We may pass now to consider the conditions which regulated the work of Stuart seamen on board one of the ships such as fought against the Dutch. We have to think of a type of warship that was nothing else than a slightly developed specimen of the Elizabethan period. The difference between the Tudor and Stuart ships at their fullest development is merely that the latter had become much bigger and carried additional sails and guns and crew. As a broad statement, this sums the matter up in the fewest words. Had you passed one of the biggest of the Stuart ships at sea you would have seen a three- and sometimes a four-masted craft with topsails and t’gallants above her courses. On such a ship as the _Sovereign of the Seas_, if we are to judge by a perfectly authentic engraving, royals were also set sometimes. On the mizzen you would have observed the lateen sail still in existence. What especially would have struck you would have been not merely the elongated beak, but the very long bowsprit. The sailors had to creep out along this spar, keeping themselves, by hanging on to a stay or spreader, from slipping into the ocean every time the vessel rose or fell to the motion of the waves. It was a pretty wet job to lay out along there in a breeze of wind when the beak-head was dipping well down into the sea every time she pitched and hurling a veritable cascade over them. There was one squaresail bent to a yard underneath the bowsprit, and this water-sail had a couple of round holes--one at either side low down near the foot--the object being to permit the water, which this low sail scooped up, to escape. The sheets of this sail led aft and came on board abaft the fore shrouds. In fine weather a bonnet was sometimes laced to this spritsail. But in these Stuart ships there was also a square spritsail hoisted on a sprit-topmast. To hoist this sail the men had, of course, to go right out to the extreme forward end of the bowsprit. Above this topmast flew the Union Jack. [Illustration: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FIRST-RATE SHIP. Embarkation was made by means of the “Entring Port,” which is clearly shown amidships.] Had you gone aboard such a vessel you would have found she had three decks and a forecastle, a quarter-deck, and a “round-house.” The lowest tier had thirty square-ports for demi-cannon and cannon. There were thirty ports also on the middle tier for demi-culverin and culverin. But her upper tier had twenty-six ports for lighter ordnance. Her forecastle and her half-deck had twelve and fourteen ports respectively, and there were thirteen or fourteen more ports “within board for murdering pieces,” as well as a good many holes for firing muskets out of the cabins. Right forward and right aft respectively she carried ten pieces of chase-ordnance.