HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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into between them was obligatory between the different contracting parties,which mutually engaged to support and improve the commerce of each other.The city of Bremen suggested the first plan of this society about the year 1164.Several ports situated in Livonia entered with pleasure and avidity into thescheme, but the names and numbers of them are uncertain. It afterwards,however, encreased so rapidly, as to comprehend fourscore trading towns ;a confederacy which made sovereigns tremble on their throne, and caused theparties in it, for a considerable number of years, or it might not be improperlysaid, ases, to engross at least the Atlantic commerce of the world, and own norivals in any other quarter of it, except the republics of Genoa, and of Venice.Their successes against the king of Denmark have just been noticed: in aftertimes their friendship was every where courted; and their vessels, which inmagnitude frequently surpassed those of almost every country in the world,were employed in the service of the most powerful nations. Their policy taughtthem, however, to be content with the civil advantages their unmilitary pursuitsafforded them, and they appeared, on all occasions, averse to warfare, exceptwhere the absolute invasion of their property, or what they considered theirrights, seemed to render such violence, done to their inclination, necessary totheir preservation. Steadily pursuing this system, they were not engaged inany serious contest with foreign powers, from the time they first acquired con-sequence, till after the middle of the fourteenth century. The king of Den-mark (Valdemar the Third) having committed some acts of violence on theproperty of the merchants, a general clamour for revenge spread like lighteningthrough all the towns which were members of the confederacy. The firstmeasure taken on the occasion, was that generally customary in all similarcases, the effects of all the Danes residing amongst them were confiscated, aseizure quickly followed by a formal declaration of war.

It is not a little surprising, that commercial states, particularly republics,rarely become involved in public disputes that they do not, by some means ofother, contrive to draw over to their party, as active supporters, many of thesovereigns and princes whose territories are contiguous. So did the HanseTowns in the war with Valdemar. The king of Norway, together with thedukes of Holstein and Mecklenburg, and many other princes, were not onlytheir declared partizans and friends, but even condescended to become com -manders of their fleets. Lubec, which had long been considered as the head orchief of the league, fitted out an entire armament at its own charge, which

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