HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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After the assassination of the duke in 1628, the earl of Lindsey was indeedappointed admiral and commander in chief of the fleet; but the civil directionand superintendence of the navy, which had till then been almost inseparablyannexed to the office of lord high admiral, was vested in Sir William Russel,who held the office ,of treasurer to the navy, Sir Guildford Slingsby, comptroller,Sir Thomas Ailesbury, surveyor, and Mr. Fleming, clerk of the acts. It ingreat measure became absolutely necessary, about this time, that more thanordinary attention should be paid to the state of the marine. The ambitioustemper of Richlieu, uneasy at the growing power and consequence of Britain,while France, on the other hand, had sunk to almost the lowest pitch of insignifi-cance as a naval power, employed every secret engine, which his intriguing tem-per well knew how to bring forward into action, to the best advantage, in thehope of crushing a rival whom he feared, and a competitor whose superior rankhe viewed with the keenest envy. Among other attempts made by him was thatof alarming the Dutch, a people who might with great propriety be called con-stitutionally jealous of every potentate on earth who possessed a single vessel.Unequal, however, to the task of an open attack, or at least too timid to risk theevent of it, they essayed to open the campaign through the milder medium of apaper controversy. The renowned Grotius became their champion ; and, to dothat justice to his great abilities, which it were most uncandid not to admit, heacquitted himself in a manner that must, long as the work itself shall endure, dohim the highest honour. The celebrated treatise written by him, entitled, theMare Liberum, in which he endeavoured to prove the futility of an exclusiveclaim to dominion over any part of the ocean, was answered on the part of Bri-tain, though it must be confessed, with far inferior weight of argument, by thqlearned Selden, in his Mare Clausum ; but as it was very prudently concluded,these hitherto innocent and civil bickerings were but the forerunners of gomeserious warfare, so did the king, on his part, exert himself to the utmost to provideagainst the worst events that might happen. A variety of prudent measures wereadopted, among which was that, not the least in consequence, as well as use, of re-straining shipwrights, or any other artificers connected with the naval branch,from passing beyond the seas, and entering into the service of foreign potentates.

The restless spirit of the French minister, added to the envious jealousy ofthe Dutch, tending to render the prospect of public affairs daily more alarming,in the year 16^5, Charles unfortunately resolved on adopting that method ofreinforcing his fleet which had, in form er reigns, been productive, in cases of

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