In several articles and books dealing with the Portuguese navy in the first part of the 19th century it’s stated that her navy had no longer the strength she once possessed. In his book the author A.P.D.G. shows this clearly when writing about the commissioning in 1819-1820 of the Dom Joao VI for her first voyage. Lacking enough qualified sailors pressing was necessary to obtain enough crewmembers. However nearly all the ‘sailors’ managed to escape and another attempt was to be made. In the meantime the ship was crowded by around 1200 ‘passengers’ towards her destination. When the ship finally departed for Brazil she was such long underway that it was common believed she was lost. See for this ship also my article “The strength of the Portuguese navy around 24 July 1833”, earlier published on this weblog.
P. 43: “From the above quay, descending the river, the first object of notice is the royal marine arsenal and dock-yard; where ships of the line of the largest size are built. The Portuguese ships of war have always been, for the elegance of their construction, the admiration of our naval officers. In 1818 the D. Joao VIth was launched; she is a very handsome ship, rated at 120 guns, but capable of carrying many more. She was put into commission in 1819, and ordered to sail for Rio de Janeiro; but such an order was much more easy to give than to execute. To get under sail a vessel of that tonnage, an adequate crew was necessary; and the Portuguese navy had been so much neglected and so miserably paid, or rather no paid at all, that no seamen would voluntarily serve in it. Press-gangs were accordingly set on foot in all parts of the city; and upon the same principle that in France at certain seasons of the year all dogs are killed who are found unmuzzled, so all young men, seamen or landsmen, servants or journeymen, nightmen or coachmen, who were found
p. 44: without a certificate of exemption in their pockets, were themselves pocketed, and sent in irons to serve as volunteers on board the Joao Sexto. With such a crew it is not surprising that the ship was seven months in moving down from her moorings opposite the city to those off Belem Castle. She would perhaps have gone a mile farther, but that a small insurgent privateer appeared off the Tagus; landed her casks for water near Cascaes; and did not leave the river’s mouth without sending menaces to this huge leviathan. The captain of this insolent little corsair had even the audacity to land, come up to Lisbon unknown and go to the theatre one night. Before he returned to the vicinity of Cascaes, he sent his compliments to several ship owners, adding that he hoped the pleasure of soon meeting on their way to India some of their fine vessels, which he observed were nearly ready to put to sea. From the Belem moorings another grand attempt was made to get the D. John a little nearer to the mouth of the Tagus. The volunteers then imagining that no other hopes of escape remained for them, and that when so far down the river they must needs go farther, no sooner saw themselves opposite S. Jose de Ribamar (about a mile from Belem) than they to the number of seventy
p. 45: leaped into the water and swam on shore. The same night, in spite of the sentries, the remainder of the crew almost to a man followed their example, so that it was found necessary to get her moored again off Paco d’Arcos where she remained until 1820. I have already spoken of the swarms of polite mendicants who eternally infest the court of the Portuguese sovereign. The immense expanse of ocean that intervenes between Portugal and Rio, was no barrier against these beggars. Every vessel, great or small, went loaded with them from Portugal; and no sooner did they succeed in imposing his most faithful majesty’s easy generosity, than they sought the earliest means of quitting him. It is no wonder then, that the equipment of a 120-gun ship should have occasioned the pouring in of petitions from all quarters, praying for gratuitous passages to the capital of Brazil. The commanding officer and all his subalterns had each their protégés, as had likewise almost very petty officer in the ship. The fact is that by one means of other, no less a number than twelve hundred passengers contrived to smuggle themselves into this floating ark. A new set of volunteers having, with much difficulty, been collected together in the marine arsenal, were sent
p. 46: on board closely guarded, and on the same day (wonderful to relate) the Joao Sexto got fairly past S. Julian’s, and over the bar: not however without strong symptoms of a mutinous disposition amongst some of the volunteers, and weeping and wailing among others. A ship of 120 guns, thus despicably manned and overcrowded with passengers, was as might be expected, so prodigious a time on her passage, that she had been long given up as lost; and much credit is indeed due to the officers who were on board of her, that she ever reached her destination. Many of the passengers above mentioned, relying upon Nossa Senhora and the commanding officer, had embarked without a morsel of provisions; others, pleading ignorance of the nature of passage, had provided themselves with a mere basket full; and in short the greatest number of them, having limited means, had only for object the getting on board, trusting that amongst Christians they should not be suffered to starve. The consequence was that provisions very soon became short; as did likewise the water; so that the whole of this multitude were soon put ion half rations of both. Add to this manner in which
p. 47: they were of necessity obliged to be stowed away at nigh, men, women, and children, all huddled together, in a tropical climate; and without its being possible on their account to scrub the decks. With al this accumulation of misery, in so circumscribed a space, and under a vertical sum, it is surprising that a plague was not the consequence. Had they however remained a month longer at sea, they would infallibly have fallen victims to the vermin with which they were all, without distinction, covered. The inhabitants of Rio declared that they had never witnessed the arrival of such a ship-load of vermin and beggars”.
Sources
A.P.D.G. Sketches of Portuguese Life, Manners, Costume, and Character. London, 1826. Digitized by Google. This article was also published in 1832 in the London Globe and Niles’ weekly register 17 November 1832. According to the latter she played a important role as flagship of Don Miguel in the Portuguese Civil war for the heritage of the crown.
António Marques Esparteiro. Catálogo dos navios brigantines (1640-1910). Lisbon, 1976. She was also known as Nossa Senhora dos Mártires e de Sao Joao, Principe de Regente. Launched 24 August 1816 at Lisbon and armed with 74 guns and not 120 guns as mentioned by A.P.D.G. In 1822-1823 she was flagship of the squadron at Baia. In 1852 broken op at Lisbon as being useless.
