After the new ship had been floated out of her dock she was taken alongside a sheer-hulk. The latter was an old man-o’-war, which had been dismantled and refitted with one very high mast, strengthened with shrouds and stays to secure the sheers which served as the arm of a crane for hoisting ships’ masts in or out, and getting the yards on to the new vessel. Her sails were bent, her guns and ammunition taken aboard, and away she went for her first commission. Not one of these “wooden walls” carried any canvas above royals. They could not travel fast through the water even on a wind, for they were bulky, clumsy, and cumbrous. Their lines were not sweet, they had a huge, heavy body to drive through the water; they were slow in stays, and they were not easy to handle. They rolled so badly, that in heavy weather they sometimes rolled their masts out. With a hundred guns aboard and most of a thousand men, a three-decker was certainly an interesting sight. Her guns were arranged in rows along her decks. The lower gun-deck was little above the water-line. A 100-gun ship in Nelson’s time cost over £67,000, and these three decks ran from stem to stern, besides a forecastle and a quarter-deck, the former of which extended aft from the stem to the belfry, where the ship’s bell was suspended under a shelter. The quarter-deck extended from aft to the mainmast. There was also a poop-deck, and another deck below the lower gun-deck, called the orlop, where the cables were coiled and the sails stowed. The gun-room was on the after end of the lower gun-deck, and partly used by the gunner; but in frigates and smaller vessels, where it was below, it was used by the lieutenants as a mess-room. The ward-room was over the gun-room, where the superior officers messed and slept. [Illustration: SHEER-HULK. After the etching by E. W. COOKE.] In action the guns were run out, by means of side tackles, till their muzzles were well outside the port, so that the flash of the gun might not set the ship’s side on fire. These ports were fitted with heavy square lids. In bad weather it was impossible to open the lower-deck ports lest the sea should swamp the ship. There was a kind of shutter also, called a half-port, with a circular hole in the centre large enough to go over the muzzle of the gun, and furnished with a piece of canvas nailed round its edge to tie on the gun and prevent the water entering the port, although the gun remained run out. These were used chiefly on the main deck. Ropes were made fast to the outside of the lids attached to a tackle within, by which the port-lids could be drawn up.