REVIEWS The Line of Battle; The Sailing Warship, 1650-1840, ed ited by Robe rt Gardiner (Conway Maritime Press Ltd, London UK, 1992, 208 pp, illus, biblio, gloss, index; ÂŁ28 hb) The First Frigates; Nine-pounder and Twelve-pounder Frigates, 1748-1815, by Robert Gardiner (Conway Maritime Press Ltd. , London UK, 1992, 127 pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, avail. Phoenix Publications, Cedarburg WI; $43.95 hb ) The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship, 1650- 1840 com es as Robe rt Gardiner's editori al swan song at the Conway Maritime Press of Greenwich, London, England. As editori al director, Gardiner was in strumental in leading Conway into the arena of speciali zing in ships' histories. Among hi s credits a re the founding of the journal Warship, as we ll as the publisher's highl y successfu l "A natomy of a Ship" series. He also had considerable influence on Conway's new twelve-vo lume epcyclopedia of ships' histories (The Line of Battle is the second volume produced under that regis). The ambiti ous pl ann ing for this comprehensive work includes the publicatio n of fo ur volumes per year through 1994. This new book, edited by Gardiner with the able assistance of Brian Lavery, traces the development of the British sailing warship during the period 1650-1840. Despite its title, which suggests ships of the line, The Line of Battle addresses a ll types down to and including supporting craft. It covers all aspects of the sai ling warship from design and construction through rigging, fitting, guns, decoration, seamanship and naval tactics. For the American naval historian there are some problems with the tex t. Sir Robert Seppings, arguably the most innovati ve of the Admiralty Surveyors, is cred ited with the invention of di agona l bracing, "first tried on the 74-gun Tremendous in 1810, it was used on a few more ships before the end of the wars with France in 1815." The introduction of the type of di ago nal bracing Seppings employed first appeared in the 17971800 United States Navy frigates de sig ned by Joshua Humphrey s. T he American naval architect supported this diagonal bracing with a system of di agonal riders extending from the keelson to the underside of the orlop deck. Seppings picked up this system and ran with it, in battleships which did away with conventi onal framing , replacing the frames with heavy di agonals. For a century and a half, the weakest SEA HISTORY 65 , SPRING 1993
partofa sailing warship was its flat stern. Seppings in troduced the structurall y stronger rounded stern into line of battle ships with HMS Asia of 1824, although he experimented with frigates and sloops before then. American naval constructor William Doughty fo llowed Seppings 's lead in hi s " River C lass" fri gates of the early 1820s. Doughty introduced the next advance in warship naval architecture in 1823, when he completed the drafts for an elliptical stern : " I herewith send to the Office of the Commissioners of the Navy, a plan of the Ell iptic stern for the Frigate bui lding in New York [Savannah] ." Documentation fo r thi s ex ists in the correspondence between Doughty and the Board of Navy Commissioners. Thi s bit of Anglo-American carping aside, The Line ofBattle largely ac hieves its encyclopedic objective, and wi ll become a val uable reference source for all those who maintain an interest in the days of "wooden walls." Gardiner puts down hi s editor's red pen to become the author of The First Frigates: Nine-pounder and Twelvepounder Frigates, 1748-1815 , hi s first book. Ably demonstrating hi s know ledge of " the eyes of the fl eet," he guides the reader from the evolution of the frigate silhouette in the mid-18th century to the ultimate stage of development for the 9-pounder and 12-pounder versions in 18 15. It comes as no surpri se, in light of Gardiner's editorial background, that the ill ustration s and tab les far outweigh the prose content of The First Frigates. Thi s, of co urse, is the strength of the book. All of the appropriate plans from the Admira lty Draught Collection of the Nationa l Maritime M useum have been reproduced, as well as photographic ill ustrations from that institution 's vast ship model collection, many of which have not been on public di splay for decades. The author errs by assuming too much knowledge on the part of his readers, which may li mit the audience for this beautifu lly prod uced volume. For examp le, there is no defi nition of a frigate to be fo und , a rather curio us oversight. Gardiner, nevertheless, has provided an inv aluable working too l for the naval hi storian, ship modeler and mari ti me antiquarian . W . M. P. DUNNE, PH .D. Long Island University Southampton, New York
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