276 HARBOURS AND LIGHTHOUSES. I'.M;I IV. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HARBOURS AND LIGHTHOUSES. 



THE maritime greatness of Britain is of as modern a 

 character as its engineering, and has been mainly the 

 creation of the last century. At a time when Spain, 

 Holland, France, Genoa, and Venice were great mari- 

 time powers, England was almost without a fleet, the 

 little trade which it carried on with other countries being 

 conducted principally by foreigners. Our best ships 

 were also built abroad by the Venetians or the Danes, 

 but they were mostly of small tonnage, little bigger than 

 modern herring-boats. In 1540 there were only four 

 vessels belonging to the Thames of 120 tons burden. 1 

 Bristol, then next in importance to London, possessed 

 several large foreign-built ships ; but the principal craft 

 belonging to that port were of only from 50 to 100 tons 

 each. In Queen Elizabeth's time the whole shipping of 

 Liverpool was only 223 tons; the largest vessel being 

 of but 40 tons burden. 2 It is, however, astonishing to 

 find what bold and daring things were done by the men 

 who navigated these diminutive vessels. Sir Humphry 

 Gilbert crossed the Atlantic and sailed along the coast 

 of America in the Squirrel of only 10 tons. Martin 

 Frobisher set out with two barques of 25 tons each to 

 discover the North- West Passage. Sir Francis Drake's 

 fleet, which left the English shores for the circumnavi- 

 gation of the globe, consisted of five vessels, the largest 



1 So stated by one Wheeler, secre- ! 2 Wedgwood and Bentley's j mili- 

 tary to the English Company of Mer- ; phlet, entitled, * A View of the Ad- 

 chant Adventurers, as quoted in Mac- vantages of Inland Navigation.' 

 pherson's ' Annals of Commerce,' vol. London, 1765. 

 ii., p. 85. 



