Surviving the End of Hostilities

Wartime evangelicalism never claimed to be more than a minority movement. Blue Light officers, pious Christians on the lower deck and Evangelical chaplains made up a small proportion of each category. Much of their influence initially came from Middleton's power at the centre of naval administration; it spread widely through the navy as increasing numbers of officers were prepared to see what religion could contribute to the management of men. But that was during hostilities. So much changed with the coming of peace that naval evangelicalism faced extinction.

As the great wartime fleets were paid off, their crews took with them into civilian life the religious stirrings which had sustained morale during hostilities. The tolerant acquiescence of the officer corps, never really enthusiastic, steadily evaporated, for what concern was needed now with issues on the periphery of the navy's raison d’être? With volunteer crews and shorter commissions there were fewer manning issues anyway; the events of 1797 were but a memory, and peacetime sailors in the fleet could expect living conditions appropriate for a select and willing service, with better rations, clothing and pay, more generous leave and a slightly more considerate code of discipline. There was less need for religion either to help personal morale or to unite a ship's company.

The great figures of the wartime movement disappeared. Duncan had died long ago, followed by Barham in 1813 and Burn a year later. Gambier and Saumarez hauled down their flags before the war's end; Brenton was now too lame for active service; Austen became a country gentleman before resuming his naval career as an admiral and commander-in-chief thirty years on. Hawker discovered a new vocation as a press correspondent and pamphleteering controversial-ist. Marks buried himself in an inland parish, while Smith busied himself with a string of worthy causes that stretched from erstwhile smugglers in the Scillies to domestic servants in London's back alleys. The Church ashore diverted funding from the Naval and Military to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and much of its energies from servicemen to foreign missions. The evangelical cause afloat was maintained by the notable trio of Pellew, soon to be a national hero after the bombardment of Algiers, by Penrose, who succeeded him as C-in-C Mediterranean, and by Hillyar, but this was a depleted group of senior officers.