56 ALL AFLOAT 



Not long after the death of Champlain (1635) 

 there was a world-wide advance in shipbuild- 

 ing. Perhaps it would not be too much to say 

 that the modern school of wooden sailing-ship 

 designers began with Phineas Pett, who was 

 one of a family that served England well for 

 nearly two hundred years. He designed the 

 Sovereign of the Seas, which brought English 

 workmanship well to the front in the reign of 

 Charles I. She surpassed all records, with a 

 total depth from keel to lanthorn of seventy- 

 six feet, which exceeds the centre line, from 

 keel to captain's bridge, of modern ' fliers ' 

 with nearly twenty times her tonnage. The 

 Cromwellian period also gave birth to a most 

 effective fleet, which in its turn was succeeded 

 by the British fleets that won the Second 

 Hundred Years' War with France and decided 

 the destiny of Canada. This long war, or series 

 of wars, begun against Louis XIV in the seven- 

 teenth century, only ended with the fall of 

 Napoleon at Waterloo. La Hogue in 1692, 

 Quebec in 1759, and Trafalgar in 1805 were three 

 of the great deciding crises. La Hogue and 

 Trafalgar were purely naval; while Quebec 

 was the result of a joint expedition in which 

 the naval forces far exceeded the military. The 

 general effect of this whole Second Hundred 



