The sacred records inform us that the ark of Noah was the first ship, and produced by the invention of the great Architect of Nature himself; and “though some men have so believed,” says the learned and ingenious Sir Walter Raleigh, in his “History of the World,” “yet it is certain the world was planted before the flood, which could not be performed without some transporting vessels. It is true, and the success has proved that there was not any so capacious, nor any so strong, as to defend themselves against so violent and so continued a pouring down of rain, as the ark of which Noah was the builder, from the invention of God himself. Of what fashion or fabric soever were the rest, with all men they perished according to the ordinance of God.” And it appears extremely probable that those testimonials, whereof Ovid speaks of former existence, were remains of ships wrecked at the general flood.

There can be no question that the Syrians were the first maritime power in the world, as well in point of time as importance;—but of what species of construction their vessels were, we are not informed. Their merchants trading to the Eastern Indies, as they did for Solomon; to Ophir, whence they brought gold; and also to this country for tin, and their having made three distinct descents upon America, will enable us to maintain this our opinion. After them the Greeks, a people living chiefly on the shores of the Hellespont and Ægean seas, with many islands in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Archipelagion Seas, besides their possessions in Asia Minor, and their commerce with the European Continent, obtained the next power by sea. We read indeed, that Minos, the famous Cretan sovereign and legislator, who lived two descents before the Trojan war, sent out shipping to free the Grecian seas of pirates; which shows, as Sir Walter Raleigh ingeniously infers, that there had been trade and war upon the waters before his time also.

The next in point of time and importance on record was the highly renowned expedition of the Argonauts for the golden fleece to Colchis, a country of Asia, on the Euxine sea. Immediately after this was the colonization of Cyrene, in Africa, by Battus, one of the companions of Jason, in his Colchian expedition. Shortly afterwards, the Grecian states united against Phrygian treachery and the abuse of Grecian hospitality; forming another most memorable epoch in the history of the world. We are informed the Grecian Neptune, or as mythology styles him a God of the Saturnian family, for the great service he did his father, Saturn, or Noah, against the Titans, had the seas given to him. History informs us that the first inventor of rowing vessels was a citizen of Corinth; and likewise that the first naval war was between the Samians and Corcyrians. The history of Ithicus, translated into Latin by St. Jerome, affirms that Griphon, the Scythian, was the inventor of long-boats; and Strabo also gives the honour of the invention of the anchor to another Scythian, the famous Anacharsis, whilst Greece herself by her historians, ascribes its invention to Eupolemus. Also, it is said, that Icarus invented the sail, and others, various other pieces of the component parts of ships and boats. The specification of such other imperfect memoirs, many of fabulous appearance, may be of no great importance.

It appears certain that among the four sons of Javan, the son of Japhet, the grandson, and other the posterity of Noah, who peopled the “Isles of the Gentiles,” the Grecian Islands must long before the days of Minos have used those seas, from the insular nature of their inhabitants. And it certainly does not appear extravagant to us, to presume that this people were among the first who navigated the seas. Mankind in various parts of the world, being stimulated by the same necessities, urged by the same wants, and possessing the same means, might probably produce similar inventions to each other. Most, indeed, had occasion to navigate lakes, and cross rivers. They accordingly constructed such machines as would answer their purpose of passage or migration. So were rafts and canoes, formed of canes, osiers, twigs, &c., where they grew, which they fashioned like boats, and then covered with skins of various animals; others formed rafts of wood; whilst some others fashioned canoes, having hollowed out trees for that purpose. One way or other, each people thus possessed a marine, proper for their purpose it is true, but in various degrees of excellence. This was the case with Greeks as well as barbarians of all nations; all these people, excepting the immediate descendants of Noah, might, perhaps, lay a feasible claim to the honour of the original invention of these articles; and, having never seen such, they virtually have each a good title to the distinction. Indeed, many of them might have taken the idea for such invention from the policy of certain animals, and the nature of others; to instance the sagacity of the beaver and his raft, and the little nautilus with his swelling sail: hence they might have adopted from that animal, and that piscatory insect, the idea of a raft, and also of a vessel with a sail.

In latter days we find the Teutonic Saxons first came to this country, according to Mr. Turner, the Anglo-Saxon historian, in vessels they called cyules-kells by Sir Walter Raleigh. Marine vessels have borne a variety of names, as well as of numerous figures, from the gondola of the Venetian to the canoe of the Esquimaux,—the British man-of-war to the ponderous bonaventure in which the Doge annually espouses the sea.

All those nations, too, through whose hands the maritime power has passed, from time to time, as they have been instructed by experience, or taught by necessity, might repeatedly have made additions and improvements in naval architecture: some calculated for mercantile utility, while others have only attended to warlike strength, and some to answer both purposes, like our Indiamen. But now, the British navy, being supplied with the best materials, and having as ingenious workmen as any, with the addition of the warlike children of the soil, may openly defy all nations, and proudly claim the sovereignty of the seas where her flag has been flying ’midst the battle and the breeze for so many years.

But the most important improvement in Navigation—propelling vessels by steam—has been left to our own times. The steam-engine was first applied to small vessels for the coasting or river trade; but it has now increased to vessels of the largest size,—in fact, the most part of the British navy are steamships. In former times before the introduction of this valuable auxiliary, the passage between England and America was tedious and uncertain, sometimes taking months, but rarely less than from four to six weeks, according to the state of the weather; but now the case is altered. There are a regular line of steamships, one of which leaves Liverpool every week, and the voyage is performed with almost positive certainty in from twelve to fourteen days, independent of the rude Boreas, or the boisterous Atlantic. These vessels are of the largest size and handsomely fitted up for the accommodation of passengers.