encircled by gold wreaths along the ship's sides, are distinctive marks of
this period.

A vessel of this kind was ship-rigged, about 88 feet long by 24 feet beam;
the depth of her hold, in which to store her twenty months' provisions (a
marvellously large quantity as stores were then carried), was about 11
feet, and her draught of water when loaded about 12 feet aft. She had one
deck and a poop and forecastle, the former extending from either end of
the ship to the waist. A good deal of superfluous ornament had by this
time been done away with, although there was plenty of it so late as 1689.
Charnock describes a man-of-war of that date. After the Restoration, ships
grew apace in grandeur in and out. Inboard they were painted a dull red
(this was, it is said, so that in fighting the blood of the wounded should
not show), outside blue and gilded in the upper parts, then yellow, and
last black to the water-line, with white bottoms. Copper sheathing had not
come into use, and ships' bottoms were treated with tallow, which was made
to adhere by being laid on between nails which studded the bottom.

The pitching of the vessels imperilled the masts of these somewhat cranky
ships of 1689, says a writer of about Dampier's time, who also tells us
that ships then had awnings, and that "glass lanthorns were worthier best
made of crystal horn; lanthorns were worthier than isinglass."

The sails were the usual courses: big topsails and topgallantsails,
staysails, and topmastsails, with a spritsail and a lateen-mizen; the
spanker and jib were not yet, but the sprit-topsail had just gone out. The
ship when rigged and fitted ready for sea probably cost King William's
Admiralty about £10,000. But the _Roebuck_ was pretty well worn out when
Dampier was given the command of her, as he tells us when relating her
subsequent loss.