What followed? Every time the English seamen came back with terrible yarns concerning the treachery of the Portuguese and Spaniards, every time the stories of the gallant fights were told, every time the jewels and plate and pearls were seen and handled, the West countrymen were stirred to their very souls. Religious and commercial jealousy, racial hatred and the love of adventure, combined with the possibility of becoming rich—all this created such a fire of enthusiasm that the English Mercantile Marine was bound to increase in numbers and aspirations. The moderate ambitions of the Middle Ages had passed away for ever: the dawn of a new order of things had now already come. CHAPTER VI THE MERCANTILE MARINE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY By the middle of the fourteenth century the merchant ships had begun to outgrow mediævalism; by the sixteenth they were able to go to windward and to keep the sea for months on end. Thus, vessels had at last begun to enjoy the freedom of the seas and to be independent of the shore. It was a great achievement, considering how limited in size and seaworthiness ships had been, and how limited in knowledge mariners had remained until they had passed through the Middle Ages and emerged into the clear, bright light of science. Men were getting away from convention and thinking for themselves, but some of the old habits were dying very slowly. One very antique custom was that of waits attending seafaring men. As late as 1466, and probably even after, at the Cinque Ports musicians with fifes and trumpets paraded the town and announced which way the wind was blowing, so that merchant ships could put to sea if the wind was fair for them. The use of the ship’s bell had been introduced into Tudor ships before the end of the fifteenth century, for Henry VII’s famous _Grâce Dieu_ in 1485 included this in her inventory, and the _Regent_ in 1495 had two “wache belles.” In a volume printed at the beginning of the sixteenth century, showing a typical merchant ship of the time, with mast, square-sails, and castles from which to attack pirates and other enemies, the artist has actually shown, in a rather conventional, but none the less interesting, manner the skipper at the helm and the merchants with their bales of goods in the vessel; but the pictorial information of these early craft is so slight, and landsmen artists dealing with technical marine subjects were so very inaccurate, that it is only by most diligent and careful research that a nautical student who understands the ways of a ship can follow the development of the merchant craft through to the seventeenth century.