HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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sity of attention towards any other principle; the inferior marine department,whether belonging to the Spaniards, the states of Barbary, or the Turks, variesso very immaterially, that the most critical observer could be scarcely competentto discover the difference. This consanguinity, if the term be applicable, formsa very strong and additional proof in corroboration of those already adduced, thatthe necessities of war, whether real or artificial, are in general supplied by thesame chain of ideas.

In fact, the galley of Malta* may stand as the representative of the whole class;and the Xebec, its sister vessel of war, is manifestly derived from the same stock.It were scarcely possible, perhaps, for the most refined improvement to give, con-sidering the peculiar occupations in which die latter is employed, any additionaladvantage to the structure as it now stands, and which has, in all probability, un-dergone less alteration during the two last centuries, which certainly carries it backto a mere infantine state, than any other class of vessels which either does now, orever did exist. Formed on the principle of that galley, by which Rome, in its2enith of prosperity extended its conquests, little alteration, and that only as far asactual necessity required, was introduced into the present vessel bearing the samename, when the invention of cannon and the use of gun-powder caused, in othercountries, so great a revolution with respect to the principles of marine architecture.

The Xebec may fairly be considered as an intermediate class between its parent,though its inferior, and the ship of war used in the Mediterranean; but though,from the peculiar advantages which attend its use in that sea, as well as the servicesin which it is particularly engaged, it has become more than commonly useful inthat quarter ; yet those local excellencies as they may be termed, have not provedsufficient to confine its construction to that quarter of the world only; a strong andvery sufficient proof that the ingenuity of no country whatever merits contemptor neglect, because others are supposed to precede it in scientific knowledge.Narrowed, therefore, as the history of Africa becomes, not only in respect toscience, but to maritime pursuits also, it were needless to enter into any moreenlarged detail. The consideration of the same subject becomes, by a short, and,as it may be called, a natural removal of the scene, transferred to Asia. A very con-siderable part of this history becomes almost entirely included in the same accountwith that of the Barbary states, for the southern shores of the Mediterranean con-tinuing, without exception, under the dominion of the followers of Mahomet, and

* See vol. II. p. 22.

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