RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

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ANCIENT NAVY OF ENGLAND.

History mentions a great fleet of Julius Caesar; a fleet of King Edgar,
consisting of 3,600 sail; a fleet of Lewis, son to Philip King of
France, of 600 sail, that arrived at Sandwich, to assist the English
Barons against King John;--but those, doubtless, were but as so many
cottages to castles, in respect of the present ships of war.

Henry the Eighth, in the fifth year of his reign, built a ship, then
accounted the greatest that had ever been seen in England, and named it
Henry Grace de Dieu, or the Great Henry: it was of a thousand tons.

In the eighth year of King James was built, by the Londoners, a ship of
1,200 tons, and called the Trades Increase; which being lost in the East
Indies, King James caused another to be built, of 1,400 tons; which
being given to Prince Henry, was by him named The Prince.

King Charles the Martyr, perceiving the great increase of shipping in
our neighbour nations, and that the sovereignty of these seas was like
to be disputed, amongst other great ships of war, built one greater than
any ship of war either in England or in any other country of Europe, and
named it the Royal Sovereign, which, for its size, etc., shall be more
particularly described. The Royal Sovereign, being a ship of the first
rate or rank, built in the year 1637, is in length, by the keel, 127
feet; in breadth, by the beam, 47 feet; in depth, 49 feet; her draught