mentioned in a letter[1] sent by Henry to the Emperor Frederick in 1157, and containing the phrase, "Let there be between ourselves and our subjects an indivisible unity of friendship and peace, and safe trade of merchandise." Of Bristol William of Malmesbury[2] tells us that "its haven was a receptacle for ships coming from Ireland and Norway, and other foreign lands, lest a region so blessed with native riches should be deprived of the benefits of foreign commerce." Henry encouraged the growing trade, and in one of his ordinances of 1181 there is a passage which reads almost like an early Angevin premonition of certain provisions of the navigation laws. It directs the itinerant justices to declare in each county that no one under the heaviest penalties should buy or sell any ship to be taken out of England, nor induce any seaman to remove thence.[3]
Of the size to which Henry's ships attained, some indication is afforded by the statement that in March, 1170, the foundering of a single vessel cost the lives of four hundred persons.[4] Neither Charnock[5] nor Southey[6] expresses incredulity upon the point, nor does there seem to be any valid reason for refusing to accept the assertion; but Nicolas[7] is of opinion that it is "one of the usual exaggerations of chroniclers whenever they mention numbers; or the ships of the twelfth century were at least four times larger than they are supposed to have been." The truth certainly is that twelfth-century vessels were often very much larger than Nicolas imagined them to be. Still, it is not likely that any vessels of that age were designed to carry so large a complement as four hundred. The particular vessel in question was at the time engaged upon transport duty, and may well have been crowded to the extent of double her normal crew, or even more. No British man-of-war of the eighteenth century had a proper complement of more than about 850 officers and men; yet many instances are on record of eighteenth-century ships having been at sea for considerable periods with 1200, 1500, or even 2000 souls in them. To assume that twelfth-century ships were sometimes crowded for short voyages in corresponding proportion is not unreasonable, and that assumption would reduce the normal complement of the ship of Henry II. that was lost to about 270, or even to 170.
