SHIP

SHIP of the line is usually applied to all men of war mounting sixty guns and upwards. Of late, however, our fifty-gun ships have been formed sufficiently strong to carry the same metal as those of sixty, and accordingly may fall into the line in cases of necessity. See LINE.

The Ships of seventy-four cannon, and thereabouts, are generally esteemed the most useful in the line of battle, and indeed in almost every other purpose of war. It has therefore been judged conformable to our design, to represent different views and sections of a ship of this class. Thus plate IV. exhibits the head, together with the bow or fore-part. Plate VII. shews a transverse section through the broadest part, with the profile of her upper and lower deck batteries. Plate III. contains a horizontal section at the lower deck, together with the plan of the battery planted on one side thereof, and all the pieces by which the deck is supported on the other. The quarter, and all the after-part of the ship, is exhibited in plate VIII. and the elevation of the stern in plate X. all of which are on the same scale, viz. one fourth of an inch to a foot, except the deck, which is one eighth of an inch to a foot.

Plates III and IV

Plate VII

We have also, on a smaller scale, expressed an elevation or side-view of a sixty-gun ship, in plate I. with the head thereof in plate IV. fig. II and the stern in plate X. fig. 2. both of which are viewed upon a line on the continuation of the keel.

Plate I

Reference Works