Port of entry

“ The extent shows that in order that there be an entry within the meaning of the act there must be an arrival from some foreign port or place. There is no such entry where one goes to sea on board an American vessel from a port of the United States and returns to the same or another port of this country without having been in any foreign port or place.' (Italics added.) ”

“ Every master of a vessel from a foreign port is bound, immediately on his arrival at a port, and before he can report, make entry, or break bulk, under a penalty not to exceed $100, to deliver into the post-office all letters brought in his vessel, directed to any person in the United States, or the Territories thereof, which are under his care or within his power, except such letters as relate to the cargo or some part thereof. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the ground is very clean, having 18 fathoms at the mouth and 13 within; and half a league inland there is a well of water, though not very plentiful, and bitterish. This port is a large half league in circuit. It is a singularity in all the rivers or harbours which I have seen on this coast, that they have no bars or banks at their mouths, which are generally deeper than within. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is much to enjoy also in the busy scene of the harbor; vessels of all nations are loading and discharging their cargoes, tugs bustle about, and, while the pompous whistle of modern steamers announces their arrival, the graceful sailing ship glides silently into port, maintaining with dignity the credit of the good old days, in the face of these rival parvenus of twentieth century transportation. ”

“ We say the home port, because it is quite apparent from the language of the act, 'be recorded in the office of the collector of customs, where such vessel is registered or enrolled,' means the permanent registry or enrolment, which is at the port, 'at or nearest to which the owner, if there be but one, or if more than one, the husband or acting and managing owner of said ship or vessel usually resides. ”

“ For four days they lay at anchor swinging to the tide, in the entrance, lonely and unvisited, while the eager, bare-footed, bare-legged and bare-chested men gazed longingly at the distant port and tried to persuade themselves that the vessel must go up there for coal and water. ”

“ Hurrah for a breeze astern!
And here's to the port we love the best—
The port where the twin-lights burn!
There's many a maid of fashion rare
In warm and palmy lands,
With sea-deep eyes and night-black hair
And brown and shapely hands;
With lips as red as ever led
The heart of a man to roam,
But never one we'd take instead
Of the girl that waits at home. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In vain you look in the Tagus for that forest of shipping which should fringe the watery highway to, and ought to constitute the leading feature in, so fine a port—the capital of a country the once nautical genius of whose people is expressed in the only poem in any language that makes adventures on the deep its theme. ”

“ The wind that succeeded the calm was gentle and favourable, and did not change for fifty days, but brought us safe to the port of a fine city, well peopled, and of great trade, the capital of a powerful State, where we came to anchor.
Our vessel was speedily surrounded with an infinite number of boats full of people, who came to congratulate their friends upon their safe arrival, or to inquire for those they had left behind them in the country from whence they came, or out of curiosity to see a ship that came from a far country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a busy city. The port is thronged with shipping, mostly British. High-shouldered elevators stick out long tongues, and streams of wheat, grown on the plains of the interior, pour food for Europe into the holds. ”

“ This port, or landing-place, which was then called the Moie, is a rocky plateau half-formed by nature, half by art, raised about forty feet above the level of the waves, and communicating with the water by two large beams laid parallel in the form of an inclined plane. The fishing-vessels are hoisted up there by chains and pulleys from the sea, and are let down again in the same way along these beams, which are like two rails. For the fishermen there is a ladder. The port was, at the time of our story, much frequented by the smugglers. ”

“ Ordinarily, the terms 'coaster' and 'coasting vessel' are applied to vessels plying exclusively between domestic ports, and usually to those engaged in domestic trade, as distinguished from vessels engaged in the foreign trade, or plying between a port of the United States and a port of a foreign country. ”

“ Freeman: “They came to the port itself, and would then the port burn.” (W. Rufus, i. 47, 48.) In Earle’s “Philology of the English Tongue” (3rd Ed.) it is explained that by port was “signified, in Saxon times, just ‘a town, a market-town.’ This is the sense of it in such compounds as Newport Pagnell” (p. 19) . It is, however, erroneously there too “derived from the Latin porta, a gate.” It is also worth noting that in the Quarterly Review, No. 315 (July, 1884) , p. 9, it is asserted that “a port-reeve is the equivalent of a shire-reeve (!) ”

“ It seems only reasonable to expect that with the greatly improved terminals and the steadily increasing traffic, the port will become a more important gateway not only to the port area and its immediate hinterland but also to the entire country served by the northern railroad systems. ”

“ Always, out there, a ship or two, in from the East with a cargo of spice or tea or ivory, or eastward bound with a load of tractor salesmen. Ships of all sorts, the spic and span liner and the rakish tramp, ships from Melbourne and Seattle, New York and Yokohama, Tahiti and Rio, any port on the seven seas. ”

“ By the coasting trade is not meant the mere putting in of a vessel at a port of the United States after leaving another port for bunkers or supplies (which is not forbidden) but trading between such ports, e.g., the carriage of cargo and passengers from one such port and their discharge at another. ”

“ The harbour is not large, but is safe and deep, being completely shut in by hills. A large quay, pier, warehouses, &c., facilitate the handling of cargoes, which were previously transported to and from the anchorage by lighters. Victoria is a port of call for coasting steamers and a shipping port in the coffee trade. ”

“ There are also lycées for boys and girls and a school of commerce and industry. The commercial port, which is separated from the town itself by the Cours d’Ajot, comprises a tidal port with docks and an outer harbour; it is protected by jetties to the east and west and by a breakwater on the south. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is true that commerce in neutral ships can then enter other ports of the United States than those named; but what a dislocation of the carrying traffic of the country, what failure of supplies at times, what inadequate means of transport by rail or water, of dockage, of lighterage, of warehousing, will be involved in such an enforced change of the ports of entry! ”

“ Should our fur trade be recovered out of the hands of the English, it will naturally come to Honfleur, as the port of Paris.
5. Salt is an important article in all our return cargoes; because, being carried as ballast, its freight costs nothing. But, on account of some regulations, with which I am not well acquainted, it cannot, at present, be shipped to advantage from any port on the Seine.
6. Our vessels being built sharp, for swift sailing, suffer extremely in most of the western ports of France, in which they are left on dry ground at every ebb of the tide. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Throughout the port there is a depth of 15 fathoms, with a clean bottom, at a short distance from the shore; and all along the coast there are soundings with clean bottom, and not a single sunken rock. Inside, at the length of a boat’s oar from the land, there are 5 fathoms. Beyond the limit of the port to the S.S.E. a thousand carracks could beat up. [170] One branch of the port to the N.E. runs into the land for a long half league, and always the same width, as if it had been measured with a cord. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus it was that while ceaster retained its sturdy objectivity, and was merely qualified, as a place-name, by the addition of a distinctive prefix, port, on the other hand, referring as it did to the town viewed in a particular aspect, was only strong enough to become itself a prefix, used, for the purpose of distinction, in a quasi-adjectival sense. In port-mote it served to distinguish the moot held in the “port” from the scir-mote and tun-mote; in port-reeve it served to distinguish the reeve of the “port,” or trading town, from the scir-reeve, the wic-reeve, and reeves other innumerable. ”

“ Persons, goods, postal services, ships, vessels, carriages, wagons and other means of transport coming from or going to the free zone, and crossing the territory of the State under whose sovereignty or authority the port is placed, shall be deemed to be in transit across that State if they are going to or coming from the territory of any other State whatsoever. ”

“ The $1.25 which carries a ton of freight one hundred miles on land, carries it a thousand miles on water. Merchandise delivered at the nearest salt-water port is almost as good as delivered at any other port in the world. The day of the brotherhood of the nations is at hand. ”

“ The whole circumference of the walls does not exceed a mile and a half, but few persons have an opportunity of obtaining a correct measure. From whatever road you approach there is but one gate whereby to enter. To the left of it is the port, a small and shallow harbour, formed by a mole, which projects so as to make, with the curve which the strand takes, the form of an oblong with rounded corners. But this part is not more than a cable’s length across, and no vessel of more than 150 tons could lie in safety in it. ”

“ Neither can the vessel demand any portion of the freight until the cargo is delivered at the port of destination. If the vessel meet with disaster at sea, and put into a port of refuge, she is entitled to retain the cargo for a reasonable time for repairs, or to tranship it to another vessel, in order that her freight may be earned. ”