“But there’s no estate grown in haste but that of the United Provinces, and especially in their sea forces, and by a contrary way to that of Spain and France; the latter by invasion, the former by oppression. For I myself may remember _when one ship of Her Majesty’s would have made forty Hollanders strike sail and come to an anchor_. They did not then dispute de Mari Libero, but readily acknowledged the English to be Domini Maria Britannici. That we are less powerful than we were, I do hardly believe it; for, although we have not at this time 135 ships belonging to the subject of 500 tons each ship, as it is said we had in the twenty-fourth year of Queen Elizabeth; at which time also, upon a general view and muster, there were found in England of able men fit to bear arms, 1,172,000, yet are our merchant ships now far more warlike and better appointed than they were, and the Navy royal double as strong as it then was. For these were the ships of Her Majesty’s Navy at that time: 1. The Triumph 2. The Elizabeth Jonas 3. The White Bear 4. The Philip and Mary 5. The Bonadventure 6. The Golden Lyon 7. The Victory 8. The Revenge 9. The Hope 10. The Mary Rose 11. The Dreadnought 12. The Minion 13. The Swiftsure to which there have been added:-- 14. The Antilope 15. The Foresight 16. The Swallow 17. The Handmaid 18. The Jennett 19. The Bark of Ballein 20. The Ayde 21. The Achates 22. The Falcon 23. The Tyger 24. The Bull “We have not, therefore, less force than we had, the fashion, and furnishing of our ships considered, for there are in England at this time 400 sail or merchants, and fit for the wars, which the Spaniards would call galleons; to which we may add 200 sail of crumsters, or hoyes of Newcastle, which, each of them, will bear six Demi-culverins and four Sakers, needing no other addition of building than a slight spar deck fore and aft, as the seamen call it, which is a slight deck throughout....