of Ships of the Line. 229 



state of naval construction in England, France, and Sweden. 

 They give a comparative view of the force, and of some of the 

 most important particulars which present themselves at the 

 outset of a design for a ship of the line. We do not hesitate 

 to say, that without a knowledge of these data, it is impossible 

 to proceed with any degree of certainty, or to possess any con- 

 trol over the results of our operations. It is proper to observe, 

 that the elements of the English ships given in the second table, 

 have been calculated from the draughts of water and height of 

 lower port-sills given in official returns. The 120-gun ship, 

 here partly analysed, is of the Caledonia class ; the 84, of the 

 Canopus, or French Franklin, class ; the ship of 76 guns is 

 the Bulwark; and that of 74 is the Blenheim or Ajax, simi- 

 lar to which about 40 ships have been built. The elements 

 of the French ships are mostly derived from the Ordonnance 

 de la Marine of 1786 ; and those of the Swedish from the 

 superb work of Chapman, published in 1806 *. The weights 

 and measures have been carefully reduced to those of England f. 



* It is much to be lamented that this work of Chapman is, as it were, 

 a sealed book to the English constructor, from its scarcity, great ex- 

 pense, and being in a foreign language very little known in this country. 

 It is replete with valuable data and information with regard to ships-of- 

 war, and it would redound greatly to the honour of our Admiralty to have 

 it promulged in our dockyards in an English dress, and to order it to be 

 used as a text-book in our Naval Architectural School at Portsmouth, 

 which, it must be confessed, is at present much in want of such a well 

 arranged and useful treatise. 



t It will be perceived from the first table, that Chapman tasks the 

 manual power of Swedish seamen at a much higher rate than even the 

 French service does, and he says unequivocally, that their strength is 

 fully equivalent to it. We presume, therefore, that he reckons on the 

 superiority of his gun-carriage for facilitating its service. In our former 

 paper we have given an exposition of our views with regard to increasing 

 the powers of our sea service ordnance, and have detected the fallacy of 

 the arguments on which our maximum calibre, the 42-pr., was dis- 

 carded. We now feel additional confidence in the truth of what we have 

 before stated as to the propriety of restoring that powerful gun to our 

 navy, not only from what Chapman has advanced, but also from having 

 before us Commander Marshall's very recent work, developing a system 

 of mounting naval ordnance, at once novel, simple and efficacious. No one, 

 we presume, can deny its originality ; and actual trial at sea for the last two 

 or three years has fully determined its efficacy. We shall at an early 

 opportunity endeavour to take a detailed view of Commander Marshall's 

 principle, which is calculated to produce the most important ameliora- 

 tions in a system of mounting sea service guns, that has continued from 

 the times of the Tudors to the present day with scarcely an improvement. 



