OLD SHIPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1915, 3 August 1888, Page 31

OLD SHIPS.

A few months ago the Victory was in imminent danger; Nelson's famous fighting ship showed symptoms of senile decay ; her time-tried timbers were no longer strong enough to exclude the water that ripples caressingly against her hoary frame. The old ship was launched in 1765, and has therefore withstood the flight of time, the attack of the enemy, an the fury of the elements for more than a century. The necessary repairs have been made, and this revered specimen of an extinct system of naval architecture is good for another 100 years, provided she remain in her present position. The proud privilege of gazing upon the spot where Britannia's .hero breathed his last will be transmitted unimpaired to future generations of his admiring countrymen. The sight of such a ship tends to perpetuate the glorious memory of the daring deeds of our forefathers, which have assured to their posterity the stability of our institutions and the supremacy of our flag. What a competition there would be in order to obtain a fragment of her frame if she,were to be condemned I The smallest chip would become a treasured heirloom.

The Sovereign of the Seas, the first British threedocker, was, as a quaint old writer has it, " built to the great glory of the English nation, and not to be paralleled in the whole Christian world." Her keel was 128 ft long, or but one quarter the length of our finest Atlantic steamships. She carried 100 guns, and measured 1637 tons burden. It was deemed a happy omen for the King that her tonnage unexpectedly proved to be exactly the same as the year of her launch. Her cost was borne by the ship-money, the most notorious of all the illegal imposts of Charles I. The exaction of this tax led to the deposition and execution of the King, so that the omen was a left-handed one. The good ship saw much service against France and Holland, and was destroyed by fire, at a ripe old age, in 1696, at Chatham, where so many illustrious ships have met their fate.

The President, built 60 years ago, lies moored head and stern in the West India Docks, London. She is a drill-ship for the men of the Royal Naval Reserve ; and her inhanging wooden Walls, studded with gaping portholes, look strangely out of place among the clipper built iron and steel vessel of the present era. Half a dozen men-of-war that were built at Bombay in the infancy of the present century, and several of equal antiquity built in the home dockyards, are still afloat. Some of them possessed good sailing qualities, having regard to their bulk ; but the modern ironclad has driven them from off the seas.

The Resolute scoured the Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin. She was frozen fast in the middle of a wide waste of ice, and abandoned by her crew. The ice setting outwards from the irigid zone, bore her southward; and after a remarkable drift, she was picked up by an American whaler. The United States Government refitted and returned the derelict to Great Britain. She lay uncared for at her moorings in the Medway for several years, and was ultimately taken in dock and pulled to pieces. A suite of furniture was fashioned from her oaken timbers and presented to the President of the Republic. Small pieces of her were smuggled out of the dockyard, and many a wooden article is held dear at Chatham as a relic of the brave old discovery ship.

The duel between the Shannon and the Chesapeake (June 1, 1813) forms an interesting page in the history of the struggle between the United States and Great Britain from 1812 to 1815. The Americans had crowded the Chesapeake with inexperienced landsmen, and had made ready, it is said, a feast on shore for the crew on their return flushed with victory. The unexpected happened as usual : the American frigate became the prize of the ship of the mother-country. The Shannon also was broken up at Chatham, and parts of her hull were sold at a premium.

Sir Francis Drake's tiny ship, the Golden Hind, at a still .more remote period, came to a similar end at Deptford. A chair made out of her timbers is treasured by the university authorities at Oxford. In reference to this circumstance, Cowley has left the following felicitous epigram : Drake and his ahip caqld not have wished from fate A happier station or more blest estate ; For lo ! a 6eat of endless rest, is given To her in Oxford, and to him in Heaven. Our country could better have borne the destruction of a more costly vessel. The vandals might at least have left as a wellconstructed model of her.

Would that Captain Cook's Endeavour oould be rehabilitated ! The great circumnavigator had mastered the mysteries of his profession as a seaman in a collier brig. He ohose the Endeavour, a ship of the collier class, to place a girdle about the round world, in preference to a frigate placed at his disposal. Several of his scientific instruments are preserved to this day ; but the good ship, where is she ?

The French sent out two ships, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, soon after the return of Cook's successful expedition. They were lost with all hands among the rocky islets of the Pacific. The place at whioh they were wrecked was discovered,- yea is afterwards, by an English captain. ■ho French were unable to recover the vessels, but erected a column in Paris to the memory of the unfortunate crews, and decorated it with such parts of the ships' outfits as they were able to wrest from Neptune. The Vitoria made the first voyage round the world. Her commander was richly recompensed; and a terrestrial globe which

bore the words " Primm ciroumdedisti me '* was assigned to him as armoral bearings.' The Vitoria was drawn up on to the dry land and preserved for many years. She was probably not so well looked after as our Victory, and no part of her has escaped destruction.

Once a year the red banner of St. Mark with its golden lion waved over the heads of the doge of Venice and the principal personages of the haughty republic who thronged the decks of the Bucentaur, a two-decked highly ornamented gondola. Attended by an immense cortege of gondolas, she would leave the port and her consorts far behind. The doge, clothed in golden robes, would elevate bis hands heavenwards and cast a sapphire ring into the Adriatic, saying : " O sea 1 we espouse thee as a symbol of veritable and unending sovereignly." Republic and ship have both passed away. A mast of the Bucentaur is preserved by the authorities at Venice. The gondoliers have some small portions of her; these are bequeathed to their heirs, and serve to recall from the dim , distance the former importance of their, fatherland and the days of its glory and liberty.

Some remarkable worn-out war vessels have been sold to private firms, and broken up in order to get out the valuable copper bolts with which they were fastened together. Huge figureheads of the Queen and Goliath are affixed to the entrance of a shipknacker's yard adjacent to Vauxhall Bridge, London. They are curiosities in their way, and afford food for reflection.—" Chambers Journal."