masts and squarest canvas of any of England's gun-ships. She had just
returned from Spithead, where there were twenty or thirty ships of war,
called a fleet, lying under command of Lord Howe. It was on the 29th of
August, 1782. She was lying off Portsmouth; her decks had been washed
the day before, and the carpenter discovered that the pipes which
admitted water to cleanse the ship was worn out, and must be replaced.
This pipe being three feet under the water, it was needful to heel, or
lay the ship a little on one side. To do this, the heavy guns on the
larboard side were run out of the port-holes (those window-like openings
which you see in the side of the vessel) as far as they would go, and
the guns on the starboard side were drawn up and secured in the middle
of the deck; this brought the sills of the port-holes on the lowest side
nearly even with the water.

[Illustration: SINKING OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.]

Just as the crew had finished breakfast, a vessel called the Lark came
on the low side of the ship to unship a cargo of rum; the casks were put
on board on that side, and this additional weight, together with that of
the men employed in unloading, caused the ship to heel still more on one
side; every wave of the sea now washed in at her port-holes, and thus
she had soon so great a weight of water in her hold, that slowly and
almost imperceptibly she sank still further down on her side. Twice, the
carpenter, seeing the danger, went on board to ask the officer on duty
to order the ship to be righted; and if he had not been a proud and
angry man, who would not acknowledge himself to be in the wrong, all
might yet have been well.

The plumbers had almost finished their work, when a sudden breeze blew
on the raised side of the ship, forced her still further down, and the