ships-of-the-line. War experience was eliminating small battleships, and
therewith it called for a type intermediate between battleships and
cruisers, with whose functions we shall have to deal directly. In practice
these units soon formed a rate by themselves, into which, by the same
tendency, 60-gun ships were destined to sink half a century later.

But most pregnant of all Anson's reforms was the introduction of the true
cruiser, no longer a small battleship, but a vessel specialised for its
logical functions, and distinct in design both from the battle rates and
the flotilla. Both 40-gun and 20-gun types were abolished, and in their
place appear two cruiser rates, and the fifth consisting of 32-gun true
frigates, and the sixth of 28-gun frigates, both completely divorced from
any battle function. Finally, after a very distinct gap, came the unrated
sloops and smaller craft, which formed the flotilla for coastwise and
inshore work, despatch service, and kindred duties.

The reforms of the great First Lord amounted in fact to a clearly
apprehended threefold constitution, in which the various groups were
frankly specialised in accordance with the functions each was expected to
perform. Specialisation, it will be observed, is the note of the process of
development. We have no longer an endeavour to adapt the fleet to its
multifarious duties by multiplying a comparatively weak nature of
fighting-ship, which could act in the line and yet be had in sufficient
numbers to protect commerce, but which was not well fitted for either
service. Instead we note a definite recognition of the principle that
battleships should be as powerful as possible, and that in order to permit
of their due development they must be relieved of their cruising functions
by a class of vessel specially adapted for the purpose. The question we
have to consider is, was this specialisation, which has asserted itself
down to our own times, in the true line of development? Was it, in fact, a