Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v1p1.djvu/356

326 not only the above mentioned parts were laid and fixed, but a considerable quantity of fresh timber was, in the course of the same day, cut out, and formed into futtocks, top-timbers, beams, planks, &c. On the 30th Sept., being twenty-eight days from the period when the keel was laid, the Inflexible was launched; and on the evening of the 1st Oct., actually sailed, completely manned, victualled, and equipped For service. In ten days afterwards this vessel was engaged with the enemy; so that it might be said without the smallest exaggeration of Lieutenant Schanck’s merits, that he built, rigged, and completed a ship, which fought and beat her enemy, in less than six weeks from the commencement of her construction. Many other curious particulars relative to this extraordinary circumstance are unavoidably omitted for want of room; suffice it to say, that it was no uncommon thing for a number of trees, which were actually growing at dawn of day, to form different parts of the ship, either as planks, beams, or other timbers, before night. Few professional men, and methodical shipwrights, would perhaps credit this fact, were it not established beyond all possibility of controversy.

