(N.B. Anderson,
LL.D., Boston) informed the present author that this saying is still
proverbial amongst the United States sailors.

The same features were reproduced in merchant ships. Most of them were
suited for defence, to prevent the attacks of pirates, which swarmed
the seas round the coast at that time. Shipbuilding by the natives in
private shipyards was in a miserable condition. Mr. Willet, in his
memoir relative to the navy, observes: "It is said, and I believe with
truth, that at this time (the middle of the sixteenth century) there
was not a private builder between London Bridge and Gravesend, who
could lay down a ship in the mould left from a Navy Board's draught,
without applying to a tinker who lived in Knave's Acre."[8]

Another ship of some note built at the instance of Henry VIII. was the
Mary Rose, of the portage of 500 tons. We find her in the "pond at
Deptford" in 1515. Seven years later, in the thirtieth year of Henry
VIII.'s reign, she was sent to sea, with five other English ships of
war, to protect such commerce as then existed from the depredations of
the French and Scotch pirates. The Mary Rose was sent many years later
(in 1544) with the English fleet to the coast of France, but returned
with the rest of the fleet to Portsmouth without entering into any
engagement. While laid at anchor, not far from the place where the
Royal George afterwards went down, and the ship was under repair, her
gun-ports being very low when she was laid over, "the shipp turned, the
water entered, and sodainly she sanke."

What was to be done? There were no English engineers or workmen who
could raise the ship. Accordingly, Henry VIII. sent to Venice for
assistance, and when the men arrived, Pietro de Andreas was dispatched
with the Venetian marines and carpenters to raise the Mary Rose. Sixty
English mariners were appointed to attend upon them. The Venetians
were then the skilled "heads," the English were only the "hands."
Nevertheless they failed with all their efforts; and it was not until
the year 1836 that Mr. Dean, the engineer, succeeded in raising not
only the Royal George, but the Mary Rose, and cleared the roadstead at
Portsmouth of the remains of the sunken ships.

When Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, the commerce and navigation
of England were still of very small amount. The population of the
kingdom amounted to only about five millions--not much more than the
population of London is no