It is time now to give some description of the evolution of that terrible instrument of destruction, the Submarine Mine, under which head may be included both those that are placed below water and those that float or drift at the surface. The utilization of explosives for the attack of shipping has been attempted by belligerents for centuries, but I am not aware that they have ever been employed against peaceful traders and fishermen before the Great War. The Germans may attempt to excuse themselves by alleging that some merchantmen carry guns for defence; but that has been the universal practice for centuries, and no merchantmen were more heavily armed than the old trading-ships of the Hansa League. Such ships were entirely different from the privateers, provided with Letters of Marque which entitled them to attack and capture enemy vessels if they could. On principles of self-defence, merchantmen were always entitled to beat off an attack if they could, and such action exposed other merchantmen to no reprisals. It is only of late years, when civilization was supposed to be so far advanced as to render the sinking of merchantmen "on their lawful occasions" an impossibility, that they ceased to carry guns. Probably the first inventor of a floating mine--in the shape of an explosion-ship, as distinguished from a fire-ship--was an Italian engineer, who in contemporary accounts is variously referred to as "Gianibelli", "Gedevilo", "Genebelli", "Gienily", "Jenabel", and "Innibel", who, by means of a couple of small vessels filled with powder, which was built over with tons of bricks, gravestones, millstones, and "everything heavy, hooked, and sharp which 'this wicked witty man thought most damageable'", blew to absolute "smithereens" the great bridge which the Duke of Parma had built across the Scheldt in order to complete the blockade of Antwerp in 1585. It is rather interesting to note in passing that Gianibelli seems to have spent some time in this country. He had a good deal to do with the building of Tilbury Fort, and brought forward extended proposals for the reopening of Rye Harbour, which had become silted up. This he does not seem to have effected satisfactorily, and payment of £821, 9_s._, which he demanded of the Mayor and jurats of that famous town, was refused. He may have had something to do with the preparation of the fire-ships sent against the Spanish Armada in Calais Roads. At any rate the Spaniards on board thought so, for they, considering them "to be of those kind of dreadful Powder-Ships, which that famous Enginier Frederick Innibel had devised not long before in the River of Skeld", cried "the Fire Antwerp", cut their cables, and put to sea in the confusion that proved their ruin.