HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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die navy of their government, might copy the fashions of Spain in all the parts thatmet the eye from the surface of the water upward, the semblance rested there ;for no two countries, perhaps, ever varied more materially in their ideas or practiceas far as related to that part of the hull which was immersed in the water. Spain,which had been taught by the Venetians and other Mediterranean powers, andhad practised the galley principle of building so long as to indelibly fix it onthe minds of the artists, had neither the inclination, nor was she under the neces-sity of completely altering those principles, in the use of which she experiencedno inconvenience. With Holland the case was different. The elegant shape ofthe galley, particularly in its bow, or fore part, though remarkably well fittedto the more tranquil navigation of the Mediterranean, was extremely ill-adaptedto encounter the tempestuous surge of the German ocean; added to which con-sideration, the extravagant ex pence necessarily attendant upon the construction ofa vessel so formed, in comparison with that which appeared, and certainly wasbetter suited to the views of a commercial nation, would have rendered the rejec-tion of the Spanish system certain on the very first inspection.

As it is mathematically certain, that the greater thebreadth which isgiven to a vessel'the less will be the expence in constructing it proportioned to the commoditiesthat it will be able to contain ; this principle, acting forcibly on the minds of acommercial people, naturally gives the same result as, even in the remote age? ofantiquity, were manifest in the distinctions between the commercial and warlikemarines belonging to the Greeks, the Romans, and the Carthaginians.

The northern maritime powers, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, held, at thistime, in respect to political society, a far more elevated rank than could beclaimed, perhaps, by any of the more southern, and certainly move ambitious,states. Placed by nature in a cold and inhospitable climate, they appeared satis-fied with the condition and situation which fate had imperiously imposed on them ;and were little anxious in interfering with the luxuries embraced with avidity bythe inhabitants of more southern regions. Their commerce was limited, theirwants few, and their ambition, as to acquiring wealth, extremely contracted. Con-tented with the office of being sometimes employed as the transporters into foreigncountries of commodities produced in their own, they sought little or no extensionof their commercial marine beyond those bounds that were necessary tor so limiteda purpose. The dreadful wars in which they were frequently engaged againsteach other, and the trivial petty disputes which occasionally appeared to threatencontests with Britain, with France, and with Holland, originated either in the

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