After the Restoration the mantle of the Petts descended on a master shipwright of Portsmouth, who became an authoritative exponent of ship design, and to whose ability several improvements were due. “Another great step and improvement to our navy,” recorded Mr. Pepys in 1665, “put in practice by Sir Anthony Deane, was effected in the _Warspight_ and _Defiance_, which were to carry six months’ provisions, and their guns four and a half feet from the water.” In the same diary for 19th May of the following year occurs the following characteristic note: “Mr. Deane did discourse about his ship the _Rupert_, which succeeds so well, as he has got great honour by it; and I some, by recommending him. The king, duke, and every body, say it is the best ship that was ever built. And then he fell to explain to me the manner of casting the draught of water which a ship will draw, beforehand, which is a secret the king and all admire in him; and he is the first that hath come to any certainty beforehand of foretelling the draught of water of a ship, before she is launched.” The calculations used by Sir Anthony Deane to forecast the draught of a projected ship might win him applause among the philosophers; but the scoffer at theory was able to point to considerable achievements wrought by men who made no pretence of any knowledge of science. In 1668 the _Royal Charles_, 110, was launched at Deptford. “She was built,” wrote Evelyn, “by old Shish, a plain, honest carpenter, master builder of this dock, but one who can give little account of his art by discourse, and is hardly capable of reading.” The interest of Charles II in naval architecture may be gathered from a letter written by him in 1673: “I am very glad that the _Charles_ does so well; a girdling this winter, when she comes in, will make her the best ship in England: the next summer, if you try the two sloops that were built at Woolwich that have my invention in them, they will outsail any of the French sloops. Sir Samuel Morland has now another fancy about weighing anchors; and the resident of Venice has made a model also to the same purpose.”