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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

A stronger proof of the rapid encrease and improving state of the Englishmarine cannot be adduced, than appears from the list of the fleet employedunder the earl of Essex, on the expedition against Cadiz. The ships belongingto the royal navy were only fourteen in number, while those furnished bv themerchants, and private adventurers, amounted to eighty, many being of forceand burthen, if the number of persons they carried be admitted as evidence ofboth, little inferior to those actually forming a part of the royal navy.There are, moreover, three vessels, the Truelove, Charles, and Lion’s Whelp,belonging to the queen, which are omitted in many lists and accounts, but whichcertainly proceeded on the expedition.

The subjoined document affords a strong corroborating proof of that mode oflevy, which has been already pointed out in treating of the Venetian marine*;a number of those noble and renowned characters who acted as commanders ofcorps, voluntarily brought ships into the service, either their own property, orhired from others for the expedition. Thus did men, possessed of influ-ence, whose gallantry prompted them to seize every possible opportunity thatoffered itself, by which they could distinguish themselves, engage in the under-taking with a zeal and spirit, little short of that which animated the cru-saders, during what are called the holy wars.

It may be inferred, though contrary to the opinion entertained by many dis-cerning enquirers, from several circumstances which appear on the face of theaccount annexed, that the vessels belonging to private adventurers were engagedmerely as transports, for the conveyance of the troops, and were protected bythe ships belonging to the royal navy. It follows of course, that the earl ofSussex was not commander of the Primrose, nor Sir Christopher Blunt, IToratioVere, Sir Matthew Morgan, and many others, captains of those ships againstwhich their names are severally placed, but merely of the soldiers embarked onboard them. It is certainly most probable this is the real state of the case, butit affects not, in the smallest degree, the marine consequence of the country,for it is very evident its shipping had, within the short space of eighteen years,encreased so rapidly, as to excite the astonishment of succeeding ages; and didnot such incontrovertible proofs of the fact exist, might cause even theirdisbelief.

* Vol. II. page 79.

BIBL.