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An excursion by sea to Baluklid is also to be recommended. You pass the entire Turkish fleet, which is very considerable, and see the largest ship in the world, the "Mahmud," of 140 guns, built during the reign of the late Sultan Mahmud. Several three-deckers of 120 guns, some of them unrigged, and many men-of-war mounting from forty to sixty cannons, lie in the harbour.
They all resemble floating barns more than anything else," grumbled the old sailor, bewailing the gallant frigates and three-deckers of the past. "But, come on now, let us get to the dockyard, and I will show you one or two vessels of the right sort that we still have got left, thank God, to remind us of what England's navy once was!"
The ships themselves were also of a very inferior character. Up to this time all 80-gun ships were three-deckers, but after 1759 no more were built. The building also of 70 and 60 gun ships was discontinued about the same period. The finest ships were those taken from the French and added to the Royal Navy. The first English 80-gun ship on two decks was the Caesar, launched in 1793.
Lord Howe's fleet was also lying off Spithead, among them the Victory, Barfleur, Ocean, and Union, all three-deckers, close to us, and numerous other men-of-war and merchant vessels; indeed, the people who came off from Portsmouth declared they could hardly see the Isle of Wight on account of the masts and spars of the ships. In consequence of going foreign we had been paid in golden guineas.
New-modelled for superiority of sailing, the English ships had the same advantage over the galleons as the steam cruisers would have over the old three-deckers. While the breeze held they went where they pleased. The Spaniards were out-sailed, out-matched, crushed by guns of longer range than theirs.
It was not till Anson's memorable administration that a scientific system of rating was re-established and the fleet at last assumed the logical constitution which it retained up to our own time. In the first two rates appear the fleet flagship class, three-deckers of 100 and 90 guns respectively. All smaller three-deckers are eliminated.
Experience has confirmed what youthful fancy suggested; the enemy's centre should have been macadamised by our seven three-deckers, some of which, by being placed in the rear, had little share in the action; and but for the intimidation which their presence afforded, might as well have been at Spithead.
There was a busy scene at Portsmouth on February 17, when Saunders and Wolfe sailed in the flagship H.M.S. Neptune, of 90 guns and a crew of 750 men. She was one of the well-known old 'three-deckers, those 'wooden walls of England' that kept the Empire safe while it was growing up.
One gun of a side was in the main cabin, there being a very neat and amply spacious after-cabin between the state-rooms, as is ordinarily the case in all vessels from the size of frigates up to that of three-deckers.
In a few moments more it was discovered that the fleet to windward numbered twenty-three ships-of-the-line to the French twenty-one, and among them some three-deckers. Conflans then called in the chasing ships and got ready for action. It remained to settle his course under circumstances which he had not foreseen.
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