This chapter explores the place of patronage in creating order among the officers and men serving on the North American and West Indies Station during the War of 1812. The struggle over access to and the use of patronage between local and central commanders reflects the changing nature of patronage in this era. The checked use of patronage to create order among the men of the lower deck, and even one's junior officers, induced local commanding officers to employ other means to accomplish these ends. Pay, prize money, ransom and pillage constitute material incentives officers used in their attempts to engender and maintain order among their subordinates. These material incentives rewarded the officers and ship's company for carrying out actions largely, though ambiguously, condoned by the Admiralty. Through prize money, ransom and pillage, the mariner or marine could obtain better food, more alcohol, and other material gains. Compliance in exchange for material incentives did not necessarily reflect a sense of obligation or any form of permanent loyalty on the part of subordinates. The use of material incentives to create order undermined the ideals of patronage.

Patronage

Patronage involved persons of high standing assisting subordinates in gaining access to positions of authority and social standing. Harold Perkin suggests that it extended from the highest levels of society down through the masses, in an unending series of patron–client relationships. In the navy, this could mean gaining an appointment to a particular ship, command of a vessel, duty on a station with access to prizes, or into the care of a more powerful patron. In return, the patron would expect the loyalty and obedience of his followers. The Admiralty's ready confirmation of the patron's appointments increased the patron's power to attract more clients. Historians have debated the alleged pervasiveness of the patron–client relations. In viewing the 1790s, Rodger proposed that the revolutionary ideas challenging the social order eroded the power of patronage between officers and seamen and marines. Tom Wareham disagrees, stating that an increase of officers from the upper class reinforced patronage. With a sense of “noblesse oblige,” interfused with a more positive view of the lower order, they could see “the seamen under their command as fellow, if not quite equal, human beings.” Such a relationship made for less resistance from the men and thus less punishment from the officers.