weak battle-units of 60 and 50
guns--and this was far the largest class. All these four rates were classed
as ships-of-the-line. Below them came the fifth rates, which, though they
were used as cruisers, had no distinct class name. They differed indeed
only in degree from the ship-of-the-line, being all cramped two-deckers of
44 and 40 guns, and they must be regarded, in so far as they expressed any
logical idea of naval warfare, as the forerunners of the "Intermediate"
class, represented in the succeeding epochs by 50-gun ships, and in our own
time by armoured cruisers. The only true cruiser is found in the sixth
rate, which comprised small and weakly armed 20-gun ships, and between them
and the "Forties" there was nothing. Below them, but again without any
clear differentiation, came the unrated sloops representing the flotilla.

In such a system of rating there is no logical distinction either between
large and small battleships or between battleships and cruisers, or between
cruisers and flotilla. The only marked break in the gradual descent is that
between the 40-gun two-deckers and the 20-gun cruisers. As these latter
vessels as well as the sloops used sweeps for auxiliary propulsion, we are
forced to conclude that the only basis of the classification was that
adopted by Henry the Eighth, which, sound as it was in his time, had long
ceased to have any real relation to the actuality of naval war.

It was not till Anson's memorable administration that a scientific system
of rating was re-established and the fleet at last assumed the logical
constitution which it retained up to our own time. In the first two rates
appear the fleet flagship class, three-deckers of 100 and 90 guns
respectively. All smaller three-deckers are eliminated. In the next two
rates we have the rank and file of the battle-line, two-deckers of
increased size-namely, seventy-fours in the third rate, and sixty-fours in
the fourth. Here, however, is a slight break in the perfection of the
system, for the fourth rate also included 50-gun ships of two decks, which,
during the progress of the Seven Years' War, ceased to be regarded as
ships-of-the-line. War experience was eliminating small battleships, and
therewith it called for a type intermediate between battleships and
cruisers, with whose functions we shall have to deal directly. In practice
these units soon formed a rate by themselves, into which, by the same
tendency, 60-gun ships were destined