With living colours give my verse to glow: The sad memorial of a tale of woe!

The admirals of his majesty's fleet are classed into three squadrons, viz. the red, the white, and the blue.

Hence a ship is said to head the sea, when her course is opposed to the setting or direction of the surges.

A long sea implies an uniform and steady motion of long and extensive waves; on the contrary, a short sea is when they run irregularly, broken, and interrupted; so as frequently to burst over a vessel's side or quarter.

In the time of battle the hammocs, together with their bedding, are all firmly corded, and fixed in the nettings on the quarter-deck, or whereever the men are too much exposed to the view or fire of the enemy.

Of whatsoever number a fleet of ships of war is composed, it is usually divided into three squadrons; and these, if numerous, are again separated into divisions.

The head of a ship however has not always an immediate relation to her name, at least in the British navy.