employment of Italian shipwrights, and by
encouraging his own people to build strong ships of war to carry great
ordnance, Henry established a puissant navy, which, at the end of his
reign, consisted of seventy-one vessels, whereof thirty were ships of
burden, and contained in all 10,550 tons, and two were galleys, and the
rest were small barks and row-barges, from eighty tons down to fifteen
tons, which served in rivers and for landing men."

Stone-shot had hitherto been used both at sea and on shore, but about
the middle of the century they were superseded by iron shot. About the
same period matchlocks were introduced on board ships.

An Act was passed in this reign encouraging merchants to build ships fit
for men-of-war, such ships being exempt from certain duties, the owners
also receiving from the king, when he required them, twelve shillings
per ton a-month.

Henry the Eighth established an Office of Admiralty, with a Navy Office,
under certain commissioners; and appointed regular salaries, not only
for his admirals and vice-admirals, but for his captains and seamen.
This established the system, pursued with various alterations, for the
maintenance of the Royal Navy. These regulations and appointments
encouraged the English to consider the sea as a means of providing for
their children, and from this time forward we have a constant series of
eminent officers in the Royal Navy, many of them noblemen of the first
distinction. Among the most celebrated in this reign were Sir Edward
Howard, his brother Sir Thomas Howard, afterwards Earl of Surrey, Sir
William Fitzwilliams, afterwards Earl of Southampton, and John Russell,
first Earl of Bedford. The most eminent navigator in the reign of
Edward the Sixth was Sebastian Cabot, son of John Cabot, who, under
Henry the Seventh, discovered Newfoundland. Nothing was done concerning
trade without consulting him; he was at the head of the merchant
adventurers, and governor of a company formed to find out a passage by
the north to the East Indies. Among the regulations for the government
of the fleet destined for the voyage to Cathay were several which show a
considerable amount of worldly wisdom and sound so quaint, that I am
tempted to quote a few of them. Clause 22--"Item--not to disclose to
any nation the state of our religion, but to pass it over in silence
without any declaration of it, seeming to bear with such laws and rites
as the place hath where you shall arr