LITMIR.BIZ

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men. In the sixth year of Elizabeth's reign, even after her government had begun its efforts to restore the naval forces of the country, the number of vessels was only 29. From that point it gradually returned to something more like the position it had occupied under Henry VIII. In one respect, indeed, it may be said to have remained permanently inferior to his. It never reached the same number, but numbers afford only one, and not necessarily the surest, test of strength. The size and armament of the ships are often far more trustworthy indications of power than the number of vessels. During the queen's reign the average size of ships was much greater than it had been in her father's. In 1578 the navy contained 24 ships of 10,506 tons, manned by 3760 mariners, 630 gunners, and 1900 soldiers. The total force is put in Derrick's list at 6570 officers and men. If these figures are accurate, or even only approximately correct, it would appear that the staff of the navy, that is, the officers and their immediate personal attendants, must have numbered 280. Ten years later the navy had increased to 34 ships of 12,590 tons, with 6279 men. At the death of the queen the number of ships was 42, the tonnage 17,055, while the crews amounted to 8346 men, divided into 5534 mariners, 804 gunners, and 2008 soldiers. On comparing these figures with those of the navy as it stood in 1548, it will be seen that the ships of Elizabeth were on an average rather more than twice as large as those her brother had inherited from their father. The changes which had taken place in the constitution of the crews are somewhat different. The little vessels of King Edward carried nearly as many men as the much larger ships of Queen Elizabeth. No doubt, where there were more ships to man, many men were necessary, but, scattered among small vessels averaging 212 tons or thereabouts, they cannot have exerted the same power as they would have done in the better and heavier warships of Elizabeth. It is interesting to see the great change which had come over the constitution of the crews in the course of the century. In Henry's reign the soldiers were always more numerous than the sailors. During Elizabeth's the proportion was entirely reversed, and at the date of her death the mariners were almost twice as numerous as the soldiers in her sea service. In fact, the navy was becoming necessarily a more seamanlike force. The development of the ship had been steady. The mere barges of King Henry's reign had given place to vessels which were already approximating to a modern standard. Seamanship itself had grown far beyond the humble standard of the early sixteenth century. Then the seaman, at least the English seaman, was a mere coaster. When the great queen died, he was already accustomed to far-ranging voyages, and the navy was no longer expected only to carry soldiers across the Channel, and fight a force no more expert than itself, but to invade the West Indies, and at need to circumnavigate the globe. It followed that the sailor became relatively more important, and as his skill grew to be the most essential element of strength, his numbers had to be increased. Sir Walter Raleigh in the following reign summed up the changes which had taken place in his time.

      "Whoever were the inventors, we find that every age has added somewhat to ships; and in my time the shape of our English ships has been greatly bettered. It is not long since the striking of the topmasts, a wonderful ease to great ships, both at sea and in the harbour, hath been devised, together with the chain-pump, which taketh up twice as much water as the ordinary one did. We have lately added the bonnet, and the drabler, to the courses; we have added studding-sails, the weighing anchor by the capstern. 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 the Hollanders, that were wont to ride before Dunkirk with the wind at north-east, making a lee shore in all weathers; for true it is, that the length of the cable is the life of the ship in all extremities; and the reason is, that it makes so many bendings and waves, as the ship riding at that length is not able to stretch it, and nothing breaks that is not stretched."

      When we speak of the greater size of Elizabeth's vessels, it must be remembered that the increase of tonnage had been among the smaller, not the greater warships. Some of King Henry's had been as large as, if not larger than, any of Queen Elizabeth's, but then she did not have the same swarm of mere cockboats. The navy was, in fact, tending to become a more uniform as well as a more seaworthy force.

      The armament of these ships was still very heterogeneous, and the names of the pieces curiously fantastic. The following list gives the mere denominations of the guns:—

       Cannon

       Demi-cannon

       Culverins

       Demi-culverins

       Sakers

       Mynions

       Falcons

       Falconets

       Port-pece Halls

       Port-pece Chambers

       Fowler Halls

       Fowler Chambers and

       Curtalls.

      There is some uncertainty as to the weight of the shot fired by these various pieces, and the following list must be taken with some reserve, but it no doubt gives the calibres of the guns with substantial accuracy.

	Sir William Monson's Account.		According to some other Accounts.
Sorts of Ordnance.	Bore.	Weight of the Shot.	Weight of the Shot.
	inches.	lbs.	lbs.
Cannon	8	60	60 or 63
Demi-Cannon	6¾	33½	31
Cannon Petro	6	24½	24
Culverin	5½	17½	18
Demi-Culverin	4	9½	9
Falcon	2½	2	2
Falconet	2	1½	…
Minion	3½	4	4
Sacar	3½	5½	5
Rabinet	1	½	…

      The quality of these guns was good. Down to the middle of the sixteenth century they were made by welding together bars of wrought iron little inferior in tensile strength to that used in very recent times for Armstrong guns. About 1550 the use of cast iron, which made it possible to turn out large numbers of guns, came in. All the changes which have taken place in the construction of weapons of war have not been in the direction of what we should consider progress. When in our own time the guns which had been sunk at Spithead, in the wreck of the Mary Rose, were dredged up, it was found that they were breech-loaders, and there is evidence that experiments in the rifling of cannon were made very early. The difficulty of making a trustworthy breech-piece accounts for the triumph of the muzzle-loader, which drove

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