Contents

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1. The Jacobean and Commonwealth First Rate

2. The Pepysian Age

FIRST RATES IN THE ANGLO-DUTCH WARS

THE NAVY BOARD MODEL

3. The First Rate under the Later Stuarts

THE ROYAL WILLIAM OF 1719

4. The Era of the Establishments

5. Anson’s New Navy

THE CHANGING SHAPE OF THE BOW

6. The French Revolutionary War and the Expansion of the First Rate

THE CHANGING SHAPE OF THE STERN

7. The Caledonia’s Descendants, 1812 to 1840

8. The Transition to Steam

9. Arrangements

FITTINGS

10. Structure

11. First Rate Prizes

INDEX