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pcated tlicir depredatory expeditions, and are said to have projected theinvasion of England in the year 1084, with a fleet consisting of nearly onethousand sail! It may be answered to this, that these very formidable andtremendous preparations, are positively affirmed to have been baffled bythe precautions taken, and the force raised, by "William to repel theattack *. But on the other hand, it has never been contended, that thisforce was any other than an army. Four years afterwards, when Robert,the eldest son of the Conqueror, attempted to dethrone his brother Rufus,he was repelled by a fleet of freebooters, to whom William afterwardsgranted certain immunities and privileges, in consideration of this service;a very convincing evidence, that England, as a nation, possessed no navyat this time. William is nevertheless reported to have equipped a numberof ships, intended to cover the invasion of Scotland, in or about the year1091; an enterprise which the destruction of his fleet, by repeated storms,rendered abortive.
The first authentic testimony of the birth of the British navy, is theinvasion of Normandy by Henry, sumamed Beauclerc, in the year 1106';and the crusading expeditions, which immediately followed, contributed,in some degree, to cherish the infant in its puling youth. Selden has giventhe event just mentioned as the sera of the first assertion on the part ofBritain to the right of what is called the dominion of the sea, and adduces,in proof, the orders given by Henry to his Butescarli, or sea officers, thatthey should take particular care no vessels from Normandy approachedthe English coast. With all possible deference to the character of so greata man, these orders cannot be considered as an establishment, or even theassertion, of the right, any more than the resolution of a person deter-
* The Danish historians assign a very different cause for the failure of this enterprise : the trea-chery of Olaus, duke of Sleswick, brother to Canute the Fourth, at that time king of Denmark, who,instead of preparing to assist his brother in the expedition, as he had promised, was secretly plotting hisdestruction.
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