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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

so well rigged, stopped, and pitched, that it was found cannon proof; and asthe mariners said, if it had been succoured, it might always have saved itself,but for this accident.”

As a preservative to the exterior from fire, some authors have been extrava-gant and credulous enough to report, that smearing the sides of the vessel withmelted glue, was no unfrequent practice; and that it was also customary tokeep a quantity of water, in which allum had been dissolved, always ready toextinguish any conflagration. The latter expedient is probable enough to havebeen true; the first was to a certainty impracticable ; but the bare mentionof such precautions and remedies sufficiently proves the experience of the evil theywere intended to remove, and of course the existence of the evil itself. Onone hand, the apprehension of the fatal effects gave birth to the utmost exertionthe human mind was capable of, in the hope of palliating them, and the know-lege of their horrid utility urged, on the other, the fertile ingenuity of the war-rior and artificer, to bring them into the most improved use, in order to rendertheir effects, if possible, more certain and more dreadful.

As foreigners, and in particular the Spaniards, appeared to consider the mag-nitude of their vessels a grand and essential preliminary to their perfection, sowere the number of persons, by a natural consequence, required to navigatethem much greater than was at the same time employed in English vessels ofthe same force, that is to say, carrying the same number of guns. But thissupposed pre-eminence proved no preservative from those accidents and perilsto which all shipping, in every quarter of the known world, is liable ; nor isthere any reason to believe, that the’ much boasted skill of the Mediterraneannavigators, at that time of day, enabled them to exercise their profession withmuch smaller risk than their less informed cotemporaries.

The Venetians, according to Peter Justinian, built a carrack, or galleon, ofsuch magnitude, as to be deemed one of the wonders of the world, though theservice for which it was intended was not more consequential than that of aguar da costa , “ to bridle,” as is the expression of the author, “ the depredations ofpirates and sea-rovers.” So little attention had been paid to those principles,which ought never to be departed from in Marine Architecture, inasmuch asnothing short of the punctual observance of them can render a vessel seaworthy, that owing, according to the phrase then used, “ to her being ill builtby him that was her wright, a sudden gust of wind overset her, as she lay atanchor not far distant from the city.” The value of her ordnance and stores

caused