They had short stout masts, a vast number of shrouds to support them, and large heavy round tops on which a dozen men or more could stand. The sterns were ornamented with a profusion of heavy carved-work, and they had great lanterns stuck up at the taffrail, as big, almost, as sentry-boxes, while the forecastle still somewhat resembled the building from which it took its name. This vast amount of woodwork, rising high above the surface of the water, was very detrimental to the sailing qualities of ships, and must have caused the loss of many. What sailors call fore-and-aft sails had already been introduced, and we hear constantly of ships beating to windward, and attempting to gain the weather-gage. In those days a great variety of ordnance were employed, to which our ancestors gave the odd-sounding names of cannon, demi-cannon, culverins, demi-culverins, sakers, mynions, falcons, falconets, portpiece-halls, port-piece-chambers, fowler-halls, and curthalls. These guns varied very much in length and in the weight of their shot. When a ship is spoken of as carrying fifty or sixty guns it must be understood that every description of ordnance on board was included, so that a very erroneous idea would be formed, if we pictured a ship of sixty guns of those days as in any way resembling in size a third, or even a fourth-rate at the end of the last century. An old author says: "By the employment of Italian shipwrights, and by encouraging his own people to build strong ships of war to carry great ordnance, Henry established a puissant navy, which, at the end of his reign, consisted of seventy-one vessels, whereof thirty were ships of burden, and contained in all 10,550 tons, and two were galleys, and the rest were small barks and row-barges, from eighty tons down to fifteen tons, which served in rivers and for landing men." Stone-shot had hitherto been used both at sea and on shore, but about the middle of the century they were superseded by iron shot. About the same period matchlocks were introduced on board ships. An Act was passed in this reign encouraging merchants to build ships fit for men-of-war, such ships being exempt from certain duties, the owners also receiving from the king, when he required them, twelve shillings per ton a-month.