-deck is consequently a level deck extending fore and aft.
Such are all the decks of a man-of-war, except of the upper ones. Many
merchantmen are also built in the same way, but others rise abruptly a
foot, or two or three feet, towards the stern, the higher part of the
deck becoming the quarter-deck. Ships thus built are spoken of as
deep-waisted, because the centre part is deeper or lower than the
after-part. The bulwarks in the same way sink in proportion at the
break of the quarter-deck. Up to the present day many of the largest
ships-of-war are flush-decked, as are all brigs-of-war and many
corvettes, but a frigate, which must have a quarter-deck and forecastle,
cannot properly be said to be flush-decked, although, in fact, the
gratings or gangway at the waist give her the appearance of being so to
the unsophisticated eye.

Our knowledge of the state of the navy during the reigns of Charles the
Second and his brother is derived chiefly from Mr Samuel Pepys, who was
clerk of the Acts, through the interest of his relative the Earl of
Sandwich, and was ultimately clerk of the treasurer to the commissioners
of the affairs of Tangier, and surveyor-general of the victualling
department. He spared no pains to check the rapacity of contractors by
whom the naval stores were then supplied; he studied order and economy
in the dockyards, advocated the promotion of old-established officers in
the navy, and resisted to the utmost the infamous system of selling
places, then most unblushingly practised. During the Dutch war the care
of the navy in a great measure rested upon him alone, and by his zeal
and industry he gained the esteem of the Duke of York, with whom, as
Lord High Admiral, he was in constant intercourse. Thus from his diary
we can gain a pretty accurate knowledge of the customs of the times in
the naval service, and the way the affairs of the navy were managed.

In an entry of the 4th of June, 1661, he describes a dinner, where the
discourse was on the subject of young noblemen and gentlemen who thought
of going to sea, the naval service being considered as noble as that of
the land. Lord Crewe remarked that "in Queen Elizabeth's time one young
nobleman would wait with a trencher at the back of another till he come
of age himself;" and he mentioned the Earl of Kent, who was waiting on
Lord Bedford at table when a letter came to that lord announcing that
the earldom had fallen to his servant the young lord; a