Merchant fleet

“ Wheat? Argentina, Canada, Australia, the United States, Russia. Coffee? Brazil or Java. Rice? Japan, the Philippines. Lumber? Canada. Paper? Canada or Scandinavia.
And for every cargo bought in foreign lands a cargo should be returned, else trade is unhealthy and will languish. Britain, to a large extent, imports raw products and food, and exports manufactured articles and coal. This the people know and deeply realize. The result is that Britain’s merchant fleet is the greatest the world has ever seen.
A STEAM YACHT
Unfortunately the type of yacht pictured here is less common than formerly. ”

“ A dozen ships of the kind would not be too many. A fleet of smaller ships, fit for use as naval colliers, might well be maintained to gather and distribute cargo along the Asiatic coast and among the islands. We have undertaken the work of developing civilization in the Far East, and we need to do everything [337] possible to prevent an attack upon our position there. After squadrons of war-ships nothing will create a higher respect for our flag among the people of that region than a fleet of superior merchantmen avowedly maintained for diplomatic and military reasons. ”

“ A general order should be issued to the Fleet that no cruiser or larger vessel is to stop for the purpose of boarding or challenging any merchant ship. This work is to be invariably performed by auxiliary merchant cruisers, torpedo craft, and trawlers. Cruisers and larger vessels, wishing to turn back merchant ships, should fire a shot across their bows and make signals. ”

“ When we are confronted with a declining merchant marine, when the carrying trade is passing into the hands of foreigners, when we remember that our whaling fleet, which twenty years ago numbered 600 ships with 18,000 sailors, the best sailors on the globe, disciplined and educated in voyages of three and four year's duration—is now reduced to 163 vessels with less than 5,000 men, we may well inquire, where are we to look for experienced seamen to man our navy in case of foreign war? ”

“ But whatever changes Ministers may consider most expedient to adopt, they must not lightly tamper with the merchant fleets which the skill and genius of our people have created, or with the position they have achieved since relieved from those legislative enactments, by which they were bound for more than two centuries. These fleets are now the largest, and unquestionably the finest, in the world, and instead of foreigners overstocking our own ports as was prophesied, we now conduct the greater portion of the maritime commerce of foreign nations. ”

“ Similarly the Indian Empire, the early American Colonies, and many other British Possessions all over the world, were founded by merchant shipping enterprise alone. From time immemorial, the British merchantman has carried the flag to the outermost parts of the world and thus helped to maintain its prestige.
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The Mercantile Marine and Navy have always been so closely knit that it is often difficult to separate their histories. The Mercantile Marine was in reality, as has been said, the parent of the latter. ”

“ One thinks of the old merchant marine in terms of the clipper ship and distant ports. The coasting trade has been overlooked in song and story; yet, since the year 1859, its fleets have always been larger and more important than the American deep-water commerce nor have decay and misfortune overtaken them. ”

“ To such doubters, before the war, there was always ready the routine reply that a navy protected commerce; and American shipping, then the second in the world, literally whitened every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. ”

“ In these days a ship is often chartered to carry a cargo to a particular port, and there the captain obtains another cargo, such as the market affords him, to some other port, and so he may wander over the world in the most unforeseen manner before he finds a profitable opportunity of returning to his starting-place. So, probably, in those times the spirited merchant would not merely oscillate between home and a given foreign point, but would carry on a traffic of an adventurous and hazardous but exciting kind, from one of the great European ports to another. ”

“ The primary reason for the existence of a merchant ship is, of course, her ability to pay her way and earn money for her owners. When a ship ceases to be able to do this, the sooner she is converted into a hulk or broken up, the better. So the true measure of a nation's merchant marine is its earning capacity, not merely the number or tonnage of its ships; and judged by this standard, the merchant marine of the United States was at this time far in advance of the merchant shipping of the whole British Empire. ”

“ Troop transports from the States, standard cargo ships, munition carriers come over in the night from the French ports, high-sided empty colliers returning to the north for further loads, deep-laden freighters for London, ammunition and store ships for the Fleet, coasters and barges, made up the mercantile shipping riding at anchor, while naval patrols and harbour craft under way gave movement to the spectacle. ”

“ The persistent reduction of the British mercantile marine which proceeded was a matter of extreme gravity to the Allies. Experience showed that the losses of the large and fast liners were, in every way, more formidable than those of the ordinary cargo vessels. When at last the United Kingdom, enthusiastically supported by the United States, bent energies on the construction of merchant vessels, it was the simple cargo steamers that were built. ”

“ A vessel was a community venture, and the custom still survives in the ancient ports of the Maine coast where the shapely wooden schooners are fashioned. The blacksmith, the rigger, the calker, took their pay in shares. They became part owners, as did likewise the merchant who supplied stores and material; and when the ship was afloat, the master, the mates, and even the seamen, were allowed cargo space for commodities which they might buy and sell to their own advantage. Thus early they learned to trade as shrewdly as they navigated, and every voyage directly concerned a whole neighborhood. ”

“ But that the great ships will decay, doth not necessarily follow; for the main trade of all the white cloth, and much of other kind, is shipped from the Port of London, and will be still, it being the fittest Port of the kingdom for Germanie and the Low Countries, where the Merchant Adventurers' trade only lieth; who shall have little cause to alter their shipping. Then the Levent Sea, Muscovy, and East Indies, whither we trade with great ships, the employing of them will be still requisite in the merchants' discretion ”

“ I add, to the end that all men should understand somewhat of the great masses of treasure daily employed upon our Navy, how there are few merchant ships of the first and second sort, that being apparelled and made ready to sail, are not worth one thousand pounds, or three thousand ducats at the least, if they should presently be sold. What then shall we think of the Navy-Royal, of which some one vessel is worth two of the other, as the shipwright has often told me. ”

“ For the moment English mercantile effort took a direction that did not bring it into conflict with larger interests, but when the natural expansion of trade and shipping brought the country into collision with other powers the struggles of centuries, which had shaped and hardened a skilful and dauntless maritime population, bore their natural fruit in a school of seamen able to use and direct the instruments which the increasing wealth and ambition of the nation placed in their hands. ”

“ If any of their ships shall happen to be in danger of shipwreck, we command our subjects not only to assist them, but that such parts of the ship or goods as may be saved, shall be returned to the captain, or the cape merchant, or their assigns. That they may build one house, or more, for themselves, in any part of our empire that they think fittest for their purpose; and, at their departure, may sell the same at their pleasure.
4. If any English merchant, or others, shall die in our dominions, the goods of the deceased shall remain at the disposal of the cape merchant ”

“ Government aid to shipping and an enthusiastic demand on the part of the people for increased tonnage resulted in the building up of a merchant marine that for size and speed, for energy and enterprise became, shortly, second to none but Britain, and in some aspects exceeded even that great sea power. ”

“ There were, however, merchant-ships which traded to far-distant shores. They were probably good wholesome craft, of somewhat tub-like form, of about the size of a vessel of the present day of one hundred to one hundred and fifty tons, rigged with two or three big sails, with one bank of oars, and manned by a hardy and numerous crew, who patiently waited for the coming of a fair wind before they ventured to make sail; and who, though generally addicted to hugging the shore, yet at times ventured to stand out into the boundless ocean, guided alone by the stars. ”

“ And however much Greece and Rome laboured to develop the warlike galley, yet the evolution of the merchant ship was sadly neglected, partly, no doubt, because of the risks which a merchant ship ran and partly because the centuries of fighting evoked little encouragement for a ship of commerce. ”

“ On board our ships of every type, from the largest Dreadnought down to the smallest Patrol Boat are to be found Officers and men of the Merchant Navy who have combined with those of the Royal Navy in fighting the enemy and defeating his nefarious methods of warfare at sea. ”

“ Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself. ”

“ Their crews were nearly four times as numerous as would be required for modern merchant sailing-ships of similar size.
At the close of the great wars in the early part of this century commercial pursuits naturally received a strong impetus. Great competition arose, not only between individual owners, but also between the shipowning classes in various countries. This caused considerable attention to be paid to the improvement of merchant-ships. The objects sought to be attained were greater economy in the working of vessels and increased speed combined with cargo-carrying capacity. ”

“ Captain Chesters immediately altered the Lycia’s course so as to place the submarine astern, and himself opened fire at about 3,000 yards. His gun, which was of Russian make and of a very light type, was one of the first supplied to merchant ships under the Admiralty scheme, when there was a great shortage of armaments owing to the needs of the Army and Navy, and it misfired several times; the Third Officer, Third Engineer, and Steersman had been already wounded by the fire of the submarine. ”

“ So rapid indeed was their progress, that out of the million tons of sea-going vessels owned in the United States at the commencement of this century, no less than seven hundred and twenty thousand were employed in their trade with foreign nations. ”

“ State of British merchant shipping, temp. George I.
War, as we have too frequently seen, is a terrible obstacle to all industrial pursuits, and to no branch of commerce—however much a certain class of shipowners may have realised by having their vessels employed as government transports—is it a greater source of [Pg 211] lasting injury than to the mercantile marine. ”

“ They did not give up their effort to secure the world's trade—that was never an American method of procedure. But they built their ships so as to be able to run away from anything they might meet; and they manned and armed them so as to fight if fighting became necessary. So the American merchantman became a long, sharp, clipper-built craft that could show her heels to almost anything afloat ”

“ To capture the merchant vessels which carry these goods, and even to keep the seamen navigating them prisoners, is to prevent the employment of the ships by the enemy as transports or cruisers, and the repairing from among the seamen of the mercantile marine of losses of men in the official navy. ”

“ A sloop detaches from the flotilla and rounds-to off the landing-stage. Her decks are crowded by men not of her crew. Merchant seamen are grouped together at the stern, and a small body of Uncle Sam's coloured troops line the bulwarks in attitudes of ease and comfort. They are a happy crowd, and roar jest and catchword to the passengers on the crossing ferries. The merchantmen are less boisterous. They watch the preparations of the bluejackets for mooring at the stage with a detached professional interest; some of them gaze out to the nor'ard where the transports of the convoy are approaching. ”

“ In case of danger, either by tempest or an enemy, every person on board, including merchants and passengers, was bound to use his utmost endeavours for the protection of the ship and cargo; and merchants, passengers, master, pilots, steersmen, and sailors, all became soldiers whenever a suspicious craft appeared. The trade of a ship-owner, even under the best conditions one of a precarious and speculative character, was doubtless then full of danger from the number of pirates in every sea, and especially in the Mediterranean. ”

“ The navy should be converted into a merchant marine, carrying a postal, express, freight and passenger service to every port in the world. At the cost of an idle navy five to ten times as many ships and men could be maintained and employed in useful work. In case of war swift ships and experienced men would win over dreadnoughts. ”