Nevertheless, the progress of society was stronger that the royal will. “The seventeenth century,” thus writes Macpherson, in his History of Commerce, “may be said, from its commencement, to approach to modern times, whether considered in a political light, or in respect to riches, knowledge, or religion.” In the celebrated treatise which Ralegh presented to his sovereign, he recommended that the “land should be made powerful by the increasing of ships and mariners;” and that such “order in commerce should be established, that the havens of England should be full of ships, the ships full of mariners.” It is singular to find the language of the seventeenth century so singularly according with that of the nineteenth. His counsels failed to convince the self-opinionated James, but they incited the courage of a boy, who, amid his playthings, listened to the voice of Ralegh, and imbibed his sentiments; and the important measures which were disregarded by men in authority, were promoted by the fancy and favour of a precocious child. Henry, Prince of Wales, that short-lived “type and mould of an heir-apparent,” delighted in maritime pursuits; he brought again into vogue the fast-declining spirit of enterprize. The citizens of London, as they were rowed in their stately barges by Whitehall stairs, saw, with satisfaction, the royal embryo-hero disporting himself with the launch of a ship--twenty-eight feet long only, to be sure, and twelve feet broad, but built by Phineas Pett, one of the ablest shipwrights of his time. Ten years rolled away; the boy, who, at nine years of age, loved his miniature frigate as a toy, became sensible that the days of amusement were past, and that those of actual business were about to commence. He resolved to visit that then-neglected dock-yard at Woolwich, which has since become a wonder of the world. The Prince there honoured an entertainment, given by the ship’s company of the “Royal Anne,” with his presence. Phineas Pett attended his young patron, and the result of that day’s inspection was of great importance to the interests of the navy. Some years had then elapsed since a new ship had been built. In 1609, James actually ordered and completed the construction of the “Prince Royal,” a vessel far superior to any that had yet appeared in the Thames; it carried sixty-four cannon, and was of fourteen hundred tons burden. From this standard, we may infer how miserable had been the previous state of naval force, such a ship being, in our time, the smallest of those admitted into the line-of-battle. It was then regarded as one of the most extraordinary productions of native skill and of royal munificence, and was the theme of praise amid an astonished and adulatory court.