128
HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.
Guns.
Particulars.
Ft. In.
Ft. In.
Ft. In.
Ft. In.
Ft. In.
14 6
12 9
18 0
per Esta-blish-ments.
16 0
14 4
13 10
13 10
19 0
14 10
12 10
12 4
20 4
position
Mr. Hayward’s
14 0
Mr. Allen’s
16 0
16 ll|
Mr. Locke’s -
In respect to the admiral, he immediately adopted the obvious, and certainlythe most prudent method of producing improvement. He sought the opinionsof men who were considered the best informed on the subject, and reported to'the inquirers the result of their information, surmounted by such professional ob-servations as his long-continued maritime pursuits had enabled him to collect.Reform, however, went on but slowly. The British navy was reduced to aninequality with respect to that of the different foreign powers, reckoning ship forship, not only in the contracted dimensions, but the form or shape given to thevessels composing it, which neither the inconveniences experimentally and mostseriously found to result from them, nor the example of those benefits found to bederived by other countries from the pursuit of a contrary system, were, formany years, capable of removing. This prejudice appears to have risen almostto a species of mania; so that nothing short of the most violent remedies, andcoercive regulations seemed capable of effecting the return of reason.
Negligent, however, or rather obflinate, as those persons who had the directionof the British marine might be considered in several points certainly extremely
essential