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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

situated at so small a distance from each other, naturally gave birth to a sceneof warfare, almost uninterrupted, which, though it answered the purpose ofmutually diminishing that power, which, but for such a check, might havematerially tended to the disquiet of the greater part of the world, contributed,in no small degree, towards the mechanical improvement of Marine Architec-ture. The reason is so obvious, as to render it almost an insult to the humanunderstanding, to enter into any explanation of it.

Notwithstanding nautical pursuits appeared so much abandoned, consideredas a public measure, and connected with the government of the state, exceptin the instance of the Venetians and Genoese, who certainly derived from itnot only their consequence, but their political existence, yet there were by nomeans wanting a number of private adventurers, who either impressed with thedesire of acquiring glory, impelled by an enterprising spirit, the rage of ex-ploring distant realms, or uneasy under some particular restrictions laid on themby the government of their native country, equipped by mutual consent, andwithout any public authority, such armaments as their number and meansenabled them to send forth. They either entered into the service of those nationswhich thought proper to retain them, or engaged in such prasdatory expeditionsas they thought most likely to be attended with advantages best calculated torepay the hazard, and enable them to prosecute, with success, their futureviews, directed in the same line of plunder. A society of this description wascollected together in Andalusia, about the year 823 : their numbers are notspecified, but according to report, sufficed to man nearly twenty gallies ; andthe insignificance of the naval force possessed by the greater part of thosenations whose territories bordered on the Mediterranean, is most forcibly provedby the success which the desultory attacks, made by this petty armament, metwith. Although they could not be viewed in any superior light to that offreebooters, yet nations, far from inconsiderable, were content to purchaseouietude from their ravages, bv the payment of such tribute as their meansenabled them to discharge, or the rapacious tempers of those who threatenedthem with vengeance, thought proper to exact.

The pursuit of commerce, and the naturally attendant spirit of nauticalenterprise, was not long confined to the genial climate of Italy, and the shoresof the Mediterranean, but extended even into the inhospitable seas of the north.The shores of the Baltic, when the milder seasons of the year permitted therude artless vessels of those early days, navigated as they were by an uncivi-lised,