HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

1 75

confidence in the superior magnitude or force of their ships. The tempestuousweather* so frequent in the northern latitudes, and the shallow entrance whichthe ports of Holland, Sweden, and Denmark, afforded to shipping, appearedto dictate the extent to which nature intended they should carry science in thatrespect, and the irrevocable edict that her will should not be transgressed.As the ambition of the United Provinces, who were at first modestly contentwith the power of merely defending themselves, and that of the northernpotentates, no longer satisfied with the ability of keeping each other in checkonly, began at last to expand, and prompted them, of course, to the con-struction of vessels, superior in dimensions to those which they at first pos-sessed : ingenuity became necessary to obviate the difficulties, and overcome theobstacles, which nature, unkindly, as they respectively thought, had thrown inthe w'ay of its gratification. From this situation of things, in which natureand politics were at variance, arose the construction of vessels calculated tocarry, with a proportionate crew, a superior number of guns ; while from theirbreadth, together with the flatness of what is called their floors, they pos-sessed that consequent shallow draught of water, which for some time dis-tinguished the ships belonging to the United Provinces from those of almostevery other state. Nothing being more prevalent than fashion, the same ideasextended themselves among the naval architects of the still more northernpowers : so strongly did they take root, that, in particular classes of commercialvessels, such as the bilander, the dogger, the galliot, and the schoot, the differ-ence between those built by them, the Hollanders, or any other people inhabitingthe Seven United Provinces, is still so trifling, that the most critical judge hasscarcely the power of distinguishing one from the other. As to vessels of war,the form and varied fashion of them appears to have been confined to particularnations. The Spaniards, who maintained the pre-eminence among the southernpotentates, as before observed, extended their burthen to two thousand tons,some of them mounting ninety guns ; while in the English navy, as will here-after be seen, there w'as only one ship, during the same period, W'hich reachedfourteen hundred tons, the Prince, of sixty-four guns. The largest of the Dutchships w'ere but of one thousand tons burthen, carrying sixty guns ; the Danishfirst rates were nine hundred tons, and mounted fifty guns ; the Swedish, eighthundred tons, and forty guns. From the best information now to be procured,which, to confess the truth, is collected from rather a vague species of evirdence, the following table w ill shew the dimensions w'hich appear to , have been

Z 2 adopted