HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE

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of 700 tons burthen, together with the Sovereign of the Seas, which surmountedall the rest, make no fewer than 18 vessels rebuilt or added to the royal navyduring the unquiet reign of this sovereign.

Considerable improvement appears to have been made at this time, since theearly part of the preceding reign, in the method of constructing or puttingvessels together, as well as in the selection of the materials used for that pur-pose; for though the Royal Prince, launched in the year 1610, was consideredas the nonpareil of the time, and never appears to have been employed on anyoccasion that could materially shake or injure it, it was nevertheless judgedincapable of farther service very soon after the accession of king Charles, aperiod scarce exceeding fifteen years; while, on the other hand, the Sovereignof the Seas, though frequently engaged in the most injurious occupations, con-tinued till long after the revolution (no less a period than nearly sixty years) tobe considered as fit for any services the exigencies of the state might require.

The improvements so rapidly introduced into the marine of Britain, duringthe two preceding reigns, appeared, as it were, to forebode that subsequentdegree of perfection in the art of ship-building, which a longer attention to thescience, and the more enlarged study of it, have enabled her artists to acquire.Perhaps no period of equal duration was ever productive of so great and so ad-vantageous a change. The rude mishapen floating fabrics, which at the conclu-sion of the preceding century had caused the mighty power of Spain to tremble,<and might consequently be said, without arrogance, to have been the arbiters ofall coeval maritime disputes, became almost instantaneously exchanged for theintermediate and far more graceful fashion of construction adopted in the RoyalPrince. This ship also in her turn sinks in estimation before the still higherdegree of improvement to which the system of Naval Architecture was broughtwhen the Sovereign of the Seas was builr. The high, the enormously toweringpoop, and no less extravagantly formed forecastle, which only forty years earlierhad served but little other purpose than to augment the dangers naturally atten-dant on the sea service, gradually gave wav to that more reasonable form andfashion, which Phineas Pett, who was at that time the chief marine archi-tect in the kingdom, very wisely introduced.

Could the shades of Howard, of Drake, and of Frobisher, have risen fromtheir tombs, and beheld the sudden conversion, though they might have readilyconfessed the wisdom and propriety of the alteration, they would have beenlittle inclined to believe, that the new object presented to their eyes was a

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