Their panic increased by the terrible sight 21 00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:31,360 that was now smouldering down on the beach below the town. 22 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,200 If ever there was a vision to terrify the people of Rye 23 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:41,880 it must have been that of England's first line of defence in flames. 24 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:52,600 Lying here on the beach within sight of Rye Harbour was the Anne, a 70-gun Royal Naval warship 25 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:55,640 which had been terribly damaged in the fighting at Beachy Head. 26 00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:58,600 100 of her crew have been killed or wounded. 27 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:07,160 Unable to sail on any further, her captain ran her aground on this very spot. 28 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:11,160 And then fearing that the French would capture her, he set her alight. 29 00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:14,920 Her remains are under my feet now. 30 00:02:14,920 --> 00:02:17,760 Sometimes when these sands shift 31 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:22,640 she re-emerges like a ghostly reminder of a forgotten moment in our history. 32 00:02:22,640 --> 00:02:27,560 A moment of terror, chaos and defeat. 33 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:32,760 Rule, Britannia? I don't think so. 34 00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:36,880 In 1690, there could have been no doubt in anyone's mind - 35 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:42,200 France ruled the waves and England was at her mercy. 36 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:46,000 For the English, this disaster was a turning point. 37 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:47,640 They had no choice. 38 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:49,760 If they were to survive they would have to build 39 00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:53,360 a navy capable of resisting the greatest power in Europe. 40 00:02:55,680 --> 00:03:01,760 But to do that would require a national effort unlike anything that had been seen before. 41 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:05,520 It would transform the country, revolutionise agriculture, 42 00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:11,760 lay the foundations of industry and, most of all, unleash the power of money. 43 00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:43,600 15 sail, we're on midships. 44 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:49,160 The battle of Beachy Head in 1690 45 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:53,280 still ranks as one of the Royal Navy's most humiliating defeats. 46 00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:59,160 But then, in 1693, came an even more terrible loss. 47 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:03,280 England was a nation of traders utterly dependent on the wealth 48 00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:06,240 generated by her huge merchant fleet. 49 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:12,920 A fleet which, unless it was properly protected, was terribly vulnerable to enemy attack. 50 00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:19,640 On the 30th May 1693, 400 merchant ships gathered in a huge fleet 51 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:24,400 and set out from England to the town of Smyrna in the Eastern Mediterranean. 52 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:31,400 This giant trade flotilla was described as the richest that ever went for Turkey. 53 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:38,120 On board was a year's worth of trade - wool, tin, spices and silver - 54 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:41,960 the lifeblood of the economy, which had been accumulating in port 55 00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:44,640 for fear of being captured or destroyed at sea. 56 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:54,000 The convoy was such a vital national interest that it was given an escort of 102 warships. 57 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,640 The convoy moved down the Channel and out into the Atlantic. 58 00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:01,240 But this route took them past Brest, home of the French Navy, 59 00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:04,760 which is where the accompanying English admirals were expecting trouble. 60 00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:08,400 So as they passed without incident and entered the Bay of Biscay, 61 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:09,840 the English escort ships 62 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:13,240 turned round and headed home, thinking the convoy would be safe. 63 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:15,720 This was a disastrous decision. 64 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:20,000 The French had found out about the convoy and the time of its departure 65 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:23,520 and they were preparing ships further down here to intercept it. 66 00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:32,600 As the convey reached Lagos Bay on the southern tip of Portugal, 67 00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:36,320 they found 93 French warships waiting for them. 68 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:45,480 Almost 100 merchant vessels, carrying a year's worth of trade, 69 00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:47,360 were captured or destroyed. 70 00:05:54,840 --> 00:05:57,960 When news of the disaster reached England, 71 00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:02,320 it sent the business community into a paroxysm of despair. 72 00:06:04,840 --> 00:06:09,400 From his house in Rye, the merchant Samuel Jeake wrote in his diary, 73 00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:14,800 "News of the miscarriage of the Turkey fleet has put a great stop to trade." 74 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:16,800 And this was an understatement. 75 00:06:16,800 --> 00:06:23,400 The losses suffered by the Smyrna convey were as bad as those in the Great Fire of London of 1666. 76 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:28,880 And there followed a wave of bankruptcies among insurers and merchants. 77 00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:31,960 The secretary to King William III said 78 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:38,320 that he had never seen His Majesty so sensibly affected with any accident as this. 79 00:06:38,320 --> 00:06:41,800 This commercial disaster, coming just three year's after 80 00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:46,200 one of the Navy's worst military disasters served as a brutal reminder. 81 00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:52,760 For England, a powerful navy was not a luxury, it was a central pillar of state. 82 00:06:52,760 --> 00:06:56,400 Without it the country was doomed. 83 00:06:56,400 --> 00:07:01,160 William desperately needed more ships and to build them, money. 84 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:04,560 But the Treasury was empty. 85 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:10,680 Then in 1694, a completely new kind of financial institution was created in London. 86 00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:14,520 One offering a unique investment opportunity. 87 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:21,560 Anyone willing to put in at least £25 would receive a guaranteed return of 8%. 88 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:30,320 The savvy merchant from Rye, Samuel Jeake, thought this sounded like a chance 89 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:34,680 that was too good to miss and he instructed his agent in London to invest £200. 90 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:40,200 But then he decided to gather together all his spare cash and head into London himself. 91 00:07:40,200 --> 00:07:43,760 He wrote in his diary, "I made myself ready for my journey 92 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:48,480 "carrying the £100 with me, and at 7pm I took horse for London." 93 00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:53,560 That was a 15-hour ride, so it's fair to suggest that by the time he met up with his agent 94 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:59,000 the following afternoon in the city, Mr Jeake would have been quite saddle sore. 95 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:03,680 So keen was Jeake to take advantage of the 8% interest being offered 96 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:09,200 that he even scraped together a further £200 while he was here in London, 97 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:11,800 to take his total stake up to £500. 98 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:17,320 £500 was a lot of money for anyone, even Jeake, 99 00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:20,360 but it turns out it was a pretty good investment. 100 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:23,760 That exciting new financial institution 101 00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:26,720 that launched in 1694 still exists. 102 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:28,440 It's called the Bank of England. 103 00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:34,440 The funds required to build a new navy were vast, 104 00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:36,760 but the Bank of England delivered. 105 00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:39,760 In just 12 days it raised £1.2 million. 106 00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:46,360 And on August 1st 1694, it made its first loan to the government. 107 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:50,600 The national debt was born and the Royal Navy was saved. 108 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:53,840 England would build now and pay later. 109 00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:59,360 This is a list of all the original investors in the Bank of England, 110 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:01,040 known as subscribers at the time. 111 00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:04,280 At the top of each page here is the date and their names 112 00:09:04,280 --> 00:09:07,080 neatly written out here with their occupations next to them. 113 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:11,440 Right here at the bottom of this page is Samuel Jeake 114 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:13,880 of Rye in Sussex, a merchant. 115 00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:15,840 This is a remarkable document 116 00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:20,840 because it allows us to get a kind of investor profile of this extraordinary new venture. 117 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:24,320 At the very top of the list, appropriately enough, 118 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:25,840 are their majesties. 119 00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:28,600 The King and Queen, who invested £10,000. 120 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:32,040 But there are lots of other people from the very pinnacle of society as well. 121 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:37,000 Men like Edward Russell, the First Lord of the Admiralty, invested £2,000. 122 00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:41,000 But it wasn't just the bigwigs that subscribed. 123 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:45,640 There are nine people listed here as being in domestic service. 124 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:48,920 And here I found Thomas Day of London, 125 00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:52,760 who's a blacksmith and he's invested £100. 126 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:58,040 While over the page, Joseph Cake is a bricklayer. 127 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:02,840 The National Debt created a virtuous circle of funding. 128 00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:06,960 The government borrowed money from the people which it spent on the Navy, 129 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:12,640 which protected trade, which brought in taxes, which allowed the government to pay the people back. 130 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:24,200 It was a financial revolution which, uniquely, would allow England to spend its way to greatness. 131 00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:30,240 More than half of that first loan, over £600,000, went on building up the Navy. 132 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:33,600 And that huge injection of cash, the first of many, 133 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:39,680 had a transforming affect on whole areas of the economy all over the country. 134 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:43,960 The Northeast of England soon had Europe's largest ironworks, 135 00:10:43,960 --> 00:10:49,800 thanks to the Navy's spending spree and one enterprising industrialist called Ambrose Crowley. 136 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:54,760 Iron ran in Ambrose Crowley's blood. 137 00:10:54,760 --> 00:11:00,840 His father and grandfather had both had a steady business in the Midlands in the iron trade. 138 00:11:00,840 --> 00:11:03,880 But young Ambrose Crowley the third wanted more. 139 00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:07,400 He wanted to expand and he realised that to do so he'd have to up sticks 140 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:13,120 and move closer to his most precious raw material - not iron but coal. 141 00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:17,280 And that's why he ended up here on the south bank of the Tyne. 142 00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:21,960 He set up a series of blacksmith's shops up there about a mile away 143 00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:27,200 and brought the goods down here to the river where they could be shipped south. 144 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:34,960 South was where England's shipyards were embarked on a massive building programme. 145 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:40,040 And it was this that made Ambrose Crowley's ironworks so successful because wooden ships 146 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:47,840 need lots of iron nails and in those days, every single one had to be made by hand. 147 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:53,040 Blacksmith Mark Fearn still uses exactly the same techniques. 148 00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:58,160 This is the traditional set-up, is it? 149 00:11:58,160 --> 00:11:59,880 It is. The double-acting bellows, 150 00:11:59,880 --> 00:12:04,200 and every time you press that down, it's feeding air into the fire. 151 00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:07,640 And how hot is that, do you reckon? About 1,300 C. 152 00:12:07,640 --> 00:12:09,840 1,300 degrees Centigrade. 153 00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:13,520 It's hard to believe that a packet of nails that we buy 154 00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:16,480 in the shop were actually made individually like this. 155 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:19,720 Well, isn't it remarkable? 156 00:12:23,480 --> 00:12:25,160 Right, so here we go. 157 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:33,800 And then we're gonna be ready to put it in the heading tool. 158 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,960 Then you see that. Wow! 159 00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:41,880 And then beat a head onto it. 160 00:12:44,880 --> 00:12:48,680 Into the quench bucket and that should... 161 00:12:50,920 --> 00:12:54,280 That's not a bad nail. Well, do you reckon I could have a go? 162 00:12:54,280 --> 00:12:55,400 I reckon you could. 163 00:12:57,760 --> 00:12:59,560 There you go, a piece of iron, Dan. 164 00:12:59,560 --> 00:13:02,280 Thanks, a piece of iron. Yes. OK. Get ready for one nail. 165 00:13:02,280 --> 00:13:04,680 Yes, indeed. So first of all I'll give it some of this. 166 00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:10,040 OK, how about that? That's looking good. 167 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:16,600 'By 1700, the industrialist Ambrose Crowley was providing 40% of all the Navy's iron orders. 168 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:23,400 'He created a factory system, with hundreds of workshops like this one, 169 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:27,600 'and built iron mills and steel furnaces alongside. 170 00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:32,840 'It turned what had been a cottage industry into mass production.' 171 00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:35,480 Into the heading tool. Right. 172 00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:38,200 'After the financial revolution, 173 00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:43,280 'here were the first shoots of the industrial revolution, and driving it all was the Navy.' 174 00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:50,240 In only a decade, English dockyards built over a 150 new naval ships, 175 00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:56,120 but since England was at war many of these ships were, of course, destroyed or captured by the enemy. 176 00:13:56,120 --> 00:14:02,640 Nevertheless, by the end of the decade, the English Navy numbered 176 warships. 177 00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:09,240 'And each of them contained over five tonnes of iron nails.' 178 00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:13,200 My first nail. And you should be able to knock that out. 179 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:16,480 Look at that. In fact, it's just sliding out. 180 00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:19,160 Hey. How good is that? Look at that! 181 00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:21,280 Congratulations. Your first nail. 182 00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:23,320 That's fantastic. 183 00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:26,960 I can imagine that going through a piece of planking 184 00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:28,600 onto the hull of a ship. 185 00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:38,040 Of course, the Navy didn't just need nails. 186 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:42,800 Each new ship typically contained the wood of more than 2,000 trees. 187 00:14:42,800 --> 00:14:50,760 Over 7,000 square yards of canvas and 10 miles of rope, weighing 19 tonnes. 188 00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:55,160 The sailing ship was the most complex man-made machine on earth, 189 00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:59,680 a glorious piece of wooden architecture driven entirely by the wind. 190 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:03,560 But it relied most of all on manpower. 191 00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:10,440 In ten years, the number of men serving in the Royal Navy quadrupled to over 44,000. 192 00:15:10,440 --> 00:15:14,600 That's more people than lived in any city outside London, 193 00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:19,520 and feeding them all transformed England's agriculture. 194 00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:23,840 The Navy was the single largest consumer of produce in the country 195 00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:27,400 and it awarded huge contracts to a handful of suppliers 196 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:32,920 who bought up vast quantities of food from small farmers all over the country. 197 00:15:32,920 --> 00:15:36,240 Agricultural output went up by a third, 198 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:40,520 but because this was a competitive market, prices stayed low. 199 00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:45,880 Once again, the Navy's insatiable demand was driving the economy forward. 200 00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:50,520 It had become the engine of English commerce, a national enterprise. 201 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:04,480 It took the work of thousands on land to build the ships of the Royal Navy and keep them supplied. 202 00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:10,200 But once at sea, survival depended most of all on the skill, 203 00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:14,200 fortitude and raw strength of the crew. 204 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:19,680 And to fuel all those men required by the Navy was actually quite a generous allocation of food. 205 00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:27,400 The central part of the diet was, of course, meat, salted so it survived for long ocean voyages. 206 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:28,920 This is the weekly ration. 207 00:16:28,920 --> 00:16:32,720 Six pounds of meat - four pounds of beef, two pounds of pork. 208 00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:37,160 Now the beef was typically eaten in some kind of stew with suet, apparently. 209 00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:42,640 HE COUGHS 210 00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:44,880 Very salty. 211 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:56,880 If you think salty boot leather, that's about right. 212 00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:00,600 Perhaps the most famous part of the sailing Navy's diet 213 00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,400 was the key staple, standing in for bread, 214 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:08,480 the ship's biscuit. A subtle combination, flour, water and salt 215 00:17:08,480 --> 00:17:11,480 baked for hours until it was rock hard. 216 00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:23,640 It's like a particularly disgusting and tasteless version of rye bread. 217 00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:28,040 An added complication was that this became a home of little weevils, 218 00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:32,240 almost like tiny worms that used to live in them and feed off them. 219 00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:36,720 Now, some people like to bang them until the weevils fell out and you could get rid of them. 220 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:41,600 Others used to go into a dark corner and simply eat the biscuit, weevils and all. 221 00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:49,240 What this diet does show is that the Navy's high command understood 222 00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:53,560 just how much physical effort was required to sail a ship effectively. 223 00:17:53,560 --> 00:17:57,880 Sailors were constantly climbing up and down masts and adjusting sails, 224 00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:00,880 with no protection from the elements, 225 00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:06,480 and in battle there were cannons weighing three tonnes each to manoeuvre. 226 00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:11,840 Little wonder, then, that the Navy's rations provided sailors with 5,000 calories a day. 227 00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:16,400 That's twice the recommended intake for an active man today. 228 00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:18,800 Oh, this feels a little bit precarious up here. 229 00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:22,000 It takes a special kind of head for heights 230 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:26,200 to spend your time as a top man, up in the, er, up in the mastheads. 231 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:31,480 And from up here you also get a much better view, so they are the ones with the sharpest eyesight. 232 00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:35,000 They could spot enemy sails when they saw them on the horizon. 233 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:41,040 One bad thing about being up here, though, is that the movement on deck is magnified quite a lot. 234 00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:46,640 Up here we go through quite a big angle when you rock around. 235 00:18:51,320 --> 00:18:54,240 'Sailors in this period were a breed apart. 236 00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:57,160 'The average age would have been about 27, 237 00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:02,760 'but they'd have looked much older, their faces lined and weathered from a lifetime at sea. 238 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,040 'Their hands would have been callused and scarred 239 00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:09,920 'and their vocabulary was almost indecipherable to landlubbers, 240 00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:12,840 'a mixture of swearing and nautical terms.' 241 00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:15,440 Line down. 242 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:19,600 'Most noticeable of all was their peculiar rolling gait, 243 00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:23,960 'more suitable for the pitching deck of a ship than walking on dry land. 244 00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:29,360 'And all of this made them very recognisable to the naval press gangs who patrolled the ports, 245 00:19:29,360 --> 00:19:31,440 'looking for experienced recruits.' 246 00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:36,360 That was quite tiring and the amazing part 247 00:19:36,360 --> 00:19:39,600 about that process is that every time the wind changes in strength 248 00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,920 you've gotta go back up there and alter the sails. 249 00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:54,800 There are some written accounts that tell us what life was like for ordinary sailors. 250 00:19:54,800 --> 00:19:58,080 One of the most remarkable is by Edward Barlow. 251 00:19:58,080 --> 00:20:01,360 He first went to sea at the age of 13. 252 00:20:01,360 --> 00:20:06,480 He came ashore for the last time in 1703, at the age of 61, 253 00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:12,960 a total of 48 years at sea, which was an amazing feat of survival. 254 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:18,080 Throughout that time he kept an incredible illustrated diary, and I've got it here 255 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:23,760 and it paints his like at sea in the most vivid terms and leaves you in no doubt as to how tough it was. 256 00:20:23,760 --> 00:20:28,760 He says, "Often we were called up before we had slept half an hour 257 00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:34,720 "and forced to go into the maintop or foretop to take in our top source half awake and half asleep. 258 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:39,800 "There we must haul and pull to make fast the sail, seeing nothing but air above us 259 00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:46,000 "and the water beneath us and that's so raging as though every wave would make a grave for us." 260 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:52,880 The Royal Navy, rebuilt and renewed with borrowed money, 261 00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:57,960 was able to avenge the defeats of the early 1690s. 262 00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:00,640 It even captured Gibraltar and Minorca, 263 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,480 two important bases in the Mediterranean. 264 00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:07,320 The English Navy was now a global weapon, 265 00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:14,680 its ships opening up the wealth of the world to the merchant fleet thousands of miles across the ocean. 266 00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:16,880 And no part of the world was more important 267 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:21,560 than the one that had first fired the dreams of England's mariners. 268 00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:29,680 The island of Jamaica was the largest English colony in the Caribbean, 269 00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:33,320 the most hotly contested and dangerous region in the world. 270 00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:39,040 In the autumn of 1708, a 23-year-old naval captain called Edward Vernon 271 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:44,680 arrived here in Port Royal, the nerve centre of the Navy's operations. 272 00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,920 Vernon's father was an MP and he disapproved of his son's career choice, 273 00:21:55,920 --> 00:22:00,360 but such was the draw of the sea on the minds of young men in that period 274 00:22:00,360 --> 00:22:04,640 that Edward had always had his heart set on joining the Royal Navy. 275 00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:09,760 He was just the kind of aggressive, bold commander that would thrive in an environment like this, 276 00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:14,040 where courage and initiative were key requirements. 277 00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:18,000 Vernon served in the Caribbean for four years, 278 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:22,880 during which time the country was at war with France and Spain. 279 00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:30,120 It was the job of men like him to defend the merchant fleet on which England's prosperity depended. 280 00:22:30,120 --> 00:22:35,360 The Caribbean was the centre of world trade because of what was grown here. 281 00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:43,200 So this is raw sugar cane juice, made from pressing the sugar cane. 282 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,240 I'm going to have a bit of a taste. 283 00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:51,320 Well, that's disgusting. That just tastes of mud, grass and sugar, 284 00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:54,480 which is not wholly surprising because that's basically what it is. 285 00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:58,200 But when this is boiled down and crystallised you get sugar, 286 00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:03,520 imported into Europe in vast quantities to liven up the rather dull European diet. 287 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:07,400 Added to things like pastries and also other imports like tea and coffee. 288 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:13,520 Over here we have another drink made from sugar cane, and that, of course, is rum. 289 00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:16,840 Much more recognisable. Becomes synonymous with the Navy in this period. 290 00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,120 Favoured drink of sailors. 291 00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:27,640 That's much more drinkable, but it's still a bit rough. 292 00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,120 This became synonymous with Edward Vernon 293 00:23:30,120 --> 00:23:33,960 because Vernon returns out here to the Caribbean as a senior commander. 294 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:39,440 And he discovers that rum has become a staple among the Royal Navy ships' companies out here. 295 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:44,160 They drink half a pint per man per day, so they're in danger of getting quite drunk 296 00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:47,160 and falling out the masts and rigging when they go aloft. 297 00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:50,120 So he insists that the rum ration is mixed with water. 298 00:23:50,120 --> 00:23:52,280 Now because his nickname is "Old Grogam", 299 00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:56,200 thanks to a coat he used to wear made out of material called Grogam, 300 00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:01,800 this new mixture of rum and water that's introduced on his watch is known as "grog". 301 00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:15,360 Sugar cane was cultivated by slaves, as was the tobacco which was grown in the American colonies. 302 00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:18,640 The slave trade was a lucrative sideline. 303 00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:24,200 But the English did not have a monopoly on all these commodities. 304 00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:30,400 The Caribbean was a pressure cooker of competing nations, all jostling over a few small islands. 305 00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,480 The Dutch, the French and the Spanish were all here, 306 00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,760 each of them greedily protecting their own interests, 307 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,720 but also looking for opportunities to conquer new territories. 308 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:46,840 And then there were the pirates. 309 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,840 It's not hard to see what attracted those men to the Caribbean. 310 00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:56,920 It was the job of officers like Edward Vernon to hunt them down and provide a violent deterrent. 311 00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:01,360 Many of those pirates were of course state-sponsored, known as privateers, 312 00:25:01,360 --> 00:25:06,920 because they carried licences issued to them by the French and Spanish governments 313 00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:08,920 to prey on British shipping. 314 00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,320 Not that the British government was above using the profit motive either. 315 00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:18,360 In 1708, the year that Vernon arrived out here in the Caribbean, Parliament passed the Prize Act. 316 00:25:18,360 --> 00:25:21,920 This gave the Captain, offices and ship's company of any Royal Navy ship 317 00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:26,520 a portion of the value of any enemy vessel they captured. 318 00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,640 At a time when a Royal Navy captain typically earned about £20 a month 319 00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,840 and an ordinary seaman less than a pound a month, 320 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:41,360 these prizes represented a significant salary bonus. 321 00:25:41,360 --> 00:25:44,240 While he was out here, Vernon took full advantage. 322 00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,240 He captured several prizes. 323 00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:51,920 One was a Spanish ship laden with tobacco, another was French with 400 slaves on board. 324 00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,840 He brought them back in here to Port Royal to have them valued, 325 00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:58,600 then, as captain, he was entitled to a quarter share. 326 00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,680 It was the most brutal form of incentive. 327 00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:06,880 Patriotism was now bolstered by prize money. 328 00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:13,040 Vernon embodied the naval revolution, rich, confident and supremely professional. 329 00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:17,320 He was the product of a navy and a country that had come a long way 330 00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:22,680 since those dark early years of King William's reign in the 1690s. 331 00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,760 After 25 years of almost continual warfare, 332 00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:36,360 the strategy laid down by William III finally paid off. 333 00:26:36,360 --> 00:26:40,880 France and Spain couldn't match the vast resources being poured into 334 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:47,160 the Royal Navy, and after a series of defeats in 1713 they made peace. 335 00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:50,920 On this side of the Channel, it felt like time to celebrate. 336 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:13,160 This is the painted hall of the Old Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich. 337 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:18,040 And the magnificent ceiling tells you everything you need to know 338 00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:21,440 about how the British saw themselves at the start of the 18th century. 339 00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:35,920 And I use the world British deliberately, because after 1707 340 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:41,000 England and Scotland were joined together by Act of Union to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. 341 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,720 And this is the image of that new nation - 342 00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:49,600 rich, confident, and filled with a sense of destiny. 343 00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:56,040 The central character is William, sitting in all his majesty, 344 00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:58,840 bringing peace and harmony to Europe. 345 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:02,080 And if you notice, he's sitting on the defeated figure 346 00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,840 of the King of France, the terrible Louis 14th. 347 00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:14,280 The overwhelming theme is of course naval, and at the end of the painting here 348 00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:19,280 you see this vast British man-of-war towering out of the water 349 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,880 with its cannons run out ready for battle. 350 00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,080 The decks of the ship are crowded with 351 00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:31,120 the spoils of victory - stuff, booty stolen off the French and Spanish. 352 00:28:31,120 --> 00:28:35,000 But fascinatingly, the ship is resting on the shoulders 353 00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,760 of a figure representing the City of London, 354 00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,680 all that financial wealth that she generated. 355 00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:45,400 And she in turn is above figures representing the great rivers of England. 356 00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,120 Isis and a man representing the Thames, 357 00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,400 and even the Tyne bringing an offering of coal. 358 00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:52,960 The message couldn't be clearer. 359 00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,040 This vast, awesome military machine 360 00:28:56,040 --> 00:29:01,400 is totally dependent on the wealth created by the City of London. 361 00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:08,720 In 1726, just as the finishing touches were being put to this hall, the French philosopher Voltaire 362 00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:13,000 visited Britain and was very struck by what he described as the grandeur of state. 363 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,760 He wrote, "Trade raised by insensible degrees 364 00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:20,920 "the naval power, which gives the English a superiority over the seas. 365 00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:24,400 "And they are now masters of very near 200 ships of war. 366 00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,400 "Posterity will very probably be surprised to hear 367 00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:30,240 "that an island whose only produce is a little lead, 368 00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,000 "tin, fuller's earth and coarse wool 369 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,640 "should become so powerful by its commerce." 370 00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:40,920 Voltaire saw instantly that commerce and naval power were linked. 371 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,400 It was a formula for success that was tied up with the creation of 372 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:51,200 "the Bank of England, and now Britain was reaping the rewards." 373 00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,680 Britain in the 1720s was a changed country. 374 00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,760 Thanks to the Navy, she had resisted the combined might 375 00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:05,880 of the French and Spanish alliance. 376 00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:17,840 But the coming of peace brought an end to 25 years of naval expansion. 377 00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:23,960 With no enemies to engage at sea, a generation of aggressive naval commanders took their fight 378 00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,840 to Westminster, where they argued the British ship of state 379 00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,320 should stick to its natural course...war. 380 00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:38,320 In 1722, the country held a general election 381 00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:44,400 and former commodore Edward Vernon became MP for Penryn in Cornwall. 382 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,920 Vernon was a fiery patriot 383 00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,920 and what really got him going was the Caribbean. 384 00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:52,280 During his 21 years in the Royal Navy, 385 00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:58,120 he'd served out there twice, the second time as Commander in Chief of his Majesty's ships in Jamaica. 386 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,880 And while there he'd seen ports stuffed with ships 387 00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:05,520 carrying the produce of Spain's American empire 388 00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:10,920 and he'd seen how the Spanish Navy were all too keen to run away from a fight. 389 00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,440 Vernon was convinced that this was the soft underbelly 390 00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:15,960 of the Spanish empire. 391 00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,960 "Attack their settlements in America," he wrote, 392 00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:21,000 "and Spain will fall." 393 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,440 And if Spain fell that would have dire consequences 394 00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:26,280 for her close ally, France, 395 00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,400 who, of course, was Britain's greatest rival. 396 00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:33,400 So actually Britain would get two victories for the price of one. 397 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,320 It all sounds like a great idea. 398 00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:37,200 But there was a problem. 399 00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:44,080 During the 1720s and '30s, the government's policy was to avoid war. 400 00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:47,920 But at the same time, British traders in the Caribbean 401 00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,680 were aggressively encroaching into the Spanish empire, 402 00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,920 and they had the backing of merchants and former naval officers at home. 403 00:31:55,920 --> 00:32:00,400 Then in 1738 something extraordinary happened. 404 00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,960 A merchant captain called Robert Jenkins appeared here before Parliament. 405 00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,760 He brought with him a bundle of cotton wool. 406 00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,240 Opening it, he produced his own severed ear. 407 00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:19,280 The story that Jenkins told Parliament that day 408 00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,080 was political dynamite. 409 00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:25,600 He said the ear has been chopped off by a Spanish naval officer 410 00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,680 while he'd been minding his own business peaceably off the coast of Cuba. 411 00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:34,120 It unleashed a wave of xenophobia through Parliament and the public, 412 00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,840 and no-one's voice was louder than Edward Vernon. 413 00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:41,560 Jenkins' mutilation was Vernon's gain. 414 00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:45,680 He strode into the Admiralty and demanded to be given command 415 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,480 in the Caribbean, and Vernon got his wish. 416 00:32:54,280 --> 00:33:01,960 30 years after he first sailed to Jamaica, Edward Vernon returned, this time as a vice admiral. 417 00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:10,320 He arrived in Port Royal on 12th October 1739 and began his preparations. 418 00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:18,120 A week later, the British Government finally made up its mind and declared war against Spain. 419 00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:22,840 Vernon was now given official license "to commit all hostilities 420 00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:28,520 "against the Spaniards in such manner as you shall judge most proper." 421 00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:37,280 Britain's belligerent naval officers and her merchant class had got their war, 422 00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:39,560 the War of Jenkins' Ear. 423 00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:43,560 And it began when Vernon launched an attack 424 00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:47,560 on the Spanish colonial base at Porto Bello. 425 00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,680 On November 21st, Vernon sailed into Porto Bello 426 00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:53,920 with six Royal Navy warships. 427 00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:57,600 They opened up a massive bombardment against the Spanish defenders. 428 00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:05,680 The lead ship fired 400 shots in just 25 minutes. 429 00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:10,480 The Spanish were powerless to resist, partly because much of their gunpowder was damp. 430 00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,640 When Vernon's men stormed ashore, 431 00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:18,840 only 40 of the original 300 Spaniards were able to resist. 432 00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:22,320 They surrendered within 24 hours. 433 00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,480 Britain rejoiced. 434 00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,760 The Navy had delivered on its promise, projecting British force 435 00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:34,640 thousands of miles away from home, and Admiral Vernon, 436 00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:42,400 the scourge of Spain, was a hero, heir to Drake and the embodiment of a new imperial mission. 437 00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:49,360 A Scottish poet, James Thomson, really caught the national mood of celebration 438 00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:52,040 by penning a poem that became wildly popular. 439 00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:56,920 It contained the lines, "To thee belongs the rural reign 440 00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:00,640 "and thy cities shall with commerce shine." 441 00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,920 Now, in case you haven't guessed what it is yet, a few lines later comes, 442 00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:09,560 "Rule, Britannia! Rule the waves, Britons never will be slaves." 443 00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:12,960 These words have become part of our cultural DNA - 444 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:19,440 liberty, commerce and mastery of the seas all rolled inextricably together. 445 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:23,520 It was a defining moment in the creation of Britishness. 446 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:34,760 Buoyed by his success, Vernon decided to attack Cartagena, 447 00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:37,920 the largest and richest city in Spanish America. 448 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:43,920 He took a massive force of 8,500 troops and 124 ships. 449 00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:48,160 The public at home anticipated another easy victory, 450 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,400 but Vernon had over-reached himself. 451 00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,680 The attack was an uncoordinated disaster and soon stalled. 452 00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,440 Exposed to the extremes of the Caribbean climate 453 00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:03,080 and running low on water, the British were killed in horrifying numbers. 454 00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,360 Not by the Spanish, but by disease. 455 00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,920 Worse still, Vernon was out of range of reinforcements, 456 00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:14,680 so after almost six weeks of fighting he was forced to withdraw. 457 00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:21,600 Cartagena was a wake-up call to a nation drunk on patriotism. 458 00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,240 There were limits, after all, to what the Navy could achieve. 459 00:36:24,240 --> 00:36:29,480 The problem wasn't so much ships and men, it was organisation. 460 00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:32,600 If Britain wants to realise her dream of global domination, 461 00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:37,880 then the Navy's internal structures - running things like logistics and strategic thinking - 462 00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:43,920 had to be of the same quality as her awesomely powerful ships and her tough sailors. 463 00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:54,360 The man who would take on that challenge was another veteran of the Caribbean, Captain George Anson. 464 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,440 Following Vernon's victory at Porto Bello, 465 00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:03,880 Anson had been ordered to take a squadron of six warships to attack the Spanish in the Pacific. 466 00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,480 But his mission quickly turned into a nightmare. 467 00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:13,000 Anson's route may look like the trail of a drunken spider, 468 00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,520 but as he attempted to round Cape Horn, 469 00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,720 his squadron was so battered by storms, that he lost half his ships 470 00:37:19,720 --> 00:37:24,360 and after so long at sea a third of his men had succumbed to scurvy, 471 00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:26,040 typhus and dysentery. 472 00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:33,320 Yet by the time he arrived back here in Britain in 1744, he'd become a national hero. 473 00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,600 Why? Because on his way home, as he passed the Philippines, 474 00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:42,880 he'd managed to capture a Spanish galleon, the Nuestra Senora de Covadonga. 475 00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:47,720 And in her hold was over 1,000 kilos of virgin silver 476 00:37:47,720 --> 00:37:53,320 and more than one million pieces of eight, solid silver coins. 477 00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:57,600 She was one of the most valuable prizes ever captured by a British ship. 478 00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:03,080 The public had a new hero to cheer and the treasure was paraded 479 00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,440 in 32 wagons through the streets of London. 480 00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:10,920 To cap it all off, just six months later, at the age of 47, 481 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,840 Anson was appointed to the Board of the Admiralty. 482 00:38:16,240 --> 00:38:23,520 George Anson arrived here just after Christmas 1744 with a reputation as a man of action. 483 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:27,800 And he was shocked by the bureaucratic lethargy he found. 484 00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:32,280 The organisation needed a shake-up from top to bottom. 485 00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:48,720 So this is it - the Admiralty boardroom. 486 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:51,640 The beating heart of Anson's Navy. 487 00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:53,960 I tell you what, it feels like a long way 488 00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:58,000 from the pitching quarterdeck of a man-of-war going round Cape Horn. 489 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:02,760 In a way, of course, Anson's experiences on that epic circumnavigation 490 00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:06,440 had prepared him well for one of these seats at this table. 491 00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:11,720 On that voyage he hadn't just been commander of a naval squadron, he'd had to become a shipwright, 492 00:39:11,720 --> 00:39:14,280 a teacher, a judge, even a diplomat. 493 00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:20,800 And of course he'd seen the terrible effects of diseases like scurvy at first hand. 494 00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,200 Anson was the most experienced sailor in the Navy. 495 00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:28,680 He was the perfect man to lead a complete overhaul of the service. 496 00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:31,080 Incredible as it may sound, 497 00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:37,760 at the time the Navy had no formal system of rank. It didn't even have a uniform. 498 00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,920 Anson introduced both. 499 00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,680 This is him in full dress. 500 00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:46,160 He also made the Navy more of a meritocracy. 501 00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:52,040 Officers were to be promoted on the basis of ability instead of time served. 502 00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:58,320 Anson literally re-wrote the rule book of the Royal Navy, so-called Articles of War. 503 00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,120 This was partly in response to a manpower shortage. 504 00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:05,600 Increasing numbers of inexperienced men were being recruited as sailors. 505 00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,480 But he also wanted to stiffen the resolve of his officer corp. 506 00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:15,120 From now on the penalty for negligence, disaffection or cowardice would be death. 507 00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:21,120 Iron discipline and organisation would be the keys to success in Anson's Navy. 508 00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:26,720 Anson was not prepared to rely on the natural talent of a few good men. 509 00:40:26,720 --> 00:40:33,600 He wanted to ensure that the correct mindset and skills were perpetuated throughout the Navy. 510 00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:37,680 He was institutionalising the qualities needed to guarantee victory 511 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:42,080 and he was doing it with a clear enemy in mind. 512 00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:49,720 Over the previous three decades, France had been re-building her Navy and massively expanding her trade 513 00:40:49,720 --> 00:40:53,480 and her empire in places like North America and India. 514 00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:59,280 By the middle of the century, the two great rivals, Britain and France, were evenly matched. 515 00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,400 They're relationship was a powder keg of competing interests. 516 00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:07,280 It was only a matter of time before someone lit the fuse. 517 00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:26,200 On the 8th June 1755, a French squadron was heading for Canada when, 518 00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:32,200 through the murk of a North Atlantic morning, they caught sight of Royal Naval ships. 519 00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:37,560 As the two fleets converged, a French captain shouted across to his opposite number on the British ship. 520 00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,160 "Are we at peace or at war?" 521 00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:43,200 The words came back, "At peace, at peace." 522 00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,560 But it was followed seconds later by a crashing broadside. 523 00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:52,640 The British Admiral Edward Boscawen had loaded all his cannon with two cannonballs 524 00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:59,400 and the French ships were pulverised. 525 00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:16,200 After this naked act of aggression, a formal declaration of war was an inevitability. 526 00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:25,640 The Seven Years War, as it became known, was also the first world war. 527 00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:31,480 Wherever British or French flags flew, from North America to the Caribbean, West Africa to India, 528 00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:35,240 the two sides launched themselves at each other. 529 00:42:35,240 --> 00:42:39,640 But perhaps surprisingly, the first real test for the Navy 530 00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:43,960 came in defending their own base in the Mediterranean. 531 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:49,360 In the spring of 1756, Admiral John Byng set sail from England. 532 00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:51,560 He was to take a squadron of 13 warships 533 00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,240 to protect the island of Minorca. 534 00:42:54,240 --> 00:42:58,200 But by the time he arrived, he found he French had already lande 535 00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:02,680 and had the British garrison under siege from land and sea. 536 00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,800 Despite enjoying a small advantage in terms of the number of ships, 537 00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:10,280 Byng decided to risk a full scale battle and retreated to Gibraltar. 538 00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,160 This meant the French captured Minorca. 539 00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:17,120 Back in Britain, the news of the loss of such an important naval base 540 00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:19,920 in the Mediterranean was greeted with outrage. 541 00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,760 Byng was ordered back to England to meet his fate. 542 00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,600 He was court marshalled, according to the new Articles of War, 543 00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:34,440 and found guilty of failing to do his utmost to take or destroy the enemy's ships. 544 00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,160 The sentence was death. 545 00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:45,960 On the 14th March 1757, Admiral John Byng was executed 546 00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:48,080 on the quarterdeck of his own ship. 547 00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:51,560 He'd been allowed to direct his own firing squad. 548 00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:54,960 When he was ready for them to fire, he dropped a handkerchief. 549 00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:03,040 Once again, the great French philosopher Voltaire put it most succinctly. 550 00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:09,600 "In this country," he wrote, "it is wise to kill an Admiral from time to time to encourage the others." 551 00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:11,280 Well, it worked. 552 00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:15,720 From then on, Royal Naval officers were aggressive to a fault. 553 00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:20,400 Relentless aggression became a hallmark of the Royal Navy, 554 00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:26,160 a psychological weapon just as important as the quality of its ships and guns. 555 00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:30,280 But victory in this war would require more than just aggression. 556 00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,960 The Navy needed a strategy. 557 00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,480 Back at the Admiralty, the First Lord, Anson, 558 00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,960 was wrestling with the challenges of fighting war on this global scale. 559 00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:47,120 Even though British naval expenditure was twice that of France, 560 00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:52,280 there still weren't enough ships to send in sufficient numbers to all the different theatres of war. 561 00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:56,520 And so instead Anson seized on a very simple idea. 562 00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:01,280 It had first been conceived by Admiral Edward Vernon in a previous war. 563 00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:05,040 Now, Vernon's idea was keeping a fleet of battle ships here to 564 00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,320 the south-west of the British Isles. 565 00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:11,480 Here they could keep an eye on the French naval base at Brest, 566 00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:15,760 blockading the French ships in there. But also protect the trade coming back in here 567 00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:20,680 from North America and the Caribbean, and up here from the Mediterranean. 568 00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,560 But there was one key problem. 569 00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:25,360 Any fleet of ships being kept at sea for that long 570 00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:29,360 would inevitably come up against the two deadliest enemies of the sailor, 571 00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,600 malnutrition and disease. 572 00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:38,800 18th-century naval rations were based around salted meat and sea biscuits. 573 00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:43,240 Any food that couldn't be dried or salted would quickly rot. 574 00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:49,720 So a balanced diet was almost impossible, and that's where the problems began. 575 00:45:49,720 --> 00:45:53,800 'Even on the Navy's most modern warship, maintaining food supplies, 576 00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:57,440 'vittling, as it's known, is still a prime consideration. 577 00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:02,560 'On HMS Daring, it's the responsibility of Petty Officer Neil Mogridge.' 578 00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:04,120 Come through this way. 579 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:07,800 What's in here? 580 00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:10,800 This is the main freezer compartment. 581 00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,680 Right. Ooh, it's freezing. 582 00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:17,800 This gets to about minus 22 in here, so quite cold. 583 00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:20,760 I can see some frozen chips down there. Is everything chips? 584 00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:25,160 No, no, we keep your basic meats on board. 585 00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,840 Chicken, minced beef you can see down here, 586 00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,120 stuff like gammon, bacon, sausages. 587 00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:35,640 It's literally everything you go down the supermarket for you can pretty much find down here. 588 00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:42,120 So if we just steamed off into the horizon now, how many days can we last for with a full hold of food? 589 00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:48,040 What we call endurance on this ship is a maximum of 90 days. 590 00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,480 So the ship can actually stay at sea and sustain itself for 90 days 591 00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:53,880 on a balanced diet for the ship's company. 592 00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,400 But that must represent quite a lot of money, so what's a full hold cost? 593 00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:05,000 You're probably looking on a maximum endurance probably between £150,000 to £200,000 worth of food on board. 594 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,600 So how much is that per sailor per day? 595 00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:14,200 At the moment we get a massive £2.31 to feed per man per day. 596 00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:21,360 Keeping the crews well fed was the greatest challenge Admiral Anson faced 597 00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:25,600 back in the 1750s as he tried maintain his western squadron at sea. 598 00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:33,560 If this has been an 18th-century ship, within a few weeks of leaving harbour 599 00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,840 these sailors would be reduced to eating 600 00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:42,320 rock-hard stale biscuits crawling with weevils, and water polluted with algae and bacteria. 601 00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:47,880 Within about six weeks typically, diseases like dysentery, typhus and scurvy would spread. 602 00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:49,680 No-one knew what caused these diseases, 603 00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:53,880 but Anson did know that fresh produce seemed to prevent them 604 00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:58,240 Therefore in order for the western squadron to become an effective weapon 605 00:47:58,240 --> 00:48:01,240 they had to work out a proper way of re-vittling it. 606 00:48:01,240 --> 00:48:04,760 This was the challenge that Anson set to the man he placed in command 607 00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,880 of the western squadron, the appropriately named Admiral Edward Hawke. 608 00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:16,600 Hawke had over 20 years of command experience in the Navy and had earned a reputation 609 00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:20,480 for great tactical skill and single-minded aggression. 610 00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,040 He was the personification of the new Navy. 611 00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:28,840 He was given 30 ships and 14,000 men. 612 00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:31,720 His orders were to position his squadron 613 00:48:31,720 --> 00:48:36,040 just outside the French naval base at Brest and to stay there. 614 00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:41,880 Realising the implications of this, Hawke set up a supply chain from Plymouth to deliver 615 00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:47,080 fresh fruit and vegetables and even live cattle directly to his squadron, ship to ship. 616 00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:55,000 This beat scurvy for the first time, allowing Hawke to stay at sea almost indefinitely. 617 00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,080 It was a feat unimaginable 80 years before. 618 00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,560 With the threat of disease eliminated, Hawke could concentrate on his mission 619 00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,640 and that was maintaining such a strong presence outside the French Naval base 620 00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:12,880 that their fleet would not dare to leave. 621 00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:15,920 It was called close blockade and it was the first time in history 622 00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:19,040 it had ever been tried successfully on this scale. 623 00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:25,440 From May to November 1759, Hawke bottled up the French fleet in its harbour. 624 00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:29,760 It was a massive achievement and it had a decisive impact on the outcome of the war 625 00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:35,040 and all of it was done without Hawke's big battleships firing a shot in anger. 626 00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,880 Not only was the French navy rendered utterly powerless, 627 00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:45,120 their land forces in America and India were cut off from vital supplies and reinforcements. 628 00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:50,120 And as French forces around the world began to capitulate, 629 00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,720 in Britain the church bells rang in celebration. 630 00:49:53,720 --> 00:49:57,960 It became known as the annus mirabilis, the year of wonders 631 00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:05,400 First to fall was Guadaloupe, the jewel in France's Caribbean crown. 632 00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:10,960 Then Quebec, capital of her vast North American empire, was captured by the British. 633 00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,280 At sea, the Gibraltar Squadron attacked and destroyed 634 00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,600 the French Mediterranean fleet off the coast of Portugal. 635 00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:23,200 While in the east, the Royal Navy chased the French 636 00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:27,600 out of the Indian Ocean, allowing the British Army to achieve victory on land. 637 00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:36,640 It was the greatest year in British military history and, being Brits, 638 00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:40,200 they turned it into a year of wild rejoicing. 639 00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,240 One author, Horace Walpole, 640 00:50:42,240 --> 00:50:47,720 wrote that the church bells were "threadbare with the ringing of victories". 641 00:50:47,720 --> 00:50:52,040 But, across the Channel, the French has one card left to play 642 00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:57,920 King Louis XV, with his empire in ruins, his trade destroyed and his Treasury empty, 643 00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:04,440 ordered his Brest fleet to collect an army and head to sea to invade Britain. 644 00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,680 His Admiral, Conflans, hoped to avoid the Royal Navy, 645 00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:13,920 but if they did meet he promised, "I will fight them with all possible glory." 646 00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,240 The French navy's opportunity came in November, 647 00:51:19,240 --> 00:51:24,720 when autumn gales scattered the British ships that were blockading Brest. 648 00:51:24,720 --> 00:51:28,560 Immediately, the French admiral, Conflans, took to sea. 649 00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:34,440 He headed south to pick up a fleet of ships with soldiers embarked and ready to launch an invasion. 650 00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:37,920 Admiral Hawke wasted no time in pursuing him, 651 00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:42,880 sensing an opportunity for the decisive clash he craved. 652 00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:46,960 He caught up with the French here in Quiberon Bay. 653 00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:52,920 That reef there, with the rollers crashing onto it 654 00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:56,520 and all the white water around it, is the reason the French thought they'd be safe 655 00:51:56,520 --> 00:52:02,120 because they were coming into this dangerous bay between two reefs. 656 00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:07,560 As you can see from the chart, there was almost an impenetrable barrier of rocks, islands, and reefs. 657 00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:11,040 I've never seen Quiberon Bay before and it's absolutely fascinating. 658 00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:15,560 These incredibly jagged reefs here are absolutely terrifying, terrifying for me, 659 00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:19,360 but terrifying for the British ships who had no charts of this area. 660 00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:26,440 The British ships were charging into an unknown bay with the wind blowing on shore on a November twilight. 661 00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:41,360 I've only got about half my sails up today because it's so windy, 662 00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:45,840 and if you put any more up it risks ripping fittings out the deck and doing huge damage to the ship. 663 00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:54,680 Only that incredible aggression of the kind that had been bred in the Royal Navy over the past decade 664 00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:56,720 and reinforced by the execution of Byng, 665 00:52:56,720 --> 00:53:00,080 only that incredible aggression would have driven those men in here. 666 00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:11,960 And on that November night there was a full gale blowing from that direction. 667 00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:23,160 Hawke himself was so keen to get to grips with the French, 668 00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:27,600 particularly the French Admiral, the French flagship, his opposite number. 669 00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:32,680 His captain warned him, he said it's too dangerous, it's too dark and we can't go in after those Frenchmen. 670 00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,440 Hawke said, "Your duty was to tell me that it's not safe, 671 00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:39,520 "but your duty is also to obey my orders and lay me alongside that French flagship." 672 00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:42,640 Hawke was not gonna make the same mistake that Byng had made 673 00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,080 and he was not gonna let these French get away. 674 00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:47,240 After six months of tedious blockading, 675 00:53:47,240 --> 00:53:50,920 he now had his chance to destroy the flower of the French fleet. 676 00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:05,240 He came alongside and he waited so close that his men could reach out and touch the French ship 677 00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:08,280 with their hands and he fired a giant broadside into them. 678 00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:14,320 Tonnes of lead pounding into a French ship at point blank range. 679 00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:19,000 The wood shattered, sending splinters a yard long cartwheeling through the air, 680 00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:22,680 scything people down, and soon the sea was covered in wreckage, masts, 681 00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:28,080 survivors clinging to the masts, dead bodies, a scene of total anarchy. 682 00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:36,040 The French lost five ships and 2,500 men. 683 00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,040 The British only lost two ships. 684 00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:45,600 The battle fought in these waters is one of the most decisive in British history. 685 00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:51,520 It annihilated French naval power and it removed any chance France had of getting back her colonies. 686 00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:55,160 The Royal Navy, in this storm-tossed bay, 687 00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:58,080 fought and won a battle for global supremacy. 688 00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:17,040 The story of Britain's transformation inside 80 years is a remarkable one. 689 00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:24,880 In 1690, England had been the sick man of Europe, broke and completely at the mercy of the French Navy. 690 00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:29,720 Now in 1759, the situation was completely reversed. 691 00:55:29,720 --> 00:55:34,920 Now, for the first time in history, one nation dominated the world's oceans. 692 00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,960 Britannia really did rule the waves. 693 00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:47,000 Behind the vanguard of its now formidable naval forces, 694 00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:52,800 Britain had become a commercial powerhouse, boosted by an explosion in credit and overseas trade. 695 00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:56,120 General salute. 696 00:55:56,120 --> 00:55:58,920 Present...arms! 697 00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:05,160 At the same time, mastery of the sea had helped secure 698 00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:09,280 the first footholds of empire around the globe. 699 00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:23,120 The Navy had delivered victory and Britain was prosperous, afloat on a golden ocean. 700 00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:25,520 THEY CHEER 701 00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:40,800 But away from all the celebrations something else was going on, unnoticed by most. 702 00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:45,440 In 1690, England had been part of an alliance of smaller nations. 703 00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:51,600 Together they had resisted the continental ambitions of the French King Louis XIV and they'd survived. 704 00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:54,920 But by 1759, what the British couldn't understand 705 00:56:54,920 --> 00:57:00,160 was that the rest of Europe now regarded them as as great a threat to liberty 706 00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:02,560 as Louis had been 80 years before. 707 00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:06,160 Britannia was triumphant but alone. 708 00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:11,880 Next time, how the Navy forged an empire that became the envy 709 00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:16,880 of the age, fuelling a ferocious conflict with her old enemy, France, 710 00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:21,600 and transforming one British commander into a national icon. 711 00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:46,160 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 712 00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:49,200 E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk