From the sloops, which was the type of the first craft built, the designers proceeded by natural stages to frigates, and then battleships, which were towed down the river and round to Portsmouth to be fitted out and manned. The _Surprise_, of 1743, was succeeded by the _Scorpion_, of eighteen guns, three years later; and after a period of three years by the _Woolwich_, of forty-four guns. After this came the _Kennington_, _Lion_, and _Mermaid_, the second named having sixty guns. The _Gibraltar_ followed in 1756, and on her first cruise captured the _Glaneur_, a handsome, swift, heavily armed, and strongly manned privateer, which was bought in by the Navy and renamed the _Gibraltar Prize_. The following year saw the launch of the _Coventry_, and the next year of a big frigate, the _Thames_, carrying thirty-two twelve-pounders. This latter ship saw a great deal of service and captured a large number of privateers from the enemy, but was at last unfortunately forced to strike her flag to the French owing to the enormous superiority of the attacking force. Whilst in the possession of the enemy she proved not less successful than when manned by British seamen and made prizes of no fewer than twenty English ships, but in 1796, after a great fight, she was recaptured, and fifteen years later, in company with the _Cephalus_, made a prize of eleven French gunboats and a felucca without loss, and a short time afterwards landed her marines in Sicily and, supported by men of the 62nd Regiment, defeated the French and captured a town. A few years later the _Europe_, which was destined to be the flagship of the fleet in Newfoundland Waters under Vice-Admiral John Montagu, was launched; and other vessels of large tonnage, including the _Vigilant_, a sixty-four gun battleship of 1,374 tons, came from the Buckler’s Hard yards. The memory of one at least of the vessels, the _Garland_, of twenty-eight guns, was perpetuated in a ballad sung in those days by West Indian negroes, which ran-- You go aboard de Flag ship, Dey ask you for to dine; Dey give you lots of salt horse, But not a drop of wine. You go aboard de _Garland_, Dey ask you for to dine; Dey give you plenty roast beef, And lots of rosy wine. Ho! de happy happy _Garland_, etc. etc.