Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/294

Rh 282 NAVY ships&quot; (Blackstone). At the end of Elizabeth s reign, however, the navy had greatly increased, the list in 1603 consisting of 42 ships of various descriptions, amounting to 17,000 tons, and manned with 8346 men. Of these, two were of the burden of 1000 tons each, three of 900 tons, and ten of from 600 to 800 tons. James I. was not inattentive to his navy. He warmly patronized Phineas Pett, to whom we undoubtedly owe the first essential improvements in the form and construction of ships. The cumbrous top- works were first got rid of under his superintendence. &quot; In my owne time,&quot; says Raleigh, &quot; the shape of our English ships hath been greatly bettered ; in extremity we carry our ordnance better than we were wont ; we have added crosse pillars in our royall shippes, to strengthen them ; we have given longer floors to our shippes than in older times,&quot; &c. In 1610 Pett laid down a ship named the &quot; Prince Royal &quot; ; her burden was 1400 tons, her keel 114 feet, and she was armed with sixty-four pieces of great ordnance, &quot; being in all respects,&quot; says Stowe, &quot; the greatest and goodliest ship that was ever built in England.&quot; The state of the navy at the king s death is variously given by different writers; but on this subject the memoranda left by Pepys are most likely to be correct. From them we learn that in 1618 certain commissioners were appointed to examine into the state of the navy, and by their report it appears there were then only 39 ships and vessels, whose tonnage amounted to 14,700 tons; while in 1624, on the same authority, the number had decreased to 32 or 33, but the tonnage increased to about 19,400 tons. The commissioners had, in fact, recommended many of the small craft to be broken up or sold, and more ships of the higher rates to be kept up. Charles I. added upwards of 20 sail to the navy, generally of the smaller kind ; but one of them, built by Pett, was of a description, both as to form and dimensions, far superior to any that had yet been launched. This ship was the celebrated &quot; Sovereign of the Seas,&quot; launched at Woolwich in 1637. The length of her keel was 123 feet, the main breadth 48 feet, and the length from stem to stern 232 feet. In the description of this ship by Thomas Hey wood it is said that she &quot;bore five lanthorns, the biggest of which would hold ten persons upright ; had three flush-decks, a forecastle, half-deck, quarter-deck, and round-house. Her lower tier had thirty ports for cannon and demi-cannon; middle tier, thirty for culverins and demi-culverins ; third tier, twenty-six for other ordnance ; forecastle, twelve ; and two half -decks, thirteen or fourteen ports more within board, for murthering pieces ; besides ten pieces of chace ordnance forward, and ten right aft, and many loopholes in the cabins for musquet-shot. She had eleven anchors, one of 4400 Ib weight. She was of the burden of 1637 tons.&quot; It appears, however, that she was found, on trial, to be too high for a good service able ship in all weathers, and was therefore cut down to a deck less. After this she became an excellent ship, and was in almost all the great actions with the Dutch ; she was rebuilt in 1684, when the name was changed to that of &quot;Royal Sovereign,&quot; and was about to be rebuilt a second time at Chatham in 1696 when she was totally destroyed by fire. In this reign the ships of the navy were first classed, or divided into six rates, the first being from 100 to 60 guns, the second from 54 to 36, &c. In 1642 the management of the navy was taken out of the king s hands, and in 1648 Prince Rupert carried away twenty-five ships, none of which ever returned ; and such, indeed, was the reduced state of the establishment that at the beginning of Cromwell s government he had only fourteen ships of war of two decks, and some of these carried only 40 guns ; but, under the careful management of very able men in different commissions which he appointed, such vigorous measures were pursued that, in five years, though engaged within that time in war with the greatest naval power in Europe, the fleet was increased to 150 sail (of which more than a third part had two decks, and many had been captured from the Dutch), while up wards of 20,000 seamen were employed in the navy. The military marine was, indeed, raised by Cromwell to a height which it had never before reached. Though Cromwell found the navy divided into six rates or classes, it was under his government that these ratings were defined and established in the manner nearly in which they were till the middle of the present century ; and it may also be remarked, that under his government were constructed a large number of frigates, or vessels designed specially for speed and having a peculiar sharpness of form. The first built in England was the &quot; Constant Warwick.&quot; &quot;She was built,&quot; says Pepys, &quot;in 1640, by Mr Peter Pett (son of Phineas), for a privateer for the earl of Warwick, and was sold by him to the state. Mr Pett took his model of this ship from a French frigate which he had seen in the Thames.&quot; &quot;We know comparatively little about ships armaments up to this period. It appears, however, that they were furnished about the year 1337 with espringalds, haubergeons, bacinets, bows, arrows, jacks, doublets, targets, pavises (or large shields placed at the side, and serving the double purpose of protection against the sea and the enemy), lances, and &quot;firing barrels.&quot; It also appears that as early as 1338 cannon formed part of the armament of ships, and that about 1372 guns and gunpowder were commonly used. Among the stores belonging to the &quot; Christopher of the Tower&quot; in June 1338 were three iron cannon with five chambers, a hand gun, and three old stone bags, probably for shot. The &quot;Mary of the Tower&quot; had an iron cannon with two chambers, and one of brass with one chamber. The precise character and description of the earlier guns are difficult to be found, but among the &quot;crakys of war&quot; mentioned as most used on board ship are &quot; cannon-paviors, &quot; or stone-shot throwers, and &quot; murtherers, &quot; which were smaller and threw any kind of shot. There were also in the first period of naval history basilisks, port pieces, stock-fowlers, sakers, and bom bards. The last-named were large instruments of hammered iron, made of bars welded and bound together with iron bands. They threw stone shot of 140 Ib, and even of 195 Ib weight. A battery of these erected on a slip of land at the naval battle of Chioggia (1380), between the Venetians and the Genoese, did great damage. They were loaded over night and fired in the morning one dis charge per diem being considered enough for the gun, if not for the enemy. Froissart mentions a bombard at the siege of Oudenarde by Philip van Artevelde, that &quot;might be heard five leagues off in the daytime, and ten at night. The report of it was so loud that it seemed as if all the devils in hell had broken loose.&quot; According to Lord Herbert, brass ordnance were first cast in England in the year 1535. They had various names, such as cannon, demi-cannon, culverins, demi-culverins, sakers, mynions, falcons, falconets, &c. What the calibre of each of these was is not accurately known, but the cannon are supposed to have been about 60-pounders, the demi-cannon 32, culverins 18, falcons 2, mynions 4, sakers 5, &c. Many of these pieces of different calibres were mounted on the same deck, which must have occasioned great confusion in action in finding for each its proper shot. On the restoration of Charles II. the duke of York was immediately appointed lord high admiral, and by his advice a committee was named to consider a plan, proposed by himself, for the future regulation of the affairs of the navy, at which the duke presided. By the advice and able assistance of Pepys as a principal officer of the navy, great progress was speedily made in the reparation and increase of the fleet. The duke remained lord high admiral till 1673, when, in consequence of the test required by parliament, to which he could not submit, he resigned, and that office was in part put in commission, and the rest retained by the king. Prince Rupert was put at the head of this commission, and Pepys appointed secretary of the Admiralty. By his able and judicious management there were in sea-pay, in the year 1679, and in excellent condi tion, 76 ships of the line, all furnished with stores for six months, 8 fire-ships besides a numerous train of ketches,