ABSTRACT

Few terms are more confusing to the student of early eighteenth century shipbuilding than 'rebuilding'. Rebuilding had a long history, dating back at least to the sixteenth century. Often contemporaries have differed about the definition of rebuilding almost as much as modern historians, and in the early 1690's it almost became a matter of political controversy. The rebuild of the Resolution occurred at a particularly crucial time in the history of rebuilding. The War of the League of Augsburg had ended in 1697, but the King and most of his ministers were aware that this was not the end of the matter, and that another war was likely to follow. Rebuilding was often used as a means of modernizing the shape and size of a ship, and this was often done, particularly to the first and second rates, around the turn of the century.