28 THE SEA. 



and water till he brought them suddenly upon the place where the fire was made, and the 

 pirates were taken so unawares that they yielded without an effort to escape. The whole 

 gang was seized and taken to Broad Haven, where the captain was hanged as an example 

 to the rest. Monson so completely cleared the coast of pirates, and frightened those who 

 had aided them, that on his way home, " groping along the coast/' he could not obtain a 

 pilot. Monson's active career, although it extended to the reign of Charles I., was now 

 nearly over. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING. INTERESTS (continued). 



Charles I. and Ship Money Improvements made by him in the Navy His great Ship, the Royal Sovereign The 

 Navigation Laws of Cromwell Consequent War with the Dutch Capture of Grand Spanish Prizes Charles II. 

 seizes 130 Dutch Ships Van Tromp and the Action at Harwich De Ruyter in the Medway and Thames Peace War 

 with France La Hogue Peter the Great and his Naval Studies Visit to Sardam Difficulty of remaining incognito 



Cooks his own Food His Assiduity and Earnestness A kind-hearted Barbarian Gives a Grand Banquet and F$te 



Conveyed to England His Stay at Evelyn's Place Studies at Deptford Visits Palaces and Public Houses His 

 Intemperance -Presents the King a 10,000 Ruby Engages numbers of English Mechanics Return to Russia Rapid 

 increase in his Navy Determines to Build St. Petersburg Arrivals of the First Merchantmen Splendid Treatment 

 of their Captains Law's Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea Bubble Two Nations gone Mad The "Bubble" to 

 Pay the National Debt Its one Solitary Ship Noble and Plebeian Stockbrokers -Rise and Fall of the Bubble 

 Directors made to Disgorge. 



CHARLES I., as we all know, had a fatal amount of belief in the royal prerogative. 

 One of his first acts, after ascending the throne, was to assume the direct government of 

 Virginia, and not only to treat the charter of the company as annulled, " but broadly declared 

 that colonies founded by adventurers, or occupied by British subjects, were essentially part 

 and parcel of the dominion of the mother country." The Virginia Company vainly 

 complained that they had expended a fifth of a million sterling over the undertaking ; their 

 territory was appropriated to the Crown, as were shortly afterwards North and South Carolina, 

 Georgia, Tennessee, and part of Louisiana. But these arbitrary acts were as nothing to the 

 ship-money tax. There was some precedent for it. " The ancient princes of England, as 

 they called on the inhabitants of the counties near Scotland to arm and array themselves 

 for the defence of the border, had sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish ships 

 for the defence -of the coast. In the room of ships, money had sometimes been accepted. 

 This old practice it was now determined, after a long interval, not only to revive but to extend. 

 Former princes had raised ship-money only in time of war; it was now exacted in a time 

 of profound peace. Former princes, even in the most perilous wars, had raised ship-money 

 only along the coasts ; it was now exacted from the inland shires. Former princes had raised 

 ship-money only for the maritime defence of the country; it was now exacted, by the 

 admission of the Royalists themselves, with the object, not of maintaining a navy, but of 

 furnishing the king with supplies which might be increased at his discretion to any amount, 

 and expended at his discretion for any purpose."* The lesistance which followed, and which 



* Macaulay : "History of England." 



