HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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to their public companies, vied in dimensions and equipment with those ofthe state. In numbers, the former increased to an height almost incredible, whilethe latter, from the want of necessity as to its assistance, was suffered to diminishalmost into a non-entity. In a country where nature itself might be almostsaid to have prescribed the laws of the science, little alteration can be expected asto its principles; and the same account may serve, together with their remotesituation from all scenes of contest, but what might arise among themselves, forthat of all the northern powers of Europe.

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