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In 1652 the ship of the line had become the unit of the fleet as truly as it was in 1805. It is true that Blake's ships were not the equal of Nelson's huge "first rates," because the "two-decker" was then the most powerful type. The first three-decker in the English navy was launched in the year of Blake's death, 1657.
It made them mad to think of all they had done in the south, and then to see this saucy frigate flashing her money before their eyes." "I cannot see their grievance, Captain Ball," said Cochrane. "When you are promoted to a two-decker, my lord, it will possibly become clearer to you." "You speak as if a cruiser had nothing to do but take prizes.
"Don't you remember, Admiral Bluewater, the time when we got under way off l'Orient, with the wind blowing a gale directly on shore? Even Sir Gervaise said, afterwards, that we lost less ground than any ship in the fleet, and yet the Plantagenet is the most weatherly two-decker in the navy; as every body says." "Every body! She is certainly a weatherly vessel, but not more so than several others.
If you love me, stand on, and let us see if that lubberly make-believe two-decker dare follow." I was fain to comply, though I ran a risk that I find impossible, now, to justify to myself. I had my cousin John Wallingford's property in charge, as well as my own, or what was quite as bad, I placed Clawbonny in imminent jeopardy.
But it was out of the frying-pan into, the fire: for the Orion, Prince George, and one or two others, were coming up, and knocked the very guts out of them. I'll be d d if they forget the 14th of April, and sarve them right, too. Wasn't a four-decker enough for any two-decker, without any more coming on us? and couldn't the beggars have matched themselves like gentlemen?
Stowel thinks differently. Here's my ship; she's in her place in the line; it's my business to see she is fit for any service that a first-class two-decker can undertake, and that duty I endeavour to perform; and I make no doubt it is all the better performed because there's no wife or co-equal aboard here.
As for Marble, men were ready to swear he had robbed his captain, and got off from an English two-decker only four years before.
The two-decker has two of these fully armed decks, and the three-deckers three; though, in fact, the two-decker has five, and the three-decker six decks. Asking pardon for this little digression, which we trust will be found useful to a portion of our readers, we return to the narrative.
So near was the stranger, that we plainly heard the officer of the deck call out to his own quarter-master to "port, hard a-port hard a-port, and be d d to you!" Hard a-port it was, and a two-decker came brushing along on our weather beam so near, that, when she lifted on the seas, it seemed as if the muzzles of her guns would smash our rails.
We are writing of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nineteen. In that day, Oyster Pond was, in one of the best acceptations of the word, a rural district. It is true that its inhabitants were accustomed to the water, and to the sight of vessels, from the two-decker to the little shabby-looking craft that brought ashes from town, to meliorate the sandy lands of Suffolk.
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