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IIISTOIRY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

kept his seat, though thee water began to rise rapidly round him. Ills cour-tiers, on their wishing to) retire, were restrained by the command of the king,who immediately pretenoded to command the retirement of the waves. Theroyal order producing no> effect, he immediately turned round to his guests, andexclaimed, ‘ Behold the) want of respect which the sea displays towards itsmaster. Learn henceforrward, that he who holds in his hands the extremitiesof the earth, can alone controul the elements, and prescribe bounds to thetide.’

Although this politic porince was under no necessity of collecting any parti-cular fleet or armament for the express purpose of defending his own domi-nions, or assailing those cof his neighbours, yet he constantly maintained a suffi-cient marine for the prottection of the coasts, and the preservation of his sub-jects from those depredatiions which they, but for that precaution, might havesustained from the desurltory expeditions of freebooters and pirates. -Thisprince died in the year 10035, after a reign of eighteen years, during which thekingdom enjoyed a state of peace and public tranquillity, to which it had beenlong a stranger, perhaps ffor centuries. The short and uninteresting reign ofHarold, surnamed Haretfoot, his successor, which continued only four years,is not known to have beeen productive of any naval expedition, even of the•most limited kind. Harcdicanute, his brother, who ascended the throne imme-diately on the death of IHarold, displayed, even before he obtained possessionof the crown, a temper widely differing from, and much more active, thanthat of his predecessor. Considering himself illegally deprived, as certainlywas the case, of his inherritance through the nomination of Harold, as successorto Canute, an injustice tlhe latter had been induced to commit in consequenceof the minority of Hardiceanute, he resolved to attempt the recovery of his rightby force, and accordingly drew together in Denmark a fleet consisting ofsixty vessels, with whicffi he was preparing to assert his pretensions, whenthe intelligence of his brrother’s death rendered the further prosecution of hisdesign unnecessary. Thte character of this prince fell infinitely short of thatwhich his royal father lhad acquired ; for after having, in pretended ven-geance for the murder of' his brother Alfred, caused the body of the deceasedHarold to be dug up, and! thrown into the.Thames, he suffered himself to.bebribed by earl Godwin, who had been the actual cause of that bloody deedbeing perpetrated, into am acknowledgement of the earl’s innocence, by thepresent of a galley, sumiptuously gilt, and rowed by fourscore men, .each of

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