DRY ROT IN SHIPS.
243
During the American War of Independence there were
frequent references to decayed timbers, and hulls leaking like
sieves, the strapping of hulls with cables to keep the planking
in place, and founderings, but it is difficult to decide how much
of the disaster 10 ships was due to dry rot and how much to
shortage of masts. Albion holds that there is a very evident
relation between the loss of the supply of New England masts
and the failure of several naval campaigns in this war. But when
France entered into the war in 1778 there were only thirty-five
ships of the line "reported" as ready for sea out of more than
a hundred, and Keppel on proceeding to Portsmouth to take
command of the "Western Squadron" found only "six ships
"fit to meet a seaman's eye." Efforts were made to patch
up enough of the decayed ships to form two fleets, but "many
"of them had so succumbed to dry rot that it was necessary
"to shovel away the toadstools and filth from the rotting
"planks and timbers." "Everything that could swim" was
patched up in the vain attempt to restore the two-power
standard against the combined opposing fleets, and the
worst ships in "Rotten Row" were temporarily repaired for
home service.
The Bute, an old East Indian trader, held unfit for the
Company's service, was regarded by the Admiralty Board as
fit for a man-of-war. Within a month after putting to sea she
was in a rotten state and as she could not be kept above the waves
even in fair weather it was decided to sink her. Workmen
going on board to scuttle her, one of the tars saved them
the trouble by clenching his fist, and driving it, without much
pain to his knuckles, clean through her hull.
It is not surprising that sixty-six ships of the Royal Navy
foundered during the war. It was at this time that the best
known of all founderings occurred—that of the Royal George of
100 guns, which sank with Admiral Kempenfeldt and several
hundred of her crew at Portsmouth in 1782. William Cowper,
in the poem which familiarised the event to most of us in our
schooldays says "Her timbers yet are sound and she may float
"again." The court martial minutes show, however, that her
bottom fell out when she was being "heeled over" for a slight
repair just below the water-line. The unseasoned oak timber
which had been worked into her hull during the hasty building