English voyages of discovery, 1690-1779—Dampier—Anson—Byron—Wallis
and Carteret—Captain Cook—His first voyage, in the
_Endeavour_—Second voyage, in the _Resolution_—Third
voyage—Friendly, Fiji, Sandwich, and other islands—His
murder—Progress of the North American colonies—Commercial
jealousy in the West Indies—Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763—Its
effect on the colonies—Unwise legislative measures—Effect
of the new restrictions—Passing of the Stamp Act—Trade
interrupted—Non-intercourse resolutions—Recourse to
hostilities—Position of the colonists—Fisheries—Shipping of North
American colonies, A.D. 1769—Early registry of ships not always
to be depended on—Independence of United States acknowledged, May
24, 1784—Ireland secures various commercial concessions—Scotch
shipping—Rate of seamen’s wages—British Registry Act, Aug. 1,
1786—American Registry Act—Treaty between France and England,
1786—Slave trade and its profits—Trade between England and
America and the West Indies re-opened—Changes produced by the
Navigation Laws consequent on the separation—New disputes—English
Orders in council—Negotiations opened between Mr. Jay and Lord
Grenville—Tonnage duties levied by them.
[Sidenote: English voyages of discovery, 1690-1779.]
In a former portion of this work[205] attention has been directed
to the remarkable discoveries of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Cabot,
Drake, Chancellor, and others. It is now proposed to furnish a
very brief sketch of a few of the voyages of discovery of a later
period—expeditions of which England has an especial reason for being
proud, in that they greatly extended the geographical knowledge
of mankind, and widely promoted the peaceful arts of commerce and
navigation.[206]
[Sidenote: Dampier.]
Among the earliest of these was the one, under government auspices,
made by William Dampier, who had already become famous, towards the
close of the seventeenth century as one of the most daring of the
buccaneers, in various marauding and piratical expeditions, but who,
on a speculative voyage of his own to the Pacific, had obtained so
much valuable information respecting the Eastern archipelago, Celebes,
Timor, the north coast of New Holland, and the Nicobar Islands, that
when he reached England in 1691, the fame he had acquired induced the
government to send him in 1699 to explore more particularly New Holland
and New Zealand.
It appears from Dampier’s able and amusing account of this voyage
that though the government, with an unaccountable parsimony, had only
placed at his disposal the _Roebuck_, an old and worn-out vessel, he
successfully completed the object they had in view, but was obliged
to abandon his ship at Ascension on his way home, it being no longer
possible to keep her afloat. Having made the coast of New Holland in
latitude 26° south, he shaped his course to the north, where he fell
in with an archipelago of islands stretching over 20° of latitude,
from which he had some difficulty in extricating himself. Thence he
proceeded to Timor, sailing round the coasts of New Guinea, giving
names to its principal bays and harbours, which he surveyed with much
accuracy.
[Sidenote: Anson.]
The expedition of Commodore Anson was fitted out, not so much for
the purpose of discovering new lands, as to make reprisals on the
Spanish for their behaviour in searching English ships found near
any of their settlements in the West Indies and on the coasts of
America. But this expedition also was wretchedly equipped and manned,
and though the ships were placed under Anson’s command in November
1739, they were not ready to sail till September 1740, while so much
difficulty appears to have been experienced in getting men, that 500
out-pensioners from Chelsea Hospital were sent on board, many of whom
were sixty years of age, and some threescore and ten. As might have
been expected, two hundred and forty of them deserted before the ships
sailed, and not one returned to England. In the place of the deserters,
two hundred and ten raw marines were supplied, many of whom were so
untrained that Anson would not permit them to fire their muskets! Of
the squadron, originally composed of six ships of war, mounting two
hundred and twenty-six guns, one alone, the _Centurion_, commanded by
Anson himself, returned home after a cruise round the world of three
years and nine months. The story of this memorable voyage, written by
Mr. Walter, the chaplain of the _Centurion_, is one continued tale of
misery and disaster, the greater part of which might, and probably
would, have been avoided had the government at home listened to the
repeated protests of the Commodore before he left St. Helen’s Roads.
Of the courage and humanity of Anson himself throughout the whole
adventure it is impossible to speak too highly.
[Sidenote: Byron.]
[Sidenote: Wallis and Carteret.]
The voyage of Commodore Byron, who sailed from England in 1764,
was altogether one of discovery, his special instructions being to
ascertain whether there was reason to believe “that lands and islands
of great extent, hitherto unvisited by any European power, were to
be found in the Atlantic Ocean between the Cape of Good Hope and the
Magellanic Strait, within the latitudes convenient for navigation,
and in the climates adapted for the produce of commodities useful to
commerce.” He was further ordered to seek for “His Majesty’s islands
called Pepys’s Island and Falkland’s Island,” about the position, or
even the existence, of which there had previously been considerable
doubt. Byron having already had some experience of the southern
latitudes under Anson, gives an account of his voyage and adventures
homewards after the wreck of the _Wager_ on the coast of Chili, a
narrative which is one of the most romantic stories in naval history.
He shows that there was no ground for believing in the existence of
Pepys’s Island; but, during a passage through the Falkland Islands
and a considerable part of the Straits of Magellan, he furnishes much
interesting information regarding the native Patagonians and the
intricate navigation of these then scarcely known straits. Thence he
made his way across the Pacific, passing and naming various small
groups of islands, till he at length anchored in the harbour of
Tinian, where Anson had been twenty years before, reaching England
early in May 1766 after an absence of twenty months. The careful survey
of the Straits of Magellan, which (contrary to the later judgment of
Captain Cook) he prefers to rounding the Horn Islands, may be deemed
the chief geographical result of Byron’s expedition, that being the
course almost universally adopted at the present day, especially by
steamers. On the coasts of Patagonia, in the Straits, and in the
Falkland Islands, Byron met with enormous quantities of penguins,
quaintly described by Sir John Narborough (an earlier navigator in
these parts) as “like little children standing up with white aprons
on.” Commodore Anson was followed in the same year by Captains Wallis
and Carteret, the former of whom was the first to give any account of
Otaheite (sometimes called King George’s Island), and the latter to
discover Pitcairn’s Island, the home, till recently, of the descendants
of several of the mutineers of the _Bounty_.
[Sidenote: Captain Cook.]
[Sidenote: His first voyage in the _Endeavour_.]
Captain James Cook, the greatest of our more modern discoverers, had
in his early years undergone much hard service in the coal trade on
the east coast of England. After entering the English naval service in
1755, he had greatly distinguished himself by the soundings he made
of the St. Lawrence, so as to allow the English fleet to co-operate
with General Wolfe against Quebec; and subsequently by his surveys of
the coast of Newfoundland, during the government of Sir Hugh Palliser.
In 1768 he was appointed to the command of the _Endeavour_, the main
object in view being an observation of the transit of Venus over the
sun’s disk, at the best place that could be selected for this purpose
south of the line; and, on the advice of Captain Wallis, who had just
returned from his voyage to the Pacific, the island of Otaheite was
chosen, and Cook started for that place August 26th, 1768, accompanied
by Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, and Dr. Solander, then the keeper
of the Natural History in the British Museum. Having rounded the Horn
Islands in thirty-four days, Cook held resolutely on his course, and in
due time, reaching Otaheite, had the satisfaction of making with the
utmost success the astronomical observations which were the main object
of his expedition. During the three months’ stay of the expedition
at Otaheite he surveyed the group of islands of which it is the most
important, and gave to them the collective title of the “Society
Islands.”
Proceeding onwards to the west, he at length reached the north end of
that _Terra Australis Incognita_, now known as New Zealand, which had
been first touched at by Tasman in 1642. Here Cook met with a class
of natives in every way superior to those whom he had seen anywhere
else; with some knowledge of cultivation, and habits of cleanliness
uncommon even among far more civilised people. Their language, too,
as was shown by their freely conversing with a native Otaheitan who
accompanied him, proved the common ancestry of the natives of the
Pacific islands. Tasman did not land on New Zealand, but coasted the
eastern side from 34° to 43° S. Lat. Cook showed further that there
were really two principal islands, separated by a narrow channel, since
justly named after him Cook’s Straits. Having circumnavigated New
Zealand, he went on to Australia, striking its coasts very nearly at
the same place where Tasman had been before him. But during a run of
two thousand miles to the north, the natives were noticed to be very
much below even those of the Society Islands, nor was their language
intelligible. After a voyage of great danger between the coral-reefs
to the north-east of the island, Cook reached the straits separating
New Holland from New Guinea; and, formally taking possession of the
enormous tract of land he had discovered, gave to it the name it still
bears, of New South Wales. Thence he returned to England, by way of
Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope, where he arrived, after an absence
of two years and eleven months. Throughout the whole narrative of this
celebrated expedition the reader will be struck with the singular good
sense and remarkable humanity characteristic of this great voyager, and
which were equally conspicuous in his two subsequent voyages. In this
respect he stands in marked contrast with all those who had preceded
him, Columbus, Magellan, and Anson alone excepted. In every case we
find him using his best influence to make friends with the natives,
drawing up regulations of intercourse with them, to prevent his men
taking unfair advantages, and, above all, restraining, as far as he
could, their evil propensities. “Neither did I think,” says he on one
memorable occasion, “that the thefts these people committed against
us were, in them, crimes worthy of death. That thieves were hanged in
England I thought no reason why they should be shot in Otaheite.”
[Sidenote: Second voyage in the _Resolution_.]
Not many months were allowed to elapse ere Cook was afloat again;
this time to investigate the then unsolved problem of a great southern
continent, which had been only in part set at rest by the discoveries
of Byron, and by the circumnavigation of New Zealand. In this voyage
he took the command of the _Resolution_, of four hundred and sixty-two
tons, while Captain Furneaux took charge of the _Adventure_, of three
hundred and thirty-six tons. Both, like the old _Endeavour_, were
Whitby vessels; and Cook has himself recorded that every possible
attention was paid to their proper equipment, and to the due supply
of anti-scorbutics, and of other necessaries, under the especial eye
of Lord Sandwich, then at the head of the Admiralty. The ships left
Plymouth on July 13th, 1772, and, after calling at the Cape, pushed at
once to the south, till on January 17th, 1773, they reached 67° 15´
S., where farther progress in that direction was barred by fields of
solid ice. Thence Cook made his way to New Zealand, where he arrived,
in Dusky Bay, March 25th, after having been one hundred and seventeen
days at sea, and having traversed three thousand six hundred and sixty
leagues. His companion, Captain Furneaux, who had been for some time
separated from him, by asserting that the sea at the south end of New
South Wales was only a deep bay, missed the opportunity of tracing the
Straits of Van Diemen’s Land, while he at the same time misled Captain
Cook.
At New Zealand Cook landed several domestic animals, and the seeds
of various vegetables, both of which have prospered remarkably. From
that island he paid a second visit to his former friends in Otaheite,
and, having surveyed several islands, among others New Amsterdam,
the people of which were far more civilised than any natives he had
as yet met with, returned to Queen Charlotte’s Sound, New Zealand, to
revictual and refit his ships. On the return of summer he determined
to examine more minutely the question of a southern continent,
proceeding as far as 71° south latitude, the highest latitude which
has been as yet attained. Returning to the north, he examined Easter
Island,[207] one of the group now known as the Marquesas, and describes
the remarkable native statues existing there, of which two have been
recently brought to the British Museum. Thence, passing by Otaheite,
he sailed for the archipelago to which he had given the name of the
Friendly Islands; thence to a still farther group, which he christened
the New Hebrides; and thence to New Caledonia (the largest island in
the Pacific after New Zealand), and to Norfolk Island, then wholly
uninhabited. Resting for a short time in his old quarters at New
Zealand, Cook again started, and made a clean run to Cape Horn,
examining in detail Terra del Fuego and Staaten Island. After touching
at the Cape, he sailed for England, and arrived at Portsmouth July
13th, 1775, having been absent on his second expedition three years and
eighteen days. During this remarkable and perilous voyage he lost but
four men, and only one of these by disease.
[Sidenote: Third voyage.]
On the 12th of July, 1776, Captain Cook undertook his third and last
voyage; the object, on this occasion, being to explore the northern
portions of the Pacific Ocean, and to ascertain, if possible, whether
there was any water communication between the North Pacific and the
North Atlantic. In this voyage he himself sailed in his old ship the
_Resolution_, and had associated with him the _Discovery_, under
Captain Clerke, an engraving of which we are enabled to give on the
following page, from a drawing by E. W. Cooke, R.A., F.R.S.
[Illustration: THE “DISCOVERY,” CAPTAIN COOK’S SHIP.—E. W. COOKE, R.A.]
[Sidenote: Friendly, Fiji, Sandwich, and other islands.]
[Sidenote: His murder.]
After calling at the Cape of Good Hope, he proceeded east, and passing
the islands first seen by Marion and Kerguelen, finally reached
Adventure Bay, at the south end of Van Diemen’s Land, on January
26th, 1777. Thence he proceeded to New Zealand, and thence again for
the winter to the Friendly Islands, taking advantage of the nearly
three months he spent in that part of the Pacific to examine more
closely Amsterdam Island (or Tongataboo), and the Fiji Islands.
Thence he went on to Otaheite, where he left a horse and mare and
other live stock he had brought from England on purpose. Turning from
Otaheite to the north, Cook discovered, in latitude 21°, north, five
islands, to which he gave the name of the Sandwich Islands; and thence
pressing onward he fell in with New Albion in 44° 33´ north, and King
George’s or Nootka Sound in the island now known as that of Vancouver.
Pursuing his northern course, he surveyed a considerable portion of
the American coast, doubled the projecting headland of Alaska, and
passing through Behring’s Straits, anchored on the inhospitable coast
of the Tchshudkis: the most northern point he was able to reach,
being in 70° 44´, where his farther progress was completely barred by
a wall of solid ice. Returning thence again to the south, with the
view of wintering in the Sandwich Islands, he proceeded thither,
and discovered Owhyhee, the largest of this group, which he had not
seen when passing by these islands a few months before. At a southern
bay of this island he remained for some time, his visit being highly
appreciated by the great mass of the natives. Disputes, however,
occasionally arose from the punishments necessarily inflicted on them
to check their love of appropriating whatever articles they could
carry away; and in one of these, for an offence which could not be
overlooked, as they had stolen the _Discovery’s_ cutter, Captain Cook,
on landing with a party of marines to carry into effect his orders,
unfortunately perished in the scuffle, on December 26th, 1779.
[Sidenote: Progress of the North American colonies.]
Previous to most of these important discoveries, and during the earlier
portion of the eighteenth century, while England was distracted by
war, and the nations of Europe were rivalling, by force of arms, to
obtain an ascendency over each other, her American colonies[208]
were, by peaceful and undisturbed pursuits, laying the foundation of
that prosperity which enabled them, before the close of the century,
to demand and obtain their severance from the mother-country, and
their social and political independence. So early as 1729 the city of
Philadelphia in the province of Pennsylvania owned vessels amounting
to six thousand tons, employed in a lucrative trade with the West
Indies, and had also in that year received no less than six thousand
two hundred and eight emigrants from Great Britain. New York, as well
as Pennsylvania, carried on a large trade in grain and provisions with
Spain and Portugal, besides sending considerable quantities of furs and
peltry, obtained from the native Indians, to England. Massachusetts
had already one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, employing
forty thousand tons of shipping in their foreign and coasting trades,
or close upon six hundred vessels of one sort and another, one-half of
which traded to Europe; while the American fisheries were already so
valuable and extensive that two hundred and fifty thousand quintals
of dried fish were annually exported to Spain, Portugal, and the
Mediterranean.[209]
New England then supplied the largest and finest masts in the world.
The exportation of rice from Carolina, which in 1733 amounted to
thirty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-four barrels, besides
considerable quantities of pitch, turpentine, lumber, provisions,
and Indian corn, had in 1740 increased to ninety-one thousand one
hundred and ten barrels. Georgia, established in 1732 by a society of
gentlemen, headed by General Oglethorpe, with the view of producing
silk, the worm having been brought from Piedmont, was paving the way
for the growth of rice, indigo, and other products suited to her soil
and warm climate.[210]
[Sidenote: Commercial jealousy in the West Indies.]
But commercial jealousy had already seized the English colonists in the
West Indies, and had led them to claim an exclusive monopoly of the
trade with the colonies on the continent; while, at the same time, the
contraband traffic carried on by the French and the Dutch was pressed
on the consideration of parliament. Hence it was that a Bill received
the sanction of the House of Commons prohibiting, under forfeiture of
ship and cargo, the importation into any part of English America of
sugar, rum, or molasses grown in plantations not of English origin.
Although this bill failed in the House of Lords, an Act was passed in
1733[211] for encouraging the sugar trade, the effect of which was to
grant drawbacks on re-exportations from Great Britain of West India
sugar, and to impose duties on the importation into America of the
produce of foreign plantations. From the preamble of this Act foreign
rivals appear to have surpassed the English colonists in the quality
of their sugar, and to have supplanted their shipping in the carrying
trade: so that the English professed they were unable to carry it on
without relief from the parliament of Great Britain.
Following this example, all classes, as a matter of course, appealed
for protection, and an artificial system grew up which, even if
justifiable at the beginning, proved, when the separation of the
colonies took place, to be altogether impracticable. The shipowners at
home were equally ready to find pretexts for parliamentary interference
in their favour. Thus, in 1749-50, they held a meeting in the city
of London, “to promote British shipping and British navigation,” at
which sixty gentlemen were present, and “the Case” then drawn up was
signed by fifty-nine of them.[212] Their object seems to have been to
prevent foreign ships taking away, as back-freight, goods entitled to
drawback or bounty; the system of bounties practised by other nations
operating against English shipping, though the policy of retaliation
then adopted did not always remedy the evil complained of. Hence it
is that we find incessant remonstrances by shipowners that foreigners
came to English ports with freights and cargoes of small value, and
loaded tin, lead, and other goods only to be obtained in England, and
their assertion that, by the help of drawbacks and of bounties freely
conceded abroad, the foreigners gained, on the whole, a larger freight
than English vessels could do in the same time. English shipowners
sought, therefore, to obtain fresh limitations on the foreigner, so as
to raise their freights to an equality with those earned in the general
market of the world. In the statements thus set forth, the shipowners,
however, were compelled to admit that “at all foreign ports which had
no shipping of their own, ours (English) are always chosen preferable
to the ships of any other nation.”
[Sidenote: Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763.]
[Sidenote: Its effect on the colonies.]
Of the “Seven Years’ War” it is not our province to write, but of its
results as affecting the English colonial arrangements, we may remark
that the expenses of that war mainly induced the Legislature to pass
in 1764 the Act of 4 George III., chap. 15, which ultimately led to
the separation of the North American colonies from Great Britain.
This Act, combined with various conditions taken from the Navigation
Laws, requiring heavy duties on numerous articles imported into the
colonies from the countries that produced them, or from anywhere else
except from Great Britain, and prohibiting the importation of sugar
from the colonies, except in British bottoms, necessarily aroused the
indignation of the American colonists, and sowed the seeds of future
rebellion.
[Sidenote: Unwise legislative measures.]
But unfortunately these impolitic stipulations were only the
commencement of a series of unwise, if not unjust measures, carried
out with extreme rigour, with the object of preserving for the British
shipowner and manufacturer the exclusive monopoly of the trade with
the colonies. No doubt an extensive illicit trade had already been
established between the continental North American colonies and the
foreign West India settlements, carried on in American ships and in
defiance of British law. Indeed, the people of the New England States,
of New York, Carolina, and Pennsylvania built numerous small vessels,
expressly for the purpose of supplying these islands with various
articles of their own production, especially lumber, provisions,
horses, live stock, tobacco, corn, flour, and vegetables; and even made
voyages to Europe, selling both ships and cargo in European ports in
spite of the fiscal laws of the mother-country. But though this trade
was ruined by the regulations for the suppression of smuggling, and by
the collection of the King’s duties in hard silver, which drained the
colonies of the bullion they received in exchange for the sale of their
ships and cargoes, these measures, which were carried into effect with
great vigour, operated with an equally injurious severity on the West
Indian colonies, especially on Jamaica, in spite of a very lucrative
traffic still carried on between that island and the Spanish Main.
Unfortunately, the English government had viewed without compunction
the infraction of the Spanish laws, so long as their shipowners and
merchants reaped an immense advantage by their clandestine trade.
Nor did the dread of perpetual imprisonment and slavery deter their
mariners from engaging in this trade. Indeed, when these were wanting,
Spanish-Americans supplied the deficiency by vessels of their own;
while the governors of the islands connived at the illicit traffic.
But a different spirit of morality was now to prevail. Directions were
sent out from England to enforce the Navigation Acts in all their
strictness: custom-house commissions were issued to the men-of-war, who
were ordered to seize, without distinction, all foreign vessels found
in any of the ports of the West India Islands; the British government
becoming from one extreme of laxity the most strict and energetic
repressors of Spanish as well as American smuggling. The result was
that their own shipping suffered, and their exports to Jamaica declined
168,000_l._ in one year. In 1766 the ports of Jamaica and Dominica were
opened to all foreign vessels whatsoever; but if credit can be given
to one of the historians[213] of the West Indies, the Spanish masters
of vessels who resorted to Jamaica, having their names reported in the
customs’ lists, were thus betrayed to the Spanish authorities, who
visited their offences with the most severe punishment.
[Sidenote: Effect of the new restrictions.]
On the continent of British North America the new duties and the
rigorous measures adopted to restrict or put down the trade so long
carried on with the French and Spanish settlements speedily produced
consequences which the narrow-minded politicians at home did not
anticipate. The extinction of the French and Spanish shipping trade
caused, as its natural result, a serious diminution of the direct
carrying trade between England and the North American colonies, and
this, again, depriving them of their accustomed market, prevented
their being any longer able to consume British manufactures to the
same extent as formerly, or even to discharge debts due to creditors
in England. Hence an effect not anticipated: in that the Americans,
forming associations to dispense with English manufactures, were led
to resort to native industry, and thus to lay the foundation of a
permanent rivalry, the end of which cannot even now be conjectured. In
short, a national American spirit was evoked, highly antagonistic to
British interests.
[Sidenote: Passing of the Stamp Act.]
[Sidenote: Trade interrupted.]
Public opinion was in this excited state when the Stamp Act of the
Grenville Administration received the Royal assent on the 22nd of
March, 1765, and was to come into operation on the 1st November
following. A distinction was instantly drawn in the colonies between
that and the preceding measure. The language of the Act was severely
criticised, but the real grievances were, that Great Britain, by
this Act, indiscreetly interfered with the trade and shipping of the
colonies, cut off one chief source of their prosperity, and sought
by a Stamp Act to collect internal duties in the colonies under the
authority of the Commissioners of Stamps at home. When the stamps
arrived in New York, they were, with universal consent, committed
to the flames by the people, excepting one small parcel which the
magistrates secured, with the reservation that they should not be made
use of. From that day the transaction of business between the two
countries became impracticable. The rivers and wharfs were deserted;
vessels lay in the harbours with their colours hoisted half-mast high;
the courts of justice were closed; and instead of a thriving maritime
population in the sea-ports, all was neglect and stagnation. A general
agreement was entered into by the merchants not to import any more
goods from Great Britain, nor to receive any goods on commission
consigned from that country after the 1st January, 1766, and as Ireland
was exempted from this ban, the seeds of discord were sown among all
parties. The Americans even meditated the prohibition of the export of
tobacco to Great Britain, but this step would have proved even more
fatal to the planters of Virginia and Maryland than to those persons
against whom it had been imposed. The resistance to the authority of
the mother-country was universal in New England, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the two Carolinas. But the provinces at the
northern and southern extremities of the continent submitted to the
authority of the British Crown, as did also the West India Islands,
excepting those of St. Christopher and Nevis.
The effects of the Stamp Act in America recoiled with redoubled force
upon Great Britain. Most of the merchants connected with the colonial
trade suspended payment; while her shipowners felt severely the
interruption of commerce between the two countries; the manufacturers
and workmen throughout the kingdom were to a large extent thrown out
of employment—misfortunes greatly aggravated by the high price of
provisions, the vessels laden with them having been embargoed in all
the ports. In the end, the shipowners of London, Liverpool, Bristol,
Hull, and Glasgow, with the manufacturing towns in Lancashire,
petitioned the Legislature for relief; and, in 1766, the obnoxious
Stamp Act was repealed. This repeal, though received with great
joy in all parts of England, and re-echoed by the Americans, was
materially modified on the other side the Atlantic by the preamble of
the Declaratory Act[214] which censured the American legislatures for
assuming the right of taxation in the colonies, declaring the American
colonies subordinate to the English crown and parliament, whose
legislative authority, it was asserted, extended to American subjects
in all cases whatsoever. The resumption, however, of navigation and
commerce produced the most salutary effects, and harmony was for a
season restored between the two countries.
But in the interval between the repeal of the Stamp Act and the
following year a new state of things had arisen. The notion of
self-government had taken hold of the American agitators. In their
provincial assemblies they set the Declaratory Act and the authority of
the mother-country at defiance, while in England, on the other hand, it
was deemed essential to assert the supremacy of the Legislature by even
more effectual proceedings.
[Sidenote: Non-intercourse resolutions.]
Accordingly a fresh American Taxation Act was passed in 1767,
imposing import duties on tea, glass, and other articles, the object
being to assert the right of taxing the colonies. It was, however,
found impossible to collect the new duties. The people of Boston,
Massachusetts, were conspicuous for their violence in resisting this
new and vexatious impost, at the same time proposing a strict union
of all the local assemblies in British America to oppose the law and
to insist on its repeal. Troops were sent to enforce allegiance to
the authorities. The Boston merchants and shipowners, however, were
resolute in their action, and the seizure of a sloop belonging to
one of their citizens causing much excitement, they passed a further
resolution of non-intercourse, at one of their numerous meetings,
unless the last obnoxious Act was repealed. The inhabitants of New
York carried similar resolutions. In this unsatisfactory way matters
continued till 1770, when the Act was repealed in all articles except
tea. The people of America had, however, begun to feel still more
their strength, and declared any such reservation to be inadmissible.
In 1774, when vessels having this article on board reached Boston,
the people seized the tea, threw some portion of it overboard, and
destroyed the remainder, suspending all business of landing and
shipping goods in Boston harbour after the 1st June, 1774, and
declaring all charter-parties, bills of lading, and contracts executed
in England for shipping goods from that port null and void.
[Sidenote: Recourse to hostilities.]
But commercial intercourse was soon afterwards opened by the British
American colonies with France and Holland, which was connived
at by both countries in spite of authoritative prohibitions and
representations by the court of Great Britain. While the American
colonists refused to have any trading intercourse with England,
the Parliament of this country, in spite of the petitions of its
shipowners and parties interested, and actuated by the same unwise and
unaccountable policy, passed an Act to prevent the New Englanders from
fishing on the coasts of Newfoundland, Labrador, or Nova Scotia, and
declaring all vessels thus employed liable to seizure after the 20th
of July, 1775. But before that time the fatal blow had been struck
which led to a total severance of peaceful relations between the two
countries. The inhabitants of the northern and southern provinces
joined in a confederation against the British with all the vigour
and well-known energy of their race; casting cannon, and employing
themselves in learning military exercises with such a menacing attitude
that Governor Gage seized the ammunition and stores lodged near Boston,
thus causing an open rupture. The skirmish at Lexington followed, where
sixty men were killed on each side; and the king’s forces were besieged
in Boston. The military ardour of the Americans augmented as the crisis
approached, their rulers at once assuming, after the oppression to
which they had been subjected, the justifiable powers of an independent
executive under the title, at first, of the UNITED COLONIES, with all
the functions of a government _de facto_. The war with the Colonies
then broke out. To trace the details of the struggle, which terminated
in the separation of these vast regions from the British Empire, is
not within the scope of this work, but it will be necessary to give as
comprehensive a view of the state of our shipping business with America
at that important epoch as our space will admit of: the documents
published by both countries are very numerous.
[Sidenote: Position of the colonists.]
[Sidenote: Fisheries.]
While the territories subject to the Spanish Crown in America abounded
with the precious metals, and the mines of gold and silver of
Mexico and Peru poured a flood of mineral wealth over Europe,[215]
the provinces colonised by Great Britain were destitute of these
riches. The soil was, however, capable of affording the still more
precious products of rice, corn, sugar, tobacco, indigo, and above
all, of cotton. But the New Englanders could not boast of a fertile
territory, their soil scarcely growing sufficient to feed its
inhabitants. Accordingly they directed their attention to the sea as
a source of subsistence, and the business of fishing and navigation
afforded a boundless field for their unwearied industry. Thus they
constructed vessels not only for their own convenience, but also for
sale. These, though inferior to English-built vessels in quality of
timber and workmanship, were low-priced and quickly put together.
The New Englanders were, moreover, acute merchants, and carried on a
considerable trade with Africa; so much so that from their general
aptitude for commerce they were known as the “Dutchmen of America.”
The provinces of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, with
a better soil than that of New England, produced in abundance corn and
cattle of all kinds, together with hemp, flax, and lumber, iron, pot
and pearl ashes. Their exports of corn and flour brought down from the
interior were even then very considerable; they exported, also, live
stock, boards, scantling, staves, shingles, and wooden houses framed
and ready to set up. These and a multitude of other exports afforded
large means of employment to the shipping of New England, while the
harbour of New York, one of the finest in the world, presented great
maritime facilities to their rising merchant navy. Though Virginia
and Maryland had directed their chief attention to the cultivation
of tobacco, large quantities of grain were raised in those provinces
prior to the revolution. By law their tobacco hitherto could only
be exported to Great Britain; but they were now allowed to ship it
and their corn, flour, timber, and other produce to the West Indies
and elsewhere. North Carolina also grew tobacco, though to a limited
extent; but her annual export of pitch, tar, and turpentine, was not
less than one hundred and thirty thousand barrels, the larger portion
of which was shipped to England. In South Carolina and Georgia (the
growth of silk proving unprofitable) rice and indigo became the staple
products; but it was not until a later period that these two regions,
especially Georgia,[216] became the seat of the vast produce of cotton
now employing so large a portion of the merchant shipping of both the
European and American States.
[Sidenote: Shipping of the North American colonies, A.D. 1769.]
That an idea may be formed of the actual state of the navigation and
commerce of the North American Colonies when they declared their
independence we furnish in the accompanying note an outline of the
leading figures bearing on this subject from a report, issued shortly
after the Declaration of Independence, by the Inspector General of the
Customs, London, and presented to Parliament.[217]
[Sidenote: Early registry of ships not always to be depended on.]
Prior to the Registry Act of the 24th of George III. vessels were
measured in a very loose manner, and in order to evade the payment
of lighthouse dues, and various port charges collected on tonnage,
they were usually registered far below their real burthen; indeed the
difference between the measurements under the old Act of William and
that of George III., being on the aggregate no less than one third,
accounts in some measure for the apparently very small tonnage of the
vessels given in the returns to which we have just referred. But the
return, as a whole, furnishes pretty accurately the position of the
merchant navy and of the oversea commerce of the United States when
they separated from the mother-country. That important event in the
history of the world produced a complete revolution in the relative
positions of the great maritime nations; a merchant navy having
arisen on the other side of the Atlantic which in three quarters of a
century afterwards rivalled, and at one time surpassed in number, and
especially in symmetry and speed, the finest merchantmen of any of the
countries of the Old World.
In noting the progress of British merchant shipping during the earlier
portion of the reign of George III., the dates at which the war with
the colonies broke out, and when peace was finally concluded, must
be remembered, as open hostilities did not actually commence until
1774, though for some years previously a state of non-intercourse had
existed. The revolted colonies might possibly then have been retained
as reluctant subjects for some years longer, had not the French, in
1778, espoused their cause with the object of striking a blow at the
increasing maritime power of England. In the following year Spain also
threw her weight into the scale against her, and finally the Dutch, in
1781, contributed to swell the number of her maritime foes. With three
such nations in arms against her British shipping, clearing outwards
and inwards from her ports, had fallen, in 1782, to 615,150 tons, while
there were in that year 225,456 tons of foreign clearances; but, in
1785, such has ever been the elasticity of her commerce, the entries
inwards and outwards reached 1,182,346 tons, of which only 107,484 tons
were foreign vessels.[218]
[Sidenote: Independence of the United States acknowledged, May 24,
1784.]
When peace was restored, the loss of the North American colonies,
instead of diminishing the commercial shipping of England, tended
rather to augment it,[219] while the value of her exports and imports
resumed that position of steady increase which characterised the
earlier part of the reign of George III., at the same time making a
considerable stride in advance when the war had completely ceased.
Preliminaries of peace were adjusted with the now separated colonies
at Paris on the 30th of November, 1782,[220] although the definitive
treaty was not signed till the 3rd of September, 1783, and ratified
by Congress the 4th of January, 1784. With France and Spain similar
treaties were signed about the same period, the Dutch alone keeping
aloof from a final peace till the 24th of May, 1784. In India peace had
been secured in March of that year by a treaty concluded with Tippoo
Sahib,[221] who, by the peace in Europe, found himself deprived of his
French auxiliaries. By keeping these dates in view, and glancing at the
table at the foot of the page, originally taken from Chalmers’ tables,
and now from McCulloch’s commercial dictionary,[222] the reader will
be enabled to form a clear idea of the state of progress of British
maritime commerce during one of the most critical periods of her
history.
[Sidenote: Ireland secures various commercial concessions.]
While England was incurring a vast debt in unavailing endeavours
to subjugate the revolted colonies, Ireland seized the opportunity
to secure her commercial freedom. Hitherto she had been treated as
a conquered country, a vassal island, the people of which were
looked upon as aliens in race as well as religion. As the Irish were
successful in their demand for freedom of trade and industry, England
now passed successive Acts by which certain goods were allowed to be
shipped directly from Ireland to the British plantations in America and
to the British settlements in Africa; Irish-built ships were declared
to be entitled to the same privileges as British; and, by the 20th
George III. chap. 10, free trade with these countries was guaranteed.
No practical results, however, followed from these concessions, the
Irish having, from some cause or other, it may have been from want of
capital or continuous industry, rarely given any real attention to
mercantile, and especially maritime pursuits. For a brief period they
possessed the dangerous gift of an independent legislature,[223] which,
however, happily ceased its functions some twenty years afterwards,
when a hopeless rebellion had been extinguished; nor indeed, even now,
though possessing so many natural advantages, has Ireland progressed
beyond a thriving coasting trade; while her efforts to encourage
extensive fisheries even along her own coasts have proved unsuccessful.
Indeed, it was only at a later period that her manufactures and her
agriculture became the objects of national attention. Yet, with her
fine harbours, rich soil, generous people, and admirable geographical
position, it might have been hoped that Ireland would have taken a
leading position as a naval power, or rather, as a commercial and
maritime country.
[Sidenote: Scotch shipping.]
While Ireland continued to be a clog on the industry of the people of
England, Scotland, restored to the blessings of domestic peace, was
making rapid progress. The value of her exports, which during the war
had in 1782 fallen to 653,709_l._, reached 1,007,635_l._ in 1785. Her
shipping also represented a satisfactory result.[224] Scotland, like
England, had now commenced a successful career of shipping business,
and, however the colonial war may, for a few years, have retarded the
onward progress of the now united nation, its subsequent advance was
steady and prosperous, and is now astounding.
[Sidenote: Rate of seamen’s wages.]
With regard to the rate of wages paid to sailors in England and
Scotland in 1784, no better authority can be quoted than Dr. Adam
Smith,[225] who says in his great work that, “the lottery of the sea
is not altogether so disadvantageous to the sailor, as compared with
the soldier. Common sailors more frequently obtain some fortune and
preferment than common soldiers; and the hope of those prizes is what
principally recommends the trade.... Their wages are not greater than
those of common labourers at the port which regulates the rate of
seamen’s wages. As they are continually going from port to port, from
all the different ports of Great Britain, their monthly pay is more
nearly upon a level, and the rate of the port to and from which the
greatest number sail, that is the port of London, regulates that of all
the rest.”
“In the time of peace, and in the merchant service, the London price
is from one guinea to about seven and twenty shillings the calendar
month.” It must, however, be remembered that this estimate was made
when the common labourer in London received nine or ten shillings
per week, making in the month forty to forty-five shillings. The
difference, of course, is accounted for by the sailor being supplied
with provisions and shelter, such as it is, in addition to his pay.
Taking the difference of the value of money and of the ordinary rate of
wages paid three quarters of a century ago, we may presume that at the
present rate of fifty to sixty shillings per month, the pay of a common
sailor is considerably higher than it was at the period in question,
and certainly he is much better fed. Indeed the position and condition
of the common sailor have undoubtedly kept pace with the general
improvement and progress of the nation.[226]
[Sidenote: British Registry Act, Aug. 1, 1786.]
About this period the new Registry Act came into operation, requiring
the owner of every decked vessel of fifteen tons and upwards to have
her measurement accurately ascertained according to a prescribed scale,
and providing that every vessel registered in the customs, and thus
securing the advantages of a British ship, must have been built in the
British dominions, or captured as a prize and, subsequently, owned by
British subjects. The Act also ordered that her name and the port to
which she belonged should be painted conspicuously on her stern, and
that her certificate of registration should contain full particulars
of her dimensions, age, and owners, together with the name of her
commander and other details.[227]
Some eminent writers on commerce, among whom the late J. R.
McCulloch[228] stands conspicuous, have doubted the utility of
compulsory registration; but this system, in after years materially
improved, has been of great service to the State, as well as to
individual shipowners. Indeed the exigencies of trade alone required
that English merchant vessels should be provided in time of war
with legally authorised certificates, so that they might be at once
distinguished from those of other nations. Besides, the incalculable
amount of property entrusted to owners of vessels obviously requires
that their ships should be identifiable by a proper system of
registration; for there would be little or no security for the safe
transport of merchandise unless the title to the ship as well as to the
cargo were indisputably established by the certificates of register,
and by the customs’ and clearance papers, which the ship was then by
law required to carry.
[Sidenote: American Registry Act.]
From the earliest period of American independence, Congress[229] passed
a registration measure corresponding almost exactly with that of Great
Britain. The national privileges of trade were by it confined to
ships built in America and belonging to and commanded by citizens of
that country on the 16th of May, 1789, and continually thereafter,
or which had been taken and condemned as prizes in war, or forfeited
for a breach of the United States laws. Few nations have asserted
the rights of neutral ships[230] with greater energy than the people
of the United States; and these rights could not have been enforced
except by a system of registration. But it is superfluous to waste
time in asserting the advantages of registration, which, in all cases
where it is honestly performed, may be deemed one of the most salutary
regulations introduced by civilisation and law, and one, too, of
material value for the repression of crime and piracy.
[Sidenote: Treaty between France and England, 1786.]
On 26th of September, 1786, a treaty of commerce and navigation between
Great Britain and France[231] was concluded, whereby perfect freedom of
navigation was mutually conceded; but before the expiration of twelve
years, the stipulated period of its existence, one of the greatest
political convulsions of modern times had overthrown the dynasty of the
Bourbons, and France and England were again plunged into a more deadly
war than had ever before been waged by these ancient and inveterate
foes. England also formed treaties with Spain, Prussia, and Holland,
and the treaty with Russia, which had been allowed to expire in 1786,
was also then renewed.
[Sidenote: Slave trade, and its profits.]
Among numerous other matters, the slave-trade occupied a very
considerable portion of the attention of Parliament and of the country
during this period. By a return laid before Parliament in 1789, the
number of slaves annually carried from the coast of Africa in British
vessels was thirty-eight thousand; the number taken to the British West
Indies, upon an average of four years, being estimated at twenty-two
thousand five hundred.[232] Prior to the year 1760 no complete returns
have been preserved of the number of ships thus employed; subsequently,
however, it ranged from twenty-eight, measuring three thousand four
hundred and seventy-five tons in the year 1761, to one hundred and
ninety-two, measuring twenty thousand two hundred and ninety-six tons
in 1776; but, during the war, from 1776 to 1783, this inhuman trade
either languished, or the vessels formerly engaged in it were otherwise
more profitably employed.[233] The majority of the slave-vessels were
built expressly for the trade; and at the date of the report, 1786,
from which we derive our information, six vessels were in course of
construction, and about a dozen fitting out or ready for sea. A slave
then cost from 8_l._ to 22_l._ in Africa, and realised in the West
Indies from 28_l._ to 35_l._, the prices having about doubled during
the previous century. In addition to the British import of slaves, the
French carried away from Africa every year about twenty thousand; the
Portuguese ten thousand; the Dutch four thousand; and the Danes two
thousand; making a total of seventy-four thousand annually exported
from Africa, including the thirty-eight thousand despatched in British
vessels. A considerable portion of these found their way to the Spanish
possessions. When after the restoration of peace with the colonies the
London streets were filled with emancipated negroes, many of them,
collected by an order of the 9th of December, 1786, were forwarded in
British transports to Sierra Leone, where a settlement was formed.[234]
[Sidenote: Trade between England and America and the West Indies
re-opened.]
Although the political connection of Great Britain with the United
States of America had been violently rent asunder, there happily
remained between the two countries the bonds of one common origin,
language, religion, and mutual interest. No sooner had American
independence been acknowledged than all prohibitory regulations made
during the war were abolished. Indeed, for a time, no manifest or any
other shipping document was required from any vessel of the United
States arriving at or clearing out from a British port; and the Crown
being meanwhile authorised to regulate the manner in which trade should
be carried on, a royal proclamation was immediately issued on the 14th
of March, 1783, for the admission, till further orders, into the ports
of Great Britain, of any unmanufactured commodities, the produce of
the United States, either in British or American ships, without the
usual certificates, and on payment of the same duties as were payable
on similar articles imported from British America. The same drawbacks
and bounties were also allowed on goods coming from the United States
as on those from the British possessions; and the benefit of the order
was extended to all American vessels that had arrived since the 20th of
January.
These concessions, however, neither gave satisfaction to the American
shipowners, nor to the English sticklers for the Navigation Act in all
its force. A controversy arose respecting the extent of commercial
rights to be conceded permanently to the United States, the practical
point in dispute at the time being whether the Navigation Act should be
held to apply to American shipping as fully as it did to other foreign
vessels, and should thus exclude them from the English West India
Islands. But their claim to be treated upon a more favoured footing
than other nations was deemed untenable, though an exemption in their
favour was urged in this particular case upon the general grounds
of expediency. The shipowners, however, of Great Britain upheld the
Navigation Act as the palladium of their naval power, and urged that a
people who had renounced their allegiance to the mother-country could
have no right to any special favour. Much agitation was also raised
by the West India planters, who asserted that the prosperity of those
islands depended on an unrestricted intercourse with America; and as
their influence was powerful in parliament, ministers were on the point
of yielding to the clamour; at least they connived with the governors
of some of the West India Islands in permitting the free access of
American vessels to their ports.
A pamphlet by Lord Sheffield,[235] and another by Mr. Chalmers,[236]
urged that the remaining loyal continental colonies sufficed to supply
the British West India Islands with lumber and provisions, which
the advocates on the opposite side of the question denied. Great
discussions arose, in which all the controverted points of free trade
and exclusion were again urged in innumerable publications; and, as
usual, glaring exaggerations were resorted to on both sides. In the
sequel, the English government adopted a middle course. A proclamation
of the 2nd of July, 1783, by the King in council, permitted British
subjects to carry in _British vessels_ all kinds of naval stores,
lumber, live-stock, corn, &c., from the United States of America to the
West India Islands, and also to export rum, sugar, molasses, coffee,
cocoa, &c., from the Islands to the States under the same regulations
and duties as if these commodities had been cleared out for a British
possession. This concession naturally satisfied neither parties; Great
Britain and the United States alike regarding it with either alarm or
disdain. The West India planters apprehended instant ruin if there were
any check on the free and unrestricted intercourse with the continent;
while the Americans carried their resentment to an extent sufficient to
induce three of the States to make a requisition to Congress that all
commercial intercourse with England should be prohibited. The British
government, however, vigorously supported by the shipping interest,
remained inexorable in its restrictive policy.
In this matter the American people, moved, as it would seem, entirely
by an instinctive sense of self-interest, became the champions of
a free-trade policy in shipping, while their shipowners, relying
on the provisions of the Navigation Act, assumed the character of
exclusionists. Thus the antagonistic interests of the shipowners of the
two countries disturbed the friendly feelings which might otherwise
have prevailed. Three temporary Orders in Council were issued,
relating to the importation of tobacco, and payment of duties: a
matter of no little difficulty before the organisation of the English
warehousing system. The third of these “Orders” renewed that of the 2nd
of July, regulating the intercourse between the United States and the
West Indies, but relaxed the previous regulations for the British trade
so far as to permit the importation of any unmanufactured goods not
prohibited by law, except oil, pitch, tar, turpentine, indigo, masts,
yards, and bowsprits, being the produce of the United States, either
by British or American subjects, and either in British or American
vessels. This arrangement, having received parliamentary sanction, was
continued annually with little alteration throughout the next five
years; but the Americans during this period persisted in urging their
claims to have both trades placed on a more liberal system.
In 1784 Congress recommended to the legislature of the different
States the adoption of a resolution prohibiting, for fifteen years,
the importation and exportation of every species of merchandise, in
vessels belonging to any foreign powers not provided with a commercial
treaty with the United States. The people of Boston had been highly
exasperated by the exclusion of their vessels from the ports of the
West Indies, and by the high duties on rice, oil, and tobacco, while
their shipping had also suffered by the British regulations of her
fisheries along the American coasts.
[Sidenote: Changes produced by the Navigation Laws consequent on the
separation.]
They overlooked the great fact that the independence of the North
American colonies necessarily placed them in the same relative position
to Great Britain as other countries affected by the English navigation
laws, and thereby excluded them from the ports of the British
Colonies, a result deeply prejudicial to the shipping interests of
Boston, as their cheap ships could no longer trade with the West India
Islands.[237] The high differential duties on rice, oil, and tobacco
which had been enforced against them, regulations combined with the
fishery, led to retaliatory measures being resorted to by the people of
Massachussetts; hence, after the 1st of August, 1785, the exportation
of American produce and manufactures was altogether prohibited, and
vessels owned by British subjects prohibited from entering the ports
of that State. A proviso was indeed added to meet the case when the
governor of any British settlement might be willing to rescind the
proclamations against American vessels. In fact a new warfare of
prohibitions and restrictions, with retaliatory and conciliatory
measures to counteract or aid the contending parties as the case might
be, was commenced by various States, the end of which was not foreseen
upon either side the water. Unfortunately the States of the North of
the Union had commercial interests antagonistic to those of the South,
and hence arose a complex system which on all sides greatly increased
the difficulties of the navigation laws, and became the parent of
endless strife and animosity, which in after years assisted in some
measure to bring about the terrible civil war that raged from 1860 to
1865 between the Northern and Southern States.
Concessions were however soon made, and afterwards, in 1788, an Act was
passed, permanently permitting the importation into the West Indies, in
British vessels, of tobacco, pitch, tar, turpentine, horses, cattle,
&c., the produce of the United States, and the exportation from the
West Indies to the States of all goods or produce lawfully exportable
to European countries. The commercial jealousies and animosities
between the two countries now gradually subsided, though British
shipowners still adhered to the principle of their Navigation Laws, and
excluded American vessels from the colonial and inter-colonial trade,
all such goods imported and exported being required to be carried in
British bottoms.
[Sidenote: New disputes.]
[Sidenote: English Orders in Council.]
[Sidenote: Negotiations opened between Mr. Jay and Lord Grenville.]
Thus matters went on until the war broke out with France in 1792,
when new disputes arose with the United States. In order to obtain
the produce of their West India Islands, the French despatched their
sugars and other produce to the continent of America, whence it was
conveyed in American neutral vessels to France. Here is a striking
illustration of a friendly power professing neutrality, yet enriching
itself by a carrying trade for the benefit of one of the belligerents.
Accordingly an English Order in Council was issued for seizing all
vessels conveying to France the produce of the French colonies, or
supplies from France for the use of those colonies. No wonder that
under such circumstances the Americans set up the demand that “free
ships should make free goods,” which was echoed through the whole
world at a later period. No fewer than six hundred American vessels
were seized, or detained in English ports, under this order between
the 6th of November, 1793, and the 28th of March, 1794, a proceeding
which naturally excited much alarm among merchants connected with the
United States, lest there should be an immediate rupture between the
two countries. The American government took up the matter, and after
having, on the 26th of March, 1794, laid an embargo for thirty days
on all British merchant vessels in their ports, sent Mr. Jay as Envoy
Extraordinary to London, in order to obtain redress. Upon this the
English Order in Council was revoked, and friendly negotiations were
entered into with the view of placing the maritime relations of the
two countries upon a more satisfactory footing; the result being the
conclusion, in 1794, of a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, to
which we shall hereafter more fully refer.
[Sidenote: Tonnage duties levied by them.]
Although Mr. Jay, after the conclusion of this treaty, held out
the flag of free trade, the Americans never acknowledged, for any
lengthened period, his enlightened principles, but preferred following,
in this respect, the example of the mother-country whose allegiance
they had renounced; and, although admitting the vessels of all foreign
nations to their ports, levied a tonnage duty on them higher than was
paid by their own ships, with an additional ten per cent. on the duties
payable on their cargoes.
FOOTNOTES:
[205] Vol. I. chaps. xvi., xvii., and vol. II. chaps. i., ii.
[206] This very condensed account of the voyages of Dampier, Anson, and
Cook has been mainly taken from the collection of voyages published
by J. Hawkesworth, London, 4to., 1773; and from Captain Cook’s own
narrative, London, 4to., 1779-1784; that of Dampier has been taken from
his own account, and from ‘Inland and Maritime Discovery,’ vol. ii.
[207] Discovered by Davis, in 1686.
[208] Edmund Burke’s brilliant sketch, entitled ‘An Account of the
European Settlements in America,’ gives a clear and succinct history of
their progress up to 1760.
[209] For the various details on this subject see Macpherson, vol.
iii., and the annual register for each year of that period.
[210] It is estimated that since the Peace of 1783, and down to the end
of 1873, there have been 8,779,174 aliens landed in the United States;
emigrants arrived from various parts of the world. Various estimates
have been made of the amount of money brought into the country by
immigrants. The late John A. Kennedy, for many years Superintendent at
Castle Garden, found it about $68 per head for a given period. Placing
it at only $50, we have $444,000,000 as the result up to this time. But
the far greater value consists in the labour brought into the country,
a very large proportion of which goes to build up new Territories and
States in the West.—London ‘Times’ newspaper, January 20th, 1874.
[211] Statute of George II. chap. xiii.
[212] This “Case,” with all the statements on both sides, will be found
in the Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, 1749-1777, vol. i.
Miscellaneous, comprising No. 1 to No. 9.
[213] _Vide_ Edwards’ ‘History of the West Indies,’ vol. i. p. 239.
[214] 6 Geo. III. chap. ii.
[215] One especial cause of this was that Spain has at no modern period
had a large internal commerce. Hence Spanish gold was largely spent in
Europe in the purchase of many goods which she did not, or would not,
produce herself.
[216] Cotton was first planted in Georgia in 1786, but made little
progress for several years.
[217] In 1769 the colonies built and launched 389 vessels, 113 square
rigged, and 276 sloops and schooners, of an aggregate burthen of 20,001
tons. Of these, Massachusetts (including Boston and Salem) provided
nearly one-half, New Hampshire and Rhode supplied the next largest
numbers, while New York had only 5 square-rigged vessels and 14 sloops
and schooners, measuring in all 955 tons. Pennsylvania owned 1344 tons;
Virginia, 1249; North and South Carolina, 1396; and Connecticut, 1542;
while Georgia had 1 sloop and 1 schooner, whose combined measure was
only 50 tons! In 1769 the entrances to all the ports of the present
United States amounted to 332,146 tons, and the clearances to 339,362
tons; of which 99,121 tons cleared for Great Britain; 42,601 for
Southern Europe and Africa; 96,382 for British and Foreign West Indies;
and 101,198 for the continent of America and the Bahama Islands.
The aggregate value of the whole imports amounted to 2,623,412_l._,
and of the exports to 2,852,441_l._; of which Great Britain sent
1,604,975_l._, receiving in return produce to the value of 1,531,516_l_.
(‘Journals of the House of Commons,’ 1792, p. 357).
[218] The famous defence of Gibraltar, July 17, 1779, to Nov. 27,
1781, by General Elliott (Lord Heathfield), and Rodney’s two actions,
in which he defeated the Spanish and French fleets respectively, did
more than anything to restore the prestige of England. In the first
of these battles, fought off Cape St. Vincent, Jan. 1780, Rodney took
the Spanish Admiral, Don Langara, and six of his ships; in the second,
fought in the West Indies, on April 12, 1782, he took five ships and
the French Admiral, the Count de Grasse, prisoners of war.
[219] Macpherson, vol. iv., _passim_.
[220] Sir Guy Carleton went to America to treat for peace May 5, 1782.
[221] This Treaty was signed in Tippoo’s camp by Sir George Staunton as
the English Ambassador, on the 11th of March, 1784.
[222] Trade of Great Britain with foreign countries, 1760-1797.
------+---------------+------------------
| |Exports of British
| Imports. | and Foreign and
Years.| | Colonial Produce.
+---------------+------------------
|Official Value.| Official Value.
------+---------------+------------------
| £ | £
1760 | 10,683,596 | 15,781,176
1761 | 10,292,541 | 16,038,913
1762 | 9,579,160 | 14,543,336
1763 | 12,568,927 | 15,578,943
1764 | 11,250,660 | 17,446,306
1765 | 11,812,144 | 15,763,868
1766 | 12,456,765 | 15,188,669
1767 | 13,097,153 | 15,090,001
1768 | 13,116,281 | 16,620,132
1769 | 13,134,091 | 15,001,282
1770 | 13,430,298 | 15,994,572
1771 | 14,208,325 | 19,018,481
1772 | 14,508,716 | 17,720,169
1773 | 12,522,643 | 16,375,431
1774 | 14,477,876 | 17,288,486
1775 | 14,815,856 | 16,326,364
1776 | 12,443,435 | 14,755,704
1777 | 12,643,831 | 13,491,006
1778 | 11,033,898 | 12,253,890
1779 | 11,435,265 | 13,530,703
1780 | 11,714,966 | 13,698,178
1781 | 12,722,862 | 11,332,296
1782 | 10,341,629 | 13,009,459
1783 | 13,122,235 | 14,681,495
------+---------------+------------------
+------+---------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------|
| | Imports. | Exports.—Official Value. |
|Years.+---------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------|
| |Official Value.| British Produce | Foreign and |Total Exports.|
| | |and Manufactures.|Colonial Produce.| |
+------+---------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------|
| | £ | £ | £ | £ |
| 1784 | 15,272,877 | 11,255,057 | 3,846,434 | 15,101,491 |
| 1785 | 16,279,419 | 11,081,811 | 5,035,358 | 16,117,169 |
| 1786 | 15,786,072 | 11,830,195 | 4,470,536 | 16,300,731 |
| 1787 | 17,804,025 | 12,053,900 | 4,815,889 | 16,869,789 |
| 1788 | 18,027,170 | 12,724,720 | 4,747,519 | 17,472,239 |
| 1789 | 17,821,103 | 13,779,506 | 5,561,043 | 19,340,549 |
| 1790 | 19,130,886 | 14,921,084 | 5,199,037 | 20,120,121 |
| 1791 | 19,669,783 | 16,810,019 | 5,921,977 | 22,731,996 |
| 1792 | 19,659,358 | 18,336,851 | 6,568,349 | 24,905,200 |
| 1793 | 19,255,117 | 13,892,269 | 6,496,560 | 20,388,829 |
| 1794 | 22,276,916 | 16,725,403 | 10,021,681 | 26,748,084 |
| 1795 | 22,736,889 | 16,338,213 | 10,785,126 | 27,123,339 |
| 1796 | 23,187,320 | 19,102,220 | 11,416,694 | 30,518,914 |
| 1797 | 21,013,957 | 16,903,103 | 12,013,907 | 28,917,010 |
+------+---------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------+
[223] For interesting details of this period of Irish history, see
‘Life of Grattan,’ by his son, and Phillipps’s ‘Memoirs of J. Philpot
Curran.’
[224] The ships which entered the ports of Scotland, during the
following years are thus reported by Chalmers:—
Foreign trade. Coast trade. Fisheries, &c.
Tons. Tons. Tons.
In 1769 48,271 21,615 10,275
In 1774 52,225 26,214 14,903
In 1784 50,386 31,542 10,421
In 1785 60,356 36,371 11,252
The Custom House accounts, from which the above is derived, state the
ships to belong to Scotland, reckoning each vessel only one voyage in
each year.
[225] _Vide_ Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations,’ by McCulloch, pp. 47, 48.
[226] Fleetwood gives the wages of a ship’s carpenter, in 1514, at
3_d._ per day from Candlemas to Michaelmas, and 6_d._ from Michaelmas
to Candlemas; a master caulker had 6_d._ and 5_d._, and inferior
caulkers 5_d._ and 4½_d._ per day respectively, 2_d._ per day being
deducted for diet. A great service has been done, especially in the
navy, by the diminishing the quantity of grog, and by the substitution
for it of cocoa, &c.
[227] 26 George III. chap. 60.
[228] McCulloch’s ‘Commercial Dictionary,’ article Registry; see also
Macpherson, iv. pp. 107-111, who gives the rules for measuring the
capacity of ships.
[229] Act of Congress, December 31, 1792, chap. i.
[230] For full details of the law with reference to neutral ships, see
Wheaton’s ‘International Law,’ vol. ii. c. iii.
[231] Macpherson, iv. pp. 112-116. It may create a smile when we state
that one clause in this treaty stipulated “that the merchants are at
liberty to keep their books as they please, and to write their letters
in any language they think proper.” Another clause provided that
British subjects were “not compelled to keep their accounts on stamped
paper with the exception of the Journal.”
[232] Of one hundred and thirty-seven vessels thus engaged in the year
1787, eighty were owned in Liverpool, and thirty in Bristol.
[233] Macpherson (iv. 145) gives the following dimensions of a
“slaver,” from a return presented to Parliament in 1786. Taking the
first on the list, a ship belonging to J. Brooks and Co., it appears
that the length of the lower deck, with the thickness of the grating
and the bulkhead, was 100 feet; her breadth of beam, from inside to
inside, 25 ft. 4 in.; the depth of the hold, from ceiling to lower
deck, 10 ft.; height between decks, 5 ft. 8 in.; length of the men’s
room on lower deck, 96 ft. 4 in.; breadth of the men’s room on lower
deck, 25 ft. 4 in.; length of the platform in men’s room on the lower
deck, 46 ft.; breadth of the same platform, 6 ft.; length of the
boys’ room, 13 ft. 9 in.; breadth of the boys’ room, 25 ft.; length
of platform in boys’ room, 6 ft.; length of the women’s room, 28 ft.
6 in.; breadth of women’s room, 23 ft. 6 in.; length of platform in
women’s room, 28 ft. 6 in.; breadth of platform in women’s room on
each side, 6 ft. The number of air-ports going-through the side of
the deck was 14; the length of the quarter-deck, 33 ft. 6 in., by a
breadth of 19 ft. 6 in.; the length of the cabin was 14 ft., by 19 ft.
in diameter, and 6 ft. 2 in. in height. The vessel, named after the
owners, the _Brooks_, is described as frigate-built without forecastle,
and pierced for 20 guns. When leaving the coast of Africa she carried,
besides her crew, 351 men, 121 women, 90 boys, and 41 girls, a total of
609! She lost by death, on her passage, 10 men, 5 women, 3 boys, and
1 girl. Her provisions for the negroes were:—20 tons of split beans,
peas, rice, shelled barley, and Indian corn; 2 tons of bread; 12 cwt.
of flour; 2070 yams, averaging 7 lbs. each; 34,002 gallons of water;
330 gallons of brandy, rum, &c.; 70 gallons of wine; 60 gallons of
vinegar; 60 gallons of molasses; 200 gallons of palm oil; 10 barrels of
beef; 20 cwt. of stock fish; with 100 lbs. of pepper. She was 49 days
on the passage from the Gold Coast to the West Indies, the shortest
passage of nine vessels reported being 42 days, and the longest 50 days.
[234] Sierra Leone was discovered in 1460. The number of slaves sent
out is said to have been four hundred males and sixty women. As a
settlement, Sierra Leone has met with indifferent success, and it
has been attacked more than once by the French and the neighbouring
Ashantees. The climate is peculiarly deadly to European constitutions
(Macpherson, iv. pp. 128 and 223).
[235] ‘Observations on the Commerce of the American States,’ by Lord
Sheffield.
[236] ‘Opinions on interesting subjects of Public Law and Commercial
Policy, arising from American Independence,’ by George Chalmers.
[237] The story of the early life of Lord Nelson well illustrates the
difficulties between the colonists, the Americans, and the English
government. In 1784 Captain Nelson found himself, as commanding the
_Boreas_ frigate, the senior captain on the West India Station, under a
general who hesitated about his duties, and was more than half inclined
to support the enemies of England, and an admiral who candidly admitted
he had not read the instructions from home under which he was bound to
act. How Nelson solved the difficulty by simply enforcing the Acts of
Parliament, and how Collingwood, in the _Mediator_, stood firmly by
him, is well told by Southey in his ‘Life of Lord Nelson,’ pp. 54-60
(Bohn’s ed.).