68o Extract from Stalkartt^ s Naval Architecture, 



OF THE FRIGATE. 



Copy of a Letter from Benjamin Thompson, Esq.^ 

 F.R.S., to Mr. Marmaduke Stalkartt. 



Sir, — Agreeably to your request, I herewith send 

 you my draught of a frigate, upon a new construction, 

 which you will make any use of you may think proper. 

 Though I have little doubt with respect to the prin- 

 ciples upon which this drawing is made, yet I should 

 hardly have ventured to have proposed it to have been 

 carried into execution ; nor should I now have con- 

 sented to its being made public, had it not been for 

 the very flattering approbation it has met with from 

 some of the best judges of Naval Architecture in this 

 kingdom. 



That curious and most important art has long been 

 my favourite study ; and several sea-voyages, particularly 

 a three months' cruise in the Channel fleet, under the 

 command of the late Sir Charles Hardy, in the year 

 1779, afforded me an opportunity of making many 

 remarks upon the qualities of ships, which in all prob- 

 ability would not otherwise have occurred to me. It 

 was during this cruise that I amused myself with mak- 

 ing the drawing which I now send you ; and, when I 

 began it, I had little more than amusement in view. 

 But, after it was finished, it was so much approved 

 of by many able and experienced seamen to whom I 

 showed it, that I could not refuse the pressing solici- 

 tation that was made to me to offer it to the Surveyors 

 of the Navy, to have a ship built after it, by way of an 

 experiment ; and several officers of rank in the Navy, 

 and high in the estimation of the profession, voluntarily 



