of galley
warfare.

[Illustration: GALLEON]

Yet for the new type it was the splendid trading vessels of Venice
that supplied the design. For the Antwerp and London trade, and in
protection against the increasing danger from pirates, the Venetians
had developed a compromise between the war-galley and the round-ship
of commerce, a type with three masts and propelled at least primarily
by sails, with a length about three times its beam and thus shorter
and more seaworthy than the galley, but longer, lower and swifter
than the clumsy round-ship. To this new type the names _galleass_ and
_galleon_ were bath given, but in English and later usage _galleass_
came to be applied to war vessels combining oar and sail, and _galleon_
to either war or trading vessels of medium size and length and
propelled by sail alone.

The Spanish found the galleon useful in the Atlantic carrying trade,
but, as shown at Lepanto, they retained the galley in warfare;
whereas Henry VIII of England was probably the first definitely
to favor sail for his men-of-war. An English navy list of 1545
shows four clumsy old-fashioned "great-ships" of upwards of 1000
tons, but second to these a dozen newer vessels of distinctly galleon
lines, lower than the great-ships, flush-decked, and sail-driven.
Though in engagements with French galleys during the campaign of
1545 these were handicapped by calm weather, they seem to have
held their own both in battle and in naval opinion. Of the royal
ships at the opening of Elizabeth's reign (1558), there were 11
large sailing vessels of 200 tans and upwards, and 10 smaller ones,
but only two galleys, and these "of no continuance and not worth
repair."[1] In comment on these figures, it should be added that
there were half a hundred large ships available from the merchant
service, and also that pinnaces and other small craft still combined
oar and sail.

[Footnote 1: DRAKE AND THE TUDOR NAVY, Corbett, Vol. I, p. 133.]

In England the superiority of sail propulsion was soon definitely
recognized, and discussion later centered on the relative merits
of the medium-sized galleon and the big "great-ship." The
characteristics of each are well set forth in a contemporary naval
treatise by Sir William Monson: the former with "flush deck fore and
aft, sunk and low in the water; the other lofty and high-charged,
with a half-deck, forecastle, and copperidge-heads [athwortship
bulkheads where light guns were mounted to comma