Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empireFraser, Edward
History
Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire
Fraser, Edward
Great Britain -- History, Naval; Naval battles -- Great Britain
We will go on board for a brief look round the _Dreadnought_ within. As
we enter the ship we note how both the half-deck and the fore and aft
castles are loopholed for both arrow-fire and musketry, so as to sweep
the waist should an enemy board and get a footing amidships. Some of
the lighter guns would be able to help. The heavier guns are mostly on
the broadside, and are mounted on the decks below in a double tier. The
_Dreadnought_ altogether carries forty-two guns. Sixteen of them are
heavy guns: two “cannon-periers” of six-inch bore, hard hitters, firing
twenty-four pounder stone shot; four “culverins,” seventeen and a half
pounders, twelve feet long and five and half inches in the bore, firing
iron shot, and able to throw a ball upwards of three miles—“random shot.”
There are also ten “demi-culverins,” nine-pounders, firing four and a
half inch iron shot. The lighter guns are six “sakers,” pieces nine feet
long (five-pounders, of three and a half inch bore) and two “fawcons”
(three-pounders). The heavier guns are all muzzle-loaders. Distributed
over the upper decks are eighteen breech-loading guns, for fighting at
close quarters and rapid firing: “port-pieces,” “fowlers,” and “bases,”
as they are called. They are on swivel mountings, and fire stone and iron
shot.
All told, the _Dreadnought’s_ armament weighs thirty-two tons. The guns
are from Master Ralphe Hogge, “the Queen’s gunstone maker, and gunfounder
to the Council.” They are of Sussex iron, from Master Hogge’s own foundry
at Buxted. At this moment they are waiting at the Tower, together with
the _Dreadnought’s_ supplies of iron shot and cannon balls of Kentish
ragstone from Her Majesty’s quarries at Maidstone, stacked “in ye Bynns
upon ye Tower Wharfe each side Traitor’s Gate.” When the _Dreadnought_
goes into battle she will carry some two hundred officers and men all
told: a hundred and thirty “maryners”—“Able men for topyard, helme and
lead,” and “gromets,” or boys and “Fresh men”; with twenty gunners and
fifty soldiers. To keep her at sea will cost the Queen £303. 6s. 8d. a
month for sea-wages and victualling. Three weeks provisions and water
is the most that the ship can stow, owing to the space wanted for the
ballast, the cables for the four anchors, and the ammunition and sea
stores. That is why victualling ships have to attend Her Majesty’s fleets
on service outside the Narrow Seas. The “cook room,” of bricks and iron
and paving stones, is in the hold over the ballast. Two more notes may
be made as we return on deck and quit the ship. The captain’s cabin,
opening on the gallery aft, is neatly wainscoted and garnished with
green and white chintz, and with curtains of darnix hung at the latticed
cabin windows. There are three boats for the _Dreadnought_: the “great
boat,” which tows astern at all times, the cock-boat and the skiff, both
of which stow inboard. John Clerk, “of Redryffe, Shipwrighte,” built
the “great boat,” being paid £24, in the terms of his bill, “For the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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