Malcolm, James Peller: First Impressions Or Sketches from Art and Nature, Animate and Inanimate (London, 1807)

Rochester* t$
os the Admiralty do hold, by the grace of his
Majeity, places of so good credit and benefit, it
is their part therefore, being well waged and
rewarded for the same, exactly to look into tht.
sound building of the ships, and to employ thmf
care and travail as well in the Oversight thereof,
as to provide that all things else belonging to the
Navy be good and well-conditioned.
" For the srrong and true building of a ship is
not to be left barely to the fidelity os a mechani-
cal artificer (the chief end of whose work is his
own account, is his profit and gain), but same
superior ofsicer ought to have a surther regard ia
that business, if he be one such as hath mere
judgment in the building and conditioning of a
ihip, than devotion to his own ease and profit.
Moreover, if any old decayed ship be intended
to be new made, it is more fit and profitable
rather to make her a size less than she was than
bigger; for then her beams, with new-laid over-
thwart, from side to side, will serve again ; and
most of her timber, and other parts, will say well
to the building of a new ship : but if she mould
be made a size bieper, the timber of the old will
be unprofitable for that purpose. We sind by
experience that greater!: ships are leasc lerviceable,
go very deep to water, and of marvellous charge,
and fearful cumber, our channels decaying every
year;