An immense difference between that day and this was in the motive power which then and for two and a half generations later consisted of lofty wooden masts, reaching skyward in the greater ships about 200 feet, crossed by “yards,” the larger of which were about 100 feet long, the former supported by a great mass of rigging known as shrouds and stays, the latter moved by “braces” and the sails worked by a maze of running rigging. All this, of course, was subject to being shot away, and ships were thus frequently completely dismasted or disabled in action. The same result was often, too, produced by a gale of wind, it being no uncommon thing for a fleet to be thus completely incapacitated for the continuance of a voyage. Weeks or fortnights were spent in a voyage now done in days. Of certainty as to time of reaching port, there was none. And amid all there was the danger from enemies, legal or piratical, for the world was only slowly ridding itself of the latter; and from the inherent dangers of the sea itself to the clumsy ships which slowly worked their way across it. How great these last were, through the ignorance at that time of the law of storms, may be known by the fate of a great fleet which in 1782 left the West Indies under Admiral Graves, with ten line-of-battle ships convoying nearly a hundred merchantmen. Among the former were six of the prizes taken in Rodney’s great naval battle of April 12, 1782. Caught in a fierce gale southeast of Nova Scotia, five of the battleships foundered with nearly all on board. One of those which went down with every soul was the _Ville de Paris_, which had been the flagship of the unfortunate Count de Grasse. The total loss of men was estimated at 3,500. Such was the setting of the period which saw the birth of the first American navy, which was to have an existence of but eight short years, to be succeeded, however, nine years after (1794) by the modest beginnings which have grown into the great fleet of to-day, and whose history is one of uninterrupted success and honor. CHAPTER II