HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

SCI

So perfect an adept was he in his new profession, that he is said to have drawnthe model of a sixty gun ship at Amsterdam, to have superintended the con-struction of it, and even to have laboured with his own hands in its completion.In England, his pursuit was continued with the same enthusiasm ; and by care-fully scrutinizing the different principles of the art, as practised in the twocountries, he is said to have acquired such eminent knowlege, as to have beenenabled to argue and dispute even with his tutors. The highest honours werepaid to him by every nation through which he passed ; but these neither intoxi-cated his mind, nor diverted his attention. In short, having acquired a degreeof skill which, considering; his rank, may certainly be regarded with astonish-ment, he returned back to his subjects not merely as their sovereign, but also astheir instructor.

Denmark had for a long time held a respectable, and rather elevated rankamong the maritime powers of Europe. In 1651, that consequence receivedconsiderable addition from the establishment of a public company, authorisedby royal charter to trade to India. The views, and indeed arrogance of thesovereign, appeared to extend with his newly acquired means of causing aninflux of wealth till then unknown. An English fleet consisting of twenty-two merchant vessels, laden with timber, with iron, with hemp, and in short,with all other materials necessary for ship-building, having been decoyed intoCopenhagen, under an insinuation from the sovereign himself, of the dangerwhich they ran of being captured by a Dutch fleet then in the Sound, weremost arbitrarily and illegally seized, contrary to all the laws as well of hospita-lity as of nations. This conduct could not be otherwise than decisive againsthim ; and disdaining to enter into any palliative excuse, or afford any reparationto the clamours of the British parliament, no other measure remained for him totake, except that of entering into an alliance with the states-general. The kingappears to have been as great an adept in manoeuvre as that very wary people withwhom he had to treat. He agreed to furnish them with twenty ships of war ;but, in return for this service, he was to receive a subsidy of one hundred andforty thousand rix-dollars : so that, as has been shrewdly observed by historians,he nor only ingeniously contrived to prevent the flames of war from reachinghis own country, but also received an immense pecuniary reward for enteringinto an engagement, which it might have been considered as a wonderful strokeof policy and good fortune, to have concluded without the receipt of any sub-sidy whatever. The alliance, indeed, proved of no mean advantage to the

United,