In addition to this, however, there sprang up what is nothing better than a legalised piracy. By a proclamation of 1557, any Englishman could fit out a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Crown, and when he had located these enemies on the high seas, could attack them and confiscate their ships and contents. Now this afforded a fine outlet for those imaginative seafarers who yearned for something more adventurous than catching fish. It was just the kind of life for those who gloried in adventure and wanted it on sea. It helped to turn the fisherman into a fighting man; it was a training school for those who were presently to become the great sea captains and admirals, the gunners and able seamen of the great Elizabethan age. CHAPTER X THE ELIZABETHAN AGE The seamanship, the navigation, and the gunnery of the Elizabethan age will ever be memorable, not merely because they attained such excellence after centuries of imperfection, but because by a combination of these three arts the whole future of England was mapped out, her supremacy assured, and her colonial expansion begun. A four-masted warship of her reign was not a handy creature to control. She could fight and she could ride out an Atlantic gale, but she was clumsy; she was--even the best of her class--much addicted to rolling, owing to the fact that she possessed such immense weights above the water-line. She was certainly an improvement on the ships of Henry VII and VIII, but she was too cumbrous to be considered in any degree satisfactory. Before we proceed to discuss the way they were handled, let us briefly survey the principal types of vessels on board which the men of this reign had to serve. [Illustration: SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FOUR-MASTED SHIP. By a Contemporary Artist.] [Illustration: ELIZABETHANS BOARDING AN ENEMY’S SHIP.]