278 THE SEA. 



wrote letters to the Lord Mayor and aldermen ("which was a courtesy/' says Lord Bacon, 

 "that he sometimes used), half bragging what great sums he had obtained for the peace, 

 as knowing well that it was ever good news in London that the king's coffers were full; 

 better news it would have been if their benevolence had been but a loan." 



Scotch historians tell us that Sir Andrew Wood, of Largo, Scotland, had with his two 

 vessels, the Flower and Yellow Carvel, captured five chosen vessels of the royal navy, which 

 had infested the Firth of Forth, and had taken many prizes from the Scotch previously, 

 during this reign. Henry VII. was greatly mortified by this defeat, and offered to put 

 any means at the disposal of the officer who would undertake this service, and great 

 rewards if Wood were brought to him alive or dead. All hesitated, such was the renown 

 of Wood, and his strength in men and artillery, and maritime and military skill. At 

 length, Sir Stephen Bull, a man of distinguished prowess, offered himself, and three ships 

 were placed under his command, with "which he sailed for the Forth, and anchored behind 

 the Isle of May, waiting Wood's return from a foreign voyage. Some fishermen were 

 captured and detained, in order that they should point out Sir Andrew's ships when they 

 arrived. " It was early in the morning when the action began ; the Scots, by their 

 skilful manoeuvring, obtained the weather-gage, and the battle continued in sight of in- 

 numerable spectators who thronged the coast, till darkness suspended it. It was renewed 

 at day -break ; the ships grappled ; and both parties were so intent upon the struggle, that 

 the tide carried them into the mouth of the Tay, into such shoal water that the English, 

 seeing no means of extricating themselves, surrendered. Sir Andrew brought his prizes to 

 Dundee; the wounded were carefully attended there; and James, with royal magnanimity 

 is said to have sent both prisoners and ships to Henry, praising the courage which they 

 had displayed, and saying that the contest was for honour, not for booty." 



Few naval incidents occurred under the reign of Henry VII., but it belongs, neverthe- 

 less, to the most important age of maritime discovery. Henry had really assented to the 

 propositions of Columbus after Portugal had refused them; had not the latter's brother, 

 Bartholomew, been captured by pirates on his way to England, and detained as a slave at 

 the oar, the Spaniards would not have had the honour of discovering the New World. 

 This, and the grand discoveries of Cabot (directly encouraged by Henry), who reached 

 Newfoundland and Florida; the various expeditions down the African coast instituted by 

 Dom John ; the discovery of the Cape and new route to India by Diaz and Vasco de 

 Gama ; the discovery of the Pacific "by Balboa, and Cape Horn and the Straits by 

 Magellan, will be detailed in another section of this work. They belong to this and 

 immediately succeeding reigns, and mark the grandest epoch in the history of geographical 

 discovery. 



"The use of fire-arms," says Southey, "without which the conquests of the Spaniards 

 in the New World must have been impossible, changed the character of naval war sooner 

 than it did the system of naval tactics, though they were employed earlier by land than 

 by sea." It is doubtful when cannon was first employed at sea; one authority* says 

 that it was by the Venetians against the Genoese, before 1330. Their use necessitated 



* Charnock : " History of Marine Architecture." 



