448

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

are sufficiently explanatory in themselves to render any comment cn themnecessary ; and the opinion of so able a man as Sir Cloudesly Shovel,extending through almost every civil branch of the service, not only demon-strates

That the second rates may come up to Gillingham with all in, if occasion require.

There may be villainy in the chest at Chatham, but that I know not.

I hat making men R, if absent a week, is of ill consequence, especially in the ships that lye up.

T hat giving all men liberty to follow their occasions in the winter, and entering five or six hundredmen on the ordinary, which will be sufficient to fit the ships, will be of great service, and no chargeto the king, for the victuals of the absent men will overpay the ordinary.

That the men have leave to be absent till the first of February, and no longer, and that no men bemade run, but prickt till the end of February, but for every week they are absent after the first ofFebruary, they shall forfeit two months pay, to be stopped out of their first pay, and all that appear notbefore the last of February, to be made run.

That the navy-board have ordered the muster-masters and captains to indent for provisions everythree days at Chatham, and every ten days at Blackstakes, or the buoy of the Nore, and the victual-ler’s agent is not to supply till he receive the warrants: now before the warrants for victuals are madeout, the clerk of the checque must muster, after which the warrants are made out, then delivered tothe victualler, who is to order the victuals on board. Before these warrants are made out, and thevictuals delivered on board, the weather may happen to be so bad, that it cannot be carried on boardat the Nore, or Blackstakes, sometimes, for a fortnight, all which time the ship is to be without pro-visions. This may be prevented by a voluntary warrant, signed by the clerk of the checque, andcaptain, for ten or fifteen days provisions, and the three days warrant may be made out afterwards.

The Ossory’s main-mast stands too far aft by five feet—she gripes much.

The heads of our lower-masts too short, which occasions our loss of so many topmasts ; if our fore-masts stood three feet further aft, our bc-.vsprits need not be so long to succour the foremast, whichwould consequently prove an ease to our bowsprits, our foretack would come on board more perpen-dicular to the yard-arm, and the foremast may be better succoured if the bowsprit were lost.

Fire-rooms for ships under forty-eight guns of no use. A palantine to be made in all powder-rooms,and pipes, or a pipe, to convey the water out of the powder-room into the hold ; that the scuppers beformed of a piece of timber hollowed through; that ships’ fore-topmasts go abaft the mast, and the topsmade oval. All our vyals generally too small; the wood used for bread-rooms, if ceiled with deal, oughtto be well seasoned, and nailed to battins, (if possible) and not to the ships’ side, which gives and spoilsthe bread : there should be a partition in the bread-room, fore and aft, in the midships. They put ballastin the ships in harbour, without cleaning the limbers fore and aft; this is a fault: our ships when laid upshould be kept deep with ballast. The bowsprits, foremasts, and mizenmasts, should be taken out of shipswhen laid up, and the wedges of the mainmast be taken out, and the mast secured from the wet rotting it.

That the coomings of our hatches, or rather gratings, are generally too low, not being above fouror five inches : they should be six at least; and there ought to be channels to convey the water fromside to side, both abaft the mainmast and before, in two or three places.

Many of the new ships have no standards, especially the Norfolk.

That isinglass, which is exposed to the weather, presently decays, but that which is kept from theveather, is of a long continuance; that an ordinary horn lanthorn gives a better light than one ofisinglass after three months continuance in the weather.

That