STATE OF EXGLAND IN 1685.

295

ao contract was performed, that no check was enforced. chap.

The vessels which the recent liberality of Parliament had-

enabled the government to build, and which had never beenout of harbour, had been made of such wretched timber thatthey were more unfit to go to sea than the old hulls which hadbeen battered thirty years before by Dutch and Spanishbroadsides. Some of the new men of war, indeed, were sorotten that, unless speedily repaired, they would go down attheir moorings. The sailors were paid with so little punc-tuality that they were glad to find some usurer who wouldpurchase their tickets at forty per cent discount. The com-manders who had not powerful friends at court were evenworse treated. Some officers, to whom large arrears weredue, after vainly importuning the government during manyyears’, had died for want of a morsel of bread.

Most of the ships which were afloat were commanded bymen who had not been bred to the sea. This, it is true, wasnot an abuse introduced by the government of Charles'. Nostate, ancient or modern, had, before that time, made acomplete separation between the naval and military services.

In the great civilised nations of the old world, Cimon andLysander, Pompey and Agrippa, had fought battles by seaas well as by land. Nor had the impulse which nautical sciencereceived at the close of the fifteenth century produced anymaterial improvement in the division of labour. At Floddenthe right wing of the victorious army was led by the Admiralof England. At Jarnac and Moncontour the Huguenot rankswere marshalled by the Admiral of Prance. Neither Johnof Austria, the conqueror of Lepanto, nor Lord Howard ofEffingham, to whose direction the marine of England wasentrusted when the Spanish invaders were approaching ourshores, had received the education of a sailor. Kaleigh,highly celebrated as a naval commander, had served duringmany years as a soldier in France, the Netherlands, and Ire-