180. Stone Ships.
When the Duke of Burgundy beseiged Calais, in 1436, he invented the notable project of blocking up the harbour with stone-ships, and sunk six vessels filled with immense stones which were well worked together, and cramped with lead. The experiment failed for this reason, that the Duke had forgotten to take the tides into his calculation; so at low water the stone-ships were left dry, and the people of Calais, men and women alike, amused themselves with pulling them to pieces, and hauling away the wood for fuel, to the great astonishment, the historian adds, of the Duke and his Admirals.
Had this story found its way into the popular histories of England, this country would have been saved the disgrace of a similar folly, and the ninety thousand pounds which were wasted upon it. But it has been the fashion of modern historians to reject all the circumstances of history, and give only a caput mortuum of results. That a first lord of the admiralty should have read Monstrellet was not to be expected; but it might have been expected that he would have known what the rise of the tide is at Boulogne.