1553. SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. 67 



voyage written by Clement Adams, " schoolemaster 

 to the Queene's henshmen," it would appear that 

 several persons of great experience were candidates 

 for the command, but that Sir Hugh Willoughby, 

 a vahant gentleman and well born, was preferred 

 before all others, " both by reason of his goodly 

 personage (for he was of tall stature) as also for his 

 sing^ular skill in the services of warre»" On the 

 day appointed for the sailing of the expedition 

 from Ratcliffe, which was the 20th May, " they 

 saluted their acquaintance, one his wife, another his 

 children, and another his kinsfolkes, and another 

 his friends deerer than his kinsfolkes;" after which 

 the ships dropped down to Greenwich, where the 

 court then was. The great ships were towed down 

 by the boats, " the marriners being all apparelled 

 in watchet or skie-coloured cloth. The courtiers 

 came running out and the common people flockt 

 together, standing very thicke upon the shoare ; 

 the Privie Consel, they lookt out at the win- 

 dowes of the court, and the rest ranne up to the 

 toppes of the towers ; the shippes hereupon dis- 

 charge their ordinance, and shoot off their pieces 

 after the maner of warre, and of the sea, insomuch 



which was rejected without a trial. About sixty years after it 

 obtained a trial and was favourably reported on — yet, so very 

 difficult is the introduction of any thing new, that, ten years 

 after this experiment, in Admiral Keppel's fleet, there was but 

 one line of battle ship that was coppered, — M. S, Memoirs of 

 the Navy. 



