Note 78 — DIARY OF JOHN EVELYN. (continued 9)

A monument to him in Deptford Church bears a most pompous inscription: "Qui fuit patriæ decus, patriæ suæ magnum munimentum;" to the effect that he had not only restored our naval affairs, but he invented that excellent and new ornament of the Navy which we call Frigate, formidable to our enemies, to us most useful and safe: he was to be esteemed, indeed, by this invention, the Noah of his age, which, like another Ark, had snatched from shipwreck our rights and our dominion of the seas.