rom the Dunkirk build, which
were narrower and sharper, carried their guns but little more than three
feet from the water and but ten weeks provisions."

Attempts were made to counteract this great defect, but without much
success. For several years afterwards Mr Pepys still complained that
frigates were unable to stow a sufficient quantity of provisions, or to
carry their guns high enough out of the water to make them safe.

Up to the early part of the eighteenth century it was a general
complaint that ships of war had more guns placed on board than they
could carry--in consequence, that their lower batteries could not be
opened when there was any sea on, and that they sailed and worked
heavily. It is wonderful, indeed, how British seamen managed to keep
them afloat, as it is worthy of note that those which fell into the
hands of the enemy were nearly always lost under charge of their new
masters. The English, it was said, employed the best materials and
workmanship on their vessels, but the French greatly surpassed them in
their models. The English were the first to abandon the flat form of
the stern under the counter, and to introduce the curved instead, by
which greater strength and lightness as well as beauty was obtained.

In 1748 a ship of 585 tons, to carry 28 guns, 9-pounders on the
main-deck and 3-pounders on the quarter-deck, was built; and in 1757
five other vessels, also called frigates, to carry 28 guns, were
constructed of fir instead of oak, of the same size; but one of them was
captured by the French, and the others in about nine years were broken
up as unserviceable.

The first ship which, according to our present ideas, could properly be
considered a frigate, was the _Southampton_, built at Rotherhithe in the
year 1757 by Mr Robert Inwood, according to a draft of Sir Thomas
Slade, one of the surveyors of the navy. She measured 671 tons, and
mounted 26 12-pounders on the main-deck, 4 6-pounders on the
quarter-deck, and 2 6-pounders on the forecastle. She thus carried all
her guns on a single whole deck, a quarter-deck and forecastle, the
characteristic of the true frigate. She was considered a prime sailer
and first-rate sea-boat, and lasted for fifty-six years, and possibly
would have lasted longer had she not gone to pieces on the rocks.

Shortly after this several 36-gun frigates were built. Each was about
fifty tons larger than the _Southampton_, and carried four guns more,
which were