XL] BRITISH OAK. 69 



addition of* $ per cent to the contractor to compen- 

 sate him for the loss of the bark. The state of the 

 materials when the ship was taken to pieces confirmed 

 the conjecture which had been then formed, as the iron 

 fastenings, above the water-line, were in general good, 

 proving the absence of acrid juices in the timber. 



"In the year 1/55, Mr. Barnard, of Deptford, con- 

 tracted to build a sixty-gun ship, named the ' Achilles/ 

 for His Majesty's service. She was completed in 1757, 

 and taken to pieces in 1784. It was not known that 

 any peculiar circumstances attended the construction of 

 this ship, until Mr. Barnard was summoned to attend a 

 Committee appointed by the House of Commons, in 

 March, 1771, to consider how His Majesty's navy might 

 be better supplied with timber. He then gave it as his 

 opinion that the method to be observed in felling timber 

 should be by barking in the spring, and not to fell it 

 until the succeeding winter, and added that he built the 

 'Achilles/ man-of-war, in 1757, of timber felled in that 

 manner. 



"The 'Montague/ launched in 1779, was built of 

 winter-felled timber, and its superiority is forcibly at- 

 tested by the fact that she had only one frame-timber 

 shifted, from the time she was built up to 1803, when 

 she was repaired. Mention is also made of this ship 

 being in active service and in good condition in 1815 ; 

 that is, thirty-six years after she was launched. It was 

 thought there was a striking coincidence between the 

 durability of this ship and that of the ' Royal William/ 



* A much higher premium than 5 per cent, in addition to the contract 

 price of spring-felled Oak timber was offered and paid by the Government 

 a few years since for winter-felled Oak, without, however, being able to 

 obtain more than a fraction of the quantity required for the royal dock- 

 yards. 



