144 SHIP 
with the Leeds and Liverpool navigation. Population 1214; 
3| miles north-north-west of Bradford. 
SHI'PMAN, s. Sailor; seaman. 
I myself have the very points they blow, 
All the quarters that they know 
I’ the shipman's card. Ska/cspeare. 
SHI'PM ASTER, s. Master'of the ship.—The shipmas¬ 
ter came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O 
sleeper! arise, call upon thy God. Jon. 
SHIPMEADOW, a parish of England, in Suffolk; 3 
miles west-by-south of Beccles. Population 387. 
SHI'P-MONEY, 5 . An imposition formerly levied on 
port towns and other places for fitting out ships; revived in 
king Charles the first’s time, and abolished in the same reign. 
—Mr. Noy brought his ship-money first for maritime towns; 
but that was like putting in a little auger, that afterwards you 
may put in a greater. S el den. 
SHI'PPEN, s. [pcypen, Sax., stahulumi] A stable. In 
Lancashire, a cow-house.— Shepencs and dairies. CJwucer. 
SHIPPENSBURG, a post township of the United States, 
in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, situated on a branch 
of the Conedowinet creek; 140 miles west of Philadelphia. 
Population 1159. 
SHIPPIGAN ISLAND, an island in the gulf of St. Law¬ 
rence, on the south side of Chaleur bay. 
SHI'PPING, s Vessels of navigation ; fleet.—Before 
Caesar’s invasion of this land, the Britons had not any ship¬ 
ping at all, other than their boats of twigs, covered with 
hides. Ralegh .—Passage in a ship.—They took shipping 
and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. St. John. 
“ The whole of our naval history,” say the Commission¬ 
ers for Revising the Civil Affairs of the Navy, “ may be 
divided into three periods. The first, comprehending all 
that preceded the reign of Henry VIII. The second, ending 
with the Restoration of Charles II.; and the third, coming 
down from the Restoration to the present day.” 
To what size, and to what amount the English ships 
or vessels were carried, which supported so many contests 
with the invading Danes, in the ninth century, our naval 
history has not preserved any record. We are told, how¬ 
ever, that Alfred increased the size of his gallies, and 
that some of them were capable of rowing thirty pair of 
oars. These gallies were chiefly employed in clearing the 
Channel of the nests of pirates by which it was infested. It 
is also said, as a proof of his attention to naval matters, that 
under his auspices, one Ochter undertook a voyage into the 
Arctic Regions, made a survey of the coasts of Lapland and 
Norway, and brought to Alfred an account of the mode pur¬ 
sued by the inhabitants of those countries to catch whales. 
It is, moreover, on record, that his two sons, Edward and 
Athelston, fought many bloody actions with the Danes, in 
which several kings and chiefs were slain ; and that Edgar 
had from 3000 to 5000 ships, divided into three fleets, 
stationed on three several parts of the coast, with which, 
passing from one fleet or squadron to the other, he circum¬ 
navigated the island; that after this he called himself “ Mo¬ 
narch of all Albion, and Sovereign over all the adjacent Isles.” 
Some notion, however, may be formed of the size of the 
vessels which composed his fleets, from the imposition of a 
land-tax, which required certain proprietors to furnish a stout 
galley of three rows of oars to protect the coast from the 
Danish pirates. The more effectually to check these ma¬ 
rauders, and protect the coasts of the kingdom, William the 
Conqueror, in 1066, established the Cinque Ports, and gave 
them certain privileges, on condition of their furnishing 52 
ships with 24 men in each for 15 days, in cases of emergency. 
We should not, perhaps, be far amiss in dating the period of 
our naval architecture from the Conquest. “ The Normans,” 
says Sir Walter Ralegh, “ grew better shipwrights than either 
the Danes or Saxons, and made the last conquest of this land; 
a land which can never be conquered whilst the kings 
thereof keep the dominion of the seas.” But Ralegh does 
not describe what the ships were which the Normans taught 
PING. 
us to build; nor can it now be known in what kind of 
vessels William transported his army across the Channel, or 
what was the description of the hundred large ships and fifty 
gallies of which the naval armament of Richard I. consisted 
on his expedition to the Holy Laud. We are told, however, 
that having increased his fleet at Cyprus to 250 ships, and 
60 gallies, he fell in with a ship belonging to the Saracens, 
of such an extraordinary size, that she was defended by 1500 
men, all of whom, with the exception of 200, Richard, after 
taking possession of her, ordered to be thrown overboard 
and drowned. 
There can be no doubt that the nations of the Mediterra¬ 
nean, particularly the Genoese and Venetians, introduced 
many improvements as to the capacity and stability of their 
ships, in consequence of the crusades and the demands for 
warlike stores and provisions, which such vast and ill-pro¬ 
vided armies necessarily created; but these improvements 
would seem not to have reached, or, at least, to have made 
but a tardy progress in Great Britain. King John, it is true, 
stoutly claimed for England the sovereignty of the sea, and 
decreed that all ships belonging to foreign nations, the mas¬ 
ters of which should refuse to strike to the British flag, 
should be seized and deemed good and lawful prize. And 
this monarch is said to have fitted out no less than 500 sail 
of ships, under the earl of Salisbury, in the year 1213, against 
a fleet of three times that number, prepared by Philip of France, 
for the invasion of England; of which the English took 300 
sail, and drove 100 on shore, Philip being under the neces¬ 
sity of destroying the remainder, to prevent their falling also 
into the hands of the English. Of the kinds of ships of 
which his fleet consisted, some notion may be formed by the 
account that is related of an action fought in the following 
reign with the French, who, with “ 80 stout ships,” threat¬ 
ened the coast of Kent. This fleet being discovered by 
Hubert de Burgh, governor of Dover Castle, he put to sea 
with 40 English ships, and having got to the windward of 
the enemy, and run down many of the smaller ships, he 
closed with the rest, and threw on board them a quantity 
of quicklime, which blinded them so effectually, that all 
their ships were either taken or sunk. 
Whatever the size and the armaments of our ships were, 
the empire of the sea was bravely maintained by the Edwards 
and the Henrys in many a gallant and glorious sea-fight 
with the fleets of France, against which they were generally 
opposed with inferior numbers. The temper of the times, 
and the public feeling, were strongly exemplified in the 
reign of Edward I. by the following circumstance:—An 
English sailor was killed in a Norman port, in consequence 
of which a war commenced, and the two nations agreed to 
decide the dispute on a certain day, with the whole of their 
respective naval forces. The spot of the battle was to be the 
middle of the Channel, marked out by anchoring there an 
empty ship. The two fleets met on the 14th of April, 1293; 
the English obtained the victory, and carried off above 250 
sail. 
In an action with the French fleet off the harbour of 
Sluys, Edward III. is said to have slain 30,000 of the enemy, 
to have taken 200 great ships, “ in one of which, only, 
there were 400 dead bodies.” This is no doubt an exaggera¬ 
tion. The same monarch, at the siege of Calais, is stated to 
have blockaded that port with 730 sail, having on board 
14,956 mariners; 25 only of which were of the Royal 
navy, bearing 419 mariners, or about 17 men each. In 
various other sea actions did this great sovereign nobly sup¬ 
port the honour of the British flag. But though we then, 
and ever after claimed, the <£ dominion of the seas,” that 
dominion, says Ralegh, “ was never absolute until the time 
of Henry the Eighth.” It was a maxim of this great states¬ 
man, that “ whosoever commands the sea, commands the 
trade of the world; whosoever commands the trade, com¬ 
mands the riches of the world, and consequently the world 
itself.” 
The reign of Henry V., however, was most glorious, in 
maintaining the naval superiority over the fleets of France. 
From 
