POPULAR IGNORANCE ON MARITIME AFFAIRS.

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A company of vagrant showmen were taken up by the constables at Lewes in 1694, and conveyed to a ship for the sea-service.

Early Shipping and Maritime Affairs.

POPULAR ignorance is perhaps displayed upon no subject more than upon that of the state of the early maritime power and resources of our country. Visit our sea-ports in the British Channel, and listen to what the inhabitants delight in telling of the former condition of their trade, the size of the shipping, and, more than all, the foreign ports with which intercourse was maintained. At the words Barbadoes, Guinea, Barbary, Newfoundland, and the Straits it is concluded that the interests of the port have declined. This is not surprising, as none but large vessels now trade thither.

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When it is objected that the depth of water was insufficient, we are told the sand has collected; but, under any circumstances, there was indisputably a brisk foreign trade carried on at many ports where there is none in the present day. The halo of antiquity being thrown around the ships of the Plantagenets and Tudors, they loom large through the mist.

When were there not vessels on either coast of the British Channel? Cæsar found 220 assembled, high out of the water compared with his own craft, all of oak, sails of prepared skins, anchors fastened to iron chains in part, if not altogether for cables. We may perhaps compare these to modern stout French fishing-luggers. They were gathered from Britain and the Gallic coasts, and could stand a knockingabout. The wicker-boats, talked of as navigated by northern heroes, would have disappeared before a channel off-shore wind during a summer night. Who can gravely assert that our climate has experienced any change?

In Richard I.'s expedition to the Crusade in the year 1190-1 there were 13 dromons, 250 ships of the second class, and 53 galleys, accompanied by a vast number of barques and other vessels used as transports.

The siege of Calais, like a certain recent modern siege, was a great operation. There were 733 ships carrying 14,956 mariners, or 20 to each ship.

We read of Bayonne furnishing 15 ships, 495 mariners.

The king had 15 ships called " his own," manned by 419

mariners.

As to the names of the several classes of vessels there is some confusion. Dromons were so named from their speed. Carracks were large vessels, as were Grand Niefs. What shall we say of busses and barges but that they were inferior in class? Vissers were flat-bottomed, for the transport of horses. Ballingers were for a light draught of water.

SHIPPING OF THE CHANNEL PORTS.

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Henry III. had a great ship of 80 tons called the "Queen." John Blanchbouilly had a license to trade with this ship of the royal navy, if we may use such an expression, paying a rent of 50 marks.*

Rudders were first in use about the reign of Edward III. Fire-pence were the sum of 2d. paid by each vessel when beacons were maintained by the Cinque Ports. Fire-beacons were established on the south coast A. D. 1325 from a fear of the French and of Queen Isabella.

Ships in the fleet of Edward III. (A. D. 1373) were not more than two or three in number that measured 200 tons; most of them were from 40 to 100 tons each.†

Our subject lies with the shipping of the ports of the Channel individually and in detail, so that many points upon which error exists may be cleared up. General history wants much aid from the local pioneer: he brings the accurate knowledge the former needs.

Another source of error should be pointed out, which is a parallel with that of descanting only upon the scenes of grandeur witnessed in royal and lordly halls, entirely overlooking and confounding all the transactions of private life. This is the dwelling upon the shipping of William Cannynge, the famous merchant of Bristol, and that of this city generally.

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Cannynge's Mark.

Bristol was a very great emporium, that furnishes no just comparison with the majority of our sea-ports. William of Worcester tells us of the ships there in his time, about A. D. 1480. William Cannynge, who founded the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, where his tomb appears, had ten ships built at his expense, which measured 2930 tons. One is said to

*Sussex Archæol.

† Weale's Papers on Engineering.

have been of 900 tons, others of 400 and 500 each. These were marvels, but not most probably of English build. The large ships in use are supposed to have been purchased of the Venetians, Hanseatics and the Genoese.* When John

Taverner of Hull built a ship as large as a carrack in the year 1449, no such vessel had been constructed before in England.

Henry V. had built some dromons, or large ships of war,

at Southampton, as is said, such as the world had never seen before.†

Besides Cannynge's ships, there were at Bristol the

Thomas Strange and others had some ships likewise. The value of shipping per ton about this date was, 17. 10s. or 21.

A small Craft.

Accurate investigation of the details of borough history has enabled us to attain some definite estimate of the im

portant terms SHIP and MERCHANT. We now style a threemasted vessel having square sails on each mast a ship; and

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