oblige six men to put up with the allowance of
four. 'When a large force,' says Mr. D. Hannay, 'was collected
for service during any length of time, it was the common rule to
divide four men's allowance among six.' There must be still many
officers and men to whom the plan would seem quite familiar. It is
indicated by a recognised form of words, 'six upon four.' I have
myself been 'six upon four' several times, mostly in the Pacific,
but also, on at least one occasion, in the East Indies. As far
as I could see, no one appeared to regard it as an intolerable
hardship. The Government, it should be known, made no profit
out of the process, because money was substituted for the food
not issued. Howard's recourse to it was not due to immediate
insufficiency. Speaking of the merchant vessels which came to
reinforce him, he says: 'We are fain to help them with victuals
to bring them thither. There is not any of them that hath one
day's victuals.' These merchant vessels were supplied by private
owners; and it is worth noting that, in the teeth of this statement
by Howard, Dr. Jessopp, in his eagerness to blacken Elizabeth,
says that they 'were, as a rule, far better furnished than the
Queen's ships.' The Lord Admiral on another occasion, before
the fight off Gravelines, said of the ships he hoped would join
him from Portsmouth: 'Though they have not two days' victuals,
let that not be the cause of their stay, for they shall have
victuals out of our fleet,' a conclusive proof that his ships
were not very short.

As to the accusation of deliberately issuing food of bad quality,
that is effectually disposed of by the explanation already given
of the method employed in victualling the navy. A sum was paid
for each man's daily allowance to a contractor, who was expressly
bound to furnish 'good and seasonable victuals.'[72] Professor
Laughton, whose competence in the matter is universally allowed,
informs us that complaints of bad provisions are by no means
confined to the Armada epoch, and were due, not to intentional
dishonesty and neglect, but to insufficient knowledge of the
way to preserve provisions for use on rather long cruises. Mr.
Hannay says that the fleet sent to the coast of Spain, in the
year after the defeat of the Armada, suffered much from want
of food and sickness. 'Yet it was organised, not by the Queen,
but by a committee of adventurers who had every motive to fit
it out well.' It is the fashion with English h