irreconcilable.' Such an alliance would increase the jealousy of the
Netherlands, a country which was for England a necessary friend. He
lamented the present weakness of England, 'through the detested
covetousness of some great ones of ours. Whereas, in my time, I have
known one of her Majesty's ships command forty Hollanders to strike
sail, they will now take us one to one, and not give us a good morrow.
They have our own ordnance to break our own bones withal.' Besides, the
Prince was only about eighteen. So long as he continued unmarried all
the eyes of Christendom were upon him. 'Let him for a while not entangle
himself.' When he desired to wed he would find, Ralegh suggested, a
French family alliance more honourable and advantageous than a Spanish.

His presumption in meddling with questions of State, and in answering
them in a manner opposite to the King's inclination, may have had
something to do with the unexplained chastisement inflicted upon him in
the summer of 1611. Whatever their cause, rebukes and curtailments of
privileges neither silenced him nor lost him the goodwill of his
friend. The Prince not long after sought his assistance in the building
of a model ship. The vessel was christened 'The Prince,' and it proved
an excellent sailer. The prisoner of the Tower wrote about it as if he
smelt the sea-breezes. Twenty-nine years earlier he had proved himself a
master in the art of ship-building. In his time, as he has recorded,
'the shape of English ships had been greatly bettered.' Much of the
credit of the reform is his due. Pett, the best naval architect in the
kingdom, in whose family the post of Master Shipwright became almost
hereditary, is reported to have been glad to gather hints from him. His
communications with the Prince about the ship drew his thoughts back to
maritime questions. Beside a letter, admirably terse and critical, to
Prince Henry, he composed a treatise minutely practical, called a
_Discourse of the Invention of Ships_, and also _Observations concerning
the Royal Navy and Sea Service_. Both probably were intended for parts
of an elaborate work on _The Art of War by Sea_, which the death of the
Prince hindered him from completing. He alludes in the Observations to a
_Discourse of a Maritimal Voyage_, as a previous product of his pen,
which, unless it be the _Discourse of the Invention of Ships_, has
disappeared. Had _The Art of War by Sea_ come into systematic being,
that might have