Charles I. and Ship Money—Improvements made by him in the Navy—His great Ship, the _Royal Sovereign_—The Navigation Laws of Cromwell—Consequent War with the Dutch—Capture of Grand Spanish Prizes—Charles II. seizes 130 Dutch Ships—Van Tromp and the Action at Harwich—De Ruyter in the Medway and Thames—Peace—War with France—La Hogue—Peter the Great and his Naval Studies—Visit to Sardam—Difficulty of remaining _incognito_—Cooks his own Food—His Assiduity and Earnestness—A kind-hearted Barbarian—Gives a Grand Banquet and _Fête_—Conveyed to England—His Stay at Evelyn’s Place—Studies at Deptford—Visits Palaces and Public Houses—His Intemperance—Presents the King a £10,000 Ruby—Engages numbers of English Mechanics—Return to Russia—Rapid increase in his Navy—Determines to Build St. Petersburg—Arrivals of the First Merchantmen—Splendid Treatment of their Captains—Law’s Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea Bubble—Two Nations gone Mad—The “Bubble” to Pay the National Debt—Its one Solitary Ship—Noble and Plebeian Stockbrokers—Rise and Fall of the Bubble—Directors made to Disgorge. Charles I., as we all know, had a fatal amount of belief in the royal prerogative. One of his first acts, after ascending the throne, was to assume the direct government of Virginia, and not only to treat the charter of the company as annulled, “but broadly declared that colonies founded by adventurers, or occupied by British subjects, were essentially part and parcel of the dominion of the mother country.” The Virginia Company vainly complained that they had expended a fifth of a million sterling over the undertaking; their territory was appropriated to the Crown, as were shortly afterwards North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and part of Louisiana. But these arbitrary acts were as nothing to the ship-money tax. There was some precedent for it. “The ancient princes of England, as they called on the inhabitants of the counties near Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence of the border, had sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish ships for the defence of the coast. In the room of ships, money had sometimes been accepted. This old practice it was now determined, after a long interval, not only to revive but to extend. Former princes had raised ship-money only in time of war; it was now exacted in a time of profound peace. Former princes, even in the most perilous wars, had raised ship-money only along the coasts; it was now exacted from the inland shires. Former princes had raised ship-money only for the maritime defence of the country; it was now exacted, by the admission of the Royalists themselves, with the object, not of maintaining a navy, but of furnishing the king with supplies which might be increased at his discretion to any amount, and expended at his