On the face of it the sailor's dietary was not so bad. A ship's
stores, in 1719, included ostensibly such items as bread, wine, beef,
pork, peas, oatmeal, butter, cheese, water and beer, and if Jack had
but had his fair share of these commodities, and had it in decent
condition, he would have had little reason to grumble about the king's
allowance. Unhappily for him, the humanities of diet were little
studied by the Victualling Board.

Taking the beef, the staple article of consumption on shipboard,
cooking caused it to shrink as much as 45 per cent., thus reducing the
sailor's allowance by nearly one-half. [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 1495--Capt. Barrington, 23 Dec. 1770.] The residuum was
often "mere carrion," totally unfit for human consumption. "Junk," the
sailor contemptuously called it, likening it, in point of texture,
digestibility and nutritive properties, to the product of picked
oakum, which it in many respects strongly resembled. The pork, though
it lost less in the cooking, was rancid, putrid stuff, repellent in
odour and colour-particulars in which it found close competitors in
the butter and cheese, which had often to be thrown overboard because
they "stunk the ship." [Footnote: To disinfect a ship after she had
been fouled by putrid rations or disease, burning sulphur and vinegar
were commonly employed. Their use was preferable to the means adopted
by the carpenter of the _Feversham_, who in order to "sweeten
ship" once "turn'd on the cock in the hould" and through forgetfulness
"left it running for eighteen howers," thereby not only endangering
the vessel's safety, but incidentally spoiling twenty-one barrels of
powder in the magazine.--_Admiralty Records_ 1. 2653--Capt.
Watson, 18 April 1741.] The peas "would not break." Boiled for eight
hours on end, they came through the ordeal "almost as hard as shott."
Only the biscuit, apart from the butter and cheese, possessed the