NOTES TO ABSTRACT, No. 1

� THE official navy-list contains four classes not to be found in this Abstract ; the 110, 76, 52, and 22 gun ship. The 110, a building .class, consisted of the Hibernia and Ville-de-Paris. The latter ship, on being launched, was fitted with thirty-two instead of thirty 24-pounders, but was not registered as a 112 until many years afterwards. The Hibernia was made 11 feet longer than originally intended, and became pierced, in consequence, for a pair of additional ports upon each deck ; but, although mounting at first 118, and afterwards 120 guns, exclusive of poop-carronades, the Hibernia still classed as a 110-gun ship. The 76-gun class was filled by one ship only, the Canada ; her captain, the late Sir George Collier, having applied for and obtained two additional 18-pounders (making the number 30 instead of 28) for her second deck. The Canada, one of the smallest 74s in the navy, is here restored to her proper class. The 52 and 22 gun classes also contained each but one individual ; the former, the Leander, because she had exchanged two of her carronades for two long 6-pounders ; the latter, the Myrmidon, because she had received on board two 3-pounders for her quarterdeck. Both ships are here reinstated among their former class-mates ; the one as a 50, the other a 20 gun ship. The above four classes, together with "Hospital and Receiving ships" (here added to their respective classes in the "Stationary" columns), "Hoys, Lighters, and Transports," and " Hulks " (both for their insignificance omitted), are the only classes in the official list of the year 1793 not to be found in this Abstract. But the latter is, in other respects, much more copious than the former. For instance, the numerous sub-classes, or varieties of the primary gun-class, appear nowhere but in this series of Abstracts. A difference. in the nature, is often as important as a difference in the number, of the guns mounted. That forms one distinction. Another distinction lies in the difference of the tonnage, or size, especially among the British-built ships. In the official register, sloops, without any regard to their guns, are divided into "Sloops rigged as ships," "Sloops rigged as brigs." Here, each of those classes is sub-divided according to the gun-force of the vessels ; and the ship-sloops are further distinguished, as they are "quarter-decked," with room to mount six or eight additional guns, or "flush," with every, except occasionally the bow, port already filled.

Captured ships, especially when commissioned and retained in service on a foreign station, were frequently misregistered. These are placed in their proper stations, or where they would have classed had they been British-built ships. Soon after the commencement of the year 1793, carronades became so extensively employed, sometimes in lieu of, and sometimes in addition to, the quarterdeck and forecastle long guns, that an exact enumeration of the ship's long guns, the alleged groundwork of the classification, would have multiplied, without end, the number of classes, besides subjecting them to repeated fluctuations : in short, the object of any classification at all would thereby have bean defeated. One instance, and that a real one, may suffice. A frigate receives on board as her equipment 38 long guns and eight carronades, and becomes, in consequence, a 38. She afterwards exchanges her 28 maindeck long guns for carronades, and is then, or, in strictness ought to be, a 10-gun frigate. She subsequently receives back her long 18s, and is restored to a 38 ; but presently parts with six of her long 9s for an equal number of carronades, and, in obedience to the rule laid down, ought then to be a 32. An enumeration of the carronades, as well as the long guns, would have continued her as a 46 through all these changes ; but not only were carronades not considered as guns (see p. 37), but they were, as yet, too partially mounted to be of any great use in classification. The only way left to avoid any confusion of the kind is, to class the ships, other circumstances considered, in reference to their original establishment of long guns on the principal deck or decks. Thus, the frigate just instanced, mounting on the main deck, through every alteration in her armament, 28 guns (whether long guns or carronades), may continue to rank as a 38-gun frigate. It is tree that the classes D and G or H agree in the number of their maindeck guns, and yet are separated. The ships of D are, however, considerably larger than those of G, and a full third larger than those of H; and besides, every ship of D, all through the Abstracts, is foreign-built. Due notice will be taken of any other exception that may hereafter occur.

� It is here that worn-out cruisers eke out the remnant of their days. Not to have separated them from their active class-mates, would have been doing an injustice to the latter. The "&c." comprehends all the classes below the cutters of four guns.

|| Swivels, being mounted on stocks, are not carriage-guns. Carronades were not, at this time, officially considered even as guns (see p. 37), and are not considered anywhere as long guns. Both swivels and carronades were in use ; but, as the latter gained ground, the former decreased, and finally disappeared.

� Captured ships, and ships built or bought as experiments, were frequently armed somewhat differently from the regular establishment : also the rapid increase of carronades soon gave an entire change to the quarterdeck and forecastle armaments. Still the guns on the principal decks of all the classes, down to frigates inclusive, remained the same, with very few exceptions, beyond those remarked upon in the first note.

�� These are fictitious men, whose pay and maintenance, by a very ancient regulation in the navy, constitute a fund for pensioning the widows of officers. Hence they are called " Widows' men," and are invariably included in the established complement of every ship, in the proportion assigned to her rate. So that a I12-gun ship's ostensible complement is 850 men and boys ; but, as the statements in this work look to fighting, rather than fictitious men, we have thought fit to exclude the latter, and carry out the net complement only.

D*. The " 18-pounder" and other " pounders" below it apply to the nature of the guns on the third deck (see p. 18) of three-deckers, second deck of two-deckers, and single or main deck of one-deckers. A reference to the gun- compartment of the Abstract will show, that on the other deck or decks there is always, among the subdivisions of the primary class, a uniformity of caliber.

F *. The usefulness of this division, into large and small, will be more apparent in some of the other classes, particularly in those of the 74-gun ship and frigate. It will exhibit, in a clear manner, the progressive increase in the size of the ships.

I *. The single cruising individual of this class is the Namur, built in 1756. Steel classes the Blenheim and Impregnable as 90s, but improperly, as both those ships, although nearly as small as the Namur, mounted 28, and not 26 guns, on each of their principal decks.

K. * The single cruiser of this class is the Gibraltar, a Spanish-built ship, and an exception, in point of armament (she mounted 24s on both her first and second decks), to the establishment of the class, that having reference to the two ships building, the Cæsar and Foudroyant. There had been two ships of this class ; one, the Foudroyant, of 1977 tons, captured from the French in 1758, the other, the Formidable, of 2002 tons, captured also from the French in 1759. Both ships were established with the guns assigned to the class in this Abstract, excepting in having 9 instead of 12 pounders for the quarterdeck and forecastle.

L *. There had been a French-built ship of this class, the Magnanime, of 1836 tons, captured as long ago as 1748 ; at which time the British 90-gun ship scarcely exceeded 1730 tons. There had also been two British-built 24-pounder 74s, the Valiant, built in the year 1759 of 1799, and the Triumph, built in the year 1784, of 1825 tons ; but both ships subsequently exchanged their 24 for 18 pounders, and consequently rank in the class next below.

M *. The first British-built 74-gun ship appears to have been the "Royall-Oake," launched in 1694. She is the single individual at No. 13 of the Abstract given at p. 375 ; and, although comparatively of so small a tonnage, the ship mounted on her first and second decks the same number and nature of guns as the 18-pounder 74 of the present day. Nothing can better demonstrate the improvement that has been effected in this highly-important line-of-battle class. The large division is made to descend to 1799 tons inclusive ; the middling, to all below that and above 1699 tons ; and the small, to the remainder.

Z *. The large class will descend to 1050 tons inclusive.

G *. And this to 740 tons.

K *. So designated, as being the lowest classes to which post-captains are appointed. They are frequently called frigates; but even the ships of the class next above them scarcely deserve that name, and would, in the French navy, class as corvettes.

S *. For an explanation of this term, see p. 16.

T *. The large descends to 340 tons.

Y *. As the official list makes a distinction between ship-rigged and brig-rigged sloops, we have done the same, and placed all the former ahead of the latter ; although it is clear that the 18-gun brig-sloop deserves a higher rank than the 14, or even the 16 gun ship-sloop.

d *. The ships both of this and the class next below it usually cruise until required for the special purpose for which they were designed ; and most of the vessels in question, the fire-ships in particular (three of which were made permanent sloops, and class at T), were very fast sailers.

s ". Although it may appear strange to class a 4-gun cutter of 95, above a 24-gun ship of 800 or 900 tons ; yet it should be recollected, that store-ships and other armées en flûte do not cruise, but proceed straight to their destination, fighting only when attacked ; while the smallest cutter goes to sea on purpose to harass the enemy's commerce : a service often very effectually performed by a British cruiser even of that insignificant class.

b *. Some of these class, in the official list, as second and third rates ; simply because the captains and crews are paid in the same proportion as those rates. We long hesitated about introducing "Yachts" at all, but, at all events, can assign to none of them any higher station than this. Steel usually classes them as post-ships, but it appears absurd to rank such toys among fighting vessels.

* The time necessarily occupied in transmitting information from the out-ports, and then in carrying it through the press to publication, renders Steel's January list a safer guide for the December, than the January, state and disposition of the British navy,. A mean of the numbers in the January and February lists may come nearer the truth. The mean of those for the year 1793 gives 30, as the commissioned, and 159 as the whole line-total. This Abstract states the one to have been 29, and the other 153 ; which latter sum, added to Steel's five line "hulks," and one old 60 which we have classed as a 50, makes the 159. Steel's grand total is 423 for January and 424 for February. The 10 hulks added to our grand total makes it 421. The difference is accounted for by Steel's having inserted the Fortunée frigate and Ætna bomb, long previously struck out of the lists of the navy, as well as a tender which we have omitted. The official line-total, not including the 12 hospital and receiving ships, amounts to 141 ; and the grand total, including 50 hoys, lighters, and transports, 10 hulks, and 5 tenders and surveying vessels, amounts to 476.

It may be not out of place here to introduce a short table, showing the registered tonnage of the British navy at different epochs since the year 1521, which is as early as the tons of the ships appear to have been computed.