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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

transferred from Sir John Pennington to the Earl of Warwick, one of the mostzealous supporters the republican party boasted of; so that the whole of theroyal navy, one ship excepted, which was called the Providence, and was thenabroad, passed into the power of those who, soon after that time, appeared inopen arms against their sovereign.

It were immaterial to enter into any particular detail of the different trans-actions which took place during the time the parliament held this power com-pletely in its own hands: but though it appears certain, that notwithstanding thedistracted state of the nation, considerable addition was attempted to be madeto it, yet the only events of consequence effected by it were the prevention ofmany reinforcements which the royal cause would, in all probability, havereceived but for the fear of interception, and the attempt made by the earl ofWarwick, as is related by Campbell, to relieve the city of Exeter, which wasthen closely besieged by a royalist army. This project is said to have beenineffectual, two of his ships being taken, and a third burnt. The ships, how-ever, as they are called, (supposing the event to have actually taken place asrelated) must have been of very contemptible force and size, there not being asufficient depth of water for any vessels to approach the town which are ofmore than one hundred and fifty tons burthen.

The king having had the misfortune to lose the Providence, which waschaced into the Humber, and driven on shore by the parliament fleet, very soonafter its command was transferred to the earl of Warwick, he continuedduring the whole of the contest without a single ship of war to protect hisfriends, or make head against his foes. At length, when his affairs were com-pletely ruined, and he himself a prisoner in the hands of his enemies, the re-moval of that very personage, who had ever shewn himself an opponent to theroyal cause, and most religiously devoted to that of the parliament, caused sucha general convulsion among the seamen, that the greater part of the ships,then in a state of equipment, suddenly revolting, put themselves into thehands of the prince of Wales, and his brother the duke of York. Other less con-sequential desertions taking place immediately afterwards, the princes foundthemselves, as it were miraculously, in possession of a fleet consisting of morethan twenty sail.

These ships, it must be however observed, were all of them of inferior rate :the most consequential vessels being the Constant Reformation, of 750 tons,and 42 guns, extremely old and crazy, it being a ship built very early in the

reign