the construction of
many ships down to an advanced stage, the government dockyards
completing and equipping them for commission.

_Great Britain._--Previous to the reign of Henry VIII., the kings of
England had neither naval arsenals nor dockyards, nor any regular
establishment of civil or naval officers to provide ships of war, or to
man them. There are, however, strong evidences of the existence of
dockyards, or of something answering thereto, at very early dates, at
Rye, Shoreham and Winchelsea. In November 1243 the sheriff of Sussex was
ordered to enlarge the house at Rye in which the king's galleys were
kept, so that it might contain seven galleys. In 1238 the keepers of
some of the king's galleys were directed to cause those vessels to be
breamed, and a house to be built at Winchelsea for their safe custody.
In 1254 the bailiffs of Winchelsea and Rye were ordered to repair the
buildings in which the king's galleys were kept at Rye. At Portsmouth
and at Southampton there seem to have been at all times depots for both
ships and stores, though there was no regular dockyard at Portsmouth
till the middle of the 16th century. It would appear, from a curious
poem in Hakluyt's _Collection_ called "The Policie of Keeping the Sea,"
that Littlehampton, unfit as it now is, was the port at which Henry
VIII. built

"his great _Dromions_
Which passed other great shippes of the commons."

The "dromion," "dromon," or "dromedary" was a large warship, the
prototype of which was furnished by the Saracens. Roger de Hoveden,
Richard of Devizes and Peter de Longtoft celebrate the struggle which
Richard I., in the "Trench the Mer," on his way to Palestine, had with a
huge dromon,--"a marvellous ship! a ship than which, except Noah's ship,
none greater was ever read of." This vessel had three masts, was very
high out of the water, and is said to have had 1500 men on board. It
required the united force of the king's galleys, and an obstinate fight,
to capture the dromon.

The foundation of a regular British navy, by the establishment of
dockyards, and the formation of a board, consisting of certain
commissioners for the management of its affairs, was first laid by Henry
VIII., and the first dockyard erected during his reign was that of
Woolwich. Those of Portsmouth, Deptford, Chatham and Sheerness followed
in succession. Plymouth was founded by William III. Pembroke was
established in 1814, a small yard having