HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

273

quarter, at the head of a fleet, consisting of three hundred sail. The com-bined armaments entered the Humber, and disembarked their forces. After a tri-vial success, which they experienced in the defeat of the earls of Mercia andNorthumberland, who met them with some troops hastily drawn together, andextremely ill disciplined, they were encountered by Harold in person, whoafter an obstinate contest, concluded by the deaths both of Tosti and Halfager,totally defeated them. Nor did the success of the victor end with the ruinof the invading army, for the whole of the Norwegian fleet fell also into hishands; and he had the generosity to permit prince Olave, son to Halfager,to depart free of ransom, with twenty of the vessels, which he had so latelycaptured. . . <

Ere the rejoicings, however, for this unqualified, though as the event proved,this insufficient success had subsided, Harold received the alarming intelligencethat William had made good his landing at Pevensey, in Sussex. The num-bers of the fleet which conveyed him to his conquest, was almost beyondprecedent, immense, for it is said to have contained not less than three thou-sand vessels. If so, their dimensions must have been contemptible in the ex-treme, considered as ships intended solely for the purposes of war, since thewhole of the force employed by William in this enterprize, consisted of nomore than sixty thousand men, amounting to only twenty for each vessel.Their individual insignificance was, however, a matter of very immaterialmoment. Harold had no war gallies to encounter them on their passage,and the wary Norman knew perfectly well that as the conveyance of hissoldiers was an unopposed service which his unarmed vessels could render him,the collection of gallies calculated to defend them, would have been an uselessexpenditure both of time and treasure. Harold, on this occasion, committeda very great oversight, either from the contempt in which he held the militaryprowess of his adversaries, or his want of reliance on the nautical exertions ofhis subjects. He was in possession of a naval force, which, speaking by com-parison with cotemporary fleets, was far from contemptible. It had been keptin a constant state of equipment during the whole summer, and was employedin cruising off the Isle of Wight, till on the propagation of an idle rumour, thatduke William, discouraged by the contrary winds, and other adverse circum-stances, had resolved to abandon his design, 1 Iarold ordered it to return intoport. The Normans, deriving fresh vigour, in all probability, from that cir-\ ol. I. N n cumstance,