HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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besides eight frigates were ready, at a moment’s warning, for immediate service.Such was the publicly avowed condition of the British navy, while that of Spain, asalready remarked, notwithstanding every exertion she could make, equalled nothalf that number. It becomes necessary, however, to make a short remark, in-jurious as it may prove to the credit of marine architecture, according to theprinciples practised in Britain from the conclusion of the treaty of peace atUtrecht, to die period when the British navy was in the state just mentioned.

France had, in great measure, attended more to improvement than augmenta-tion. Spain had, through necessity, been equally attentive to both. The shipsof the latter, inconsiderable as the number might be, were confessedly superiorto those possessed by any country in Europe. Britain, on the other hand, thoughin respect to numbers and nominal force, in possession of a navy exceeding thatwhich France, added to Spain itself, could boast of, was unequal, perhaps, tothe task (let not this be considered as an arrogant national assumption) of con-tending with half that number, had they been constructed according to the prin-ciples then practised by the Spaniards, and the combatants been transferred from-,the ships of one country, to those of another.

Whether it was to be imputed to Britain, that in the arrogant and supposedsuperiority of her numbers only, she rejected, as beneath her notice, thosesystems of improvement introduced by other countries; whether her ministerswere blindly lulled into security from a confidence in that terror which hernominal power was expected to create; or whether a dull and ignorant prejudicepersuaded a continuance in, and adherence to, certain principles which othercountries had wisely overcome, and whose example the marine architects ofBritain most contemptuously disdained to follow, is a point, which it is now, and,perhaps, ever was, extremely difficult for more than a dozen persons in the wholekingdom, who prudently kept the secret securely locked within their bosoms, todecide. Certain it is, however, that although the force of the British navy might,from the recapitulation, excite terror in many countries which surround it, yet noone, at that period, possessed a feet, the ships composing which, were, as far asthe structure and theoretical part of the science extended, worse contrived for theservice of their country. Destitute of almost every principle that could constitute aship of war, fit for the varied species of service which it must ever be prepared to enteron, they were crank, in general heavy sailers, of ill stowage, confined, and incon-venient in the hour of battle ; the larger ships frequently incapable of employingtheir lower-deck guns, in the use of which their most efficient force consisted,

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