The hull below this was painted white. The ship's sides inboard were usually coloured red, in order, the story goes, that the crew should not be affected by the sight of blood splashes in action. The gun-carriages were often the same colour. The beak-head had disappeared, and the stem curved up at a somewhat abrupt angle, finishing off with a big figure-head, as often as not a lion. As the century went on it was found that not only were the French building better ships than our own, but the Spaniards also. Our ships might possibly have had thicker sides, as claimed by the old writer already quoted, but towards the middle of the century there were great complaints of their structural weakness, and in 1746 the first of an improved and stronger type was taken in hand. This was the _Royal George_, memorable especially from her tragic end at Spithead, where she capsized and went down, taking 900 men, women, and children with her. In 1765 Nelson's _Victory_--perhaps the most famous ship in history--was built. Thenceforward our battleships were classified by the number of guns they carried. Thus the _Victory_ and sister ships carried 100 guns. Then came 90-gun ships, 80-gun ships, "74's", "64's", and 50-gun ships. As time went on there was naturally a slight increase in size in the newer ships, but they were not altered in type. Thus the _Hibernia_ of 1795 was of 2508 tons displacement, as against the 1921 tons of the _Victory_, and mounted ten more guns. Perhaps the finest sailing three-decker ever built was the _Queen_, begun in 1833 and launched in 1839. This ship had a displacement of 4476 tons, yet a picture of her would almost pass muster for the _Victory_. The _Duke of Wellington_ was built as a sailing-ship, but fitted with engines before her launch in 1852, and was very much the same to look at, except that her stern was more rounded and had two or three projecting balconies or "stern-walks". The _Duke_ brings us to the end of the epoch of wooden line-of-battle ships. Iron ships protected with armour took their place, but these will be dealt with in another chapter. The external colouring of our men-of-war remained much the same up to the battle of Trafalgar, though the carving and gilding grew gradually less. At the Nile in 1797 there were ships of all sorts of colouring. Thus the _Audacious_ had plain yellow sides, the _Zealous_ red sides with yellow stripes. Most, however, were yellow, with different numbers of narrow black stripes. This yellow and black developed into what was known as "Nelson Mode"--yellow bands on the lines of the gun-ports, with black bands between. It is this style with which we are most familiar, on account of the many paintings and engravings of men-of-war in action at that and more recent periods; for, except that later on the yellow was changed to white, the fashion lasted till the advent of the ironclads.