ships became exchanged for carronades, was not the number, of guns, as marked down in the list to denote the ship's class, reduced accordingly? What became of the gun-classification, when some of the most numerous classes in the navy mounted all carronades, except for bow-chasers ?

Among the excuses which may perhaps be offered for these seeming inconsistencies, are, that the classification of the ships was intended only as a guide for those who had the civil affairs. of the navy to manage; that the employment of carronades, although ordered generally, was, as respected the actual use of them, too partial and fluctuating, during several years at least, to warrant the subversion of the old, or become the basis of a new system ; that the addition of carronades to a ship's armament did not add one man to her complement, nor affect, in the slightest degree, the length and diameter of her masts and yards, or the proportion of boatswain's and carpenter's stores served out to her: in short, that the old classification, as far as the Navy Board was concerned, fully answered the purpose required. If the carronade-innovation produced confusion any where, it must have been in the ordnance department, where the proportion of gunner's stores served out to a ship depends on the number and nature of her guns; and where, in truth, all the difficulties attendant upon the fitting of carronades, at their first employment, were sensibly felt.

With respect to the employment of carronades on board the armed ships of foreign powers, it may be sufficient to state, that, as far as the prize-lists are to be relied upon, no captured ship mounted any during the war which ended in 1783. Admitting, however, that carronades had begun to be used in any one foreign navy, and that they had also begun to disorganize, or render obscure, the national classification of that navy, still the English would have no reason to complain; inasmuch as, whatever might be the registered force of any contending ship of the enemy's, her actual mounted force is that alone which would appear upon the English records. Not so with the enemy; for he would at once discover that, how accurately soever his own guns stood enumerated, those of the ship he had fought with had been in part overlooked. He could, to be sure, and doubtless would, inform his countrymen what was the real number of guns opposed to him.* But, even then, one nation is left in the dark as to the true merits of the contest ; while the other, attributing the discrepancy in .the accounts to design rather than to accident finds its animosity heightened to a pitch of rancour, as afflicting to humanity, as it is repugnant to honourable warfare. So limited, however, had been the use, and, except in the Rainbow's case, so light the calibers, of the carronade, during the short period that intervened between its first employment in

See p. 36.

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