First and second rates, instead of carrying 32-pounders on the lower, 18-pounders on the main, and 9-pounders on the upper deck, were ordered to carry, 42-pounders (or 32-pounders) on the lower, 24-pounders on the main, and 12-pounders on the upper deck. Eighty-gun ships, instead of carrying 24-pounders on the lower, 12-pounders on the main, and 6-pounders on the upper deck, were ordered to carry 32-pounders on the lower, 12-pounders on the main, and 6-pounders on the upper deck. Seventy-gun ships, which in the previous century had carried 18-pounders on their main, and 9-pounders on their upper deck, and which during the reign of Queen Anne had carried 24-pounders and 9-pounders, were now ordered to carry 24-pounders and 12-pounders. And so on with the smaller rates.
In 1719 a new establishment for ships was decreed, the dimensions slightly exceeding those of 1706, but being totally insufficient for satisfactory construction. In ’32 and ’41 attempts were made to formulate new rules; but the master shipwrights seem to have been loth to accept the lesson which the French enemy was teaching them, and hesitated to recommend any radical departure from traditional practice.
At length, in 1745, general complaint of the inferiority of our ships in size and scantlings forced improvement on the authorities. Spain, who had joined France in war against us, possessed ships which exceeded in size even French ships of the same rate. The capture in 1740 of a Spanish 70-gun ship, the Princessa, by three of our ships, nominally of equal force with herself but of far inferior dimensions and scantlings, is said to have been the chief cause of the new reform. Their lordships of the Admiralty, surveying naval construction in this country, noted that our royal ships were weak and crank, while those of other nations went upright. There was no uniform standard of size, ships of the same class were of different dimensions, the existing establishment was not adhered to. They therefore decided on a new establishment, based on the latest armament of guns; which should result in ships which would carry their lower tier six feet above the water, and four months’ provisions.
The new standard was of little avail, for the same error made some thirty years previously was now repeated: with the augmentation of the ship dimensions the armament was also raised in calibre. The first rates were ordered to carry the 42-pounder (which had before been optional) on their lower deck; the 90-gun ships, 12-pounders on their upper decks; the eighties, 18-pounders and 9-pounders instead of 12’s and 6’s; the seventies, which were only two hundred tons in excess of the former establishment, 32-pounders and 18-pounders, instead of 24’s and 12’s. “The ships, therefore, built by this establishment proved, in general, very crank and bad sea-boats.”[24]
This establishment was, in point of fact, little adhered to. The war with France during the years 1744–8 repeatedly revealed the defective nature of our ship design. Experience pointed to the necessity either of reduced gun-weights or of larger ships. Able administrators were now willing, under the inspiration of such names as Hawke and Anson, to initiate improvements. Our naval architecture at last took benefit, though still by slow and cautious degrees, from foreign experience. Some time was necessary for results to show themselves; not only were new decisions slowly formed, but the rate of building was deliberately slow. The Royal George, for instance, described as “the first attempt towards emancipation from the former servitude,” was ten years building. But, when war broke out again in 1756, the improvements already embodied in the newest construction proved of considerable benefit. The establishment of ’45 was given the credit. “The ships built by the establishment of 1745,” says Derrick in his Memoirs, “were found to carry their guns well, and were stiff ships, but they were formed too full in their after part; and in the war which took place in 1756, or a little before, some further improvements in the draughts were therefore adopted, and the dimensions of the ships were also further increased.”
To meet the advances in French construction a new classification of rates took place, with French captured ships as models. The capture of the Foudroyant, for instance, in 1758, provided us with the form and dimensions of a splendid two-decked 84-gun ship. Our 80-gun three-deckers were thereupon abolished, and no three-decker was thenceforth built with fewer than 90 guns. The capture of the Invincible, in 1757, gave us a valuable model for a 74-gun ship, a rate highly esteemed, which bore the brunt of most of this century’s warfare.[25] From her was copied the Triumph, and other experimental 74’s, with dimensions varying from those of the Invincible, were at this time laid down. All 50-gun ships had already dropped out of the line of battle; they were now followed by the 60’s. No more 60 or 70-gun ships were built; their places were taken by 64’s and 74’s respectively, of relatively large size and displacement.
Nor was improvement confined to form and dimensions. Attention was now paid to material. New rules were made for the cutting and seasoning of timber, and for its economical use. Sheathing was tried; in 1761 the frigate Alarm was sheathed in copper for service in the West Indies, where the worm was active. The copper was found to keep clean the hull, but at the expense of the iron fastenings; so when, in ’83, copper sheathing became general, an order was issued for all new royal ships to be copper fastened up to the water-line: an order beneficial on another count, since even without the presence of copper sheathing, iron bolts had always been liable to corrosion from the acids contained in the oak timbers. Ventilation was also studied, more for its effects on the hull timbers than on the health of the crews. The scantlings of all ships were strengthened. Taffrails and quarter-pieces were reduced in size, and the weight thus saved was devoted to strengthening the sterns and reinforcing the deck supports; additional knees and fastenings were provided throughout the structure. Moreover, towards the middle of the century the formation of the sails was gradually altered, first in the smaller rates and afterwards in the larger ships. The old-fashioned spritsail, which had been of greatest effect when going free, but which had also been used with the wind abeam by the awkward expedient of topping up its yard, gave place in our navy to the fore and aft jib, which could be used with the wind before the beam. Later the lateen sail on the mizzen gave place to a spanker hung from a gaff or half-yard. These alterations had a general effect on the size and position of masts and sails.
The order of 1745 was virtually the last of those rule-of-thumb establishments which had imposed rigorous maximum limits of length, beam and draught in conjunction with an equally rigorous minimum of armament weight, and which had been a glaring example of the evil effects of standardization when unscientifically and unsuitably applied. The East India service, the contract-built ships of which were designed by architects untrammelled by the rules which cramped and distorted the official architecture, provided the clearest proof that the King’s ships were, as a whole, of poor design. Naval opinion confirmed it.[26]
For further evidence that it was the system and not the men at fault, we may note Charnock’s statement that, given a free hand, Englishmen proved themselves better shipbuilders than foreigners. “It stamps no inconsiderable degree of splendour on the opinion which even the arrogance of Spain felt itself compelled to hold in regard to the superior practical knowledge possessed by the British shipwrights in the construction and art of putting a vessel together, when brought in comparison with that of their own people. The builders in all the royal dockyards and arsenals, the Havanna excepted, were Britons.”
How many, we may wonder, of the ships shattered by Lord Nelson at Trafalgar were constructed by our countrymen? The Victory, which was to bear his flag, was laid down (we may note in passing) in the year 1759: she was 186 feet in length on the gun-deck, 52 feet broad, and of 2,162 tons burthen.