The work mentioned above, _Le Musée de Marine du Louvre_, contains a passage relating to the time of Louis XVI (1744-1793) which is well worthy of our attention (Chapter VII): “It was the moment when the science of shipbuilding, born in Holland, really passed into France”. This does not alter the fact that, even at the end of the XVIIIth century, people still went to Holland to study this art, in spite of the high degree of perfection which it had reached in France. Here indeed is what the above mentioned work says: “People went at the end of the last (XVIIIth) century to take lessons in Holland and, on this subject, the library at Brest has a manuscript of one of the celebrated engineers, Olivier, who had been sent there, about 1780, to study construction.” Hence the shipbuilding of the Netherlands was still highly appreciated at that time. The increase in dimensions of the French fleet found its echo in the English fleet; the following are the characteristics of the latter fleet in 1706: +=================+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+ | | | | | | | | | NUMBER OF GUNS | 90 | 80 | 70 | 60 | 50 | 40 | | | | | | | | | +-----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ | |ft. in.|ft. in.|ft. in.|ft. in.|ft. in.|ft. in.| | | | | | | | | |Length of gundeck|192 -- |156 -- |150 -- |144 -- |130 -- |118 -- | | | | | | | | | |Breadth at | | | | | | | | midship frame | 47 -- | 43 -- | 41 -- | 38 -- | 35 -- | 32 -- | | | | | | | | | |Depth of hold | 18 6 | 17 8 | 17 4 | 15 8 | 14 -- | 13 6 | | | | | | | | | |Tonnage | 1552 | 1283 | 1069 | 914 | 705 | 532 | Here is what ~Holmes~ writes, p. 115: “The subject of the superiority in size of the French ships was constantly coming to the front and, in 1719, a new establishment was made for the dimensions of ships in our Royal Navy, according to the following scale: +================+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+===========+ | | | | | | | | | NUMBER OF GUNS | 90 | 80 | 70 | 60 | 50 | 40 | | | | | | | | | +----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------+ | Increase of: | | | | | | | | Length | 2 ft. | 2 ft. | 1 ft. | 0 | 4 ft. | 6 ft. | | Breadth | 2 in. | 1 ft. | 6 in. | 1 ft. | 1 ft. |1 ft. 2 in.| | Tonnage | 15 | 67 | 59 | 37 | 51 | 63 |