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The Naval Chronicle was a
British periodical published monthly between January, 1799 and December,
1818 (Huntington). It contained information about the Royal Navy of the
United Kingdom, including biographies, histories, news, and essays on
nautical subjects, as well as poems and ballads on a variety of related
topics (Jeffery).
The founders were James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, LL.D.,, and
the editorial staff included Stephen Jones and his brother John Jones
(father of John Winter Jones). Contributors included Francis Gibson, and
Charles Vinicombe Penrose under initials as pseudonyms. Nicholas Pocock
provided a long series of illustrations.
McARTHUR, JOHN
(1755–1840), author, born in 1755, entered the navy in 1778 as assistant
clerk on board the Eagle on the North American station. When the Eagle
came home McArthur was moved into the Rattlesnake cutter, and on 22
March 1779 was promoted to be purser of her, for his gallantry in
boarding a French privateer in an engagement off Havre on 14 March (cf.
Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs, iv. 556). In November the
Rattlesnake lent her small assistance to the Tartar in capturing the
Spanish frigate Santa Margarita (ib. iv. 561), and on the prize being
commissioned in the English navy, McArthur was promoted to be her
purser. During the war he was often stationed to observe signals, and
had thus the many defects of the system then in use forced on his
notice. He was also called on in the course of 1781 and 1782, while on
the North American station, to act as judge advocate in several
courts-martial, and was led to study the laws and methods of procedure
in such courts. He followed out these lines of study during the peace,
while still purser of the Santa Margarita, and in 1790, according to his
own statement, laid a new code of signals before the admiralty. It
caught the attention of Lord Hood [see Hood, Samuel, Viscount], then
first sea lord, and when in the Russian armament of 1791, he hoisted his
flag in command, he made McArthur his secretary. He was desirous of
trying McArthur's signals; but as there was some delicacy about
introducing a new code to supersede that of Lord Howe, McArthur is said
to have recast his, remodelling it on the basis of Howe's. After
approval by Howe, it was tested and used in the experimental cruise of
1792; and ‘from that period,’ McArthur wrote in 1807, ‘it has been
universally adopted in the service, and is, it is believed, continued
with little or no variation in form or substance at the present day.’
But in this McArthur was certainly wrong, for Sir Home Popham's [q. v.]
code had been generally adopted some years before 1807. As early as 1799
McArthur claimed to be the real author of the code known by the name of
Lord Howe (Naval Chronicle, i. 509, ii. 70; Thoughts on several plans
combining a system of Universal Signals); it appears probable, however,
that his share in it was little more than seeing it through the press.
In 1793, when Hood went out as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean,
McArthur was again his secretary, being appointed also purser of the
Victory. His duties at this time were extremely onerous and important.
In addition to the ordinary work of secretary, the occupation of Toulon
and the intimate association of the Spanish and Italian forces threw on
him the conduct of a correspondence in the three foreign languages,
without, he says, any assistance; he had also to act as Hood's
interpreter, and as Hood's representative in the disbursements of public
money, both to the British forces and to those of the allies. For some
time there was no English commissary-general, and he had to act in that
capacity. He was also prize agent for the fleet; and though his duties
as purser of the Victory were performed by a deputy, the responsibility,
pecuniary and otherwise, rested on him. When Hood, after returning to
England, was ordered to strike his flag, McArthur went back to the
Mediterranean as simple purser of the Victory. As soon as the ship
joined the fleet, Rear-admiral Man hoisted his flag on board, and in the
action of 14 July 1795 [see Hotham, William, Lord] McArthur volunteered
to observe the signals, ‘the admiral's secretary, whose proper duty it
was, professing his want of experience in the duty and giving a
preference to being stationed at one of the quarter-deck guns.’ He was
afterwards secretary to Sir Hyde Parker (1739–1807) [q. v.], and
returned to England with him early in 1796.
In 1803, when Lord Nelson was going out to the Mediterranean, he offered
to take McArthur as his secretary. McArthur, however, declined, ‘as Lord
Hood's accounts with the treasury were then pending before the
auditors.’ This was the official reason, but he was probably more
directly influenced by the pressure of his literary engagements. When
quite a young man he had published ‘The Army and Navy Gentleman's
Companion, or a new and complete Treatise on the Theory and Practice of
Fencing’ (1781, 4to). In 1792, while secretary to Lord Hood, he brought
out ‘A Treatise of the Principles and Practice of Naval Courts-martial’
(1 vol. 8vo), which in the second edition bore the title of ‘Principles
and Practice of Naval and Military Courts-martial’ (1805, 2 vols. 8vo);
in this form it ran through many editions, and was long the standard
work on the subject. In 1799, in conjunction with James Stanier Clarke
[q. v.], he commenced the publication, in monthly numbers, of the ‘Naval
Chronicle,’ which ran to forty half-yearly volumes, and was mainly
devoted to accounts of the current naval transactions and to
biographical notices of the principal naval officers of the day, often
from notes supplied by the subjects themselves. So far as it treats of
contemporary events or persons, it is of very high authority. But
McArthur's most important work, also in conjunction with Clarke, was the
‘Life of Lord Nelson,’ 1809, 2 vols. 4to, to which, it was understood,
he contributed the naval material, while Clarke supplied the literary
skill. On 22 July 1806 the university of Edinburgh conferred on him the
degree of LL.D.
He was also the author of ‘Financial and Political Facts of the
Eighteenth Century’ (1801, 8vo), which, with the change of ‘century’
into ‘and present centuries,’ ran through several editions; and of ‘A
Translation from the Italian of the Abbé Cesarotti's Historical and
Critical Dissertation respecting the Controversy on the Authenticity of
Ossian's Poems: with Notes and Observations by the Translator’ (1806,
8vo), in which he describes himself as ‘one of the committee of the
Highland Society of London appointed to superintend the publication of
Ossian in the original Gaelic.’ He was at this time living in London, in
York Place, Portman Square, but afterwards he settled down at Hayfield
in Hampshire, where he died 29 July 1840. He left a widow and,
apparently, one daughter, Mrs. Conway (Nicolas, Desp. and Letters of
Lord Nelson, vol. i. 2nd ed. pp. v, xxi).
Volume 1
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