506 ENGLISH GALLEYS IN THE October was of the galley type but furnished with masts and sails, and was afterwards converted to a pinnace. Mr. Oppenheim, therefore, thinks that she was not ^ real galley at all ; ^ but the number of rowers she possessed seems to imply that oars were more than a mere auxiliary means-of propulsion.'^ The Superlativa and the Advantagia were built in 1601, and were almost certainly the result of an order of the privy council that London (Avith aid from Middlesex, Westminster, St. Katherine's, and other suburbs of the city) was to build two galleys for defence of the Thames, while the queen undertook to build four."^ Of these four the Volatilia and Gallarita, which appear in 1602, seem to have been all that were completed. An undated navy list, which has been assigned with consider- able probability to this year, gives the following interesting details in connexion with these galleys : Men in Men at Harbour. Sea. Mariners. Gunners, k Soldiers. Rowers. Mercury . 6 180 38 6 40 96 La Superlativa 6 446 50 10 126 260 La Advantage 6 422 50 10 118 244 La Volatilia 6 394 50 10 118 216 La Galeretia 6 422 50 10 118 244* It is not, of course, suggested for a moment that these gaUeys were regularly equipped in this manner, for, with the exception of the Mercury, there is no evidence that they ever saw service at all ; this list merely presents the personnel which the navy officials thought necessary for their efficient employment at sea. As a matter of fact, this outburst of gaUey building in 1601-2 is a curious excursion for the purposes of coast defence from the main road of English shipbuilding ; and even within this limited sphere these galleys seem to have served no good end. After being a constant expense to the Crown for many years, they were finally ordered to be sold in 1629.^
- Oppenheim, p. 123 : he gives no reference for the statement as to the conversion
of the Mercury ; there was a pinnace called the Mercury built for the voyage against Algiers (State Papers, Dom., James I, cxxxii, 21 August 1622) ; there may be some confision with this.
- Not only is the Mercury classed with other gallejrs in 1602 (see below), but she
is referred to as a galley in a letter of 3 May 1596 (Borough to Lord Burleigh, State Papers, Dom., Eliz., cclvii. 67), and in another of 21 August 1601 (F. Trevor to Fulke Greville, Hist. MSS. Comm., Coke MSS., i. 31), though she is certainly grouped with the ships in a list in Hist. MSS. Comm., Coke MSS., i. 32.
- Acts of the Privy Council, xxxi. 119-21, 28 January 1601. See Mr. Oppenheim,
ante, ix. 714; Hist. MSS. Comm., Coke MSS., i. 32, 33, 35; and Overall, Index to Remembrancia, ii. 41. These two galle3r8 were almost completely equipped by 10 September 1602 ; the equipment as well as the building of them was paid for by London.
- State Papers, Dom., Eliz., oclxxxvi. 36 (1602 ?). « Oppenheim, p. 207.
