e gave commissions, also, to all the traders to sink,
burn, and destroy every Norman vessel they could meet with, and offered
considerable rewards for every successful action. Besides this, he
published proclamations inviting all private persons to fit out vessels
on their own account, encouraging them with the promise of similar
rewards. Numbers of traders accepted the commission, and the sea
swarmed with privateers. They were of small size, but were manned by
bold seamen, who encouraged one another by their numbers. Robert, who
was aware that the English had no fleet, not expecting any resistance at
sea, thought only of loading his transports with as many men as they
could carry. His ships were therefore ill-prepared for action, being
overloaded with men, and he little expected any opposition from the
small ships of the English.

The latter, meantime, obtained exact intelligence of the movements of
the Normans, while they kept secret their own forces and plans. The
Normans at length sailed, and had no time to laugh at the smallness of
the English ships before they began to quake at their numbers. The
latter bore down upon them like a pack of hounds on a stag, and,
encouraged by the promised rewards, fought with the greatest fury. In
vain the Normans attempted to fly; they were overtaken and overpowered
by the multitude of their assailants. The number that perished by the
sword and drowning was astonishing; those who attempted to escape were
overtaken, and shared the fate of the others; and but few got back to
Normandy with the news of their defeat. Never was a sea-fight in which
personal courage was more nobly exhibited; never a more complete
victory, nor ever, apparently, slighter means of obtaining it.

The Normans called the English pirates, but they were properly
privateers, and the original armament to which they were united, though
a poor one, was a royal force. William punctually paid the promised
rewards.

People were generally too pleasantly employed in those mediaeval days in
knocking their neighbours on the head, or in storming and demolishing
their castles, and other similar pastimes on shore, to attend to any
subject so unromantic as shipbuilding or navigation.

Still the monarchs of the Plantagenet race had ships of their own; but
their chief notion of keeping up a navy was by laying taxes on the
sea-ports, on commerce, and on the fisheries, thus crippling the surest
means by which a fleet