HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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The unexpected and almost miraculous success which attended the memo-rable enterprise of Drake, the confidence with which it inspired the whole nation,the proud consciousness which it infused into every breast, of an habitual supe-riority, and, above all, the general persuasion of the certainty of that contest, whichappeared to most persons inevitable, with respect to Spain, all contributed tostimulate and augment those public and private exertions, without the existenceof which, the event of impending war might have been at least doubtful, andnot impossibly fatal. The genius and speculating spirit of the merchants beingonce roused, the flame of enterprise seized, with a rapidity not to be quenched,or even checked, the minds of all who were within its sphere of influence. Theshipping of the country, the property of private individuals, was augmentedwith an eagerness, which disinterested beholders might almost have believedrather the effect of some supernatural agency, than of the so late roused energy oftheir once torpid fellow subjects. The ardour was not confined to the mereaugmentation of the number of vessels, but to their general improvement, aswell in size or burthen, as in the mode of construction. So rapid and so bene-ficial were its effects, that although it is reported, there were in 1578 onlyone hundred and thirty five vessels in the whole kingdom, which were of morethan one hundred tons burthen, and less than seven hundred others, exceedingforty, yet, after the short space of ten years, it appears, on that case of nationalemergency, which then took place, that one hundred and sixty-three vesselswere brought forward by their owners for the public service, eighty-three ofwhich were of more than one hundred tons burthen each.

The queen and her ministers were also on their part equally alert; the prospectof public affairs growing rather serious, an enquiry was made in 1583 as tothe number of persons who had ever been used to a seafaring way of life throughoutthe whole kingdom. The return stands as a second proof of that steady andconstant acquisition of encreasing naval strength, which the enemy, fatally forthemselves, doubted the existence of, till they felt its weight.

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