Ships & Ways of Other Days

by E. Keble Chatterton

With a hundred guns aboard and most of a thousand men, a three-decker was certainly an interesting sight. Her guns were arranged in rows along her decks. The lower gun-deck was little above the water-line. A 100-gun ship in Nelson’s time cost over £67,000, and these three decks ran from stem to stern, besides a forecastle and a quarter-deck, the former of which extended aft from the stem to the belfry, where the ship’s bell was suspended under a shelter. The quarter-deck extended from aft to the mainmast. There was also a poop-deck, and another deck below the lower gun-deck, called the orlop, where the cables were coiled and the sails stowed. The gun-room was on the after end of the lower gun-deck, and partly used by the gunner; but in frigates and smaller vessels, where it was below, it was used by the lieutenants as a mess-room. The ward-room was over the gun-room, where the superior officers messed and slept.

Sheer-Hulk.

After the etching by E. W. Cooke.

In action the guns were run out, by means of side tackles, till their muzzles were well outside the port, so that the flash of the gun might not set the ship’s side on fire. These ports were fitted with heavy square lids. In bad weather it was impossible to open the lower-deck ports lest the sea should swamp the ship. There was a kind of shutter also, called a half-port, with a circular hole in the centre large enough to go over the muzzle of the gun, and furnished with a piece of canvas nailed round its edge to tie on the gun and prevent the water entering the port, although the gun remained run out. These were used chiefly on the main deck. Ropes were made fast to the outside of the lids attached to a tackle within, by which the port-lids could be drawn up.

There was but little light ’tween decks in these ships even by day, and the glimmer of a purser’s dip was the only illumination. The magazines, however, were lighted through what was termed a “light-room.” The latter was a small apartment with double-glass windows towards the magazine. No candle could, of course, be taken into the latter, so the gunner and his assistants filled their cartridges with powder by the candles shining through the windows. In the bigger men-o’-war there were two light-rooms; one attached to the after magazine, and the other which gave light to the fore or great magazine. The after magazine contained just enough supply of cartridges for the after guns during action, but the great magazine had enough powder for the ship for a long period.

The cables were usually of 120 fathoms and made of hemp, bass, or Indian grass, though the biggest ships used hemp exclusively for their heavy anchors. The change from hemp to chain cables came in 1812, and these were much appreciated as saving a great deal of valuable space below. For the hemp cables when coiled down in a frigate’s cable-tier filled nearly a quarter of her hold, and when it is remembered that a 1000-ton ship had a cable measuring over 8 inches in diameter, and that a 2⅛-inch chain was just as strong—the breaking strain exceeded 65 tons—but took up less space, we can well understand that hemp was not altogether an advantage, notwithstanding that in bad weather these heavy, bluff ships would ride far easier to the rope than the chain. The largest anchor used weighed five tons. It had a wooden stock and broad palms.

Because these hemp cables were so thick there must needs be very large hawse-pipes. Now these ships not only rolled; they pitched in a sea-way, and consequently they took in a great deal of water through these pipes. In order to prevent the water getting adrift all over the ship, there was a large compartment fitted up just abaft the hawse-pipes and called the manger. This stretched athwart the deck, separated on the after part by the manger-board, which was a strong bulkhead, the water being allowed to return to the sea through scuppers. Leather pipes were nailed round the outside of the lower-deck scuppers, which, by hanging down, prevented the water from entering when the ship heeled under a press of canvas.

The cables led in through the hawse-pipes below deck to the bitts. To bitt the cable was to put it round the bitts, which were frames of strong timbers fixed perpendicularly into the ship. The “bitter end” was that part of the cable which was abaft the bitts, and not allowed to run out. Hence the common expression “to the bitter end” has no reference to the other meaning of the word spelt in a similar way. These cables were in lengths of 40 fathoms, and then spliced to make the 120 fathoms. Naturally a heavy ship such as a 100-gun first-rate carried a great deal of way. When, therefore, the anchor was let go, the friction of the cable passing through the hawse-pipe was something enormous, and the hemp became so hot that the tar on its surface often took fire, therefore men were always stationed to stand by with buckets of water. Likewise, the bitts and timbers round the heated hawse-pipes had to be attended to. Another drawback to a rope cable was that it chafed a great deal. In coral-bottomed waters it was customary to arm with chains that part which was likely to be worn; and the cable was also sometimes buoyed with casks lashed at intervals, so as to float safely above the rough bottom of the sea-bed.