Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/482

454 454 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. II. PART tonnage and upwards ;^^ and others held out pro- tection and various immunities to seamen/^ The drift of the first of these laws, like that of the famous English navigation act, so many years later, was, as the preamble sets forth, to exclude foreign- ers from the carrying trade ; and the others were equally designed to build up a marine, for the de- fence, as well as commerce of the country. In this, the sovereigns were favored by their important colonial acquisitions, the distance of which, more- over, made it expedient to employ vessels of great- er burden than those hitherto used. The language of subsequent laws, as well as various circumstan- ces within our knowledge, attest the success of these provisions. The number of vessels in the merchant service of Spain, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, amounted to a thousand, according to Campomanes. ^^ We may infer the flourishing condition of their commercial marine from their military, as shown in the armaments sent at different times against the Turks, or the Barbary corsairs. ^^ The convoy which accom- panied the infanta Joanna to Flanders, in 1496, consisted of one hundred and thirty vessels, great and small, having a force of more than twenty thousand men on board ; a formidable equipment. 61 Alfaro, November 10th, 1495. the Turks, in 1482, consisted of sev- Ibid., fol. 136. enty sail, and that under Gonsalvo, 62 See a number of these, collect- in 1500, of sixty, large and small, ed by Navarrete, Coleccion de Via- (Ante, Part I., Chapter G; Part II., ges, Introd. pp. 43, 44. Chapter 10.) See other e.xpedi- 63 Cited by Robertson, History tions, enumerated by Navarrete, of America, vol. iii. p. 305. Coleccion de Viages, torn. i. p. 50. 64 The fleet fitted out against