wer, an
English line-of-battle ship. Take the model of a 120 gun ship--large
as it may be for a floating body, its space is not great. For example,
it is not half the ordinary size of a nobleman's mansion; yet that
ship carries a thousand men with convenience, and lodges them day and
night, with sufficient room for the necessary distinctions of
obedience and command--has separate apartments for the admiral and the
captain, for the different ranks of officers, and even for the
different ranks of seamen--separate portions below decks for the
sleeping of the crew, the dining of the officers, and the receptacle
for the sick and wounded. Those thousand men are to be fed three times
a-day, and provisions for four months are to be stowed. One hundred
and twenty cannon, some of them of the heaviest metal, are to be
carried; and room is to be found for all the weight of shot and
quantities of powder, with other missiles, rockets, and signal fires,
necessary for service. Besides this, room is to be provided for the
stowage of fresh rigging, sails, ropes, cables, and yards, to replace
those lost by accident, battle, or wear and tear. Besides this, too,
there is to be a provision for the hospital. So far for the mere
necessaries of the ship. Then we are to regard the science; for
nothing can be more essential than the skill and the instruments of
the navigator, as nothing can be more fatal than a scientific error, a
false calculation, or a remission of vigilance. We shall do no more
than allude to the habits of command essential to keep a thousand of
these rough and daring spirits in order, and that, too, an order of
the most implicit, steady, and active kind; nor to their knowledge of
tactics, and conduct in battle. The true definition of the
line-of-battle ship being, a floating regiment of artillery in a
barrack, which, at the beat of a drum, may be turned into a field of
battle, or, at the command of government, may be sent flying on the
wings of the wind round the world. We think that we have thus
established our proposition. If not, let any thing else be shown which
exhibits the same quantity of power _packed_ within the same space;
and that power, too, increasing daily by new contrivances of stowage
and building, by new models of guns, and new inventions in machinery.
England is at this moment building two hundred steam-ships, with guns
of a calibre to which all the past were trifling, with room for a
regiment of land troops