They could not sail nearer to the wind than seven points, for the statement is made that “the wind veared to the West, so that we could lie but North and by West.”[74] Approaching a strange harbour, they would first send forth the ship’s “pinnesse” before entering. They were not long in discovering that “the land lay not as the Globe made mention.” The “Confidence being troubled with bilge water, we thought it good to seeke harbour for her redresse.” The cost of purchasing these three ships was £6000 according to another account also included in Hakluyt, and written by one, Clement Adams, who praises very highly the “very strong and well seasoned plankes for the building,” as well as the skill of the shipwrights who “calke them, pitch them, and among the rest they make one most stanch and firme, by an excellent and ingenious invention.” This invention is that “they cover a piece of the keele of the shippe with thin sheetes of leade, for they had heard that in certaine parts of the Ocean a kinde of wormes is bredde, which many times pearceth and eateth through the strongest oake that is.” The reader will recollect that this “invention” was known to the inhabitants of the Mediterranean for many hundreds of years before this.[75] The same writer states that when they departed from Ratcliffe “upon the ebbe” “with the turning of the water” the “greater shippes” were “towed downe with boates, and oares, and the mariners being apparelled in watchet or skie coloured cloth, rowed amaine.” The Court being at Greenwich they fired a salute while “one stoode in the poope of the ship, and by his gesture bids farewell to his friendes ... another walkes upon the hatches, another climbes the shrowds, another stands upon the maine yard, and another in the top of the shippe.” When they arrived at Harwich, to Chancellor’s dismay, part of the victuals were found to be “corrupt and putrified” “and the hoggesheads of wine also leaked, and were not stanch.” During the reign of Mary the fishing and coasting traffic flourished, but it is when we enter upon the reign of Elizabeth that we find the greatest encouragement given. It was she who repealed all existing restrictions in connection with navigation laws, so that merchants were allowed to use whatever ships they possessed, whether foreign or English-built. More sensible and far-sighted than some of our modern legislators, she was wise enough to restrict the coasting trade to British ships. In this reign, too, telescopes were invented, Mercator’s chart of the world completed, the art of navigation developed, hydrography taken up seriously, the harbours of England and estuaries well surveyed, pilotage and buoyage systematised and placed under the care of the corporation of Trinity House. The variation of the compass had been already observed by Columbus and Cabot, but under Elizabeth the matter was given serious study.