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Pilgrims. This collection, though of great interest, is a less perfect thing than the Principal Navigations. Purchas was a bad, Hakluyt an almost perfect, editor; and the voyages which fell into Purchas' hands were mutilated and garbled, foolishly contracted, and then published, with much foolish editorial

comment.

Michael Drayton, the poet, always a felicitous critic, speaks of Hakluyt as the "industrious." Industry was a common virtue in the time of Elizabeth; but the industry of Hakluyt was extraordinary. His great work, the result of many years of weary labour, is a monument of industry. His "three severall Volumes" were only collected "after great charges and infinite cares, many watchings, toiles and travels, and wearying out of his weake body." He had to ride on many far journeys, to search into many libraries, to look through vast stacks of manuscript and black letter, and to talk with many seamen and geographers, before his great work could be begun. He was not only "industrious"; he was wise and far-seeing. In his beautiful dedications, where he reveals himself most clearly, without laying aside his humility, he shows how eager he was to advance his country among the nations. He wished that a lectureship might be established in or near London "for the banishing of our former gross ignorance in marine causes." He grieved to see Englishmen without employment, begging in the streets, or going to the gallows for petty thefts. He wished to see such wasted lives made profitable in the New World, where he writes, "we of England," might "share and part stakes" with our fore-runners; as in fact we did before Richard Hakluyt died. He had ever before him the vision of England, a queen among the nations, prosperous and peaceful, beautiful with all noble arts, busy with all honest labour, perfect in all knightly virtue. His love of England, his desire for the honour of England, "devoured all difficulties"; and pricked him forward in his "troublesome and painful" work. His Principal Navigations is our English epic. It is a great and noble poem, which commends the sailors of our nation, with fit humility and truth, "for their high courage and singular activity." The poets of that great period, living in the kingdom of the imagination, have left the deeds of our heroes unsung. It was left to Richard Hakluyt, a humble preacher, to bring together the stray records of them, that future ages might admire, and coming generations imitate,

"the high heart and manly resolution" of those who tried "the fortune of the sea," under such hard conditions, for the advancement of their country's honour.

The life of a sailor is pleasant only at brief intervals, when the weather is fine, the ship confortable, and the treatment of the officers considerate. As a rule, it is a harsh life, with few pleasures to make amends for its hardships. In Elizabethan times, it was harder than it is to-day; though perhaps not very much harder than it was to those who sailed with Anson, in the middle of the eighteenth century. In considering the achievements of the Elizabethan sailors, it is well to bear in mind the conditions under which they lived and worked, when at sea; for, with those remembered, we cannot but pay more honour to their resource, their stoutness of heart, their "manly resolution." They had other dangers to fight than those of storm and calm. They put forth upon seas full of pirates, along coasts uncharted, among the cruizers of enemies and of privateers. Their ships were often slow, unseaworthy, leaky, ill-found, unhandy, and pestilential. The voyages were long and dangerous, the sea provisions often of bad quality, and the scurvy, their immediate resultant, as deadly as the plague. There will not be space in this paper to discuss the sea conditions at great length, or in detail; but a short description of the ships, their arms, equipment, and complements, may help to interest the reader in the study of our old sea history.

The Elizabethan ships were neither graceful nor beautiful. They were short, squat, and clumsy, without the lovely curving sweep from the fo'c's'le to the counter, which makes the modern iron sailing ship so perfect an image of beauty, and gives to her that indefinable air of potential swiftness. The Elizabethan shipwrights built with wood; and for various reasons it is impos. sible to build a long wooden ship of any great burden. The Elizabethan ship was seldom more than thrice as long as her extreme breadth.

The man-of-war was the typical Elizabethan ship. In many ways she was the greatest naval achievement of the reign. There were two general types of man-of-war, and both types had a strong professional following. The one was the " "great ship" type, of ships of large size "high charged," or built up high at stern and bow, "for majesty, and terror of the enemy";

the other a flush-decked type, without forecastle and sometimes without poop, lying "low and snug in the water," unhampered by any "tottering cagework." Both types had one complete gundeck running the length of the ship below the spar or upper deck. It is not known whether any Elizabethan ship had two complete covered gun decks; but it is probable that no genuine two-decker then existed of the Nelson or Anson type. The high charged ships had, however, other batteries of guns in the "half decks" made by the great towering topgallant poops, and in the square forecastles forward; though these batteries, being high above the water, contained comparatively light guns. Some Elizabethan drawings show that two or more heavy guns were sometimes mounted on the half deck, or orlop, below the true gun-deck.

The "high-charged" man-of-war described.-Between the ship's superstructures of poop and forecastle, there was an open space called the waist, where the sail-trimmers did their duty, and where the smaller boats (the pinnaces and skiffs) were stowed, when the ship was at sea. The after bulkhead of the forecastle, and the forward bulkhead of the poop, were pierced for quick-firing guns, mounted so as to sweep this open space, if the ship were boarded by an enemy. The poops, of which there were sometimes two, one abaft and above the other, sloped aft at a considerable angle; and the whole elaborate counter of the ship slopingly overhung the sea for a distance of some twenty feet, without any support from the keel. The sides of the ship "tumbled home," or sloped in, considerably, so that the breadth of the spar-deck was much less than the breadth of the ship at the water line. Under the poops were the sleeping quarters of the master and captain, the steering gear and binnacle, and the great cabin, where the captain took his meals and entertained his guests. In the forecastle (a much smaller space), there was room for the berths of some of the hands, and perhaps also for some of the stores in daily use in a ship, such as coils of rope, tackles, spare blocks, marline stuff, etc. Below the upper deck was the main, gun, or berth deck, where the heavy guns were ranged in batteries, and where the men were berthed. On this deck a number of hanging canvas screens made little temporary cabins, berths, or messes, between the guns, so as to give privacy to the men. These screens could be rolled up and secured to the beams when the decks were cleared for battle. Below the gun deck there was, in some ships, a false, or partially

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decked, orlop or overlop. On the decked part of this orlop stood the bread room and other store rooms, the cable tiers, and the cabins of the petty officers. Below this orlop there was the hold, containing the gravel ballast, the powder-magazines, the beer, water and provision casks; and the ship's galley or cook-room. The galley was built upon a strong brick floor laid on the ballast; and lying so low down in the ship its cooking fires sometimes heated and spoiled the provisions in the store rooms; while in the tropics they made the whole ship uncomfortably hot.

The great after overhang made these ships pitch badly in anything like a sea. The bow was therefore fitted with a powerful wooden "beakhead," projecting outboard, which shattered the seas at each plunge and kept them from sweeping fore and aft. A great ship had usually a stern walk or galley, running round the stern, on which the captain could walk, or from which stern chase guns could, on occasion, be fired. Ships without high-charged sterns appear to have had no stern walk; and in the drawings of such ships the beakhead is less prominent than in the others.

The upper works of the men of war were not uniformly coloured. The Pipe Office Accounts, quoted by Mr. Oppenheim, show that two ships were painted green and white, another red, and others "timber colour," and black and white. All had a quantity of carved and gilded work at bow and stern, and most bore a figurehead painted in fitting colours. The interiors of cabins are said to have been painted green. The ship's sides along the gun-deck, within board, were probably painted red or green, but in some instances they may have been painted white, in order that the dark decks might be made as light as possible.

The rig of the Elizabethan ship.-The rig of the Elizabethan ships (we do not speak of small craft) was not unlike that employed in sailing ships at the present time; though they were different in one particular, they had neither jibs nor staysails to help them in working to windward. Their only head sail was the sprit sail, a square sail setting from a yard below (but attached to) the bowsprit. On the foremast, two sails were set, the foresail and foretop sail, both of which were square sails, setting from yards which could be easily lowered to the deck. The mainmast had also a square course and topsail, setting from moveable yards. The mizen mast had a lateen, or mizen yard, carrying a single fore and aft sail. If the ship had a fourth, or jigger mast (then called a

bonaventure mizen), it was rigged like the mizen, with one lateen yard and sail. The fore and main masts carried moveable topmasts, which could be easily struck in bad weather. The bowsprit, and the mizen and jigger masts were all pole, or single,

spars.

The fore and mai. topsails were comparatively small sails. Neither they nor the courses seem to have been fitted with reef bands, and therefore their area could not have been reduced gradually as the wind increased. In fine weather the greatest Elizabethan ships may have set light top gallant sails above the topsails; but such sails are only shown in one or two drawings of the time. Another device for increasing the sail area was that of the drabler and the bonnet. The bonnet, which is not quite obsolete even now, was a strip of canvas which laced to the foot of a course. The drabler was a second strip which laced to the foot of the bonnet. The sails (especially the courses) had a great spread. The masts were comparatively short and stumpy, but the lower yards were great spars, carrying sails which must have been awkward to handle, even when the yard had been lowered down "a port last," or almost to the bulwarks. Mr. Oppenheim has shown that the favourite type of man-of-war ranged from 400 to 600 tons, while the greatest ship in the navy was of rather less than 1000 tons. This great ship's mainmast was probably about 90 feet in length, her bowsprit and foremast each rather more than 70 feet; her foreyard between 60 and 65 feet; and her mainyard, about 80 feet, or very little less than the length of the mast. Her topsail yards were only about 35 feet long, so that the topsails, which sheeted home to yards from 60 to 80 feet in length, had a much greater spread at the foot than at the head. In the ships of from 400 to 600 tons, the mainmasts varied in length according to the length of the ships' keels. The following figures will show the reader the probable approximate lengths of their principal masts and spars.

Mainmast, 70 to 85 feet.
Foremast, 60 to 70 feet.

Bowsprit, 60 to 70 feet.

Mainyard, 60 to 80 feet.

Foreyard, 45 to 60 feet.

Topsail Yard, 25 to 30 feet.

The mizen masts were made one half the length of the mainyards; and were therefore small and unimportant.

Above the lower yards on each mast there was a strong wooden platform or top, surrounded by a cagework, some four

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