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THE EVOLUTION OF
NAVAL ARMAMENT
[Illustration: A SIXTY-GUN SHIP OF LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
From John Smith’s _Sea-Man’s Grammar_ (1694 edition)
_Frontispiece_
]
THE EVOLUTION OF
NAVAL ARMAMENT
BY
FREDERICK LESLIE ROBERTSON
ENGINEER COMMANDER, ROYAL NAVY
WITH EIGHT HALF-TONE PLATES AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD
10 ORANGE STREET LEICESTER SQUARE WC
1921
PREFACE
The notes on which these essays are based were collected in the course
of two commissions spent under the lee of the Admiralty library, close
to the Royal United Service Institution, and in touch with the Reading
Room of the British Museum and other public sources of information.
The lack of a book describing in popular language the materialistic
side of naval history is, I think, generally admitted. Historians
as a rule have devoted small space to consideration of material; in
particular, the story of the revolutionary changes in naval material
which took place during the nineteenth century has never been placed
before the public in convenient form. In the attempt to supply such a
description I have taken the liberty, as an engineer, of treating of
naval material as a whole; tracing, as well as my technical knowledge
permits, the progress of all the three principal elements--ship, gun,
engine--and their interdependence. The result, faulty and incomplete
as it is, may nevertheless be of considerable service, it is hoped,
in clarifying the work of the historians and bridging the gap which
divides the classic histories from our modern text-books.
I have considered our modern navy to begin with the “Admiral” class of
battleship, about the year 1880.
My respectful thanks are due to the heads of three Admiralty
departments: Captain R. H. Crooke, C.B., lately Director of Naval
Ordnance; Engineer Vice-Admiral Sir George Goodwin, K.C.B., LL.D.,
Engineer-in-Chief of the Fleet; and Sir Eustace T. D’Eyncourt, K.C.B.,
Director of Naval Construction; for their unofficial approval. I wish
to acknowledge my indebtedness to the officials of the Admiralty
and the R.U.S.I. libraries, for their invariable kindness; to the
Directors of the British and S. Kensington Museums, for permission to
reproduce pictures in their possession; to Mr. A. W. Johns, C.B.E.,
Assistant Director of Naval Construction, Engineer Commander E. C.
Smith, O.B.E., R.N., Mr. H. W. Dickinson, of the S. Kensington Museum,
Mr. Edward Fraser, and Sir George Hadcock, F.R.S., R.A., of Elswick,
for various help and criticism; and especially to Mr. L. G. Carr
Laughton, of the Admiralty library, of whose advice and knowledge I
have often availed myself, and to whose encouragement the completion of
the work has been largely due.
It only remains to state that the whole of the book is written and
published on my own responsibility, and that it is in no manner or
degree an official publication.
F. L. R.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE SAILING SHIP 1
II. THE SMOOTH-BORE GUN 61
III. THE STEAM ENGINE 93
IV. “NEW PRINCIPLES OF GUNNERY” 112
V. THE CARRONADE 125
VI. THE TRUCK CARRIAGE 140
VII. THE SHELL GUN 160
VIII. THE RIFLED GUN 181
IX. PROPELLING MACHINERY 210
X. THE IRONCLAD 246
INDEX 303
PLATES
A Sixty-gun Ship of late Seventeenth Century _Frontispiece_
_To face page_
A Tudor Ship of Period 1540-50 60
Tudor Ships under Sail 124
The _Speaker_, a Second-rate of the Commonwealth 180
The _Comet_ of 1812 224
_Rattler_ versus _Alecto_ 240
The _Warrior_ 260
The _Monarch_ 280
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
_Page_
Diagram illustrating Distortion of Frames under Load 52
Diagram representing a Ship with Trussed Frames 53
Typical Sections of “Symondite” and contemporary Ships 59
Turkish Bronze Cannon 68
French Twenty-four Pounder, with Spherical Chamber 84
Savery’s Engine 101
Newcomen’s Engine 104
Connecting-rod 111
A Carronade 133
A Truck Gun 147
Method of Gun-Exercise in H.M.S. _Shannon_ 155
A Paixhans Gun 173
Bullet Mould 187
Rifleman Presenting 189
“Carabine à Tige” 195
Minié Bullet 195
Whitworth Rifle Bullet 198
Ship and Galley 211
The _Charlotte Dundas_ 219
Pettit Smith’s Propeller 235
THE EVOLUTION OF NAVAL ARMAMENT
CHAPTER I
THE SAILING SHIP
To attempt to trace in any detail the evolution of the sailing warship
is a task, it must be at once admitted, far beyond the scope and
intention of the present essay.
The history of naval architecture is, of course, a vast and many-sided
subject. Few are the writers who have dealt with it, and, for
reasons which will appear, few of those have written in the English
language. Such books as treat of it are too cumbrous and technical
for easy reading; they are not written in the modern style; by the
frequent digressions of their authors on matters of general history,
high politics, battles, economics, commerce, and even sport, they
bear witness to the difficulties of the task and the complexity of
the subject. The history of naval architecture still remains to be
written. In the meantime the student will find the monumental _Marine
Architecture_, of Charnock, and the smaller _Naval Architecture_, of
Fincham, invaluable fields of inquiry; among the historians the works
of Nicolas, Laughton, Corbett and Oppenheim, will furnish him with the
materials for the complete story of the evolution up to the end of the
eighteenth century.
The following pages give a sketch, drawn chiefly from these authors,
of the progress of the timber-built sailing ship and of the principal
influences which guided the evolution. Lessons may still be drawn from
this history, it is suggested, which even in the altered circumstances
of to-day may be of value in some other application. One lesson,
long unlearnt, the great blunder of two centuries, lies clearly on
the surface. The evidence will show how, by our long neglect of the
science of naval architecture, the British navy fought frequently at
an unnecessary disadvantage; but it will also show how, masters of the
art of shipbuilding, we gave our fleets such a superiority in strength
and seaworthiness as almost to neutralize the defects inherent in their
general design.
§
Before the fourteenth century the sailing ship, i.e. the ship in which
sails were used as the chief motive power, could not compete in battle
on equal terms with the oar-driven vessel; both in the Mediterranean
and in Northern waters the oar-driven galley possessed advantages of
speed and handiness which relegated the heavy, high-built and capacious
sailing ship to the position of a mere transport or victualler. The
fighting ships were the galleys: long speedy vessels with fine lines
and low freeboard, propelled by rowers and fought by soldiers clad in
mail and armed with swords and lances. Sails were carried, but only as
secondary power, for use when the galleys ran before the wind.
Sea tactics consisted in ramming and boarding; the vessels were
designed accordingly. The royal galleys of King Henry III, which formed
the fighting fleet of Hubert de Burgh, are described as having each
two tiers of oars, with platforms along each side over the heads of
the rowers, on which the soldiers stood. Hung on the bulwarks in front
of them were their shields. From the gaudily painted mast pennons and
banners floated on the wind; a large square cotton sail, embroidered
with the royal arms, was triced to the yard. The masthead was crowned
with a circular “top,” a repository for bricks and iron bars wherewith
to bilge an enemy vessel. At both ends of the galley were raised
platforms or “castles” filled with picked soldiery, who during the
approach to action would pour brass-winged arrows into the enemy and
who, when the enemy had been grappled, leaped aboard. From mechanical
engines low down in the waist large stones would be projected, and, if
on the windy side, quicklime would be thrown, and other “instruments
of annoyance.” The galleys were lightly built, and carried no pumps.
It was no uncommon sight, we are told, to see half the knights baling,
while the others fought hand-to-hand with the enemy.
By the year 1300 the size and utility of ships had made considerable
advance. Two masts were given them, each supported by a few shrouds
and carrying a single large square sail; neither masts nor sails were
yet subdivided, but the sails could be enlarged by having one or more
“bonnets” laced to their lower part. Of the two masts the taller, the
foremast, raked considerably over the bows, and both were surmounted by
tops, with flagstaff and streamers. A central rudder appeared in this
century, in place of the paddle fixed to the quarter, and a rudimentary
bowsprit. The largest _cogs_, as they were now called, were of 250 tons
burthen. When hired of merchants for war service, they were converted
by the addition of fore-, aft-, and top-castles, built high so as to
overtop, if possible, the enemy. The war vessels were at this time
lavishly decorated; the sails were silk, dyed red or embroidered with
armorial designs, the tops and stages were aflame with banners and
pennons, the masts and yards were gilt. Large sums of money were spent
by the knights in beautifying their ships.
But in this century two great inventions brought to a close an epoch
in warship construction. Gunpowder and the mariner’s compass were
discovered. Cannon were adapted to ships in place of the mechanical
engines which had formerly been carried, and by aid of the compass,
housed in its wood-pegged bittacle in the steerage, vessels began
to venture out of touch with land and sail with a new security the
uncharted ocean.
The effect of each of these two discoveries was the same: a growth in
the size, strength, and capacity of ships, a decline in the use of
oars and a greater reliance on sails. High sides were required against
the waves, stouter timbers to support the weight of ordnance, more
capacious holds for the stowage of the ballast, food, and cordage which
would be needed for a long sea voyage. The galley, with its low flush
deck and outward-sloping sides was ill adapted for the new conditions;
a new construction was seen to be needed. Two new types were evolved,
one in the Mediterranean and one, more gradually, in Atlantic waters.
Even before the Christian era there had been a distinct differentiation
between the ships of the Mediterranean and those of the Atlantic
seaboard. The latter, as shown by Nicolas’ quotation from Cæsar, were
more strongly built than the Roman galleys, with flatter bottoms, to
“adapt them to the shallows and to sustain without danger the ebbing
of the tide,” and with prows and sterns “very high and erect, to
bear the hugeness of the waves”: properties which, even before the
advent of fire artillery, conferred on them important advantages.[1]
Nevertheless, complete differentiation did not obtain until after the
discovery of gunpowder and the mariner’s needle. Before that time the
vessels used by the Northern nations in war were of the galley type,
built by themselves or, after the Crusades had revealed the superiority
of the Mediterranean powers in warship design, hired not infrequently
from Venetians or from Genoese. The Genoese were the chief naval
mercenaries of Europe at this age: “Genoese were vice-admirals to the
English king, and Genoese galleys fought for the French at Sluys.”
The new type evolved in the Mediterranean was the _galleasse_. For
centuries, as we have seen, large sailing ships had been used for
commerce, both in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. With the
inevitable increase in size brought about by the adoption of cannon,
and by the desire for greater sea-keeping qualities, resort was now
had by the Genoese and Venetians to sails in war vessels as a means
of propulsion of equal importance with oars. Thus an uncomfortable
compromise was effected between oars and sails; both were provided. The
galleasse was originally a large decked galley, with three pole masts
for its lateen sails, and with cannon spaced at intervals along its
sides above the rowers. In form it differed little from the galley,
but in the disposition of its armament it was entirely different; it
represented the first stage in the evolution of the broadside fighting
ship.
But the galleasse, though it might meet the requirements of
Mediterranean warfare, was almost as unsuited as the galley to
Atlantic conditions. Accordingly the warship underwent a separate and
independent development at the hands of the Atlantic nations. Forsaking
the galley, they took the lofty, strong and capacious sailing merchant
ship as the basis of a new type, and from the lumbering carrack and
caravel and dromon they evolved the vessel which eventually became
known as the _galleon_. A distinctive naval architecture, Gothic rather
than Byzantine in character, was thus founded on the Atlantic seaboard.
The oar was entirely superseded by the sail. The ships were high, and
their sides, instead of falling out like those of galleys, were curved
inwards so as to “tumble home” above the water-line: an arrangement
which protected the ordnance, added to the strength of the vessels,
and tended to render them steadier gun-platforms. The top-castles were
retained on the masts, but the end-castles disappeared, or rather,
were incorporated into the structure of the lofty bow and stern, to
provide accommodation for officers, and cover for the crew. The _voile
latine_ gave way to the _voile quarrée_. In place of the large lateen
sails carried by galley and galleasse, were smaller sails and courses,
square, more easily manipulated and allowing of greater variation in
disposition and effective area, to suit the conditions of weather and
the trim of the ship.
Throughout the fifteenth century the sailing ship developed. “While
in the first quarter,” writes Mr. Oppenheim of English shipping, “we
find that men-of-war possess, at the most, two masts and two sails,
carry three or four guns, and one or two rudimentary bowsprits, at
the close of the same century they are three- or four-masters, with
topmasts and topsails, bowsprit and spritsail, and conforming to the
characteristics of the type which remained generally constant for more
than two centuries.” The English mariner had by this time acquired his
honourable reputation. In merchant ships he carried Bordeaux wine,
the casks of which became the unit for measurement of their tunnage;
even in winter months, we are told, he braved the Bay with pilgrims on
tour to the shrine of St. James of Compostella. Large royal ships of
over 1000 tons burthen were built, in the early part of the century,
in English yards. As builders the Normans seem at this time to have
excelled.[2] But the most wonderful development of the science of
seamanship in all its branches took place in the Peninsula. Largely
through the inspiration of one man the greatest efforts of Spain and
Portugal were directed to the cult of navigation and geography, the
improvement of shipbuilding, and the discovery of new and distant
lands and oceans. A brilliant impetus was given to the study of ship
construction by the voyages of Columbus, the Cabots, Vasco di Gama, and
other intrepid spirits who, by aid of the compass, braved the moral and
physical terrors of far-distant voyages--“fighting immensity with a
needle.”
§
With the development of artillery the value of the sailing ship for
sea warfare came gradually to view. Naval tactics suffered a complete
change.
Until the early days of the sixteenth century sea-fights had been
land-fights in character; ships came as quickly as possible to close
quarters, grappled or charged one another, cut rigging, and essayed to
board. The sailor was subservient to the soldier. The gun, represented
in the main by serpentines, periers, murderers, and other quick-firing
pieces, was primarily a defensive armament, for the defence, firstly,
of the entire ship, or, in the event of the waist being captured, of
the fortified end citadels or castles. “These castles, which in vessels
especially constructed for war came to take the form of a forecastle
and a half-deck, were made musket-proof; and being closed athwartship
with similarly protected bulkheads, known as ‘cubbridge-heads,’ were
impenetrable to boarders; while at the same time, by means of loopholes
and quick-firing pieces in-board, they could enfilade the waist with
musketry and murdering shot. Thus a ship of the English pattern, at any
rate, could rarely be held even if boarders entered, until her ‘cage
works’ or protected castles were destroyed by gunfire.”[3] The ship
itself, being deep-waisted and built with an exaggerated sheer upwards
toward bow and stem, had no continuous deck: the decks were laid on
various levels, rising from the waist by steps to the two citadels,
an arrangement which did not contribute, as a flush-deck would have
done, to the longitudinal strength of the vessel, and which was found
inconvenient for the working and transport of ordnance of the heavier
sort.
King Henry VIII, in his efforts to possess fighting ships superior
to those of Spain, France and Scotland, raised not only artillery
but ships themselves to a different rôle. As he personally urged the
manufacture of ordnance in this country by the subsidizing of foreign
talent, so he sought to improve the design of his ships by inviting
Italian shipwrights to come to England and apply their knowledge to
the royal vessels. Dockyards were founded at Woolwich, Deptford, and
Portsmouth. Large ships were laid down, several were rebuilt, with many
improvements embodied in them: chief of these being a new artillery
armament. The king had seized the advantages of the sailing ship with
broadside fire. “The development of broadside fire,” says Sir Julian
Corbett, “was a question of gunnery, of naval architecture, and of
seamanship. With Henry’s introduction of heavy guns on board his larger
vessels, however, the true note had been struck, and by the end of his
reign the first two arts had made great strides. Guns of all patterns
and sizes were being cast in England, both in bronze and iron, which
were little inferior to those Nelson fought with.” The result of the
king’s efforts was seen in the ships laid down in the last years
of his reign. The frontispiece of Mr. Oppenheim’s _History of the
Administration of the Royal Navy_ is a picture of one of these, the
_Tiger_, a four-masted flush-decked vessel, with no sheer, little top
hamper, a long tier of ordnance on the gun deck, and with a beak-head
ending in a spur: one of a class “which shows a very great advance on
anything before afloat and indicates a steady progression towards the
modern type.”
In short, a reversion to a smaller and seaworthier type took place. The
large, unstable and unwieldy “great ship,” such as the _Henry Grace
á Dieu_, built on the Spanish model, with lofty ends overweighted
with small ordnance, was not effective. A new invention, attributed
to Descharges of Brest in 1501, viz. the adaptation of portholes to
ordnance along the sides of a ship, perhaps suggested a better form.
As the century advanced, as new and far-distant countries appeared on
the map, the arts of seamanship and gunnery continuously improved;
naval architecture made a corresponding progress. For sea fighting the
high-charged and imposing “great ship” gave place to a more perfected
type--the galleon. “It was the development of the galleon,” insists the
historian, “which changed the naval art from its medieval to its modern
state.” The galley, eminently suited to the Mediterranean, where winds
were light and slave labour abundant, was found to be increasingly
unsuitable for Atlantic warfare; the galley was in danger of being
rammed, in any wind, by a strong, quick-turning sailing ship, and
suffered from having nearly all its artillery in the bows; moreover,
“the galley service was always repugnant to our national temperament.”
The galleasse, the hybrid between the oar-driven galley and the sailing
ship, suffered from all the disadvantages of the compromise. The
great ship had now proved to be cumbrous and expensive, crank and
unseaworthy, leewardly and unmanageable in even a moderate breeze.
The galleon therefore became the type favoured by the English navy.
Whereas the merchant ship was short in proportion to its beam, the
galleon was built long, with a length equal to three times its breadth.
It had also a long flat floor like a galley, and was of lower freeboard
than a round-ship. “It was also like a galley flush-decked, and would
seem always to have had the half-deck carried across the waist so as to
make one flush-deck with the old forecastle. In the larger types the
quarter-deck was also carried flush from stem to stem, so that latterly
at any rate a true galleon had at least two decks and sometimes three.
On the upper deck in the earlier types were erected both fore and aft
high-castles as in a galleasse, but usually on curved lines, which
gave the hull of the old-fashioned galleons the appearance of a half
moon.”[4] The depth of hold at the waist was only about two-fifths the
beam. Its artillery was light but effective, being composed of light
muzzle loaders, a mean between the man-killers and the heavy bombards
of an earlier day. Its masts and spars were made heavy and large sail
area was given it, for speed and quick manœuvring were the essential
qualities which it was hoped to oppose to the lumbering, high-charged
ships of Spain. Victory was to be sought by a skilful combination of
seamanship and gunnery, rapid fire being poured into an enemy at a
convenient range and bearing. “Plenty of room and a stand-off fight”
sufficiently defines the sea tactics of the new era.
Throughout the reign of Elizabeth the galleon still remained the
favourite type, though opinion differed, and continued to differ
through the two following centuries, as to the degree to which it
was desirable to “build lofty.” The Hawkins family of Plymouth
shipowners carried a great influence in the councils of the navy.
Sir John Hawkins, whose experience of shipbuilding and seamanship
rendered him a man of importance, was the author of improvements in
this respect, as in so many others; “the first Elizabethan men-of-war,
the fastest sailers and best sea-boats then afloat, were built to his
plans; and from the time of his appointment as Treasurer of the Navy
dates the change to the relatively low and long type that made the
English ships so much more handy than their Spanish antagonists.”[5]
His kinsman, Sir Richard, on the other hand, preferred large and
high-charged ships, “not only for their moral effect on the enemy, but
for their superiority in boarding and the heavier ordnance and larger
crews they would carry. Two decks and a half he considers to be the
least a great ship should have, and was of opinion that the fashion
for galleasse-built ships--or, as he calls them, ‘race’ ships--in
preference to those ‘lofty-built’ had been pushed too far.”[6] Ships
with large cage-works had an advantage, he maintained, in affording
cover for the crew and positions for quick-firing batteries; his
opponents argued that the weight of top-hamper saved by their abolition
could be put with better advantage into a heavy artillery.
The advocates of the fast, low-lying ships carried the day. War came
with Spain, and there was soon work to show what the English ships
could do. The _Armada Papers_[7] light up for us, by the fitful glare
of the cressets of Hawkins and Co., the preparation of the fleet at
Plymouth, and show us what state of efficiency the royal ships were
in. “The _Hope_ and _Nonpariel_ are both graved, tallowed, and this
tide into the road again,” writes William Hawkins to his brother. “We
trim one side of every ship by night and the other side by day, so
that we end the three great-ships in three days this spring. The ships
sit aground so strongly, and are so staunch as if they were made of a
whole tree. The doing of it is very chargeable, for that it is done by
torchlight and cressets, and in an extreme gale of wind, which consumes
pitch, tallow, and firs abundantly.” Not only the few royal ships, but
the whole of the force which lies in the Sound is tuned for the fight.
“For Mr. Hawkins’ bargain,” writes the Commander-in-Chief to Lord
Burghley, “this much I will say: I have been aboard of every ship that
goeth out with me, and in every place where any may creep, and there is
never a one of them that knows what a leak means. I do thank God that
they be in the estate they be in.” The Spanish ships prove to be in a
very different condition. High-charged and leewardly, poorly rigged
and lightly gunned, they are so hammered and raked by Lord Howard’s
well-found fleet that, when bad weather ultimately comes, they are in
no condition to combat the elements. With masts and rigging shattered,
water-casks smashed, no anchors; short-handed and leaking like sieves,
they are hounded northwards to a disaster unparalleled in naval history.
And now, before tracing its evolution through the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, let us glance at the warship as it existed at the
end of the Elizabethan era, and note its chief constructive features.
§
Athwart a keel of large squared timbers, scarphed together and forming
with a massive inner keelson the principal member or backbone, were
laid the curved frames or ribs which, bolted to each other and to
the keel with iron bolts washered and clinched, gave to the hull its
transverse strength and form. These frames were held together, as they
curved upward from the ground or floor level, by thick longitudinal
wales, worked externally along the frames at convenient heights, and
curved so as to suit the degree of sheer desired.
At the fore end the wales and frames converged to the centre-line and
the keel was prolonged upward to meet them in a curve or compassing
timber, forming the bow or stem: to the beauty and shapeliness of
which, with its projecting beak-head, the builder devoted much of his
attention and skill. At the other end the frames and wales converged
to a square and lofty stern. The stern post was a massive timber
fastened to the keel and sloping somewhat aft from the vertical, and
from it rose two fashion-pieces “like a pair of great horns,” which
formed, with the horizontal arch and transom timbers, the framework of
the stern. When the frames had been built up to the requisite height
the upper ends of each opposite pair were joined across by horizontal
beams, which were secured to them by means of brackets or knees; such
beams were worked at the level of the main and other decks, and served
to support them when laid. Joined by its beams, each pair of frames
thus formed a closed structure: a combination of members which was to
resist crushing and deformation, the blows of the sea, the stresses
of gunfire, the forces due to the weight of the guns and the vessel
itself, and especially the forces thrown on it when the vessel was
aground or on a careen. The rigidity of this combination was enhanced
by the fitting of pillars which were placed vertically over the keelson
to support each beam at its middle. And sometimes the lower pillars
were supplemented by sloping struts, worked from the curve of the
frames up to the middle of each beam above.
The skeleton of a ship thus formed, built with well-seasoned timber,
was left standing on the stocks “in frame” for a considerable period,
sometimes for years, exposed to the open weather. On it eventually
a skin of planks was fastened, secured by wood trenails split and
expanded by soft-wood wedges, both internally and externally; and
inside the ship, to reinforce the frames and in line with them, timbers
known as “riders” were worked. On the beams the decks were laid: the
orlop below the water-line level, and above it, at a height suitable
for the ordnance, the main or gun deck; above that the upper deck,
on the ends of which were reared the poop (sometimes a half-deck,
extending from the stern to the mainmast, sometimes on that a
quarter-deck, over the steerage) and the forecastle.
Such, very briefly, was the mode of ship construction. The resulting
structure, when caulked and swelled by sea-water, presented a
water-tight and serviceable vessel. Timber provided, for ships up to a
certain size, a suitable material. It afforded strength and buoyancy,
and elasticity sufficient to obviate local strains and to spread the
stresses due to lading, grounding, careening, or the actions of the
wind and sea. The different parts of the ship’s frame gave mutual
support, and the pressure of the fluid on the exterior of the hull
tended, by constraining the component parts, to preserve the vessel.[8]
But the timber-built ship possessed an inherent weakness. Metal plates
or girders can be bolted or riveted together so efficiently as to
leave the joints between them almost as strong as the sections of the
plates or girders themselves. Not so wood beams. However skilfully
they might be joined, their joints were necessarily weaker than all
other sections: “it was then, and still is, impracticable to develop
the full strength in end connections between wooden members.”[9]
The softness of the wood was an additional source of weakness. Two
beams fastened together by iron bolts might form initially a close
and rigid joint; but if, under the action of alternating or racking
stresses, they became loosened even in a minute degree, the tendency
to become still looser increased: the wood gradually yielded under
the bolt washers, the bolts no longer held rigidly, “the very fact
that wood and iron were dissimilar materials tended to hasten the
disintegration of the structure.” With planking a similar effect
obtained. Trenails, expanded by wedges and planed off flush with the
planks which they held together, had only shearing strength; if once
they were loosened they had little power to prevent the planks from
opening further. These weaknesses were recognised. To minimize their
effects the butts of frames, decks, and side planking, were arranged
so that no two neighbouring butts lay in the same line. But in spite
of the most painstaking craftsmanship, the size of the wooden ship
was limited by its inability to withstand a high degree of stress.
As sizes increased extraordinary endeavours were made to meet the
hogging and sagging strains, to prevent cambering of the hull, and to
stiffen it longitudinally and circumferentially. Enormous masses of
timber were worked into the internal structure in the form of riders,
pillars, standards, and shores, “the whole of which had an appearance
of great strength, but which in fact, from its weight and injudicious
combinations, was useless, if not injurious.”[10] Which did, in fact,
clog the ship and usurp the space required for stowage.
As for the masts, experience fixed their number, size and position.
In the earlier ships, as we have seen, four and sometimes five masts
were fitted, after the Mediterranean style. But later this number was
reduced to three. Of these the foremast was the most important, and it
was stepped directly over the fore-foot of the vessel, the main and
mizzen being pitched to suit. Their height varied with the service and
type of ship. Taunt masts, like those carried by the Flemish ships,
were best for sailing on a wind, for with them narrow sails could be
used which could be set at a sharp angle with the keel; but short masts
and broad yards were favoured by English mariners, as bringing less
strain on a vessel’s sides and rigging and as being less likely to
produce a state of dangerous instability. The masts were short, very
thick, and heavily shrouded; the standing rigging was led to channels
and deadeyes on the outside of the bulwarks. The bowsprits were large
and “steved” upward at a large angle with the horizontal; spritsails
and spritsail topsails were set on them, of use mainly when sailing
before a wind, yet retaining their place in our navy till, half-way
through the eighteenth century, the introduction of the fore-and-aft
jib brought about an improvement and in so doing affected the whole
disposition of mastage.
One feature of the masting of the old ships is notable: the manner in
which the various masts were raked. In the _Sea-Man’s Dictionary_[11]
the _trim_ of a ship was defined as, “the condition, as to draught,
staying of masts, slackness of shrouds, etc., in which a ship goes
best.” For a given set of conditions there was a certain rake of
masts, a certain position of the centre of wind-pressure against the
sails, which, when discovered, gave to the vessel its finest sailing
qualities. The knowledge of this adjustment constituted no small part
of the great art of seamanship. In the king’s ships a high proficiency
was attained in it; merchantmen sailed under more diverse conditions
and showed, it appears, a lower level of scientific inquiry. “Next to
men of war (whose daily practice it is) the Scotch men are the best
in the world to find out the trym of a ship, for they will never be
quiet, but try her all ways, and if there be any goodness in her, they
can make her go.” Generally, the effect of raking the masts aft was to
make the vessel fly up into the wind, and vice versa; in ships with
high-built sterns, especially, it was necessary to have the head-sails
set well forward, to keep them out of the wind. To allow the masts to
be raked as desired their heels were pared away, and wedges of suitable
thickness were driven between them and the “partners.”
Many other factors contributed to affect, in a manner always subtle
and frequently inexplicable, the sailing qualities of a ship. The form
of the body, the position of masts and the setting up of the rigging,
the disposition of weights, the angle of the yards, the conditions of
stability, all had their effect on the vessel’s motion, and therefore
on her speed through the water. Free water in a ship’s bilge, for
example, had an effect on her degree of stiffness, and from this cause
her speed was not easily predictable. Charnock relates how, in the
colonial wars of the late eighteenth century, an American vessel, the
_Hancock_, was captured after an unprecedented chase, solely because
her commander, injudiciously supposing that by lightening his ship he
would enhance her swiftness, pumped water out of her. It was noticed,
again, that in certain circumstances the speed of a ship increased when
the crew turned into their hammocks.
The lines of the ship were drawn without reference to any science
of naval architecture, and merely by instinct and the accumulated
experience of the builder; the laws of stability and of fluid
resistance were at this time unknown. Experience indicated the
desirability of a short keel, to make the ship turn quickly; of an
ample rake forward from keel to beak-head--“more than a third the
length of the keel, commonly,” says Sir Henry Manwayring, for, “a great
rake forward gives a ship good way and makes her keep a good wind, but
if she have not a full bow it will make her pitch mightily into a head
sea.... The longer a ship’s rake is, the fuller must be the bow”; of
a fine run aft, so as to let the water flow strongly and swiftly to
the rudder and make the ship steer and sail well; of a narrow rudder,
so as not to hold much dead water when the helm was over,--yet, “if a
ship have a fat quarter, she will require a broad rudder.” The correct
formation of the bow was recognised as of the greatest importance,
and the most difficult compromise in the design of a ship. A bow too
bluff offered much resistance to motion through the water; on the other
hand, too sharp a bow lacked buoyancy, and, from the great weight of
mastage, headsails, anchors, etc., which it had to support, caused a
vessel to pitch badly in a head sea. “If the bow be too broad,” wrote
Captain John Smith, in his _Sea Man’s Grammar_, “she will seldom carry
a bone in her mouth, or cut a feather, that is, to make a foam before
her: where a well-bowed ship so swiftly presseth the water as that it
foameth, and in the dark night sparkleth like fire.”
Generally, a vessel built with fine lines lacked end support,
and tended to become arched or camber-keeled, while its stowage
capacity was inconveniently small. The ship’s sides were made with a
considerable degree of tumble-home above the water-line; though this,
again, was a point of compromise and much argument. For while a reduced
breadth of deck tended to give the hull more girder strength and to
diminish the racking effect on it of heavy ordnance, yet this feature
at the same time, by reducing the angle at which the shrouds could be
set, augmented the stresses which were thrown on shrouds and bulwarks.
§
With the seventeenth century a new age of scientific speculation
opened, and, under the personal encouragement of the Stuart kings, the
art and mystery of shipbuilding received an illumination which was of
great value to the royal armaments.
The early interest of James I in his navy is signalized by his grant
of a charter to the corporation of shipwrights: a corporation whose
short-lived story is told by the editor of _The Autobiography of
Phineas Pett_, recently published.[12] Before the sixteenth century, he
tells us, no special trade was recognized for the building of warships,
as distinct from traders. But in the early Tudor days, when, owing to
the introduction of the new artillery the war vessel began to diverge
in general design from the merchant ship, certain master shipwrights
had been subsidized by the king for the building and repair of the
royal vessels. The position of these officials was one of importance,
their duties and privileges were extensive. The office was often
hereditary. Thus, the royal patent granted to one James Baker in 1538
descended, with the accumulated lore and secrets of his profession, to
his son Mathew Baker in 1572. And that granted to Peter Pett in 1558
descended to Joseph Pett in 1590. But as shipping grew and shipbuilding
became more complex and widely distributed, the need for some central
authority, which could regulate practice and standardize procedure,
became increasingly felt. Accordingly a petition was presented. In 1605
the king granted a charter incorporating the master shipwrights of
England as one body corporate and politic, for the good regulation of
shipbuilding of all descriptions. In 1612 another charter was sealed,
giving increased power to the confraternity: with instruction that
it was to examine each new ship to see that it was properly built,
“with two orlops at convenient distances, strong to carry ordnance
aloft and alow, with her forecastle and half-deck close for fight.”
Shipwrights’ Hall, as the corporation was called, surveyed and reported
on tonnage and workmanship, and gave advice, when sought, to the
lord high admiral. In the course of time its prestige declined. With
the Commonwealth it grew into disuse, and by 1690 it was altogether
extinct. For nearly a century the guild had struggled in vain to fulfil
the intentions of its founders.
The most distinguished of the master shipwrights of this period was
Phineas Pett, sometime master of arts at Emmanuel College, Cambridge,
who in 1612 succeeded old Mathew Baker as Master of the guild.
Pett, who to a practical knowledge of design and construction added
considerable sea experience, rose far above his contemporaries, most
of whom were little more than mere carpenters, ignorant of many of
the principles which are now accepted as governing ship design, and
themselves governed almost entirely by tradition and blind precedent.
Science was still in its veriest infancy. The progress of ship design
was still by the tentative and costly method of full-scale experience;
not till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when new forces and
materials had been discovered which in the end spelt the decline and
supersession of the sailing ship, did science sufficiently direct the
lines on which large sailing ships should be built.
By his bold deviation from established usage, says Fincham, Mr. Pett
established his fame and advanced the interest and power of the British
navy. Before reviewing his handiwork, however, it will be convenient to
note the main directions in which improvement was at this period sought.
Sir Henry Manwayring, an acquaintance for whom Pett designed and
built a pinnace in the year 1616, wrote at this time _The Sea-Man’s
Dictionary_. In the early years of the century were also written two
treatises which, though not printed till a later date, had great
effect in creating an interest in naval matters: Sir Walter Raleigh’s
_Observations on the Navy_ and _Invention of Shipping_. In the former
paper Sir Walter laid down the six requisites of a good ship: viz.
that she should be strongly built, swift, stout-sided, carry out her
guns in all weathers, lie-to in a gale easily, and stay well. For the
attainment of these qualities he specified certain structural features:
a long run forward, to make her sail well; a long bearing floor and
a “tumble home” above water from the lower edge of the ports, for
stoutness and for stiffness sufficient to enable her to carry her lower
ordnance (which must lie four feet clear above water) in all weathers.
“It is a special observation,” he wrote, “that all ships sharp before,
that want a long floor, will fall roughly into the sea and take in
water over head and ears. So will all narrow quartered ships sink
after the tail. The high charging of ships it is that brings them all
ill qualities.” In the latter paper he recapitulated the various
improvements in material of which he had himself been witness; from
which for its interest we quote the following extract. “The striking
of the topmast (a wonderful great ease to great ships both at sea and
in harbour) hath been devised, together with the chain pump ... the
bonnet and the drabler. We have fallen into consideration of the length
of cables, and by it we resist the malice of the greatest winds that
can blow, witness our small Milbrook men of Cornwall, that ride it out
at anchor, half seas over between England and Ireland, all the winter
quarter.... For true it is, that the length of the cable is the life of
the ship in all extremities. We carry our ordnance better than we were
wont, because our nether overloops are raised commonly from the water,
to wit, between the lower part of the port and the sea. We have also
raised our second decks and given more vent thereby to our ordnance,
tying on our nether overloop. We have added cross pillars in our royal
ships to strengthen them, which be fastened from the kelson to the
beams of the second deck. We have given longer floors to our ships than
in elder times, and better bearing under water, whereby they never fall
into the sea after the head and shake the whole body, nor sink stern,
nor stoop upon a wind, by which the breaking loose of our ordnance or
the not use of them, with many other discommodities are avoided....
And to say the truth a miserable shame and dishonour it were for our
shipwrights, if they did not exceed all other in the setting up of our
royal ships, the errors of other nations being far more excusable than
ours.” Sir Walter was inaccurate in attributing all the improvements
enumerated to his own generation; bonnets, for instance, were in use
long before his day. Nevertheless his paper constitutes one of the most
important contributions to the history of naval architecture in this
country.
In the early years of the century, too, evidence as to the shortcomings
of contemporary naval construction was furnished by a fierce critic,
Captain Waymouth. He proclaimed that English shipwrights built only
by uncertain traditional precepts and observations; that none of them
could build two ships alike or predict with accuracy their draught
of water; that all their ships were crank, leewardly--“a great
disadvantage in a fight”--difficult to steer and sail, too deep in
the water, of less capacity than the Hollanders, and so badly built
and designed as frequently to require “furring,” or reinforcing by
extra planking. He advocated building ships longer, broader, with
longer floors so as to reduce their draught, and snugger in respect of
upper works. And though he failed on trial to translate his ideas into
successful performance, his criticisms are accepted by historians as
being probably well-founded.
The opinions expressed by the above writers[13] indicate for us
in general terms the chief particulars in which the ships of this
period fell short of naval requirements. They were designed without
knowledge of the laws governing the strength of materials, stability,
and the motion of bodies through water; they were built without
adequate supervision, frequently of green timber badly scarphed or cut
across the grain, and were overburdened with ordnance. Their holds
were cumbered with large quantities of shingle ballast which tended
to clog the limber-holes of the bilge and rot the frames and floor
timbers; while the stowage space amidships was further usurped by the
cook-rooms, which were placed on the shingle, and which, by the heat
radiated from their brick sides, did damage to the timbers and seams
in their vicinity. Vessels were rarely sheathed. Though John Hawkins
had devised a system of sheathing by a veneer of planking nailed over
a layer of hair and tar, it was only to ships going on special service
in seas where the worm was active that sheathing was applied. Sheathing
possessed, then, some significance. In 1620, for instance, the Venetian
ambassador reported to his government the discovery that some of our
ships were being sheathed, and from this fact deduced an impending
expedition to the Mediterranean.
With the navy in the depths of neglect and with shipbuilding in the
state described, Phineas Pett began to impose his permanent mark on
design and construction. The mechanism by which he secured his results,
the calculations and methods and rules used by him, were veiled in
profound secrecy, in accordance with the traditions of his profession.
He began by new-building old ships of the Elizabethan time, giving
them an improved form so far as practicable. His friend and patron
was the young Prince Henry, for whom in 1607 he made a model which
the king greatly admired. And shortly after this, in the face of much
jealousy on the part of his rivals, he laid down by command a new
great ship--the _Prince Royal_, of 1187 tons, with a breadth of 43 feet
and a keel length of 115 feet, double-built and sumptuously adorned, in
all respects the finest ship that had ever been built in England. She
carried no less than fifty-five guns, her general proportions were of a
unity, and her strength was of a superiority, far in advance of current
practice. In strength especially she marked an advance which yielded
benefit later, in the wars with Holland. She was double planked, “a
charge which was not formerly thought upon, and all the butt-heads were
double-bolted with iron bolts.”
But how difficult a matter it was for a builder to depart from
tradition, is shown from Pett’s account of the inquisition to which he
was subjected in connection with the building of this famous ship. His
rivals took advantage of the “Commission of Enquiry into the abuses of
the navy,” of 1608, to indict him for bad design, bad building, and
peculation. So much hard swearing took place on both sides that at last
King James himself decided to act as judge, and at Woolwich, with the
wretched Phineas on his knees before him, opened his court of inquiry.
“Much time,” says the diarist, “was spent in dispute of proportions,
comparing my present frame with former precedents and dimensions of the
best ships, for length, breadth, depth, floor, and other circumstances.
One point of proportion was mainly insisted upon and with much violence
and eagerness urged on both sides, which was the square of the ship’s
flat in the midships, they affirming constantly upon their oath it was
full thirteen feet, we as constantly insisting that it was but eleven
foot eight inches.” In the end the king called in a mathematician and
had the controversy settled by actual measurement. None of the charges
brought against him being sustained, Phineas was acquitted and restored
once more to royal favour, to his own delight and to that of his
youthful patron, Prince Henry.
The _Prince Royal_ marks a new epoch in ship design. She was such a
departure from all previous forms that she made the fame of Phineas
Pett secure. She became, indeed, the parent or type of all future
warships down to the beginning of the nineteenth century; for (says
Charnock), were the profuse ornaments removed, her contour, or general
appearance, would not so materially differ from that of the modern
vessel of the same size as to render her an uncommon sight, or a ship
in which mariners would hesitate to take the sea. In her a final
departure was made from the archaic form imposed on fighting ships by
tradition. The picture Charnock gives of her is of a highly ornamented
but low and flush-decked vessel armed to the ends with two tiers of
heavy guns. The projecting beak-head, a relic from the galley days
which had been so prominent a feature of Tudor construction, has
almost disappeared: the bow curves gracefully upward to a lion close
under the bowsprit. The wales have little sheer; the stern is compact
and well supported, with beautiful lines. The quarter galleries are
long, and are incorporated in the structure in a curious manner:
in the form of indented, tower-like projections, with ornamented
interspaces. The whole picture gives evidence of stout scantlings and
invaluable solidity. Although in many respects the _Prince Royal_
was a masterpiece she was primitive in the variety of her armament.
On the lower deck she carried two cannon-petro, six demi-cannon,
twelve culverins; on her upper deck eighteen demi-culverins; and
on quarter-deck and poop a number of sakers and port-pieces. Also,
unfortunately, she was built of green timber, so her life was short.
In building a ship of unprecedented burthen Pett had the support of
a large public opinion. The advantages attaching to large size were
by this time generally appreciated: in the case of fighting ships, in
respect of strength, artillery force, and sea endurance, in the case
of merchant ships, in respect of carrying capacity and economy of
crew. The growth in the size of merchant shipping during the reign was
indeed remarkable. Trade followed the flag, and the Jacobean merchant
made haste to profit by the conquests of the Elizabethan adventurer.
For a short while after the war with Spain our mercantile marine was
stagnant; at the accession of James I only small vessels of less than
a hundred tons were being built, and English merchants were having
strange recourse to the hiring of foreigners. But this state of
things did not last for long. The story of the success of the Earl of
Cumberland and his 800-ton _Scourge of Malice_, and the sight of the
great Portuguese carrack captured in 1592, are said to have stimulated
the merchants of London to possess themselves of vessels fit for the
Eastern trade. It is said, again, that the appearance of two large
Dutch ships in the Thames supplied the sudden impulse to build big.
Be that as it may, “the idea spread like wild-fire.” Larger ships
were laid down, and by the end of the reign the country possessed a
considerable fleet of ships of 500 tons and above. In one instance,
at least, the pendulum swung too far, and experience soon exposed the
disadvantages of excessive dimensions: the reduction in strength, the
unhandiness in shallow waters, the almost impossibility of graving and
breaming, the risking in a single bottom of too great a venture. The
_Trades Increase_, built for the new East India Company in 1605 by
William Burrell and launched by the king at Deptford, was of no less
than 1,100 tons burthen. On her first voyage to Java she was lost by
fire, and no more ships of her size were ordered by the Company.
With the expansion of merchant shipping and with the recognition of
artillery as the main instrument of naval warfare fighting ships made
a corresponding advance in size. The Commission of Reform of 1618,
on whose report the subsequent reorganization of the Navy was based,
held that the primacy of the big gun had at last been established.
“Experience teacheth,” the Commissioners recorded, “how sea-fights
in these days come seldom to boarding, or to great execution of
bows, arrows, small shot and the sword, but are chiefly performed
by the great artillery breaking down masts, yards, tearing, raking,
and bilging the ships, wherein the great advantage of His Majesty’s
navy must carefully be maintained by appointing such a proportion of
ordnance to each ship as the vessel will bear.” They recognized the
extravagance of small ships, and advised that in future the royal
navy should consist of a nucleus of about thirty large ships, which
with the merchant fleet should form one complete service; royal ships
of over 800 tons; great ships of over 600 tons; middling ships of
about 450 tons. They also formulated the chief requirements of naval
construction in considerable detail. This pontifical pronouncement
on ship dimensions was doubtless of value in connection with the
contemporary project to which their work had reference; nevertheless it
formed a dangerous precedent for future administrations. It shackled
the genius of the shipbuilder. It degraded design. The ship, especially
the timber-built sailing warship, was essentially a compromise between
a number of conflicting elements. To obtain full value from his skill
the designer required as free as possible a choice of means to his end;
and any over-drawing of the specification, or surplusage of data beyond
the barest requirements, tended to tie his hands and render impossible
a satisfactory design. It was this over-specifying of dimensions in
the interests of standardization which, as we shall presently see,
stultified shipbuilding in England not only in the seventeenth but
throughout the whole of the eighteenth century.
But the report of 1618 was doubtless of great value as a guidance for
the building of the new Stuart navy. “The manner of building, which
in ships of war is of greatest importance, because therein consists
both their sailing and force. The ships that can sail best can take or
leave (as they say), and use all advantages the winds and seas afford;
and their mould, in the judgment of men of best skill, both dead and
alive, should have the length treble the breadth, and the breadth in
like proportion to the depth, but not to draw above 16 foot of water
because deeper ships are seldom good sailers.... They must be somewhat
snug built, without double galleries and too lofty upper works, which
overcharge many ships and make them loom fair, but not work well at
sea.” As for the strengthening of the royal ships the Commissioners
subscribed to the manner of building approved by “our late worthy
prince”: “first, in making three orlops, whereof the lowest being two
feet under water, both strengtheneth the ship, and though her sides be
shot through, keepeth it from bilging by shot and giveth easier means
to find and stop the leaks. Second, in carrying their orlops whole
floored throughout from end to end. Third, in laying the second orlop
at such convenient height that the ports may bear out the whole fire of
ordnance in all seas and weathers. Fourth, in placing the cook-rooms
in the forecastle, as other ships of war do, because being in the
midships, and in the hold, the smoke and heat so search every corner
and seam, that they make the oakum spew out, and the ships leaky,
and some decay; besides, the best room for stowage of victualling is
thereby so taken up, that transporters must be hired for every voyage
of any time; and, which is worst, when all the weight must be cast
before and abaft, and the ships are left empty and light in the midst,
it makes them apt to sway in the back, as the _Guardland_ and divers
others have done.”
The ships built under the regulations of the Commissioners were
certainly an improvement on earlier ships in many respects, but in
one element of power they proved to be deficient, namely, in speed.
The stoutly built, full-bodied, lumbering English two-deckers were
out-sailed and out-manœuvred, it was noticed, by the relatively light
and fine-lined Hollanders. Moreover our smaller ships were known to
be no match in speed for the Dunkirk privateers which at this time
infested the seas. A new type was seen to be necessary. The existing
differentiation of warships into rates or classes was insufficient. For
the line of battle there must be ships in which force of artillery was
the predominant quality; but for other duties there must also be ships
in which speed, and not force, was the distinguishing note. From this
necessity was evolved the _frigate_.
Soon after the accession of Charles I an attempt was made to establish
the new type by building small vessels on the model of the largest,
miniatures which it was hoped would prove good sailors and capable,
although square-sailed, of sailing near a wind. The Ten Whelps were
laid down: flush-decked three-masted vessels of 200 tons, 62 feet long
on the keel and 25 feet in breadth. They were not a success. It was
left for Dunkirk, “the smartest dockyard in Europe,” to found the new
model. In imitation of a captured Dunkirk privateer our first frigate
was built in 1646 by Peter, son of Phineas Pett, and her success was
such that he had the achievement recorded on his tomb. The _Constant
Warwick_ was 85 feet in keel-length, 26 feet 5 inches in breadth,
of 315 tons burden and 32 guns. She was “an incomparable sailer.”
Before the first Dutch war was over she had taken as much money from
privateers as would have completely laden her.
It seems probable that the prestige of his name was sufficient to give
Peter Pett a freedom from interference in his design which was not
accorded less distinguished shipbuilders. In ’45 Andrews Burrell, in
a remonstance addressed to Parliament, protested, “For the love of
heaven let not the shipwrights that are to build them [three frigates
for special service] be misled by those that would, but cannot, direct
them, which error hath been very hurtful to the navy heretofore.” By
the interference of Sir John Pennington, he asserted, the builders
of the Ten Whelps were so misled that they proved sluggish and
unserviceable. “Let no rules be given the shipwrights more than their
tonnage, with the number and weight of their ordnance, and that the
number and weight of their ordnance may be suitable to the burden of
each frigate.”
King Charles, whose personal interest in the royal navy equalled that
of his father, favoured the tendency to enlarge the tonnage and the
individual power of his fighting ships. The _Prince Royal_ displayed
the advantages of size. The Dutch people, jealous of the interference
with their eastern trade, were known to be building large ships. Across
the channel an ambitious and all-powerful minister was envisaging
the possession of a navy in which an inferiority in numbers might be
neutralized by the superiority of the unit. In France a vessel of 1400
tons had been laid down. Charles determined to take up the challenge,
obtaining the money by hook or by crook wherewith to build a greater.
In the year 1634 the decision was made. A model of a great three-decker
mounting a hundred and four guns was presented to him by Phineas Pett,
and shortly afterwards the master of the shipwrights received the royal
command to build a ship, and to proceed in person to the forests of
Durham to select the thickstuff, knee timber, and planking requisite
for the task.
Opposition to the building of such a prodigious vessel appeared from
different quarters. Great ships, in the opinion of Sir Walter Raleigh,
were “of marvellous charge and fearful cumber.” The cost of so large a
ship must needs be great, for not only the whole cost, but the cost per
ton, increased with the size of the vessel; so wasteful a process was
the building of a great ship, indeed, that it was not unusual to build
a small ship simultaneously, out of the timber discarded: a practice
known as “building a small ship out of a great one’s chips.” Ships
of the greatest size, again, were “of little service, less nimble,
less mainable, and very seldom employed.” Nor was it believed that so
large a vessel as that projected could be built. Trinity House, when
they heard of the design, uttered a formal protest. Such a ship, they
argued, would be too big for service, and unsafe from her enormous
size. To carry such a number of pieces she must be a three-decker, and
to build a serviceable three-decker was beyond the art or wit of man;
if the lower tier were too low they would be useless in a sea, if at 5
or 5½ feet above the water-line then the third tier would be so high
as to endanger the ship. In spite of this protest the new ship was
laid down, and nearly two years later, in the autumn of ’37, she was
launched at Woolwich, “the pride and glory of the Caroline navy.”
The _Sovereign of the Seas_, the _Sovereign_, or the _Royal Sovereign_,
as she was called by successive governments, was another great advance
in size and solidity on all preceding construction, and was the
masterpiece of Phineas Pett. Her length by the keel was 128 feet,
her main breadth 48 feet, her overall length 232 feet. She had three
flush decks and a forecastle, a half-deck, a quarter-deck, and a
roundhouse. Her armament showed an approach to symmetry; the lower
tier consisted of cannon and demi-cannon, the middle tier of culverins
and demi-culverins. In one respect she was less advanced than Pett’s
earlier effort, the _Prince Royal_, in that she had an old-fashioned
beakhead, low hawses and a low and exposed forecastle. In general
form she was extolled by all, and bore witness to the genius of her
designer. No better form, said a later critic and constructor[14] after
making an analysis of her lines--no better form could have been devised
for a ship built (according to the prevailing customs of the times)
so high out of water and so overloaded with ornaments. The king took
a personal pride in her, and during her construction visited Woolwich
and “seriously perused all the ship within board.” For him an elaborate
description was written which, quoted at length by various writers,
serves to show the extent to which mere decoration contributed to the
cost of a royal ship. Two pictures of the vessel are reproduced by
Charnock, of such obvious disparity that they serve to show (as the
author observes) to what a degree artists may differ in the presentment
of the same vessel. They confirm, besides, the profuseness of the
ornamentation which was massed on her--the trophies, angels, emblems,
mouldings--which made her the occasion of loud complaints against
ship-money, and “a miracle of black and gold.”
The _Sovereign of the Seas_ had a distinguished career. When cut down
a deck she proved to be an exceptionally serviceable unit, taking part
in all the great actions of the Dutch wars and crowning her work at La
Hogue, where she engaged, crippled, and forced to fly for shallow water
the great _Soleil Royal_, 104, the French flagship. At length, when
laid up at Chatham in 1696 in order to be rebuilt, she was set on fire
by negligence and destroyed.
§
By the outbreak of the first Dutch war the modern ideas introduced
by Phineas Pett had received a general embodiment in the navy. Blake
found to his hand ships well suited to the intended warfare, nor was
he much concerned to add either to their number or their magnitude.
Only in one feature did the new vessels built show any difference from
older construction: their depth in hold was reduced, probably to render
them more suitable for work among the shallow waters of the coast of
Holland.[15] In other important respects improvement had preceded the
opening of hostilities.
The lofty stern with which it had been the custom to endow the sailing
ship was a feature which had survived from ancient times. In the
galley, whose armament was concentrated in the bows, the after part
was not devoted to military fittings, but was appropriated chiefly to
the accommodation of the officers. So it was in the galleon or sailing
ship. With the desire and need for increased accommodation the extra
space was obtained by prolonging aft the broad horizontal lines of the
vessel and terminating them in a square frame. To give more space,
quarter galleries were then added, outside the vessel. Then extra tiers
of cabins were added, also with quarter galleries, each storey, as in
the case of domestic architecture, projecting over that beneath it,
and the whole forming, with its surmounting taffrails, lanterns and
ornaments, an excessively weighty and top-heavy structure. Similarly,
at the fore end of the ship there remained the survival of the ancient
forecastle.
With the acceptance of artillery as the medium for battle, with the
decay of boarding tactics and the decline in value of small man-killing
firearms, close-fights and end-castles, the lofty forecastles and
sterns ceased to possess much of their special value. The arguments
of Sir Richard Hawkins’ day in favour of large cage-works no longer
held; nor could the preference of some shipbuilders for high sterns, as
allowing a quick sheer and thereby contributing to the girder strength
of the hull, be considered sufficient to justify their retention. The
stern galleries held a great deal of wind and tended to rot the decks
in their vicinity; their weight put a strain upon the supporting keel;
but, chiefly, the danger of their taking fire in action induced the
authorities to cut them down. For similar reasons the forecastles were
attacked. But there was strong opposition to their elimination, because
of the cover which they afforded in a fight. In 1652 the _Phœnix_,
one of the finest frigates in the service, was taken by a Dutch ship,
“having no forecastle for her men to retire to.” In the second Dutch
war experience confirmed their usefulness. “All the world,” wrote Mr.
Secretary Pepys in his diary for the 4th July, 1666, “now sees the use
of forecastles for the shelter of men.”
No general increase in the size of our ships took place till toward the
end of the third Dutch war. Until that time the navy of France was a
negligible quantity; in 1664, it is said, the only war-vessel at Brest
was one old fireship. The Dutch, our only strong opponents, fought in
ships not unlike our own, stout, buoyant vessels mounting from 24 to
60 guns, and of from 300 to 1200 tons burden. Geography had a curious
influence on their construction. Owing to the shallowness of their
coasts the Hollanders built their ships with less draught and flatter
floors than those of other countries; from which policy they derived
advantages of a greater carrying capacity and, in pursuit, an ability
to retreat among the shallows; but on account of which they suffered a
serious handicap in the hour of action, when, faced by English ships
built of superior material and with finer bottoms which enabled them to
hold a better wind, they were weathered and out-fought.[16]
There was no apparent advantage, therefore, in augmenting the size of
our ships. Improvement was sought, rather, from a further unification
of the calibres of the guns, and from an increase in the number
carried. Their characteristics of shortness and large bore were such as
to make them well-suited to the form of battle now favoured by English
leaders--the close-quarter action.
In solidity of construction the English ships compared favourably with
those of the Dutch. The thick scantlings introduced by Phineas Pett
now proved of great value; the wood itself, tough English oak, was
unequalled by any other timber. English oak was the best, as Fuller
noted. Even the Dutch had built some of their ships of it; while other
countries frequently built of inferior fir, the splinters of which
killed more than were hit by hostile cannon balls. To what was the
superiority of the English timber due? To the soil and climate of
this favoured country. Under the influence of successions of warmth
and cold, of rain and sunshine, frost and wind, all in a degree most
favourable for alternate growth and consolidation, the English oak
attained an unrivalled strength and durability. Trees planted in
forests, where mutual protection was afforded from wind and cold,
grew rapidly, but were inferior in quality to trees planted in small
parcels or along the hedgerows; these latter, slow-growing and tough,
felled “at the wane of the moon and in the deep of winter,” supplied
the thickstuff, knees, and planking for generations of our royal ships.
Their endurance was frequently remarkable. The bottom timbers would
last for fifty or sixty years, but the upper works, which were subject
to alternations of heat and cold, dryness and moisture, decayed in a
much shorter space of time. The _Royal William_ is quoted by Charnock
as a case in point. This first rate ship was launched in the year
1719, and never received any material repair until 1757. A few years
later she was cut down to a third rate of 80 guns. Participating in
all the sea wars of the time, she was surveyed in 1785 and converted
into a guardship, which post she filled till early in the nineteenth
century.[17]
Much attention, as we have noted, was given in this scientifically
minded Stuart age to the form of body best suited to motion through
water, but the efforts to improve design were largely misdirected.
Many of our ships were unsatisfactory, not only from their slowness
but because they were crank or tender-sided, and unable to bear out
their lower guns or even to carry a stout sail. They were so clogged
with timbers internally that they could not carry the victuals and
stores necessary for long voyages; and vessels built by contract were
often found to be carelessly put together, of green, unseasoned, and
unsuitable timber.
After the Restoration the mantle of the Petts descended on a master
shipwright of Portsmouth, who became an authoritative exponent of ship
design, and to whose ability several improvements were due. “Another
great step and improvement to our navy,” recorded Mr. Pepys in 1665,
“put in practice by Sir Anthony Deane, was effected in the _Warspight_
and _Defiance_, which were to carry six months’ provisions, and their
guns four and a half feet from the water.” In the same diary for 19th
May of the following year occurs the following characteristic note:
“Mr. Deane did discourse about his ship the _Rupert_, which succeeds
so well, as he has got great honour by it; and I some, by recommending
him. The king, duke, and every body, say it is the best ship that was
ever built. And then he fell to explain to me the manner of casting
the draught of water which a ship will draw, beforehand, which is a
secret the king and all admire in him; and he is the first that hath
come to any certainty beforehand of foretelling the draught of water
of a ship, before she is launched.” The calculations used by Sir
Anthony Deane to forecast the draught of a projected ship might win him
applause among the philosophers; but the scoffer at theory was able to
point to considerable achievements wrought by men who made no pretence
of any knowledge of science. In 1668 the _Royal Charles_, 110, was
launched at Deptford. “She was built,” wrote Evelyn, “by old Shish, a
plain, honest carpenter, master builder of this dock, but one who can
give little account of his art by discourse, and is hardly capable of
reading.”
The interest of Charles II in naval architecture may be gathered from
a letter written by him in 1673: “I am very glad that the _Charles_
does so well; a girdling this winter, when she comes in, will make her
the best ship in England: the next summer, if you try the two sloops
that were built at Woolwich that have my invention in them, they will
outsail any of the French sloops. Sir Samuel Morland has now another
fancy about weighing anchors; and the resident of Venice has made a
model also to the same purpose.”
To girdle a ship, was to fasten planks along her sides some two or
three strakes above and below the water-line; this had the effect
of adding to her beam and thereby rendering her stiffer under sail.
Incessant girdling seems to have been necessary at this period,
to counter the defective conditions in which English ships were
designed, built, and sent to sea. Ships were consistently restricted
in beam, in compliance with the faulty “establishments,” and under a
mistaken notion that narrowness, in itself, directly contributed to
speed. “Length,” says Charnock, “was the only dimension regarded as
indispensably necessary, by the ancients for their galleys and by the
moderns for galleons. Breadth was not considered, or if considered was
accepted as a necessary evil.” Pepys remarked, “that the builders of
England, before 1673, had not well considered that breadth only will
make a stiff ship.” It was an inquiry ordered by Sir Richard Haddock
in 1684 which brought to light the fulness of the fallacy; ships were
subsequently made broader, and experience showed that a good breadth
was beneficial, not only for stability but for speed and sea-keeping
qualities.
But even if a ship were built initially broad enough, the continual
addition of armament and top-hamper to which she was often subjected
had the effect eventually of impairing her stability. In such a case
there were two remedies: to ballast or to girdle. The former expedient
was objectionable, as it involved an increase both of displacement and
of draught. Girdling was therefore generally practised. By this means
the vessel was made stiffer, her buoyancy was improved, and her sides
were also rendered less penetrable between wind and water. Even if,
when thus girdled, she proved to be less stiff than the enemy this was
not altogether a disadvantage: she formed a steadier gun-platform, her
sides were less strained by the sea and, because her rolling was less
violent, her topmasts were less liable to be sprung. But sufficient
stiffness was necessary to allow of her lowest and heaviest tier of
guns being fought in moderate weather; and for this reason alone,
girdling was preferable to ballasting, in that the former tended to
keep the guns high out of water while the latter brought them nearer
the water-line.