250 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister, but the contents of
this report have never become known. It is improbable that
greater alarm could have occurred if the whole facts had been
revealed.
After Trafalgar England possessed more ships than all the
other European fleets combined. Large numbers of small armed
craft for patrolling the seas were built, but several warships were
constructed to replace those no longer fit for service. It is
surprising that in the circumstances some regard was not paid
to former experiences, but trees which had been one year growing
in the forests were, in the next, floating on the ocean. Green
plank was used which was said to have been at times taken
straight from a trunk still with leaves. The result was, as it had
always been in the history of the Navy, and great men-of-war
built at a cost of over £60,000 and consuming more than three
thousand loads of timber, rotted rapidly, being useless in two or
three years. The St. Domingo, launched in 1809, and La Rogue,
in 1811, were both in a state of premature decay in 1812. The
Rodney, launched in 1809, had scarcely put to sea when all her
fastenings became loose and she had to be brought home from
the Mediterranean and paid off. The Dublin, launched in
February, 1812, and put into commission the following August,
was sent on a cruise towards Madeira in December, from which she
returned in so bad a state that she was paid off; she was afterwards
repaired at a cost of £20,000. Similar stories are told of many
other men-of-war, not only of the fleet in being at the time of
Trafalgar, but more especially of those constructed afterwards :
Ajax, America, Foudroyant, Stirling Castle, Mulgrave, Blake,
Clarence, Regent, Royal George, Albion, Ocean, Elizabeth, Devon-
shire and many others. Layman gives an analysis of the Navy
in 1813, with the condition of each ship ; of one hundred and forty
sail of the line there were only eighty-three sea-going ships. At
the peace he states that half of the ships in the Navy were in a
rotten state ; 550 out of 1140 having been sold and broken up.
It was the Queen Charlotte that caused the general outcry. A
first-rate of no guns she was launched in 1810 and rotted so
quickly that it was necessary to rebuild her before she could
even be commissioned for sea. Her keel was laid in October,
1805. In the latter end of 1809 stoves were placed in the main
hold, magazine, bread and store-rooms, and also on the orlop