146      BRITISH AND AMERICAN NAVIES     1813

been frigates, not two-decked ships like the Leander, Newcastle, and Akbar. There was a frigate laid down in the year 1813, which would have answered every purpose ; but, after the draught of the Java had been prepared as that of a regular frigate, to carry 52 guns, the pen of authority filled up the gangway with a barricade and a row of ports, and hence the Java was built as a 60-gun two-decked ship, similar to the Newcastle and Leander. If the American frigates, of 1533 tons, could not carry, with ease, their gangway guns, and the two last-named British 60-gun ships, averaging 1564 tons, found some inconvenience in carrying theirs, how could it he expected that the Java, of 1458 tons, could bear the eight additional guns ordered for her ?

Even as a frigate mounting 50 guns, the Java might have been as effectively armed as if she had mounted 52, simply by carrying, like the Constitution, one of her chase 24-pounders on the forecastle, and the other on the quarterdeck. No ship, no British ship at all events, is so well manned as to be able, if attacked by two opponents, to fight all her guns at once : hence, there is no real loss of force in subtracting the two guns. Nor would there be any difficulty, that a little practice could not soon overcome, in shifting the travelling gun, during an action, from one side of the deck to the other. The governing principle should be, to possess the greatest real, with the least numerical, force ; and this is chiefly attainable by the power to present in broadside a greater proportion than half the number of guns mounted by the ship.

Our objection to the cut-down 74s and the two-decked 50s, the latter especially, is to their denomination as frigates, and not to the manner in which their guns are mounted. Admitting that, in former times, when British, like French ships, fell in so at their topsides, that, after the boats and booms were stowed in the waist, a mere gangway, or passage from the quarterdeck to the forecastle, was all the space which could be spared on each side, now that British ships are built nearly wall-sided, what is to prevent the gangway, or waist deck from receiving as many guns as its length will admit ? These four or five guns, from their midship position, would be the most efficient of any in the tier to which they belonged. Nor, if the light and but equivocally useful carronades on the poop were withdrawn, would the numerical gun-force of the ship be greatly augmented. The addition to her force is not all the advantage the ship would acquire : weight would be taken from the extremity, the weakest extremity, unless the ship has a round stern, and be shifted to the centre, where it can best be borne.

Any objection to the plan, because of the new nomenclature it would introduce, meets an answer in the present mode of

* See p. 101.

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