HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE

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Spain was reduced to so humble a state, even in respect to the means of hiring,or otherwise providing any auxiliary force, that might assist her in carryingon the war, that the duke of Lerma, her minister, notwithstanding theunpopularity attending such a measure, found himself compelled to sacrificealmost his own personal safety, and consent to a truce, negociated under themediation of the kings of France and England, because his country was nolonger in a situation to continue the contest.

How were these mighty, these imperious people fallen; that the navy of thatnation, which little more than twenty years before had struck terror into themost powerful states, from the mere apprehension of the mischief it was capableof effecting, should have sunk into such an abyss as to be incapable of effectinganv farther hostility against a petty district, whose inhabitants were affectedlystyled rebels and traitors. In 1613, indeed, the mighty force collected by theTurks, added to the doubt entertained of their intention against whom it wasintended to act, caused some exertions to be made by the Spanish government,and a fleet, far from contemptible, was put into a state of preparation. The stormquickly passing over, the country relapsed into its pristine state of torpidity ;for except an inconsiderable enterprize against the coast of Barbary, no servicematerial enough to demand the smallest notice, appears to have been effectedby it.

As a striking proof of that mania which had so violently seized this luxuriousand ostentatious court, a greater sum was most ridiculously expended in theyear 1618, on the occasion of the public entry made by the king into Lisbon,than would have been sufficient to have maintained the navy of the state, on amost respectable, and even formidable footing, for the space of six years. Inshort, though both the government and the people had been so completely en-snared by the vice of avarice, that, in the first paroxysms of their disorder, everyconsideration was sacrificed to secure, by all possible means, the possession ofthat wealth, which, it may truly be said, they had unfortunately become possessedof. As soon as those subsided, the predilection for a military life, whichhad before raged in that country more violently, perhaps, than in any other inthe universe, resumed its influence: their treasures, derived from the Americancontinent, were consumed, not as policy ought to have suggested, to the pro-tection of that mine of wealth, or even to the insurance of its safe passage toEurope, but in the equipment of armies, whose operations added neither to thepower, the honour, nor the advantage of the country which supported them.

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