HISTORY OF NAVIGATION. 15 



other nation. At the commencement of that year, it numbered not less than 

 101 ships of the line, 8 of which carried from 100 to 108 guns, and all of 

 them remarkably well manned. The Soleil Royal {pi. S,Jig. 5), of 108 guns, 

 had 1000 men; the Foudroyant, of 110 guns, had 900 men; and the 

 Merveilleux had 850 men. The number of frigates, bomb-ships, and so 

 forth, corresponded with that of the ships of the line. In order to keep the 

 fleet in constant action, Louis XIV. kept up an almost uninterrupted naval 

 warfare with Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Genoa, and so forth. The harbors 

 of Toulon and Brest were placed in the most excellent condition at a great 

 expense, and a new harbor formed at Rochefort. Dunkirk and Havre de 

 Grace were also at that time important naval ports. The sea-service then 

 employed 60,000 men, but the commercial marine in 1664 numbered only 

 2368 vessels, of which only 19 were of from 300 to 400 tons burden. In 

 the year 1843, France had 15,025 merchantmen, amounting to 647,107 tons. 

 As a contrast to the Soleil Royal, we have represented {fig. 7) the ship of 

 the line Ocean, carrying 108 guns, built under Louis XVI. 



7. The Germans. The German navy, small as it now is, held an 

 important position in the middle ages, although the geographical situation 

 of Germany, whose coasts are washed only by inland seas, seems to assign 

 it only a subordinate place. 



In the ninth and tenth centuries the German trade was mostly domestic, 

 although the Rhinelanders pursued some traffic with the Scandinavians and 

 with England. Dragawitt was a commercial port in Holstein in the year 

 789. Rorich was a celebrated trading city at that time on the site of the 

 modern Rostock, and was afterwards destroyed by the Danes. Lethira, 

 which was destroyed by Otto I., was the modern Stargard. Liibeck was built 

 by King Wilzen Liuby, destroyed in 1139 by the Russians, and rebuilt in 

 1144 by Adolphus II. of Holstein-Schaumburg, at a little distance from its 

 former location. In 830 Stettin was also a place of considerable com- 

 merce, and Vineta, on the island of Usedom, in the ninth century was one 

 of the largest cities of Europe, maintaining mercantile relations with 

 Greece, Asia Minor, Tartary, China, and India. The harbor could coatain 

 300 ships. In the eleventh century the city was buried in the sea by a 

 sinking of the earth, but in the sixteenth century the ruins of buildings and 

 towers could be seen at low water. 



German commerce received a powerful impulse at the time of the 

 crusades, and this circumstance, together with the piracies that were com- 

 mitted by the inhabitants of the coast on the North Sea, exerted an import- 

 ant influence on the development of navigation. At that time, especially 

 while the Emperor Henry IV. was under the Papal ban, the administration 

 of justice had almost entirely ceased, and the cities leagued together for 

 mutual protection. The first of these alliances was the league of the 

 Rhenish cities, of which Cologne was the centre. This was followed by 

 the Suabian league, which was important in relation to the navigation of 

 the Danube and the trade with the Levant, and afterwards by the Hanseatic 

 league, which embraced North Germany, including the territory conquered 

 from the Vandals east of the Elbe and Oder. At first this league included 



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