When Elizabeth came to the throne, the whole merchant navy of England
engaged in lawful commerce amounted to no more than 50,000 tons. You may
see more now passing every day through the Gull Stream. In the service
of the Crown there were but seven revenue cruisers in commission, the
largest 120 tons, with eight merchant brigs altered for fighting. In
harbour there were still a score of large ships, but they were
dismantled and rotting; of artillery fit for sea work there was none.
The men were not to be had, and, as Sir William Cecil said, to fit out
ships without men was to set armour on stakes on the seashore. The
mariners of England were otherwise engaged, and in a way which did not
please Cecil. He was the ablest minister that Elizabeth had. He saw at
once that on the navy the prosperity and even the liberty of England
must eventually depend. If England were to remain Protestant, it was not
by articles of religion or acts of uniformity that she could be saved
without a fleet at the back of them. But he was old-fashioned. He
believed in law and order, and he has left a curious paper of
reflections on the situation. The ships' companies in Henry VIII.'s days
were recruited from the fishing-smacks, but the Reformation itself had
destroyed the fishing trade.
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