Note to Abstract No. 11.

[� This column (captured) doesn't appear in the original PB]

a With the view to render the remaining Abstracts more perspicuous and useful a partial alteration has been made in the manner of heading them. Instead of being confined to " Cruisers," this compartment now extends to every ship fitted or about to be fitted for sea-service ; and lines are drawn to show the totals, as well of the former, as of the less material portion of the Navy.

b This head has also been slightly altered ; and in particular the " &c." has a different signification from that assigned to it in note � to No. 1 Abstract. See vol. i., p. 398. It signifies that all the ships and vessels of this, as we shall call it, the second compartment which are not commissioned for harbour-service, remain in ordinary until sold or taken to pieces, a period which is sometimes extended to several years.

c The term " Built " has been substituted for " Launched, " as being more explicit, and contrasting better with " Purchased. " In the preceding Abstracts every ship down this pair of columns formed part of the " Total of Increase, " and having, in the generality of cases, been included among the " Ordered to be built " of an antecedent year, became reckoned twice over. To obviate this, a double line now excludes the built ships from the increase ; and the increase-total without any other deduction than the decrease-total may require, proves the grand total. For instance, the grand total of N, by the former method, must have been produced thus : 15 | 26032 (the corresponding total in No. 10 Abstract) + 3 | 5168 = 18 | 31200 - 1 | 1743 = 17 | 29457, instead of by simply adding the 2 | 3425.

d The " &c. " includes ships converted to sheer-hulks, breakwaters, and similar uses.

e The correction of a mistake of 50 tons in one ship (the Cornwallis, see note W* in the preceding page), occasions this total to exceed by that amount the corresponding total in the preceding Abstract.

f See last note.

g This division of the armées en flute into " Troop-ships " and " Storeships " tends to simplify the arrangement, but it was not adopted in the official register until a much later period. There, as elsewhere observed, the reduced ships, with few exceptions, ranked, until very recently, along with their full-armed classmates. The lower columns of the first compartment are now no longer in blank, the substituted term at the top admitting all ships fitted or about to be fitted " for sea-service. "

h The addition of the deficient unit remarked upon in notes' to Nos. 9 and 10 Abstracts, appears in the excess of this total over its corresponding one in the latter.

i This is merely a separation from various other classes of such stationary ships as are so registered in the official list, and might have been made a class from the first. In strictness, the three commissioned harbour-service ships at T, T, and W, and all others, which may appear in that column throughout the series, ought to belong to it : but, as the official list continue them in their original classes, we have done the same.

k The " Small Yachts," with the exception of the Medina, not being commanded by naval officers, this class has been reduced ; and the one next above it, now including the Medina, will henceforward be denominated " Royal Yachts ".

1 This being a year of peace, no hired vessels were attached to the navy. As to the grand total of " Tons, " see notes e, f, and h.

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