W. S. Lindsay

“ Every impartial reader of history can hardly fail to see that though the maritime decrees of Napoleon on the one hand, and the English Orders in Council on the other, had nothing to do with the origin of the lamentable wars which so long shook Europe to its base, they were the means, in a great measure, of their prolongation, and were the origin, in an essential manner, of the war between England and the United States of America. Attempts on the part of governments to deprive nations of what is necessary for their existence must ever produce the most serious consequences. ”

“ I have seen a captain whose heart was in his ship, caress her!—yes, caress her, by clapping the taffrail where he stood when she was performing her work to his satisfaction, as if she had been a living thing, and heard him exclaiming, “Go a-head, my beauty!” just as many persons may have been heard extolling the performance of a favourite horse. Care must, therefore, be taken not to interfere by unnecessary legislative enactments with what is not merely our business but our pride and pleasure, or we may be driven, to the serious loss of the nation, to seek other investments for our capital. ”

“ If Genoa failed, her commerce in Greece, at least, would be extinguished; while if she succeeded, she was certain to bring down upon herself the thunders of the Latin Church, the hatred of the Franks, and the vengeance of the Venetians. But the Genoese only thought of humiliating Venice, and of securing for themselves fresh monopolies; and they were for a time completely successful. Their navy brought back the Greek dynasty to Constantinople, and they themselves, armed with an imperial diploma, converted the suburbs of that city into a fortress for their own protection. ”

“ Still, in that great ocean race, the Americans were triumphant, and the rejoicings which spread throughout the United States, were, to our credit, re-echoed on the shores of Great Britain, for the struggle was one which, up to that time, had involved no loss of life, and the triumph honestly gladdened the hearts of every lover of progress on both sides of the Atlantic, encouraging as it did two great nations to extend the benign influence of art and science to their legitimate object—the advancement of the human race. ”

“ It is not the duty of Government to appoint inspectors to see that its laws are carried into effect. I say nothing as to the expense and impracticability of having surveyors at every port in the world where a ship is to load grain; but, if such is the meaning of the Act as applicable to grain ships, where is this sort of legislation to end? Are we to have Government inspectors to see to the loading of all our ships at home and abroad? And if so, why should this new system not be applied to every branch of commerce? ”

“ What a blessing it would have been to mankind had some such system been adopted! What myriads of human lives would have been saved, while the rich lands of the Southern States of America and the equally luxuriant islands of the West, over many portions of which rank grass now grows, would have been beehives of industry and homes of peace, prosperity, and plenty. But, established in sin, the African slave trade thus continued, through its long term of existence, a sink of iniquity. ”

“ Purse-proud men consider wealth essential to their greatness, and its lavish expenditure necessary to the maintenance of their position. They vie with each other in their houses, equipages, dress, dinners, and fêtes of every kind. As it is with individuals so it is with nations; and such was essentially the case with the Italian republics in their career after the fifteenth century. Each of the great cities then claimed for herself the honour of being the foremost in wealth, in power, and in splendour. Independent of each other, they became rivals, not merely for ascendancy, but in empty show. ”

“ For miles on both sides of the river stupendous ship-building yards line its banks, employing tens of thousands of hardy and skilled mechanics earning their daily bread, as God has destined all men to do, by “the sweat of their brow,” relieved from oppressive taxation, and free from anything approaching the thraldom of slavery, the curse of ancient Rome. Along those banks there is now annually constructed a much larger amount of steam tonnage than in all the other ports of Europe combined, those of England alone excepted. ”

“ Such was the equipment of De Gama’s ships for this perilous and unknown voyage; and, though a man of indefatigable energy, he had to accomplish a task of an extraordinary character; no less than the discovery of a land of which nothing was known, but the vague idea that it lay beyond distant seas “where there would not be navigation by latitude nor charts, only the needle to know the points of the compass, and the sounding plummets for running down the coast.” ”

“ Indeed, they were almost as famous, at the time, in that country as the so-called celebrated Acts of Cromwell were in Great Britain—notorious, rather than famous, not for any benefits they conferred on the people of either country, but because the object of each was to cripple the maritime and naval resources of the rival power without enhancing its own; for, in those days, the happiness and prosperity of one nation was supposed to be best promoted by increasing its power of summarily inflicting punishment for any wrongs attributed to its neighbour. ”

“ By means of her caravans, canals, and rivers, Babylon became also the chief entrepôt for Western Asia, where the merchants of many countries assembled to exchange their merchandise; and such it remained for ages. Neither the heavy yoke of Asiatic despotism, nor the devastating sword of conquering nations, could destroy, though they might for a time overshadow, its splendour. It was only when the Persians, feeling no interest in sea-borne commerce, and dreading the incursions of the maritime powers, blocked up the Tigris, that its commercial greatness began to decline. ”

“ Swans extend their feathers to sail with the wind; and, though that fairy-looking, fragile thing, the paper-nautilus, seems to be the sport alike of the gale and of the most gentle breeze, it possesses in itself the power of propulsion by projecting water. ”

“ In harbour, in the Channel, or on the open sea, they became alike objects of their eager prey. While some of these freebooters were content to lie in wait for such vessels as contained Flemish prisoners whom they would set at liberty, others resolutely entered Spanish ports to rescue the English vessels, crews, and cargoes which had been detained in them. But their patriotism, like their religious enthusiasm, was ever blended with a love of plunder, for they invariably helped themselves to any valuables they came across in their cruises by land or by sea. ”

“ I doubt the policy of your presenting a bill to the House. Your strength lies in your principle—perfect freedom—which you can argue with more force when not compelled to enter upon details. If you have any suggestions as to the clauses of the Bill, would it not be better to do as you did with the Shipping Bill by giving the Board of Trade the benefit of your hints? It may be necessary to concede something for the sake of carrying any measure, but I doubt whether any concession, beyond a registration, which may be shown to be a convenience to all parties, will not be unsoundness. ”

“ The Doge, with the dazzling pageantry of his court and council; hundreds of gay gondolas covering the placid waters, which flowed from the Adriatic among the numerous islets upon which the proud city had been erected; senators in their scarlet robes, and the élite of the Venetian dames, famed for their grace and beauty, and arrayed in the gorgeous dress of the period, constituted a display of wealth and grandeur never since surpassed. ”

“ With such magnificent bays, harbours, roadsteads, lakes, and rivers all ready formed by the hand of Nature to receive an almost unlimited extent of shipping, and, at the same time, peculiarly adapted for the employment of steamers, it is not a matter for surprise that the Americans should have directed their genius and energy to this new branch of industry and their skill to the rapid development of the power of steam, affording them as it did extraordinary means of opening out hitherto unknown branches of commerce and new sources of almost unbounded wealth. ”

“ By this greatly extended intercourse with other nations the Americans not only augmented their material wealth, but became acquainted with the habits, manners, science, arts, resources, wealth, and power of those countries with which they carried on a profitable trade. They were thus enabled to avail themselves of all the stock of accumulated experience and wisdom which the elder nations of Europe had slowly, and, at the cost of so much labour, bloodshed, and incessant struggles, secured. ”

“ Should there not be some more stringent provisions with respect to the inspection of sailing vessels? It is an old proverb, ‘Who ever saw a dead donkey?’ But who ever saw an old sailing-ship broken up? I am inclined to think that it is more to the interest of small owners to let an old tub go on shore than to bring her safe into port. This works two evils:—1, the danger to human life; 2, the greater rate of insurance on honest owners to make up an average for the dishonest. Should there not be a Board of Trade inspection as to seaworthiness: 1, of every ship once a year ”

“ In cases of emergency, it would seem that men of substance in Greece, besides paying the whole of this special tax, fitted out at their own expense numerous vessels for the service of the state, and that a patriotic and generous rivalry prevailed among them, inducing them to do their utmost for the good of their country. From this laudable public spirit arose, in a great measure, that enlarged and enlightened system of commerce with foreign nations, for which the Greeks have been in all times conspicuous, and which still largely prevails among the leading Greek merchants resident in England. ”

“ Ancient historians have told us [Pg 69] that when the first Punic war roused the citizens of Rome to extraordinary exertions in the equipment of a fleet for the destruction of the maritime supremacy of Carthage, the banks of the Tiber resounded with the axe and the hammer, and that the extent of the ship-building operations then carried on was a matter not merely of surprise, but of wonder. How insignificant, however, was that sound when compared with that of the steam hammer and the anvil and the din of the work now to be heard on the banks of the Clyde. ”

“ It is, indeed, sad to look, as I now do, from the window of my hotel upon the beautiful but lifeless Tagus—to think what it is by nature, what it was in commerce, and what it might be under wise and liberal laws. The future is in the hands of your own people, and the members of your chamber might become instruments of great good by the dissemination of statistical and other information bearing upon the questions on which you have invited my opinion. You have happily a free press, which will enable your chamber to do so to great advantage. ”

“ Neglect and decline of commerce, and sufferings of the people.
But while a new life was being gradually infused into the empire by the creation of Constantinople, overgrown wealth and luxury, with the evils following in their train, indolence, waste, and extravagance, were only too surely working out the downfall of old Rome. Capital, which ought to have been used as a provision for fresh channels of employment for an increasing population, was devoted to pleasure and folly; while no middle class arose to create fresh capital by its industry and to supply the place of the annual waste. ”

“ A broader and more promising field for steam operations than that which the Pacific affords, does not exist in any part of the world. The prevailing south winds, the calms, and the currents of that ocean render navigation by sailing-vessels tedious and uncertain in the extreme; while the nature of the whole country, from Valparaiso to Guayaquil—presenting a succession of mountains and deep ravines, intersected by sandy deserts—offers every imaginable obstacle to land travelling ”

“ It may thus be hoped that France will not again be found in the crooked road of retrogression, but that, having under innumerable difficulties and after long years of political discussion, often in the midst of civil wars and great changes in her constitution, achieved victory over the antiquated dogmas of a cumbrous and ruinous system of protection, she will continue in the clear path of progress, which so well becomes a nation endowed by nature with the richest soil and finest climate in Europe. ”

“ Only a few years before Vasco de Gama started on his voyage of discovery in the East, a greater and better man had set sail to the West, in the hopes of thus reaching the fabled land of “Cathay.” Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, who had been trained from boyhood to the sea, had long cherished the idea that if he could only penetrate the mysterious waters of the Atlantic, he would find beyond them and at less distance than was then supposed, the shores of India, whence Europe had been so long supplied with its spices and numerous luxuries. ”

“ American genius and skill had sent forth steamers to trade on their coasts, lakes, and rivers which were marvels of naval architecture, unsurpassed in speed and in the splendour of their equipment—their sailing packets, as we have seen, were the finest the world had then produced, while their perfection in the art of shipbuilding had even reached so high a point that they constructed steamers to ascend rivers where there was hardly depth of water for an Indian canoe ”

“ Sailors have ever been a cosmopolitan race. As citizens of the world, they have had almost a common language as well as a common religion. The song which they still sing in lifting the anchor or in hoisting the sails, of “Ye-ho, cheerily, men!” or some such words, for we have never seen them in print, is the song, or at least the same tune sung a thousand years ago by the Venetian sailors, and resembling, we dare say, that lively and invigorating air re-echoed along the shores of Syria from the ships of the ancient Phœnicians as they manned their oars or spread their sails for sea. ”

“ From 1860 the Shipowners of Great Britain, though they have experienced in their trade, like all other branches of trade, periods of depression, and rarely more so than at the present moment, have never looked backwards. All special and peculiar burdens having now been removed, their only present desire is, and it is not an unreasonable one, that they should be interfered with as little as possible—certainly not more so than is necessary for the protection of the public—in the management of their own affairs, and that they should have a fair and free field: they seek no favours. ”

“ Though the Americans still retain the whole of their river, lake, and coasting trade, including even the distant voyage between New York and California, for the immediate benefit of their own shipping, the vessels of both nations conduct on equal terms the intercourse between the mother-countries, and have done so for more than half a century. But when, towards the close of the War of Independence, the struggle for supremacy commenced, the shipping of both England and America were, in all branches of their maritime commerce, under the leading-strings of their respective legislators. ”

“ See how many persons gain a livelihood by this business—brokers, artificers, sailors, thousands of [Pg 482] families, and at last the merchants, whose profits amount, at least, to six hundred thousand ducats.... This is the produce of your garden; do you wish to destroy it? Surely not; but we must defend it against all attacks; seeing that you are the only people to whom the land and the sea are equally open; you are the channel through which all riches flow; the whole universe is interested in your prosperity; all the gold and silver in the world come into your hands. ”

“ To those maritime questions I have long devoted my attention, and I have often been struck at the circuitous course which ships, by the laws which nations adopted, have been obliged to follow. The ocean was meant to be free to mankind, but one nation by its laws dictates the course which the ships of other nations must follow; another nation, by way of retaliation, lays down the only course which it will allow its competitors to adopt. Thus we see ships, for instance, allowed to follow one track with cargo, but compelled to return by the same track, in ballast. ”

“ No work of art ever yet produced furnishes more exalted ideas of man’s genius and skill than the unceasing and regular motion of these gigantic engines, especially, when we consider the tremendous shocks to which they must be at times subjected, and the delicate nature of some portion of the machinery, resting as this does, not upon solid granite as is the case with land engines, but on the ever straining ribs of a ship. ”