28 guns on a single deck, and fourteen on the quarterdeck and forecastle, it is thought necessary to reduce, by cutting away the two latter short decks ; thereby exposing to view her main battery-deck, from end to end, and disarming her, of course, of 14 out of her 40 guns. Yet this ship, materially altered as she is in her form, and stripped of a third part of her numerical force, undergoes no change of name: she is still a single decked ship. It is true, that a similar operation performed upon the two, or the three decker, would lead to a similar alteration in the form, and some, but not so great, a reduction in the force. A two, or three decked. ship, so cut down and reduced, would also retain her former name. But two, or three decked ships, without quarter decks, are of rare occurrence; while single-decked vessels of that form are very numerous. They descend to the lowest small-craft that has a deck upon which guns are, or may be mounted. It is likewise true, that the term flush-decked has been used to signify, that the single-decked ship of war, so named is constructed without an over-built quarter deck and forecastle.

Flush, in this its arbitrary signification, is synonymous with level. A flush-deck is, therefore, a level or, even deck, throughout its extent.* In this sense is not every principal or fore-and-aft-deck of a ship a flush-deck? Were not the three whole decks of the Sovereign-of-the-Seas called, by one who in that respect is no mean authority, "three-flushe-decks ?" The term was evidently first used in the merchant-service, and stood opposed to that form of deck, which, as it runs aft, suddenly rises by a step or two, and then continuing in a line to the stern, becomes the quarter-deck of the vessel. Ships of this construction were described, properly enough, as deep-waisted; and the generality of merchant-vessels are, to this day, built in that manner. Were flush, as meaning level, without fall or rising, to be used in reference to the upper edge of the gunwale, or plansheer, of the ship, instead of to her deck, it would serve perfectly well to distinguish an open-decked, from a quarter-decked ship of war. For both the quarter deck and the forecastle bulwarks cease at the extremities of the gangway; and the intermediate drop in the line (now perpendicular and abrupt, formerly softened down by a scroll or figure) is merely rendered less obvious, by the presence of the hammocks stowed in the waist nettings, or of the painted canvass that covers them. The French term corresponding with flush ship, or flush-built ship, is, "Un bâtiment paré de long en long;" and that even a three, decked ship, according to the French application of the term, " les gaillards," or the quarter deck and forecastle, may be without any decks of that description, is clear from the following example.

* The French say, " Un pout entier, sans ravalement, ni interruptions."