CHAPTER 3 - Manning – The Attempted Solutions

Summary

Having examined the scale of the manning problem in the previous chapter, it is now necessary to look at how the commanders in the Caribbean tried to cope. There were no easy solutions. Attempts could be made to prevent desertions and sickness, and to make good the losses by impressment, and by recovering deserters. Medical ignorance limited the effectiveness of measures against sickness, while it proved difficult to either prevent, or to recover deserters. With impressment being of limited value, as well as of doubtful legality, commanders were forced to use every other means at their disposal, to overcome the difficulties facing them. Despite the exercise of commonsense, ingenuity and, on occasion, the full severity of the law, no effective solution was found.

As far as operational difficulties were concerned, three elements were involved. First, there was the overall problem that ships' crews often included a large percentage of inexperienced men. Secondly, individual ships were often so short of complement, through sickness and desertion, that they could no longer be counted on as effective units. Thirdly, the methods that the commanders used to try and deal with the first two problems, led to increasing friction between the navy and the island authorities. This placed commanders in conflict with the very officials with whom they needed to co–operate, if they were to fulfil their operational role effectively.

In time of war, the navy could not pick and choose men. The impressment service took any man it could seize. Yet in the Caribbean, sickness caused a high rate of turnover among the crews.