Maritime culture

“ Therefore, whenever man has touched it, it has moulded him in much the same way, given the same direction to his activities, dictated the use of the same implements and methods of navigation. As maritime trader or colonist, he has sailed to remote, unknown, yet familiar coasts, and found himself as much at home as on his native shores. He has built up maritime empires, the centre of whose dominion, race and commerce, falls somewhere in the dividing yet uniting sea. ”

“ Maritime enterprise is one of the keystones upon which America's economic strength has developed. The spirit and vitality of this great Nation have been linked with the sea for more than 200 years. As we celebrate this Bicentennial year, all Americans should be aware of our proud maritime heritage. ”

“ On National Maritime Day, we recognize the important role the United States Merchant Marine plays in supporting our commerce and national security. We honor the proud history of our merchant mariners and their important contributions in strengthening our economy.
Americans have long looked to the sea as a source of safety and well-being. Bounded by two oceans and the Gulf of Mexico, and crisscrossed by inland waterways, America was destined to be a maritime nation. ”

“ Maritime commerce immediately acquired an extraordinary development, and merchants, forsaking the harbours of the Mediterranean, and even those of the Levant, which then seemed to them scarcely worthy of notice, sent their vessels by thousands upon the ocean in pursuit of the wonderful riches of the New World. ”

“ To ourselves, as natives of a country whose greatness is owing to commercial enterprise and superiority in the arts of navigation, these remarks forcibly apply. Maritime discovery has been oftener, much oftener, undertaken by England and Englishmen than by any other country or people in the world. ”

“ Sea painters of the higher rank have come with scarcely an exception from countries which have an extended coast-line and in which the seafaring habit has been developed by centuries of maritime activity—countries in which the use of the sea for purposes of commerce or communication has been a necessity. ”

“ Her great length of sea coast, the productive fisheries east and, west, the facility for ship-building given by her forests, have stimulated her maritime activity to such an extent that in tonnage of shipping she now ranks fourth among the nations of the world, counting the United Kingdom as one. Her sailing ships are found in every quarter of the world, taking part in the carrying trade. ”

“ Foreign commerce is a necessity of our large and redundant agricultural production. Our extended sea-coast, and necessarily large coasting-trade between the States, have begotten an unbounded spirit of maritime adventure. ”

“ Maritime pursuits had now revived, the improvement of nautical science was progressing rapidly, and the advantages of predatory expeditions, especially when assisted and masked by commerce, led people of family and acquirements to embrace the profession. ”

“ The North Sea, the Bay of Biscay, and the Mediterranean afforded for the time an ample field for the training of Englishmen in the arts of trade and seamanship. They saw the world, and rubbed shoulders with the nations of Europe; acquiring in the process a pride in themselves and a talent for dealing with their fellow men, which have been incalculable but nevertheless important factors in their subsequent development. ”

“ Situated on an island, they have been obliged, for self-support and self-protection, to become a maritime nation; and their ships, thus sent forth first from necessity, went further and farther, till they explored the world, and took possession of new lands in distant parts. ”

“ On both oceans it gives the finest naval positions that a great maritime power could desire, and the only positions possible for British people on the American continent. A wonderful system of waterways penetrates, from the Atlantic frontage, unto the very heart of the continent, to prairies which are the greatest undeveloped wheat area in the world, lands capable of supporting a large population and of proved capacity to yield a vast surplus of food products. ”

“ Our commercial maritime tradition dates back to the founding of our Nation; and it continues to play an important role today, moving passengers and freight, protecting our freedom, and linking our citizens to the world. ”

“ There were discouragements at that time for mercantile or maritime enterprise, which make us marvel the more at the energy of the men who with such slender vessels and knowledge of navigation, tempted the dangers of unknown seas. ”

“ The American maritime industry connects the inland and coastal ports of the United States with port cities around the globe and transports U.S. agricultural, mining, and industrial products to foreign shores. ”

“ It is obvious that the growth of the arts of the sea—by which is meant ship designing and building, seamanship and navigation—can only occur among seafaring people. You cannot expect to find these arts prospering in the centre of a continent, but only along the fringe where land meets sea. And, similarly, where you find very little coast, or a very dangerous coast, or a more convenient land route than the sea, you will not find the people of that country taking to the awe-inspiring sea without absolute necessity. ”

“ Beyond the great harbour with its crowded shipping and merchandise of green and purple figs, heaps of dates, bales of fine muslin and linen, chests—some full of spices, others of gold and ivory—lies the sea, blue as the bluest sapphire, over which, going and coming from every harbour of every country whose shores touched the Mediterranean, ships go sailing. ”

“ And though the amusement expected in these narrations is doubtless one great source of that curiosity with the bulk of readers, yet the more intelligent part of mankind have always agreed that from accounts of this nature, if faithfully executed, the more important purposes of navigation, commerce, and national interest may be greatly promoted: for every authentic description of foreign coasts and countries will contribute to one or more of these great ends, in proportion to the wealth, wants, or commodities of those countries, and our ignorance of those coasts ”

“ The oversea voyage possesses a greater appeal to the imagination. Long distances, variation of the climes, storm and high ocean seas—a burthen of goods brought from a far country, all contribute to make an impression that the tale of a coasting voyage could not produce. Familiarity, perhaps, has robbed the short-carriers' sea-trip of what shreds of romance existed. In tide and out, the smaller vessels have grown to the sight as almost part of the familiar quays and wharves they frequent. ”

“ For in their interflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours,—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,—possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean’s noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted all round their banks; ”

“ While able men guided the affairs of State, the merchants, shipbuilders, and seamen turned their attention toward developing commerce, and creating a mercantile marine, the cheerful ring of the top-maul and the caulking-iron soon enlivening the seaports along the Atlantic coast; each in turn became famous for her ships and seamen. And although shipbuilding had been carried on, to some extent, in colonial times, yet with the birth of the new Nation, men wrought with new energy and with new purpose. ”

“ England dominates the Seven Seas of the world, not through her superiority man to man against other races, but through her merchant marine, carrying the commerce of the world, built up from simple fisher folk hauling in the net or paying out the line through icy salty spray above tempestuous seas. ”

“ Six days’ march across yonder country will bring you to an ocean sea like this near which we dwell, where there are ships a little less in size than yours, with sails and oars, and where the people eat out of vessels of gold and have large cities and wealth unbounded. ”

“ At that time the commercial greatness of the United States rested upon the splendid qualities shown by her sailing ships and their captains upon the ocean. And after all the only really rational sovereignty of the seas that exists, or has ever existed, is maintained by the merchant marine, whose ships and seamen contribute not only to the welfare and happiness of mankind, but also to the wealth of the nations under whose flags they sail. ”

“ There were several men in this quaint old parlour; all seemed, in one degree or another, to be connected with the sea. Men, thick-set, sturdy, bronzed, branded in solid suits of good blue cloth, all with that look in the eye which stamps the seafarer. Other men whom one supposed to have something to do with sea-trade—ship's chandlers, perhaps, or shipping-agents. ”

“ It is now a great many years since you have been so kind as to enrich with your generous contributions the most important institutions—the Admiralty, the Academy, the School of Navigation, and Libraries—of my country. Your immense labours on currents and soundings, and the direction of winds at different seasons and latitudes, have exercised the most beneficial influence on the commerce of nations, by shortening in a surprising manner the passages by sea, and augmenting the security of navigation in all seas. ”

“ A mere sea captain's ambition to trace a new trade route gave way to a moral adventure for humanity. The race was to found a new order here on this delectable land, which no man approached without receiving, as the old voyagers relate, you remember, sweet airs out of woods aflame with flowers and murmurous with the sound of pellucid waters. ”

“ It is to be remembered that more than three-fourths of the seamen in our merchant vessels are foreigners. They are from all parts of the world. A great many from the north of Europe, beside Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, men from all parts of the Mediterranean, together with Lascars, Negroes, and, perhaps worst of all, the off-casts of British men-of-war, and men from our own country who have gone to sea because they could not be permitted to live on land. ”

“ Of all effort travel alone was congenial to them, and especially travel by sea, which, when they had first developed it, became for many centuries their monopoly and gave them the carrying of the world and the arbitrament of its exchanges. They dwelt in a small group of harbours on that extreme eastern shore of the Mediterranean, where a narrow strip of fertile land lay between them and the mountains. ”

“ In the same way, old books, old engravings, and crude old lithographs and woodcuts relating to almost every form of ships and shipping have been sought out and prized by an ever-growing circle of enthusiasts. This is not a passing fancy; there is something more solid behind it. I hope I am right in believing that the people of the United States are again turning their faces to the sea. Over the sea our ancestors or we ourselves have all come. We have filled the vacant spaces from the original colonies on the Atlantic Coast to the new and splendid civilization of the Pacific. ”

“ Art is advancing to perfection! My children, you have discovered a powerful agent in navigation. All nations will cover the ocean with their fleets and wander to distant regions. Men, differing in their manners and separated by seas, will disembark upon peaceful shores, and import thence foreign science, superfluities, and art. Then shall the mariner fearlessly cruise over the immense abyss and discover new lands and unknown seas! ”

“ In all times and ages, the deeds of the men who sail the deep as its policemen or its soldiery have been sung in praise. It is time for chronicle of the high courage, the reckless daring, and oftentimes the noble self-sacrifice of those who use the Seven Seas to extend the markets of the world, to bring nations nearer together, to advance science, and to cement the world into one great interdependent whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The navigation of the ocean, which led to the discovery of a passage to the East Indies, and of America, gave a mortal blow to the nations situated on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, who thus found themselves deprived of the commerce of the East. ”

“ Could our public vessels be better employed, than in surveying our north-west coast, and in discovery? Our naval officers would rejoice on seeing opened to their view a new path to fame, independent of the acquisition to their nautical experience. Many of our brave and skilful navigators would be proud of an appointment in such an enterprise; many naturalists and men of science, would cheerfully, at their own expense, if necessary, accompany such an expedition. ”