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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
Alterations in the Principles of Construction which took Place in the British Navy
soon after the Commencement of Hostilities with France in 1744 — The Co use-cjuences of Parsimony with respect to the British Marine — Comparative Vieio ofthe Quantity of Materials consumed in the Construction of different Ships belong-ing to the Royal Navy—Account of the Timber consumed in building the RoyalGeorge, the Blenheim, the Princess Amelia, the Triumph, the Canada, the]\lars, the Thunderer, the Rippon, the Dunkirk, the Falmouth, the llomnci/, andvarious other Ships of different Rates ; U'ith a concise Account of their generalServices and Duration—A List of the Royal Navy, as it stood after the Conclu-sion of Hostilities with France and Spain in 1748, including all those Shipswhich had been captured from the Enemy, whether French or Spaniards, during
the pcrccding War, and had been received into the British Service.
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OTWITIISTANDING those defalcations which are necessarily attendant,
X ^1 even on the most successful wars, the British navy actually gainedstrength under the pressure of hostilities; while the knowlcge acquired of thoseadvantages to be derived from a change in the system of construction, and thenumber of ships captured from the enemy, at length serving for instructivemodels to her artists, appeared to place her, in the middle of the eighteenth, cen-tury, as the complete mistress of the naval world.
Taking a progressive view of the cxpcncc attending the British marine, andcomparing it with the force it contained, from the aera of the revolution, inquirersmight, in some measure, be induced to suppose, that as the science advanced,extravagance kept pace with it. There are, however, a considerable number ofsecret points which it is necessary should be accurately understood before anydefinitive conclusions can be drawn. The increased value of materials, as welloflabour, has been already shewn by a number of documents sufficient to furnisha tolerably correct scale; but there is another circumstance which has never ashithc.to been taken into the account, and yet is, in itself, materially consequen-