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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

Notwithstanding the country, as already shown, so peculiarly abounded withall the materials necessary to constitute a powerful navy; its newly erected go-vernment either found itself too weightily occupied in affairs of greater mo-ment, or considered it the wiser system to oppose the individual exertions ofits subjects, allured by the hopes of advantage, against the pockets of its anta-gonists, than attempt the speedy creation of a force which would have strainedall the sinews of the country, without being able to effect its purpose in any extentlikely to become serviceable. At the same time it would have exposed, by the veryattempt, every species of vulnerability to which a state, rendered nearly defence-less by so impolitic a measure, could have been liable in other respects. The veryinconsiderable number of frigates and inferior vessels which belonged to thestate were, most generally speaking, formed with the greatest attention to speed.But the Hancock, which was cotisidered the finest vessel in their service, havingbeen frequently purfued without success by the fleetest frigates in the Britishnavy, was at last captured after a chace exceeding in duration what had, per-haps, ever before taken place in the annals of naval war, and entirely owing tomisconduct in her commander, who, injudiciously supposing, that by lighteningthe vessel he should contribute to her swiftness, caused a considerable part of herwater to be started and pumped out; by which means she w'as put completelyout of trim, and, almost immediately, overtaken. This event may not onlyform an useful lesson to future officers who may be in the same situation, butproves, in conjunction with other known facts, on what delicate points thequality of swift sailing frequently depends. The American vessels were onsome occasions said to have acquired the faculty of swift sailing from their weak-ness, or rather pliability of construction. It is an anecdote too singular and inte-resting to be omitted in an history like the present, that American vessels, par-ticularly those of the smaller description, are supposed to have frequently owedtheir escape and safety to the operation of cutting through the topside in the mid-ships from the gunwale to the upper side of the port, thereby allowing the vesselto work and yield to the impression of the sea, and wind, in a greater degree thanit could have done, while the frame or whole structure continued bound in bythe tension, and confinement imposed on it by the gunwale.

In respect to the quality of the vessels in question, independent of their merefaculty in sailing, or, it were probably more correct to say, that of the materialsfrom which they were formed, they w r ere inferior to those of any European

country.