DIMENSIONS OF SHIPS.
Mr. Derrick informs us that the dimensions of the establishment of 1755, recorded in the above table, were determined from the proposals which the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty directed the Flag Officers, the Surveyor of the Navy, and the Master Shipwrights of the dockyards, after consultation, to lay before them of a scheme of dimensions and scant lings, and a draught of a ship of each class, to remedy the defects which English ships were said to possess, of being weak from a deficiency in the scantlings, of not being able to carry so great a weight of metal as foreign ships, of their lower guns being too near the water, and of their being crank. The ships built ac cording to these proposals, it is said, carried their guns well, and possessed sufficient stability, but were formed too full in their after bodies, a defect which was removed in the ships built at the commencement of the war in 1756, when a farther increase of dimen sions was made. The improvement in the ships built according to the established dimensions of 1745, does not appear to have proceeded from any alteration in the relative proportion of the dimensions of the pre ceding establishments in 1719, 1733, and 1741. The length of the ships of the first class on the gun deck, in the order of these four dates, appears to have been 3.48, 3.48, 3.5, and 3.49 times the extreme breadth, where very little difference exists'in the relative di mensions. The improvement in these ships arose from the general increase of the dimensions by which the guns were raised further above the water, (even supposing their height from the keel to remain the same,) in consequence of the load water line being lowered, the displacement being increased only by the additional weight of the hull, other m eights remaining the same; the stability being also increased, the ships would incline less under the same press of canvass.
Spain was the first nation which increased the di mensions of the different classes of ships to consider able extent; and France followed her example with better success. The capture of the Princessa, soon after the commencement of hostilities the former country in 1739,carrying 70 guns, and being upwards of 1700 tons burthen, pointed out the propriety of in creasing the dimensions of our largest class of two decked ships, which may be seen by the following table to be so much inferior to her. The large two
decked ships of the French were also proved to be very fine and powerful vessels, and in many points su perior to the English eighty gun ships with three decks. In several instances, ships captured by the French were found, when retaken by the English, to have had their force reduced from what they carried in our service. The admiralty consequently directed the eighty gull ships then in use, with three decks, to be substituted by two decked ships of 74 guns, whose dimensions were particularly considered, and care taken that their lower tier of guns should be six feet above the water.
The increase of dimensions in the English ships of 74 guns, proceeded very slowly. Their general di mensions appear to have been confined to 168 feet 3 inches in length, 47 feet 4 inches in breadth, and 1644 tons burden. England (lid not possess any two decked ships carrying 8t, guns till after the middle of the eighteenth century. The French and Spanish navies were long inferior to the English in their want of three deckers, of which experience -taught them the largest classes were much too powerful for their largest two deckers. It was not till after the peace of 1763 that either France or Spain possessed a single ship of three decks. The English three decker, the Royal George, carrying 100 guns, launched in 1756, of 2046 tons burden, was built of superior dimensions to our preceding first rates, and commenced that increase of size which has been so successfully carried forward in modern ships, and which has not yet attained by any means its limit. , The following table shows the magnitude and rela tive dimensions of the principal classes of modern ships of several European nations. The length and breadth would have been taken at the load water sec tion, if they could have been obtained for all the ships. There will be, however, no considerable error in com paring them according to the dimensions given in the table.