The Romans, who were as fickle on the subject of a fleet as the element to which it was destined, resolved a third time to have a naval force; but ships were out of the question, when raising the wind was quite impossible. The state being without funds, appealed to the merchants, who consented to sink a large sum in an entirely new navy, with the understanding that if the tide of fortune should turn in their favour, they were to receive their money back again. The Romans had by this time become better sailors than before, while the Carthaginian tars had greatly deteriorated for want of practice. The ships of the latter were so heavily laden with corn that they could not proceed like chaff before the wind; and the sailors, encumbered by the cargo, found themselves going continually against the grain in attempting to work the vessels. The Romans obtained an easy victory, but it could not have been so easy to dispose of its results; for, after killing 14,000 men, they found themselves still saddled with 34,000 prisoners. A peace was concluded; one of the conditions being, that Carthage should pay to Rome 200 talents by instalments extending over twenty years--an arrangement equivalent to the discharge of a liability at the rate of one shilling per annum in the pound, and the extinction of the whole debt by simply paying the interest. The first Punic War was now at an end, and it was high time it should be, for the losses sustained on both sides were enough to have exhausted the Roman as well as the Carthaginian population; and our history would then have come to an abrupt termination, like the tragedy of the youth, who was obliged to drop his curtain in the second act, in consequence of his having killed all his characters. It is fortunate, therefore, that the classical authorities, after "cutting to pieces" their thousands and drowning their hundreds, in a day, should have paused in their career of devastation just in time to leave something to go on with, to the conscientious historian. While, however, war killed everything else, it kept itself alive in the most extraordinary manner; for though brought to a temporary pause by having swallowed up all its usual articles of consumption, fresh food was speedily found, and the jaws of destruction were again on active service.