the sixteenth century, designed a ship to
measure 160 feet in length and 24 in breadth, and constructed to carry a
tier of guns on a single whole deck, besides other guns on two short
decks, resembling the poop and top-gallant forecastle of a modern ship.
He named his vessel a fregata, and her guns were placed exactly as those
of a modern frigate.

He designed at the same time seven distinct classes of ships of war,
which he named the _Galleon, Ranibargo, Galizabra, Frigata, Gallerone,
Gallerata_, and _Passavolante_. His designs not being accepted, he, in
the year 1594, built a vessel for himself at Southampton, which measured
300 tons and mounted 30 guns--of course, of small calibre. In her he
made a voyage to India.

Charles the First possessed two frigates, the _Swan_ and _Nicodemus_,
each of 60 tons, 10 men, and 3 guns. They probably were only used as
yachts. The Duke of Buckingham, who was Lord High Admiral from 1619 to
1636, ordered some frigates to be built from the model of two called the
_Providence_ and _Expedition_, captured from the Dunkirkers, mounting,
it is supposed, from 20 to 30 guns, the greater number of which were on
a single-deck. In consequence of seeing a French frigate in the Thames,
Mr Peter Pett took her as his model for building the _Constant Warwick_
in 1649, which was, as he says, the first frigate built in England. She
was intended as a privateer for the Earl of Warwick, who afterwards sold
her to the king. She measured somewhat under 400 tons, and mounted 60
guns, consisting of 18 light demi-culverins or short 9-pounders on the
main-deck, 6 light sakers on the quarter-deck, and 2 mignons on the
after-raised deck, which we should now call the poop.

In those days, and for many years afterwards, the English were addicted
to crowding their vessels with guns, and there can be no doubt that
many, like the _Mary Rose_ and others, were in consequence lost;
especially as their lower-deck ports were often not more than three feet
above the water. The _Constant Warwick_ had afterwards many more guns
placed in her, so that she ultimately rated as a 46-gun ship, when, from
being an incomparable sailer, she became a slug. Mr Pepys remarks on
this subject, in 1663 and 1664: "The Dutch and French built ships of two
decks, which carried from 60 to 70 guns, and so contrived that they
carried their lower guns four feet from the water, and could stow four
months' provisions--whereas our frigates f