HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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comes almost irresistibly fixed to that quarter of the world, disregarding, almostwith contempt, the custom and practice of all nations who may hold in publicopinion, an inferior and fecond rank. This, however, is a very unfair mode ofdecision, if human knowledge abstracted from fcientilic study is not to be strip-ped wilfully of thole honours which have hitherto been paid to it ; since noperson will be hardy enough to deny, that there may not be as much ingenuityin the primary invention of the canoe used by the uncivilized Eskimaux, as inthe moll: judicious construction of an European ship of war. Of this therewill be occasion to speak in its proper place.

In respe£t to Europe, every state, or nation, which it contained, that possessedthe slender advantage of a single port, had for many years arrived at the pos-session of as much shipping as their means would allow them to maintain, or em-ployment could be found for, in the service of any other state, or people. Prussia,and even Austria, began to boast of their trade, and the flags of both countrieshave in later years been displayed in the river Canton, as well as other quarters,where, till the pursuit became thus general, none but those nations whoassumed to themselves the pre-eminent title of the Maritime Powers of Europe,had the boldness to penetrate. Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, and the Prin-cipalities of Germany, sighed in vain for a participation in those advantageswhich, they enviously beheld, were derived by their neighbours, and were led.to condemn the dispositions of Providence which had withheld from them theprivilege of engaging in the naval w r ars, or the commerce of the world. Ge-neral however as the pursuit had become, the distin6l classes continued to be pre-served, and no attempt appeared to be made by the inferior to encroach on theprivileges, or assume, even nominally, the title and rank held by the fuperior.The subordinate class was extremely contracted; it contained those nations which,although they engaged in naval commerce with no less eagerness and avidity ofmind than others whose powers were infinitely more enlarged, w r ere content withquietly enjoying the benefits accruing from it by the passivd sufferance of theirneighbours, without presuming to shew r the smallefl intention of defending, byforce, that pursuit which they had entered into, as it w’ere by the connivanceor permission, to use a less harsh term, of the greater maritime pow’ers. Itwould appear singular, w’ere not the reason rendered instantly apparent byan inspection of the map of Europe, that two nations, whose armies havecertainly proved equal in point of numbers, and i n discipline, to any which

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