Nicolas says: "No monarch of England ever took greater interest in her navy than Henry the Fifth. He not only commanded large ships to be built, but personally inspected their progress; and though he was not, as has been said, its founder, he gave more powerful vessels to the Royal Navy than it ever before possessed, with the determination to acquire the dominion of the sea. His efforts to restore and improve the English navy were amply rewarded; for while the most celebrated event of his reign rivalled Poitiers and Crécy, the battle of Agincourt was, like those other glorious victories, followed by encounters on the ocean in which British valour was displayed in the usual manner, and was attended by the usual success."[1]
Much of this is true; but it should be recollected that although Henry V. undoubtedly improved the navy, he made few improvements in the manner in which the navy was managed, and that the weapon, which, in his hands produced such brilliant results, was fashioned and wielded at terrible expense to the commerce of the country. The Navy Royal was still small. The bulk of the fighting fleet was composed, as in previous ages, of vessels taken, almost by actual force, from the merchants, and frequently collected long before they could be employed, and retained long after they were needed. In later days, when the Navy Royal had become large enough for the duties of national defence at sea, trade was able to flourish, even at the height of a sanguinary war; but, under the Lancastrians, war and trade could not be adequately carried on together, seeing that the material required for the latter was also required for the former. Henry's naval glories, therefore, were frightfully costly ones.
At about the time of Henry's accession, an interesting international dispute arose. Certain merchants of Dartmouth and other ports, owners of eight ships, represented to Parliament that their vessels had been impressed at Bordeaux by the Duke of Clarence, Lieutenant of Guienne, to bring troops to England, under the command of Sir John Colville, who was "governor and captain" of the squadron. Off Belle Isle, they fell in with two Prussian hulks, laden with wine from La Rochelle. Anxious to discover whether the hulks and their cargoes belonged to the enemy, Colville sent a boat to examine their bills of lading, and to inform the masters that if they had enemy's property on board, they must
- ↑ Nicolas, ii. 402.
