The Packet Ships

(acknowledgements www.gaspee.org)

I left the last talk at the point where the end of the 17 th century was in sight and like the close relationship of Penryn and Falmouth no further history of the town could proceed without showing the enormous contribution of the Packet Service. And so this talk will be mainly about the history of that service and its effect on the town. .

We must be grateful to the Post office of the time for establishing in 1688 this service of fast ships running between this country and western overseas ports, because of the enormous benefit that the service brought to the town but we should ask the question why did the Government Post office select Falmouth over any other port in the south west of which there are a considerable number. So let us first of all look at the official assessment of our town by the Government P.O., which recorded, and here I quote from the official records of the time.

“The extreme westerly position of Falmouth Harbour gives it an advantage which is rendered obvious by a single glance at the map.

From no other harbour in this country can an outward-bound vessel clear the land so quickly. No other is so soon reached by one homeward-bound and running for shelter. On the darkest nights, and in dense fog, ships unacquainted with the harbour may enter it in safety, so easy is it of access; and sailing vessels can leave it in any wind save one blowing strongly from the east or south -east.

It is, in fact, the safest anchorage in the country protected from the full strength of the Atlantic rollers and abounding in sheltered creeks where vessels might be in practical immunity from the worst of the storms.”

And so the Falmouth Packet station was born with 2 vessels hired from Daniel Gwin a local man who was paid £70 but although the ships were privately chartered the crews were appointed and paid by the post office.

Before 1668, the mail service was based in London using the first ship available. Sailing dates were advertised in coffee houses to collect mail at one penny in advance, or two pence on delivery at the port of destination.

But we may well ask why is the mail service called the ‘Post’ and why call it the Packet service .

The word post was used because before the introduction of the postage stamp the British method of charging the mail was payment on delivery - in other words -post payment,- and incidentally the cost of postage unlike our present system was based on the number of charging zones the letter passed through on its journey.

The word ‘packet’ ,however, comes from the French word ‘paquet’ which referred to the way the official dispatches were sealed for carriage. So in time the organisation carrying these dispatches became known as the ‘pacquet postal service’ and ships employed in that service referred to as packet ships.

We may again well ask why should the Packet Station be established at that particular time and not before or later ?

The answer lay in the fact that Mail for Spain and the Mediterranean had usually gone overland through France but when war broke out with that country mail had now to go by sea. And thus the packet service was born with as I have said enormous benefits to the town drawing on its traditional services: the provision of food and stores, the quartering of seamen, ship repair, building facilities and so on.

We don’t have to imagine how all this affected the town for we have a first hand very graphic account of the time in 1808 by Don Manuel Alvarfez Espriella who when he stayed at a waterside inn, probably The Greenbank, describes the scene,

“The perpetual stir and bustle is as surprising as it is wearisome. Doors opening and shutting, bells ringing, voices calling to the waiter from every direction while he cries ‘coming’ to one room yet hastens to another.

Everyone is in a hurry here ‘ either they are going off in the Packets and hastening their preparations to embark. Or they have just arrived and are impatient to be on the road homeward. Every now and then a carriage rattles up to the door with a rapidity which makes the house shake. The man who cleans the boots is running in one direction. The barber with his powder bag in another. Here goes the barber’s boy with his hot water and razors, there comes the clean linen from the washerwoman, and the hall is full of porters, and sailors bring up luggage or bearing it away. Now you hear a horn blow because the post in coming in and in the middle of the night you are awakened by another because it is going out. Nothing is done without a noise, and yet noise is the only thing they forget to put on the bill.” end of quote.

What was a surprise to me was the influence of Flushing and the Trefusis family on the service, for Samuel Trefusis realising the potential benefits of having a Packet Station was determined that the village of Flushing should benefit as well as his family so he concentrated on the provision of storage facilities and the victualling of the Packet Ships ad establishing the packet agency in the village in New Quay House. Trefusis realised that each Packet needed 5 to 10k gallons of fresh water for long voyages and so a holding tank behind the Flushing quay was built of that size but today I couldn‘t find its location.

I suspect that to increase his influence Samuel Trefusis at the age of 26 married Alice who happened to be the daughter of Cotton the Post Master General the man responsible for the packet service. I think we can rule out the possibility that he may have just fallen in love with the woman, because when she died, he very soon married Margaret Craggs, who was - the daughter of another Post master General. Soon after his marriage Trefusis quickly obtained a ruling, if can you believe it, that all commanders, officers and seamen must live in Flushing or forfeit their jobs, but soon this ruling was rescinded but not before many houses were built by the Packet Captains before most of them moved to Greenbank to the houses built by Lord Dunstanville. We don’t know when the packet agency moved to Falmouth but we are all familiar with its location which was at Bell’s Court which is now the location of The Working Man’s Club opposite M&S

Thus this tiny village remained a strategic spot for servicing the packets and building some of the ships at Little Falmouth half a mile further up the Penryn river.

Most of the Packet captains were flamboyant outsize characters but I have only time to talk about one who built a large house which the Civic Society were invited to visit many years ago. This was of course Marlborough House near Swanpool built by Captain Bull in a style that resembled his ship.

During his 45 year service Bull commanded 3 packets - the Grantham, and two ships of the same name. John Bull married Phillipa Powell who possessed a small fortune and it is said with every amiable quality that can render the marriage state truly happy. He was wounded many times during fighting off various ships At the end of his career he declined a knighthood because he said he was just an ordinary rough and plain seaman . If you visit the Maritime Museum you will see on display his pride and joy, a Silver Pig toothpick holder which mistakenly got taken as contraband by the custom officers when visiting his ship. Attending a later custom house auction the pig came up for sale and Bull was to have said “Damn me: that’s my pig.” And so when bidding for it no one dared bid against him and he bought his own pig for three pence.

So now I shall skip to the late 18 th century when the service was well established and we have a description of life at that time in Flushing by James Buckingham who lived in a house on the water’s edge in front of New Quay House . You would be struck by the number of packet captain and naval officers living in the area dressed in their uniforms that literally sparkled with gold epaulets and gold lace hats for since there was no official packet officers’ dress they tried to outdress the naval captains in their attire which caused a complaint from the admiralty who instructed the PMG to inform the Packet Captains that in future the Button Holes on their

uniforms ,and here I quote ”be embroidered with silver instead of Gold, and the buttons of white metal instead of being gilt. My Lords are of opinion it will sufficiently distinguish the difference in the uniform”

At this time permanently stationed in the harbour were two squadrons of HM frigates and from his autobiography the same James Buckingham paints a picture of the scene.

“There would be sometimes a dozen men of wars’ boats at the quay at the same time, including the barges for the commanding officers, and the cutters, gigs, launches and folly boats on duty ; the boat’s crews mostly dressed in dashing marine trim, with blue jackets and trousers and bright scarlet waistcoats, overlaid with gilt buttons in winter and striped Guernsey frocks and white flowing trousers in summer; while the streets of the little village literally sparked with gold epaulets gold lace hats and brilliant uniforms.

In addition to these squadrons of the navy, Falmouth was also then enriched and enhanced by the presence of a fleet of handsome mail packets in the service of the Post Office including from 30 to 30 full rigged three- masted ships, small in size, but of the most elegant models-built exclusively for speed and passenger accommodation carrying the Royal pennant, as the ships of war. the officers all wearing handsome uniforms and the crews being picked men, well -dressed and generally young and handsome the service being so popular that it was a matter of great difficulty to get into it. Both officers and men often made large fortunes by the private contraband trade which they carried on, under the protection of their being in government ships and therefore free from the search of the Custom and Excise both in the export of British manufactures, which they smuggled onto Spain and Portugal, America and the Spanish possessions of the West Indies and in the imports into England of wine spirits and tobacco in large quantities at every voyage which they also smuggled ashore and on which they made immense gains from this avoiding the payment of duty.

“The greater the number of the captains and officers of the packets as well as most of the crew lived also at Flushing and so added to the wealth and elegance of the place that at the period adverted to , between 1790-1795 there was probably no spot in England in which so limited a surface and among so small a number in the aggregate were to be seen so much of the gaiety and elegance of life as in this little village. Dinners, balls and evening parties were held at one or other of the Captain’s houses every evening’ and not a night passed in which there was not 3 or 5 dances at least at the more humble places of resort for the sailors and their favourite lasses“

But Buckingham probably was not aware of the drawbacks in the packet service and only saw the advantages, so painted a rosy hued picture of the service although he was right to emphasise the enormous money that could be made from contraband, passengers and booty.

I should perhaps quote another description of the sailors of these ships by the naval chronicler Samuel Kelly who actually served in the Packets from 1778. He described the crews were usually ‘dissolute and depraved young men who had for whatever reason to leave the country. They had no bedding and spent their off-watch time sleeping around the galley fire’. They were often joined by deserters from the Royal Navy or the Royal marines who would jump ship while abroad and pocket the £30 to £40 by joining a merchant ship on sail for home. In port they would go ashore and steal from gardens any fresh food and poultry they could find. When one ship left Falmouth in 1779 only three men could handle the sails and steer. The rest had no skill or knowledge at all.

Living conditions on board the ships were uncomfortable being so damp and cramped, for the main deck was just inches above the water line, with no port holes which meant that there was no light except for the light through the hatches because of the risk of fire. Food was monotonous and there were no lavatories. Rats were a constant threat to stores and men who would take their clothes and possessions to bed with them to keep the rats away.

The post office lamented at the time that , and I quote, “there are now 12 packets at sea and no less than 10 captains ashore”. For at that time a captain could stay at home take his full pay and commission on the cargo and appoint an unqualified seaman to find his way across the Atlantic and it was only at the turn of the century that things changed.

But so successful was the service that very soon ships were running to New York, Lisbon, Brazil, Jamaica, Bermuda, and as the country was involved during this time in war either with France, Spain, Holland and America, the security of the mail and dispatches was especially important

By the end of the Napoleonic Wars the packet ships had been involved in 128 skirmishes only 44 of which 44 were lost to the enemy, an impressive record for a fleet of little ships who usually fought against larger ships with a greater number of guns.

At this point I shall end and continue next time with the report of the rioting in Falmouth by the Packet seamen and the difficult times ahead for Falmouth when the Packet service was removed from Falmouth

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