96

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECT ORE.

gave no material offence, and attempted not to disturb the peace of other nationsbecause no object sufficiently consequential appeared to engage their attention,or to stimulate their ambition.

The causes just described, unfavourable to war, were, on the other hand, pro-ductive of peculiar advancement to trade, and to navagation. These exertions,however, were not unattended with ill consequences peculiar to themselves. Thewell-known Missisippi scheme involved half France in irretrievable ruin ; if thesudden transfer of a property, in a great measure imaginary, from one part of thecommunity to the other, could be considered so. The South Sea scheme,which had blazed in the most terrific splendor, was productive, in its pecuniaryeffects, of injuries not less sensibly felt by the people of Great Britain. Its veryembers, after the conflagration itself had ceased, fanned by the faint hope of ac-quiring imaginary wealth, served to embroil the country with Spain, and at lastengage it in a contest which, successful as its termination proved, caused a greaterexpenditure of treasure than could ever have been derived by the most completeadmission of the justice on which the point in dispute stood. Trade, however,might be said to have universally flourished ; the minds of speculators enlargedwith their success ; and the spirit of enterprize naturally increased in proportion tothe pecuniary emolument which they derived from it.

India, that most formidable source, from whence luxury and avarice derived theirmaintenance, afforded a never-failing support to both. But, however lamentablethe primary causes may be, to which the effects themselves are attributable, theywere all equally productive of advancement, not only of the principles, of naviga-tion and marine architecture, but of that general knowledge and improvementwhich, while it amuses, raises the human mind to the utmost pitch of cultivationand supposed excellence ; which, while it affords the sensual man the power ofindulging his appetite; the enterprizing man, with the means of gratifying his am-bition, in some measure palliates the deleterious effects of those unphilanthropicprinciples by the dissemination of knowlege among nations hitherto esteemedbarbarous, and the procurement of that information which studious men thirst for,which benevolent men are anxious for, in the hope of alleviating the misfor-tunes of the wretched, and which even the most indolent persons are not indif-ferent to the acquisition of.

The consanguinity both of principle, and of idea, w hich in all countries, and in allages, has been transferred from the construction of vessels intended merely for warlike

purposes,