HAlMlnrilS AND LIGHTHOUSES. 



277 



of which was not of 100 tons burden. 1 In the year 

 1575 there were only one hundred and thirty-five ships 

 in nil iMi^hind above 100 tons. The royal navy was 

 on a ]>;ir with the mercantile ; and at the time when the 

 Spanish Armada bore down upon the English coast, it 

 c< insisted of only twenty-three ships, eight of which were 

 under 120 tons. There were only nine of 500 tons and 

 upwards, the ship of the greatest burden being of 1000 

 tons, carrying only forty guns. The principal part of 

 tin 1 fleet which held at bay the Armada until the storms 

 had scattered it, were coasting- vessels of small burden, 

 belonging to Lyme, Weymouth, and other ports along 

 the southern coast. Of the whole seventy-five vessels 

 which constituted the squadrons under the Lord Ad- 

 miral and Sir Francis Drake, not fewer than sixty were 

 from 400 down to as low as 20 tons. About the same 

 period, the small but flourishing republic of Venice pos- 

 sessed a fleet of more than three thousand vessels of 

 various kinds, carrying upwards of thirty-six thousand 

 seamen. 



The English navy, however, made gradual progress. 

 In 1613 there were ten vessels of 200 tons belonging 

 to the port of London. The suppression of the mono- 

 poly of the carrying trade, which had virtually been 

 enjoyed by the merchants of the Low Countries and 

 the Hanse Towns of Germany until the year 1552, had 

 thr effect of giving a considerable impetus to English 

 shipping business; and by the year 1640 we find the 

 number of English ships and sailors more than trebled. 

 It would appear that not only had the greater part of the 



1 One of the last of Sir Francis 



Drake's shij s was used, until quite 

 n vi nily, as a Thames lar-e. It was 

 1 m -ken up i nily a li-w years ago. An- 

 other interesting little vessel, the In- 

 /v.s//V/(//o/-, ..I' about l.~>n tons, used to 

 lie moored off Somerset House, where 



it was used as one of the floating sta- 

 tions of the Thames Uiver Police, hut 

 1 1 a s si uce been replaced by the Royalist. 

 The Invest i'/ti for was the vessel in 

 which Captain Ross made his first 

 voya-e to the Polar Seas in the search 

 for a North- West 1'assage. 



