e could impress or hire in all his ports would
not be sufficient for the safe transport of his troops, and "their
furniture of war." But Henry's ardent and commanding mind soon saw how
powerful an engine, both of defence and of conquest, would be found in
a permanent royal navy, and how indispensable such an establishment
was to any insular sovereign who desired to provide for his country
the means of offering a bold front against aggression, protecting
herself from insult, maintaining her rights, and taking a lead among
the surrounding powers. He resolved, therefore, not to depend (p. 129)
upon the precarious and unsatisfactory expedients either of hiring
vessels, which would never be his own, (in a market, too, where his
enemy might forestal him, and where his necessities would enhance the
price,) or of compelling his merchants to leave their trading, and
minister to the emergence of the state, at their own inevitable loss,
and not improbable ruin. His immediate determination was to spare
neither labour nor expense in providing a navy of his own, such as
would be ever ready at the sovereign's command to protect the coast,
to sweep the seas of those hordes of pirates which then infested them,
and to bear his forces with safety and credit to any distant shores.
He thus thought he should best secure his own ports and provinces from
foreign invasion; afford a safeguard to his own merchants, and to
those traders who would traffic with his people; and generally make
England a more formidable antagonist and a more respected neighbour.

This new line of policy he adopted very early in his reign. Whilst he
was at Southampton, (at the date of this digression, on his first
expedition to Normandy,) we find him superintending the building of
various large ships: and, two years afterwards, when news reached him
of the victory gained by his brother the Duke of Bedford over the
French fleet off Harfleur, the tidings found him making the most
effectual means for securing future victories; he was at Smalhithe in
Kent, personally superintending the building of some ships to (p. 130)
add to his own royal navy, then only in its infancy.[100]

[Footnote 100: The Pell Rolls record the payment of
a pension which bears testimony to the interest
taken by Henry in his infant navy, and to the
kindness with which he rewarded those who had
fai