SHIPS AND SEAMEN 



that the custom became general of lacing bonnets to the bottom of the 

 sail to increase its area in line weather instead of reefing it in bad accord- 

 ing to modern practice. The paddle fixed over the quarter had dis- 

 appeared in favour of the rudder on the centre line. It was the placing 

 of guns on shipboard that made the great difference in the size of ships. 



Fighting Tops. 



Tops seem to have been built on to the masts of ships from the 

 earliest times, the ancient Phoenicians and Romans having a top for 

 the accommodation of a pilot that he might the better see shoals and 

 broken water. They soon came to be used for fighting purposes also, 

 and in the Middle Ages darts and stones were thrown from the tops in 

 English ships and " Greek Fire " from those in the Mediterranean. 

 In the early days of the sixteenth century guns began to be mounted 

 aloft, the Great Elizabeth of 1514 having six serpentines and a stone 

 gun on her two tops, while the Mary Rose had six small pieces. 



Shipbuilding Bounties. 



The granting of bounties by the Crown for the encouragement of 

 merchant shipbuilding was first mentioned in 1449 when special grants 

 were made to those who would construct merchant ships of large size. 

 During the next hundred years or so this was generally regulated at 

 about five shillings per ton for all trading vessels of over a hundred tons 

 burthen, but this was not always the case. One of the earliest cases 

 of the bounty was in the instance of the merchantman Grace Dieu of 

 Hull, for which John Tavernor was granted certain privileges which 

 must have been very valuable to him in the course of his trading. 



Guns on Shipboard. 



It has already been mentioned that in Henry V's reign the Holigost 

 was the most heavily armed ship of the British Fleet as far as guns were 

 concerned, but that she only carried six pieces. The Regent of 1489, 

 however, carried no less than 285 serpentines, all on deck, and although 

 these guns were not, of course, large, and with their shot of only a few 

 pounds were employed entirely as " murdering pieces " rather than for 

 the destruction of material, it shows the hold that cannon had obtained. 

 This artillery was designed practically entirely for defence against 

 boarders, for which reason a large number were mounted in swivels on 

 the bulwarks and on the rails of the forecastle and poop in order to sweep 

 the waist of the ship if the enemy got a foothold in it. In the Henry 

 Grace a Dieu, which was built in 1514 to replace the Regent, there were 

 mounted 122 iron serpentines and a large number of other guns of larger 

 but remarkably various calibres. When she was rebuilt an effort was 

 made to get something like uniformity into her armament, but her 

 ammunition supply must have been heartbreaking to any gunner. 



Fifteenth-C entury Ships. 



By the latter part of the fifteenth century ships were getting well 

 on the way from the Medieval vessels which were direct descendants 

 of the Vikings to the Tudor ships with which we are tolerably well 



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