Encyclopaedia Britannica, or, a Dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature : enlarged and improved. Illustrated with nearly six hundred engravings > Volume 19, Scripture-SUG

SHIP-BUILDING.
Hiftory-
'celera,
Kp-
r
| p- vol. iv,
6C4.
fame prince made to fail on the Nile, we are told, was
half a ftadium long. Yet thefe were nothing in compa-
rifon of Hiero’s fhip, built under the direction of Ar¬
chimedes } on the ftrudture of which Mofehion wrote a
whole volume. There was wood enough employed in
it to make 50 galleys ; it had all the variety of apart¬
ments of a palace ; fuch as banqueting-rooms, galleries,
gardens, fith-ponds, {tables, mills, baths, and a temple to
Venus. The floors of the middle apartment were all
inlaid, and reprefented in various colours the {lories of
Homer’s Iliad. The ceilings, windows, and all other
parts, were finilhed with wonderful art, and embellilhed
with all kinds of ornaments. In the uppermoft apart¬
ment there was a fpacious gymnafium, or place for exer-
cife, and water was conveyed to the garden by pipes,
fome of hardened clay, and others of lead. The floors
of the temple of Venus were inlaid with agates and
other precious {tones) the infide lined with cyprefs
wood ; the windows adorned with ivory paintings and
fmall ftatues. . There was likewife a library. This vef-
fel was adorned on all fides with fine paintings. It had
20 benches of oars, and was encompaffed with an iron
rampart, eight towers, with walls and bulwarks, furnith-
ed with machines of war, particularly one which threw
a {tone of 300 pounds, or a dart 12 cubits long, the
fpace of half a mile, with many other particulars related
by Athenaeus. Caligula likewife built a veflel adorned
with jewels in the poop, with fails of many colours, and
furnifhed with large porticoes, bagnios, and banquet¬
ing-rooms, befides row's of vines, and fruit-trees of va¬
rious kinds. But thefe, and all fuch monrtrous fabrics,
ferved only for fhow and oftentation, being rendered-by
their vaft bulk unwieldy and unfit for fervice. Athe¬
naeus informs us, the common names they were known
by, wrere Cyclades, or I&tna, i. e. “ iflands, or moun¬
tains,” to which they feemed nearly equal in bignefs ;
confifting, as {ome report, of as many materials as
would have compofed 50 triremes, or {hips of three
banks.
The veffels employed by the northern nations appear
to have been {till more imperfect than thofe of the Ro¬
mans 5 for a law was enacted in the reign of the em¬
peror Honorius, 24th September, A. X). 418, inflift-
ing capital punifhment on any ■who fliould inltrudt the
barbarians in the art of fhip-buiiding 5 a proof at once
of the great eftimation in which this fcience w'as then
held, and of the ignorance of the barbarians w'ith re¬
gard to it.
The fleet of Richard I. of England, when he weighed
anchor for the holy war from Meflina, in Sicily, where
he had paffed the winter, A. D. 1190-1, is faid to have
confided of 150 great (hips and 53 galleys, befides
barks, tartans, &c. What kinds of Ihips thefe were is
not mentioned. To the crufades, however pernicious in
other refpects, this fcienoe fcems to owe fome improve¬
ments ; and to this particular one we are indebted for
Richard’s marine code, commonly called the Laws of
Oleron, from the name of a fmall ifland on the coaft of
France, where he compofed them, and which moft of
the nations in Europe have made the bails of their ma¬
ritime regulations. Thofe {hips, if they merited the
name of (hips, wrere probably very fmall, as we find that
fo long after as the time of Edward I. anno 1304, 40
men were deemed fufficient to man the belt and largeft
veflels in England j and that Edivard the Third, anno
Vol. XIX. Part I,
J335, ordained the mayor, and flierilfs'of London to Hiftory.
“ take up all {hips in their port, and all other ports in “1
the kingdom, of the burden of 40 tons and upwards,
and to furnifh the fame with armed men and other ne-
ceffaries of war, againft the Scots his enemies, confede¬
rated with certain perfons of foreign nations.” Edward
the Third’s fleet before Calais, anno 1347, confiited of
738 Englifli flaps, carrying 14,956 mariners, being on
an average but 20 men to each [hip •, 1 5 (hips and 459
mariners, from Bayonne in Guienne, being 30 men to
each (hip j 7 (hips and 184 men from Spain, which is-
26 men to each (hip j one from Ireland, carrying 25
men j 14 from Flanders, with 133 men, being fcarcely
10 men to each (hip ; and one from Guclderland, with
24 mariners. Fifteen of thefe were called the king’s
own (hips, manned with. 419 mariners, being fornewhat
under 17 to each (hip.
Hiflorians reprefent the veflels of Venice and Genoa
as the largefl and the bed about this time, but they
were foon exceeded in fize by the Spanilh veflels called
carricks, fome of which carried cannon •, and thefe again
were exceeded by the veflels built by the northern peo¬
ple, particularly thofe belonging to the Hanfe-towns.—->
In the 14th century, the Hanfeatics were the fovereigns
of the northern feas, as w'ell without as within the Bal¬
tic -} and their (hips were fo large, that foreign princes
often hired them in their wars. According to Hak¬
luyt, an Englilh (hip from Newcaftle, of 200 tons bur¬
den, was feized in the Baltic by thofe of Wifmar and
Roitock, anno 1394 j and another Englifli veflel of the Fcedera, •
fame burden was violently feized in the port of Lifbon, v°h Vlii-
anno 141 2. P-
Soon after (hips of a much larger fize were con- ^ vo^
ftructed. It is mentioned that a very large (hip was*5, 2‘’8’
built, anno 1449, by John Taverner of Hull; and in ^
the year 1455, King Henry IV. at the requeft of ^ ^
Charles king of Sweden, granted a licence for a Swedifli
fliip of the burden of a thoufand tons or under, laden
with merchandife, and having 1 20 perfons on board, to
come to the ports of England, there to difpofe of their
lading, and to relade back with Englifli merchandife,
paying the ufual cuftoms. The infcription on the tond)
of William Canning, an eminent merchant, who had
been five times mayor of Briftol, in Ratelift-chureh at
Briftol, anno 1474, mentions his having forfeited the
king’s peace, for which he was condemned to pay 300
marks ; in lieu of which fum, King Edw'ard IV. took
of him 2470 tons of (hipping, amongfl: which there
was one fliip of 900 tons burden, another of 500 tons,
and one of 400 tons, the reft being fmaller.
In the year 1506, King James IV. of Scotland built
the largefl: (hip which had hitherto been feen, but which
was loft in her way to France in the year 1512, owing
probably to a defective conftruftion, and the unikilful-
nefs of the crew in managing fo large a (hip.—About
this time a very large fliip was likewife built in France.
In the fleet fitted out by Henry VIII. anno 1512, there
was one fliip, the Regent, of 1000 tons burden, one of
500, and three of 400 each. A (hip ftill larger than
the Regent, was built foon after, called Henri Grace
Dieul In the year 1522 the firft voyage round the
globe was finbhed.
The Englifli naval hiftorians think that (hips carried
cannon on their upper decks only, and had no gun-
ports before the year 1545 : and it is certain that many
I i of