rushed with such rapidity in at the
port-holes that she filled and sank--Rear-Admiral Kempenfeldt, with more
than half his officers, and four hundred persons, perishing, many of
them the wives and children of the seamen and marines on board.

We are apt to consider that the uniform of the navy differed greatly
from the army; but in an order dated the 11th of January, 1783,
admirals, vice-admirals, and rear-admirals were directed to wear coats
very similar to those worn by generals, lieutenant-generals, and
major-generals respectively, in the army, with the exception of the
crown and anchor buttons.

In the month of June, 1785, his Royal Highness Prince William Henry, who
had now served his time as a midshipman, passed his examination, and was
appointed third lieutenant of the _Hebe_ frigate, of 40 guns.

In 1785 a debate arose in the House of Commons on the propriety of
repairing the old 64-gun ships, and also suffering ships of war to
remain in ordinary with the copper on their bottoms. Captain Macbride
thought that the 64-gun ships should be either broken up or sold, and
recommended in future none less than seventy-fours to be built for the
line of battle. He also pointed out the mischievous effects that might
ensue in suffering ships to be laid up with their copper on, alleging
that the copper would in time corrode the bolts; in consequence of which
the ships' bottoms might drop out. He had examined a coppered ship
under repair, and found the bolts corroded and eaten away. Ships had,
however, before this time, been fastened with copper bolts, and probably
those seen by Captain Macbride were either iron bolts cased only with
copper or composition.

The supplies granted by Parliament for the sea-service for the year 1789
amounted to 2,328,570 pounds.

On the 24th of November, 1787, the _Bounty_, of 215 tons, commanded by
Lieutenant William Bligh, sailed from Spithead, for the Pacific Ocean,
to obtain a supply of the bread-fruit tree. On the 28th of April, 1789,
some of his officers and crew mutinied, and took possession of the ship,
casting the commander and those who remained firm to him adrift in an
open boat. The hardihood and judgment he displayed in conducting his
boat's crew across the Pacific to Batavia are well known.

Many useful contrivances have been invented by inferior officers of the
navy. Among others, Mr Hill, the carpenter of the _Active_, invented a
machine for drawing bolts out of ships'