A large trap was made in the poop to allow the crew to quit the vessel, after having lighted the fire and let go the grapnels, and to get away in a launch attached to the fireship underneath the trap. The service with fireships was naturally a perilous task, so only the bravest men were selected for this duty and they, on account of the great danger incurred, received double pay. In case of need, the fireships were started straight at the enemy, so that the latter’s ship was taken face on and not by the side. Under these conditions, the rigging of the two vessels became entangled at once and it became impossible then to separate them. The fireships were only old ships as a rule, yet new vessels were sometimes employed, for the construction of which, as Witsen says, “a very ordinary, very light and very inflammable wood was used.” Externally the fireships did not differ from ordinary vessels; anything else would not have been practical, because the enemy would have recognized them at once under these conditions. Their crew was as few in numbers as possible and every precaution was taken to allow it to leave the vessel as soon as the latter was well on fire and had reached the desired point. [Sidenote: II 158] [Sidenote: II 101] The changes made in our war ships during the XIXth century are sufficiently well known; consequently it will not be necessary to dwell on them. Nothing more will be said than this: that the sheer of these vessels became less, that the stem and the sternpost approached more nearly the vertical and that the old ornaments disappeared almost entirely. [Sidenote: II 165] Toward the end of the XVIIIth century, the rounded shape of the stern was adopted, according to the English fashion. It was the death blow to the old square stern ship, but already, long before that, it had been called _ship of war_. This new denomination changed nothing in its construction. Our shipbuilding had gone to pieces under the French occupation, and the continental blockade completed the ruin. Still, toward the end of the first half of the XIXth century it succeeded in reviving. It is true that in 1824 only three ships, measuring in all 1440 tons, were built; but, in 1827, this number had already gone up to 59 vessels with a total tonnage of 19,758 tons. These data relate only to vessels of more than 100 tons. (~Koenen~, p. 101.) In 1853, says M. Koenen, there were in the province of Groningen 89 shipyards for both inland and ocean navigation. In Friesland, there were large yards at Harlingen and at Lemmen devoted exclusively to the construction of sea-going vessels. In North Holland, ocean shipping was under construction at Amsterdam, Medenblik, Monnickendam, Muiden and Nieuwendam. Shipbuilding was flourishing at Rotterdam, Schiedam, Alblasserdam and Dordrecht.