le, one half-deck, a
quarter-deck, and a round house. Her lower tier had 30 ports which were
furnished with demi-cannon and whole cannon throughout; her middle tier
had also 30 ports of demi-culverins and whole culverins; her third tier
had 36 ports for other ordnance; her forecastle had 12 ports; and her
half-deck 13 ports. She had 13 or 14 ports more within-board for
murdering pieces, besides a great many loop-holes out of the cabins for
musket-shot. She carried, moreover, 10 pieces of chase ordnance forward
and 10 right aft. This first-rate of the seventeenth century would thus
have had 126 guns; in reality, however, these ports right forward and
right aft, as well as those on the forecastle, had no guns, and thus she
actually carried only 100.

About the middle of the seventeenth century the ships of the British
Navy ceased to carry guns of a similar calibre on the same deck. At the
same time the cumbrous forecastles and aftercastles, which must have
been equally inconvenient both in action and in a sea way, were removed.
The murdering pieces were likewise got rid of, and at the same time, an
English ship of war could fire from her broadside half the number of
guns she carried.

In 1546 Henry the Eighth possessed fifty-eight ships, which were classed
according to their quality; thus there were shyppes, galliasses,
pinnaces, and row-barges. The galliasse was somewhat like the lugger or
felucca of modern days. She probably was a long, low, and sharp-built
vessel, propelled by oars as well as sails--the latter not fixed to a
standing yard, but hoisted like a boat's sail when required. The
pinnace was a small kind of galliasse.

In 1612 we find a list in which the vessels of the Royal Navy were
classed as ships-royal, which measured from 800 to 1200 tons, middling
ships from 600 to 800 tons, small ships from 350 tons, and pinnaces from
80 to 250 tons, divided into rates. They were six in number, and each
rate consisted of two classes, to which different complements of men
were assigned. We are not told what were the armaments of the classes.
The division into rates was adopted to regulate the pay of the officers
and seamen, as is the case at the present day.

In 1651-2, we find a list of all ships, frigates, and other vessels
belonging to the States' Navy classified by the guns they carried. Of
these there were twenty-three classes comprised within the second-rates,
exclusive of two unrated classes--namel