THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS OF THE DIVINE CLAUDIUS

De-commissioning a warship demanded stacks of paperwork worthy of the weight of an 18-pounder gun; reams of it from the Victualling Board as they took possession of all consumable stores, butts, kegs, and tuns of salt-beef or salt-pork, of hard ship's biscuit, weevilly or otherwise, spoiled or fresh. Salt-meat marked "Condemned" as too rancid to be eaten would, Lewrie was mortal-certain, be dumped into new kegs, to be foisted on some unwitting captain in the future. Their motto at the Victualling Board was "Waste not, want not."

Spare upper masts and yards were sent ashore to the warehouses first, then sails and cordage, and all bosuns' stores and lumber. The frigate was stripped down to her fighting tops and main, lower trunks of her masts, "to a gant-line." The magazine was carefully emptied of kegs of gunpowder, pre-made flannel cartridge bags already filled, and bales of empty bags, all meticulously indented for and counted.

Next went the artillery, the 18-pounder main guns, the lighter 12-pounder bow chasers, the 32-pounder carronades, and the quarterdeck 9-pounders, along with their truck-carriages, gun-tools, flintlock strikers, and all breeching ropes and handling tackle blocks. Heavy barges from Gun Wharf spent two days rowing back and forth to bear all the guns away, leaving Thermopylae high in the water, and her weather decks, the foc's'le, the quarterdeck, and Lewrie's great-cabins yawningly bare and empty.

By the end of the first week of December, there was no more need of crew, for there was nothing left to remove with muscle power, and no reason to keep her manned.