“As for ye Pay yor Honrs were please to order mee for my service in ye Hare Pinke, I return most humble thankes, and am ready to serve yor Honrs and my Country for ye future
. . . . . . . . . . .
For though ye Hare be mewsed in ye sand
yet Cranwell at your mercy still doth stand
A fire Ship now doth hee Crave,
And the Fox fain would he Have,
then has hee had both Fox and Hare,
then Spanish Admirall stand you cleare,
For Cranwell means ye Chaine of goold to ware;
Sett penn to paper it is done,
for Cranwell still will be your man,”
all of which goes to show that it had not been unusual to bestow gold chains, with or without medals, on the captains of fire-ships. By the “Fighting Instructions” issued 20th of April, 1665, by James, duke of York, lord high admiral, it was provided as follows. In the case of the destruction of an enemy’s vessel of forty guns or more, each person remaining on board the fire-ship till the service was performed was to receive £10, “on board ye Admirall imediately after ye service done,” and the captain a gold medal and “shuth other future encouragement by preferment and commande as shall be fitt both to reward him and induce others to perform ye like Service.” If it was a flag-ship that was fired “ye Recompense in money shall be doubled to each man performing itt, and ye medall to ye Commander shall be shuth as shall particularly ezpress ye Eminensye of ye Service, and his with ye other officers preferement shalbe suitable to ye meritt of itt.” This was followed by an “Oder of the King in Council” dated Whitehall 12th of January 1669–1670, in which the lord high admiral is authorized “to distribute a Medall and Chaine to such Captaines of Fire Shipps as in the last Dutch Warr have burnt any Man of Warr, as also to any of them that shall perform any such service in the present Warr with Algiers. Which Medalls and Chaines are to be of the price of Thirty Pounds each or thereabouts”
To complete the story of fire-ship awards, it may here be noted (though out of chronological order) that in 1703 revised “Fighting Instructions” were issued by Admiral Sir George Rooke, in which it was provided that the captain was to have his choice between a gratuity of £100, or a gold medal and chain of that value. Lastly an order of the king in council, dated, St James’s, 16th of December, 1742, ordered that all lieutenants of fire-ships (which originally carried no officers of this rank) should be entitled to a gratuity of £50 “in all cases where the Captain is entituled to the Reward of £100.” Though probably others were conferred, so thorough an investigator as the late John Horsley Mayo, for many years assistant military secretary at the India office, who had special opportunities of access to official records, traced but three authenticated fire-ship awards. Those were: (1) to Captain John Guy, who blew up his fire-ship the “Vesuvius” under the walls of St Malo in 1693; (2) to Captain Smith Callis who, with his fire-ship the “Duke,” in 1742, destroyed five Spanish galleys which had put into St Tropez, to the eastward of Marseilles; (3) to Captain James Wooldridge, who commanded the British fire-ships in Aix Roads on the 11th of April 1809, when four French sail of the line were burnt. This latter is believed to be the last award of the kind that was issued. Fire-ships awards are of special interest as affording a precedent, in future naval wars, for the award of special decorations for torpedo services.
It is in this reign also that we first find a case of medals being granted by the Honourable East India Company. The earliest of these would appear to have been a gold medal of the value of £20, conferred on Sir George Oxinden, president at Surat, 1622–1669, in 1668, for considerable civil and military services. Surat was then and until 1687, when Bombay took its place, the seat of government of the Western Presidency, and the most eminent of Sir George’s services was the defence of the Company’s treasures and possessions at that place against Sivajee and the Mahrattas in 1664. It is not known what has become of this medal, but there is indirect evidence to show that it was a circular medal, three inches in diameter. On the obverse the “Arms of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies, with creast, supporters, and mottoes,” and around the legend NON MINOR EST VIRTVS QUAM QVAERERE PARTA TVERI. The reverse was probably blank to admit of an inscription. This award was the forerunner of many given by the H.E.I. Co., several of which were “general distributions” of the very highest interest, which will be dealt with together later on.
The awards made in the reigns of James II., William and Mary, William III., Anne, George I., George II., may be very briefly dealt with. Almost without an exception they were either naval or conferred by the Hon. East India Company, and with only perhaps one or two exceptions, they were “personal” as distinct from “general” awards. Of the very few medals awarded by James II., one was an undoubted military award, though curiously enough the recipient was a bishop. This was Peter Mew, who had been made bishop of Bath and Wells in 1672, was translated to Winchester 1684, “and next year was commanded by the king, in compliance with the request of the gentry of Somerset, to go against Monmouth, and did eminent service at the battle of Sedgmoor, where he managed the artillery; for which he was rewarded with a rich medal” (Hutchins’s History of Dorset, 3rd ed., vol. iv. p. 149).
The possible exceptions in the way of a “general” distribution of a medal during the reigns under review are the cases of the medals struck after the battles of La Hogue, 1692, and Culloden, 1746. By an act of parliament passed in 1692 (4 Gul. and Mar. c. 25), it was enacted that a tenth part of the prize money taken by the navy should be set apart “for Medalls and other Rewards for Officers, Mariners, and Seamen in their Majesties Service at Sea who shall be found to have done any signal or extraordinary service.” (Later a Royal Declaration of Queen Anne, the 1st of June 1702, provided that all medal and monetary awards “shall be also paid out of Her Majesties Shares of Prizes.”) This is the first case in naval records authorizing the issue of medals to men as well as to officers, and the conferring of the “La Hogue” medal was the first case in which the enactment was carried into effect, at any rate as far as admirals and officers are concerned. Seamen and soldiers had a more substantial reward, for the queen sent £30,000 to be distributed amongst them, whilst gold and silver medals were struck for the admirals and officers. The medal, which was circular, 1·95 in. in diameter, had on the obverse the busts conjoined of William and Mary, r., with around GVL ET MAR D G M B F ET H REX ET REGINA. On the reverse was a representation of the fight, showing the French flag-ship, “Le Soleil Royal,” in flames, with above the legend, NOX NVLLA SECVTA EST, and, in the exergue, PVGN NAV INT ANG ET FR 21 MAY 1692.
As regards the medal struck after Culloden, fought on the 16th of April 1746, and in which the adherents of the young Pretender were completely routed, there is nothing even to show that it was issued even by the authority of the government, though it was undoubtedly worn, and (if a contemporary portrait is to be relied upon, that of an ancestor of Mr W. Chandos-Pole of Radbourne Hall in Derbyshire) around the neck attached to a crimson ribbon with a green edge. There is no doubt it was struck in gold, silver and copper, but how it was awarded there is no proof, probably only to officers. The obverse had an r., bust of the duke of Cumberland, with above CUMBERLAND, below YEO f (Richard Yeo fecit), and, on the reverse, an Apollo, laureate, leaning upon his bow and pointing to a dragon wounded by his arrow. The reverse legend was ACTUM EST ILICET PERIIT, and, in the exergue PROEL COLOD AP XVI MDCCXLVI. The medal is a strikingly handsome one, with an ornamental border and ring for suspension, oval, 1·75 by 1·45 in., but very few specimens are known to exist. Those in gold were probably only given to officers commanding regiments and a very fine specimen of these, originally conferred on Brigadier-General Fleming (at one time in command of the 36th Foot) is now in the collection of Major-General Lord
