294 ■^' ■^' ^^3^' 



In a lift of offices beftowed in this i 2th year of King Charles's reign. 

 there is one for the office of clerk and keeper of all the king's flores 

 and ftorehoufes at Deptford, Chatham, Portfmouth, and elfewhere, for 

 his Majefty's ftiips and navy. [F^dera, V. xx, p. 126.] It feems pro- 

 bable that neither Plymouth, Sheernefs, nor Woolwich, had then royal 

 docks and ftorehoufes, otherwife it fhould feem they would have been 

 named in that grant, the words and elftwhere feeming to be merely ex- 

 pletive. ' 



By this time the Dutch Weft-India company had reduced the greateft 

 part of the coaft of Brafil, having (according to Voltaire's General hi/lory 

 of Europe, chap, xi.) in the fpace of thirteen years fent thither i 800 ftiips 

 for war and commerce (others fay but 800), which were valued at four 

 millions and an half fterling ; and had in that fpace taken from Spain, 

 then fovereign of Portugal, 545 veffels. That company, in this year, 

 1636, fent thither Prince Maurice as governor-general, and while he 

 remained there, which was eight years, their affairs in general profper- 

 ed well enough : but yet their tirft declenfion in Brafil may be dated 

 from the Portuguefe fhaking off the Spanifti yoke in the year 1640, 

 foon after which remarkable revolution they gradually gained ground 

 of the Dutch in Braiil, from whence we fliall fee them entirely expelled 

 in the year 1 654. 



The Spaniards having poffeffed themfelves of the two fmall ifles of 

 St. Marguerite and St. Honorate, on the coaft of Provence, in the year 

 1635, whereby they greatly annoyed that coaft, the French now fitted 

 out forty-two ftiips at Rochelle, which were joined in the Mediterranean 

 by tw:enty-four galleys, the whole commanded by the count de Har- 

 court, who, on the coaft of Italy, near Monaco, attacked the joint fleets 

 of Spain, Sicily, Naples, and Florence, and obtained a complete vidtory 

 (fays Morifot in his Orbis maritimus), finking their beft ftiips, and put- 

 ting the reft to flight. Thence they went and ravaged the ifland of Sar- 

 dinia. 



Moreover, Cardinal Richlieu, the French prime-minifter and diredtor- 

 general of the marine, confidering how much France lay open to the 

 attacks and infults of England for want of a maritime force, had for 

 fome years been preparing all the fliips he could either purchafe from 

 beyond fea, or colled from all the French ports of the Ocean and Me- 

 diterranean, and had now got together what the judicious author of an 

 excellent pamphlet, publiftied in 1695, named, Confiderations requir- 

 ing greater care for trade in England, calls France's firft line of battle, 

 confifting of upwards of fifty ftiips and twenty galleys ; with which force 

 France recovered the two iflands above mentioned, after vanquiftiing 

 the Spanifti fleet, and taking five large Spanifti ftiips, twenty-two galleys, 

 and eighteen fmaller veflels. 



