RECENT DREDGING IN CATTEWATER. 
409 
were popularly known as "murderers," probably for the reason 
that a recoverable wound was possible from a musket ball, but 
a dose of half a pound of cast-iron was calculated to produce 
sudden death. 
The Sovereign of the Seas, built in 1637, was unequalled by any 
ship afloat in her time. She possessed three gun-decks, and carried 
no less than eighty-six guns, the lower decks accommodating the 
heaviest ; whilst the upper gun-deck carried the lighter ordnance, 
and on her quarter-deck and forecastle, we are informed, "were 
numbers of murdering pieces." This demonstrates the fact that 
large ships carried, in addition to heavy guns, the very light kind of 
artillery now before you. Bearing in mind that this was charged 
with powder and shot drives us to the conclusion that the vessel 
carrying it inside the harbour must have been engaged in actual 
warfare, since the gun has evidently been dismounted by a longitu- 
dinal shot ; for on examination it is clearly seen that it has received 
on one side a heavy blow on the muzzle, trunnion, and breech. 
Shipping played no unimportant part in the Civil War operations 
in the West. Euthven, after his defeat at Bradock Down, retired 
on Saltash, and, according to Clarendon, "cast up such works, and 
planted such store of cannon upon the narrow avenues, that he 
thought himself able, with the help of a goodly ship of four 
hundred tuns, in which were sixteen pieces of cannon, which he 
had brought up the river to the very side of the town, to defend 
that place against any strength was like to be brought against him." 
But the Royal Cornish drove him out with much execution, cap- 
turing all his ordnance and the goodly ship, Euthven barely 
escaping to Plymouth by boat. 
On the next recorded occasion — namely, the Eoyalist rout at 
Freedom Fields, on Sunday, the 3rd of December, 1643 — the 
defeated forces attempted to cross Lipson Creek, when Parlia- 
mentarian ships stationed at Laira Point opened fire on them, and 
not a few were killed. ' Seven months later a Parliamentary fleet 
visited Plymouth, the flagship being the James, of 1200 tons, 
carrying in supreme command Admiral the Earl of Warwick. 
Mention is made by Whitelock of the fleet lying in Cattewater, 
and he bears testimony to the gallantry of the crews of these ships, 
who formed a naval brigade, and especially assisted the garrison in 
repelling a desperate attack made by the Cavaliers on the western 
defences in September, 1644. The same authority states that 
2 f 2 
