248 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
the same condition. Collingwood reported that his flagship
Venerable was in a dangerous condition with the crew "almost
"worked to death." "We began by discovering slight defects
"in the ship, and the farther we went in the examination, the
"more important they appeared, until at last it was discovered
"to be so completely rotten as to be unfit for sea. We have
"been sailing for the last six months with only a copper sheet9
"between us and eternity." While the French vessels remained
in port, always in great number, always apparently on the verge
of sailing, the British ships were left to rot on the open sea
while their crews were demoralised by inaction.
Fortunately Melville replaced St. Vincent in 1804, and though
he was in office only ten months, saved the situation, working
in conjunction with the aged Barham, who was to succeed him.
The problem was not the building of new ships, but the re-
fitting of those in reserve and those returning from the
blockading squadrons. "With a view both to our present
"exigencies, and to be able to meet future contigencies, we
"must, for some years, live on expedients. We must take
"first in hand those ships that can be repaired in the shortest
"time after they are taken in hand. We must have recourse
"to every substitute in order to spare our best timber, and
"we must be contented with less permanent repairs than would
"satisfy us in less pressing moments." Barham suggested that
the so-called Snodgrass specifications should be employed—new
planking and the strengthening of hulls by diagonal bracings.
Polish fir was used. Thirty-nine ships were fitted for sea in
the seventeen months between Melville's appointment and
Trafalgar; this was the equivalent of a third of the then
total strength. Albion states that of the twenty-seven ships at
Trafalgar only four had not received dockyard attention since
the renewal of the war in 1803. Three of them were hurriedly
fitted out and sent to Nelson only a month before Trafalgar.
During the period only five new ships were launched, three
of which had been to sea.
The duration of a ship was estimated at twenty-five to thirty
years in the seventeenth century, about twelve years from 1760
9 The sheathing of ships dates from Roman times. In Henry VI's reign a vessel sent on a
voyage of discovery is described: "They cover a piece of the keeles of the Shippe with their sheets
of leade, for they had heard that, in certain partes of the ocean, a kind of wormes is bredde which
many times pearseth and eateth through the strongest Oake that is,"