A. D. 1512. ^. 



been a fociety long before, though no where recorded liow long. This 

 corporation (whofe powers, &c. have been Imce confirmed and aug- 

 mented by fucceeding kings) have alfo the power of appointing pilots 

 for the king's fhips, and tor examining and fixing their wages, and cer- 

 tifying their qualifications, and thole of the mafters of fhips of war ; 

 alfo for clearing and deepening the Thames by ballafl-hoys, with which 

 ballad they fupply the fhipping. They have alfo the examination of 

 the forty inathematical boys of Chrifl's Hofpital ; they have likewife 

 power to hear and determine complaints of officers and failors in the 

 merchant fervice ; fo that this corporation is eminently ufeful to the 

 nation. 



That finery, or gaiety of apparel, was much increafed with the in- 

 creafe of commerce in England, appears plain from an ad; of parlia- 

 ment of this year [c. 6,] reciting part of an ad of the i 2th of Ed- 

 ward IV (not printed), whereby the cuftom-houfe officers are prohibit- 

 ed to take any thing whatever for ftamping imported cloth of gold and 

 cloth of filver, vaudekin, velvet, damafk, fatin, farcenet, tariton, cam- 

 let, and other cloths of lilk, and of filk and gold and filver. It is in' 

 this new ad faid, ' That many times the merchants import, in one (hip 

 only, three or four thoufand pieces of thole merchandize, which (fays 

 this ad) amounts to L. 30 or L. 40 to thole ofiicers, thus againft law 

 ftill extorting 2d for fealing each piece.' 



John de Solis, failing from Spain, along the coafl of Brafil, fouth— 

 ward, firfl difcovered the great river which they named Rio de la Plata,. 

 in g^ degrees fouth of the equator, in the country of Paraguay. 



1513.— King Henry VIII, bent on war againfl: France (fays lord Her- 

 bert, p. 50. in his life of that prince), thought fit, in the firft place, to 

 clear the fea from the French navy. He therefore fent out his fleet to- 

 ward Breft, confining of 42 fail, befides lefler barks, without fpecifving 

 (as the preceding year, unlefs indeed they were the identical fleet of 

 that year) their tonnage, or their guns, or rates ; neither indeed, with 

 relped to the laft, can we conceive that it (viz. the rate of the fhip) 

 had been as yet, nor even long after this time, brought into ufe any 

 where in Europe : And his lordfliip probably would have given po- 

 fterity the tonnage, and number of guns on the French fide alfo, had 

 they been left upon record ; but either fo incurious, or elie fo negli 

 gent, were the hiftorians of thofe times, that they have too often ne- 

 gleded fach matters, which in our times w^ould be reckoned unpardon- 

 able, whilll they often, with the greateft exadnefs, entertain us with a 

 tedious detail of a public entry, or other trifling ihow or cavalcade. 

 Burchet, however, in his naval hifl:ory, acquaints us, that the largeil of 

 king Henry's fhips, nan:ied the Regent, grappled (before Brefl) with 

 the largelt of the French fliips, named the Cordeher, which being ac— 



