N. B. The third and fourth articles relate to the finding any of the king’s subjects in the prizes; and appear unnecessary in this place.
[45]. Ricoche signifies duck and drake, a name given to the bounding of a flat stone thrown almost horizontally into the water.
[46]. Muller’s Artillery.
[47]. Le Blond’s Elements of War.
[48]. Belidor. Bigot de Morogues.
[49]. Weight, or gravity, always operates equally on a falling body; for as it always subsists in an equal degree, it must perpetually act with equal force, or produce always the same effect in the same time. So if, in the first instant of falling, it communicates to a body a certain force sufficient to move a certain space, it must, in every following instant, communicate a force capable of moving it the like space, and by this means the velocity of a falling body is every moment accelerated; for if it has one degree the first instant, it will have two the second, three the third, and so on. Hence it must move different spaces every instant, and by that means describe the curve-line above mentioned.
[50]. Le Blond’s Elements of War.
[51]. The same gentleman observes, that a ship of two decks, such as are generally all those of the third and fourth rates, cannot be so strongly connected as one that is furnished with three: a vessel pierced for 15 guns on one side of her deck must necessarily be very long, and is sometimes apt to droop at the two ends; or, in the sea-phrase, to break her back under the enormous weight of her artillery.
[52]. The reader, who wishes to be expert in this manœuvre, will find it copiously described by several ingenious French writers, particularly L’Hôte, Saverien, Morogues, Bourdé, and Ozane; who have given accurate instructions, deduced from experience, for putting it in practice when occasion requires. As it is not properly a term of the British marine, a more circumstantial account of it might be considered foreign to our plan. It has been observed in another part of this work[[53]], that the French have generally exhibited greater proofs of taste and judgment in the sculpture, with which their ships are decorated, than the English; the same candour and impartiality obliges us to confess their superior dexterity in this movement.
[53]. See the article Head.