mployed them wholly to the wafting in and out of our
merchants, whereby he hath reaped no small commodity and gain. I might
take occasion to tell of the notable and difficult voyages made into
strange countries by Englishmen, and of their daily success there; but
as these things are nothing incident to my purpose, so I surcease to
speak of them. Only this will I add, to the end all men shall
understand somewhat of the great masses of treasure daily employed
upon our navy, how there are few of those ships, of the first and
second sort, that, being apparelled and made ready to sail, are not
worth one thousand pounds, or three thousand ducats at the least, if
they should presently be sold. What shall we think then of the
greater, but especially of the navy royal, of which some one vessel is
worth two of the other, as the shipwrights have often told me? It is
possible that some covetous person, hearing this report, will either
not credit it at all, or suppose money so employed to be nothing
profitable to the queen's coffers: as a good husband said once when he
heard there should be a provision made for armour, wishing the queen's
money to be rather laid out to some speedier return of gain unto her
grace, "because the realm (saith he) is in case good enough," and so
peradventure he thought. But if, as by store of armour for the defence
of the country, he had likewise understanded that the good keeping of
the sea is the safeguard of our land, he would have altered his
censure, and soon given over his judgment. For in times past, when our
nation made small account of navigation, how soon did the Romans, then
the Saxons, and last of all the Danes, invade this island? whose
cruelty in the end enforced our countrymen, as it were even against
their wills, to provide for ships from other places, and build at home
of their own whereby their enemies were oftentimes distressed. But
most of all were the Normans therein to be commended. For, in a short
process of time after the conquest of this island, and good
consideration had for the well-keeping of the same, they supposed
nothing more commodious for the defence of the country than the
maintenance of a strong navy, which they speedily provided,
maintained, and thereby reaped in the end their wished security,
wherewith before their times this island was never acquainted. Before
the coming of the Romans I do not read that we had any ships at all,
except a few made of wicker and covered