Shipboard Order and Discipline in the Early Seventeenth Century

For the men on English East India Company vessels in the early seventeenth century, their multi-year voyages were rarely ‘smooth sailing’…Like most long-distance treks in the early modern period, the accounts of the English East India Company voyages are peppered with examples of shipboard disagreements -both physical and verbal, desertions, disease, and deaths. However, an examination of the ships’ logs from its f irst 4 major voyages (1601-11)2 also reveal extreme behaviours such as suicides, sexual deviance, mutinies, and a murder, all of which tested order aboard. These are indicators that for Tudor-Stuart seamen the 2-3 year round trip to the East Indies was one of the most challenging forms of maritime employment. Though the Company was a solicitous employer that was proactive when it came to the physical and spiritual health of its employees, experienced officers, shipboard healthcare, regular worship, good wages, and a diet that often included anti-scorbutics were not sufficient to ensure shipboard harmony on Company ships.3 For most breaches of discipline, officers chastened offenders with physical punishments, but there were occasions when order was so severely compromised that drastic measures were required. This chapter is not a legal study of these cases, but rather seeks to analyze what these offences and trials reveal about the human costs of the taxing multi-year voyages and the difficulties of maintaining shipboard order…