224 On the Force, Construction, Sec. 



improvement of its ships, but absolutely to retrograde. They 

 jontented themselves with building lofty hulled vessels, which, 

 from their small dimensions, were incapable of carrying their 

 ordnance and stores without their lower ports being almost 

 under water, besides being generally deficient in every requisite; 

 and it was not until the middle of the last century that the 

 superior qualities of the French and Spanish ships forced the 

 constructors of our navy to begin a reluctant imitation of 

 foreign models. 



This humiliating proof of our inferiority, as naval construc- 

 tors, was the natural consequence of the widely-different con- 

 duct of the governments of France and this country, in their 

 treatment of science. Whilst the French Academy of Sciences, 

 under the auspices of Louis XIV. and his successors, were 

 holding out every incitement for men of genius and learning, 

 to cultivate the mathematical principles of naval construction, 

 the matter in this country was wholly neglected. The desire 

 of that Monarch to obtain a maritime preponderance for his 

 country, and the encouragement he wisely held out to men of 

 science, may be said to have originated a new era in this noble 

 art. The physico-mathematical laws of floating bodies, which, 

 from the time of Archimedes till then, had lain dormant, 

 began to be applied to ships ; and the gradual developement 

 of the fundamental principles of naval construction, by some 

 of the most eminent mathematicians of the eighteenth century, 

 gave rise to ships of the line of greatly enlarged dimensions, 

 and superior qualities. 



The many failures which took place, before and after Pett's 

 time, in the construction of English ships of the line, pro- 

 ceeded from our naval architects not knowing how to appre- 

 ciate, and contend with certain difficulties which so much top 

 weight produces : difficulties, which, in a ship of more than two 

 decks, rapidly increase. The superior knowledge of the French 

 constructors enabled them at an early period of their efforts 

 to triumph over these obstacles in their two-decked ships of 

 the line ; but they did not meet with equal success in their 

 three-decked ships of 90 and 104 guns, although they were 

 much superior to our own in qualities. The difficulty, in- 

 deed, of producing a first-rate ship of commensurate excel- 

 lence appeared so insurmountable, that they were induced, 



