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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

cepting the Venetians themselves. If the successes were not crowned withthe most splendid advantages, the services were faithful, and the friendship notinauspicious. In conjunction with the fleet of Venice, Arragon had the gloryof obtaining one of the most splendid victories over the Genoese that standsrecorded in history: the latter having had eight thousand of her best seamenand officers killed, among whom were a considerable number of the principalnobility, together with thirty-three gallies, and upwards of three thousand mentaken prisoners; while the loss on the part of the victors amounted to no morethan three hundred and fifty men killed, with two thousand wounded. In1353, the navy of this people had received the most extraordinary augmenta-tion, one armament alone, collected for the purpose of invading the island ofSardinia, having consisted of twenty-one capital ships, one hundred gallies, anda number of transports sufficient for the conveyance of fifteen hundred horse,and ten thousand foot. In fine, without displaying any ostentation of its con-sequence and might, the Arragonian navy was respected and feared. Withoutoppressing or even threatening the neighbouring states, it maintained its ownindependance ; and although the extent to which it became, without any am-bitious views, augmented in the course of the fourteenth century, would havewarranted, in a nation possessing different sentiments, a claim or competitionin the commercial advantages which were almost entirely engrossed by theGenoese and Venetians ; yet the people rested patiently contented with theinternal productions and treasures peculiar to their own country, withoutcoveting those of others, or deluging the sea with blood, in the precarioushope of extending their transmarine dominion.

The inhabitants of Castile were far more confined in their nautical pur-suits. The first mention made of any naval power possessed by them is in theyear 1114, when the archbishop of Compostella fitted out some gallies, whichappear to have been his own private property, against the Moorish pirates.Nothing farther is said of the Castilian navy till the middle of the thirteenthcentury, when Don Ferdinand formed the sudden resolution of erecting himselfinto a maritime potentate, for the purpose of rendering himself more formidableto the Moors, with whom he was then at war. A foreigner of note and repu-tation, as appears from his name, an Italian named Raymond Boniface, wasboth the builder and the admiral. The armament consisted entirely of ships,of which thirteen were of the first rate or dimensions then in use, exclusive ofseveral inferior in consequence. The siege of Seville was entered upon, and

the