232 THE SEA. 



Britain. When Henry VIII. constructed his Henry Grace de Dieu, of 1,000 tons/* it 

 was, indeed, a great giant among pigmies, for a vessel of two or three hundred tons was 

 then considered large. At the death of Elizabeth she left forty-two ships, of 17,000 tons 

 in all, and 8,346 men; fifteen of her vessels being 600 tons and upwards. From this 

 period the tonnages of the navy steadily increased. The first really scientific architect, 

 Mr. Phineas Pett, remodelled the navy to good purpose in the reigns of James I. and 

 Charles I. Previous to this time the vessels with their lofty poops and forecastles had 

 greatly resembled Chinese junks. He launched the Sovereign of the Seas, a vessel 232 

 feet in length, and of a number of tons exactly corresponding to the date, 1637, when 

 she left the slips. Cromwell found a navy of fourteen two-deckers, and left one of 150 

 vessels, of which one-third were line-of -battle ships. He was the first to lay naval 

 estimates before Parliament, and obtained 400,000 per annum for the service. James II. 

 left 108 ships of the line, and sixty-five other vessels of 102,000 tons, with 42,000 men. 

 William III. brought it to 272 ships, of 159,020 tons. George II. left, in 1760, 412 

 ships, of 321,104 tons. Twenty-two years later the navy had reached 617 vessels, and 

 in 1813 we had the enormous number of 1,000 vessels, of which 256 were of the line, 

 measuring 900,000 tons, carrying 146,000 seamen and marines, and costing 18,000,000 

 per annum to maintain. But since the peace of 1815, the number of vessels has greatly 

 diminished, while an entirely new era of naval construction has been inaugurated. In 

 the seventeenth century a vessel of 1,500 tons was considered of enormous size. At the 

 end of the eighteenth, 2,500 was the outside limit, whilst there are now many vessels of 

 4,000 tons, and the navy possesses frigates of 6,000 and upwards. Several of our 

 enormous ironclads have a tonnage of over 11,000 tons, while the Great Eastern of 

 course a very exceptional case has a tonnage of 22,500. 



Whilst we have efficient military volunteers enough to form a grand army, our 

 naval volunteers do not number more than the contingents for a couple of large vessels. 

 There are scarcely more than a thousand of the latter, and only three stations. London, 

 Liverpool, and Brighton divide the honour between them of possessing corps. The writer 

 believes that he will be doing a service to many young men who in their turn may do 

 good service for their country in briefly detailing the conditions and expenses of joining. 

 In a very short period of time the members have become wonderfully efficient, and the sailor- 

 like appearance of the men is well illustrated by the fact, that at a recent reception at the 

 Mansion House a number of them were taken for men-of-war's men, and so described in 

 several daily journals. Their prowess is illustrated by the prizes distributed by Lady 

 Ashley, at the inspection of the 1st London Corps, in the West India Docks, .on February 

 9th last. Badges were won by the gunner making the best practice with the heavy gun 

 at sea, and by the marksman making the greatest number of points with the rifle. The 

 "Lord Ashley challenge prize/' for the best gun's crew at sea, was won by fourteen rr.en 

 of No. 2 battery, who fired forty-two rounds at 1,300 yards in thirty-seven minutes, 

 scoring 411 points out of a possible 504 points. The official report says: "that further 



* Her tonnage being no doubt calculated by what is known as O. M. (old measurement), and which was used up to 

 a late date in England, her actual capacity must have been considerably greater. 



