Going back to the dawn of modern times, we note that at the opening of the sixteenth century, when galley warfare reached its culmination, the constitution was threefold, bearing a superficial analogy to that which we have come to regard as normal.  There were the galeasses and heavy galleys corresponding to our battleships, light galleys corresponding to our cruisers, while the flotilla was represented by the small “frigates,” “brigantines,” and similar craft, which had no slave gang for propulsion, but were rowed by the fighting crew.  Such armed sailing ships as then existed were regarded as auxiliaries, and formed a category apart, as fireships and bomb-vessels did in the sailing period, and as mine-layers do now.  But the parallel must not be overstrained.  The distinction of function between the two classes of galleys was not so strongly marked as that between the lighter craft and the galleys; that is to say, the scientific differentiation between battleships and cruisers had not yet been so firmly developed as it was destined to become in later times, and the smaller galleys habitually took their place in the fighting line.

With the rise of the sailing vessel as the typical ship-of-war an entirely new constitution made its appearance.  The dominating classification became twofold.  It was a classification into vessels of subservient movement using sails, and vessels of free movement using oars.  It was on these lines that our true Royal Navy was first organised by Henry the Eighth, an expert who, in the science of war, was one of the most advanced masters in Europe.  In this constitution there appears even less conception than in that of the galley period of a radical distinction between battleships and cruisers.  As Henry’s fleet was originally designed, practically the whole of the battleships were sailing vessels, though it is true that when the French brought up galleys from the Mediterranean, he gave some of the smartest of them oars.  The constitution was in fact one of battleships and flotilla.  Of cruisers there were none as we understand them.  Fleet scouting was done by the “Row-barges” and newly introduced “Pinnaces” of the flotilla, while as for commerce protection, merchant vessels had usually to look after themselves, the larger ones being regularly armed for their own defence.

The influence of this twofold constitution continued long after the conditions of its origin had passed away.  In ever-lessening degree indeed it may be said to have lasted for two hundred years.  During the Dutch wars of the seventeenth century, which finally established the dominant status of the sailing warship, practically all true sailing vessels—­that is, vessels that had no auxiliary oar propulsion—­took station in the line.  The “Frigates” of that time differed not at all from the “Great Ship” in their functions, but only in their design.  By the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, the old tendency to a threefold organisation began to reassert itself, but it was not till the middle of the century that the process of development can be regarded as complete.