British port

“ In consequence of the recent alteration of the British navigation acts, British vessels, from British and other foreign ports, will under our existing laws, after the 1st day of January next, be admitted to entry in our ports with cargoes of the growth, manufacture, or production of any part of the world on the same terms as to duties, imposts, and charges as vessels of the United States with their cargoes, and our vessels will be admitted to the same advantages in British ports, entering therein on the same terms as British vessels. ”

“ An inward-bound vessel must steer around every point of the compass before the anchor is let go in safety. In the Revolution the port was made use of by the British squadrons, to refit, and procure water. ”

“ It is good for the captain of a liner to learn how the captain of a North Wales schooner makes his bread, the difficulties of getting decent yeast at the salt-ports; how the [37] schooner's boy won't learn ("indeed to goodness") the proper way his captain shows him to mix the dough!
On telegraphic advice the arm of the semaphore rattles down. The port is open to traffic again. The waiting-room is emptied and we are off to the sea, perhaps fortified by the S.I.O.'s confidence that the cause of the stoppage has been violently removed from the sea-lines. ”

“ Thus the condition of things on the river went on growing from bad to worse, until we [Pg 23] reach the years 1793-94, when the crowded condition of the river was declared to be altogether intolerable. Meanwhile, in spite of these drawbacks, the increase in the commerce of the port during the twenty-four years ending with the latter year had been as great as in the first seventy years of the century. In the year 1702, the shipping entered inwards, foreign and British, exclusive of coasting vessels, was 1,335 ships, with a tonnage of 157,035 tons ”

“ In other countries, and indeed, in most countries in Europe, all their inland trade, such as it is, is carried on by the convenience of navigation, either by coastings on the sea, or by river-navigation. It is true, our coasting trade is exceedingly great, and employs a prodigious number of ships, as well from all the shores of England to London, as from one port to another. ”

“ Comes London Bridge, and the great warehouses tower up about you waving stupendous cranes, the gulls circle and scream in your ears, large ships lie among their lighters, and one is in the port of the world. ”

“ No wonder the American people are proud of "the Queen City of the West." It stands far inland, a thousand miles from the ocean, and yet it is an important port on the shores of Lake Michigan, and steamers from London can land their cargoes at its quays. More than twenty thousand vessels enter and leave the port in one year. It is the greatest grain and provision market in the world. ”

“ He who now stands on London Bridge and looks down the river, will see a large number of steamers lying off the quays; there are barges, river steamers, and boats, there are great ocean steamers working up or down the river; but there is little to give the stranger even a suspicion of the enormous trade that is carried on at the Port of London. That port is now hidden behind the dock gates; the trade is invisible unless one enters the docks and reckons up the ships and their tonnage, the warehouses and their contents. ”

“ The principal streets are intersected with canals, of a sufficient depth to receive vessels of from two to three hundred tons burthen, which greatly facilitates the trade of the place, as ships are enabled immediately to deliver their cargoes into the warehouses appointed to receive them, and at an inconsiderable expence of time and labour, compared with the obstructions of trade in the port of London and elsewhere. The merchant also enjoys the advantage of having the ships, which either belong to or are consigned to him, delivered under his direct eye ”

“ Its only harbour, a small basin dug out of the rock, was rarely enlivened by anything that could aspire to the title of shipping; for in Cromwell's time, about twenty tons of boat-freight was all that its diminutive port could lay claim to. The spirit of its inhabitants, however, with an accurate perception of the natural advantages of the Port, and aided by government in the preparation for a new era in commercial enterprise, has achieved wonders. An air of prosperity animates the whole town: the harbour is filled with goodly traders ”

“ The Port of London commences at London Bridge. The forest of masts which rises in direct view—thickening in perspective till it is lost in the distance—announces the vast extent of that Commerce which stretches its arms to the "uttermost parts of the globe." ”

“ A port is a place to which merchandise is imported, and from whence it is exported. It is created by law. It is not merely a harbor or haven, for it may be established where there is nothing but an open roadstead, or on the shore of a navigable river, or at any other place where vessels may arrive and discharge, or take in their cargoes. It comprehends the city or town which is occupied by the mariners, merchants, and others who are engaged in the business of importing and exporting goods, navigating the ships and furnishing them with provisions. ”

“ If the reader should at any time find himself a visitor to the first naval port of Great Britain—which he need not be told is Portsmouth—he will find, lying placidly in the noble harbour, which is large enough to accommodate a whole fleet, a vessel of modern-antique appearance, and evidently very carefully preserved. ”

“ A range of sand banks run parallel with the coast for many miles, but several channels intervene, giving sufficient depth for vessels of the heaviest draught at high water, at which time the Mersey presents the most interesting and striking scene,—particularly when a westerly wind favours the arrival of the numerous fleets destined to this port, bearing the flags and freighted with the produce of all nations that have found a place in the chart of commercial enterprise. ”

“ The sea-breeze, with which the shore had been refreshed for twenty minutes, had not as yet found its way into the recesses of the inner harbour, which, take it all in all, is one of the snuggest and most beautiful coves in the world. And such is the commodious nature of this admirable port, that even the Illustrious, though a large 74-gun ship, rode at anchor in perfect security, within a very few yards of the beach, which at that spot is quite steep to, and is wooded down to, the very edge of the water. ”

“ Agreeable mooring places, sure anchorage, resources of all kinds for the use and convenience of man, for the needs of vessels, for the sale of merchandise, there is no advantage which is not offered by this port situated so happily, besides that it seems to be a natural point of repose on the ocean for ships setting out from Europe to all parts of the world, or returning. ”

“ One thing, however, may be said for the docks of the Port of London on both sides of the river: for all the complaints of their insufficient equipment, of their obsolete rules, of failure (they say) in the matter of quick despatch, no ship need ever issue from their gates in a half-fainting condition. London is a general cargo port, as is only proper for the greatest capital of the world to be. General cargo ports belong to the aristocracy of the earth's trading places, and in that aristocracy London, as it is its way, has a unique physiognomy. ”

“ If the tremendous evils to which I have called attention as existing less than a hundred years ago, when the business of the port was not one-seventh of its present magnitude, were the result of overcrowding, it stands to reason that, in the absence of dock accommodation, the increased business must have gone to the out-ports, and, failing the necessary accommodation there, have located itself on the Continent. ”

“ The docks and quays are busy with their craft and shipping, upon the beautiful borders of the Lough;—the large red warehouses stretching along the shores, with ships loading, or unloading, or building, hammers clanging, pitch-pots flaming and boiling, seamen cheering in the ships, or lolling lazily on the shore. The life and movement of a port here give the stranger plenty to admire and observe. ”

“ The port duties, on the other hand, were of an easier nature, relating chiefly to matters of difference between our own countrymen, and regulated, to a certain extent, by established written authorities, which might be referred to. As the number of merchant ships in harbour was generally considerable, these discussions became very engrossing, and, when super-added to our ordinary professional avocations, often left us little leisure for attending to the novel scenes of a local and characteristic nature, daily passing around us. ”

“ This was the greatest length of navigation, unaided by artificial means, of any river in the kingdom. The early Britons passed along it in their coracles, and, as these were supplemented by vessels of an improved type, trade was developed, towns and cities—each a storehouse or an entrepôt for a more or less considerable area—began to arise on the banks, while Bristol attained to the dignity of a great national port when Liverpool was still only an insignificant fishing village. ”

“ Come back to the Pool of the eighteenth century, because it is there that we get the first glimpse of the people who lived by the shipping and the port. They were, first, the sailors themselves; next, the lightermen, stevedores, and porters; then the boat builders, barge builders, rope-makers, block-makers, ships’ carpenters, mast- and yard-makers, shipwrights, keepers of taverns and ale-houses, dealers in ships’ stores, and many others. Now, in the eighteenth century, the shipping of London port increased by leaps and bounds ”

“ Know ye that having full confidence in your fidelity and prudence we have appointed you to arrest all and singular the ships and other vessels both of our kingdom of England and of foreign parts of the burthen of twenty casks and upwards lying in our port of London, and to cause them to be conveyed with all possible speed to the port of our town of Southampton, to serve on our present voyage for our moneys reasonably to be expended in this part. ”

“ Holyhead in particular is still susceptible of vast improvements; and with the addition of a capacious outer harbour, sufficient to admit merchant-vessels and others of larger size than those now frequenting the port, it would speedily realize all that could be wished for by those most interested in the welfare of the place, and in the prosperity of trade. ”

“ Merchant ships of the largest size, perhaps the proudest which float, have navigated it for nearly two hundred years, to within a distance of nine or ten miles from Canton, with little difficulty, and very inconsiderable danger. No foreign commerce with any one port has been so valuable, so extensive, or carried on with so much facility. The difficulties of our intercourse, which have arisen within the last few years, have formed an epoch in the world's history, and stand forth as a leading beacon in the stream of time, pointing towards greater eras yet to come. ”

“ It is commerce if that is the way you look at things; an ice-free port, tingling with every modern activity, where lumber and grain and fruit and all the riches of Canada are swung to Europe and the West Indies, and scores of ports about the world, and where, when winter grips the immense St. Lawrence, passengers can slip, free of the ice, to the ocean tracts.
It is the gate of pleasure. The entry port where the sportsman and the holiday maker from America or Europe can start for the fine fishing streams, where salmon and trout are kings ”

“ The channel up to Port Royal harbour is deep enough for the largest ships that sail on the sea; and the whole royal navy of England may ride with safety in it. Nature has evidently ordained this place for trade and commerce, by the many advantages with which she hath favoured it. ”

“ Defoe says of Lynn: "There is the greatest extent of Inland Navigation here, of any Port in England, London excepted. The Reason whereof is this, that there are more Navigable Rivers empty themselves here into the Sea, including the Washes, which are branches of the same Port, than at any one Mouth of Waters in England, except the Thames and the Humber." ”

“ Port Said, where we have landed, is a large town with a big business, yet it is built on a site which a comparatively short time ago was nothing but a marshy salt lake. Men of all nations walk in its streets, and ships of all [Pg 53] nations pass through its port. ”

“ It is no unusual thing to find that five or six great ocean steamships are timed to leave the dock on a single day, to sail for ports so widely divided as Sydney, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Port Natal, Japan, and the River Plate. ”

“ The port of London has always supplied the main evidence of the state of our commerce. I know, that, amidst all the difficulties and embarrassments of the year 1793, from causes unconnected with and prior to the war, the tonnage of ships in the Thames actually rose. ”

“ All dispatch and facility must of necessity benefit the port. Almost all the manufactures sent to Germany, the north of Europe, and Russia, must of necessity travel eastward, and every facility for bringing them to London would be a great advantage. ”

“ We have not in these parts a single real port of large dimensions, and it might be said that the English are, at the same moment, both at home and on our coast, since it is not requisite for their squadrons, at anchor in Portsmouth, to put to sea to molest us. A few light vessels are sufficient to convey intelligence of our movements, and, in an instant, without trouble or danger, they are ready to pounce upon their prey. ”