up to a breeze, or going ahead, I saw that that was impossible.
I have since discovered, with no little satisfaction, when examining
into the subject, that the verbal descriptions of the ships of those
days give a very different idea to that which the prints and tapestry
work do, which so offended my nautical instincts.

Large substantial vessels, we may depend on it, existed in those days,
and though encumbered with much top hamper, and rigged only with square
sails, they did not carry the high towers nor the absurdly cut sails
which they are represented to have done in all the illustrated histories
I have seen. The celebrated galleys of King Alfred are described by an
old writer as very long, narrow, and deep vessels, heavily ballasted on
account of the high deck on which the soldiers and seamen stood above
the heads of the rowers. Of these rowers, there were four to work each
oar, and as there were thirty-eight oars on a side, there must have been
upwards of three hundred rowers to each vessel. Whether these vessels
had more than one mast is uncertain. From their want of beam they would
have run much risk of turning over had they attempted to sail except
directly before the wind. They moved with great rapidity; and in an
engagement off the Isle of Wight, they ran down the Danish vessels in
succession till the whole fleet of the enemy was either sunk, driven on
shore, or put to flight.

The navy of England still further increased during the reign of Alfred's
immediate successors, till, in the time of King Edgar (A.D. 957), it had
reached the number of three thousand six hundred ships at least, "with
which," as say his chroniclers, "he vindicated the right claimed in all
ages by the sovereigns of this island to the dominion of the seas
(meaning the seas surrounding England), and acquired to himself the
great title of _The Protector of Commerce_."

This navy was divided into three fleets, each of twelve hundred sail,
which he kept in constant readiness for service, one on the eastern
coast, another on the western, and a third on the northern coasts of the
kingdom, to defend them against the depredations of the Danish and
Norman pirates, and to secure the navigation of the adjacent seas;
which, that he might the more effectually do, he, every year after the
festival of Easter, went on board the fleet on the eastern coast, and
sailing westward with it scoured the channel of pirates; and having
looked into all the