CHAPTER VI.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.”

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.

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 168,000l. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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]

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.

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.

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 653,709l., reached 1,007,635l. 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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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 8l. to 22l. in Africa, and realised in the West Indies from 28l. to 35l., 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]

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.

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.

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.

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.