FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Alexander Baring’s pamphlet, 1808.
[2] In 1860, the United States owned a larger amount of tonnage, including lake and river steamers, than the United Kingdom, and nearly as much as Great Britain and all her colonies and possessions combined.
[3] State papers, America, ‘Commerce and Navigation,’ vol. ii. p. 413.
[4] The names appended to the petition are nearly all Anglo-Saxon, such as Rogers, Jones, Howard, &c.
[5] In 1818, the whole of the exports from New Orleans was only in value a little more than three million sterling; in 1850 it had reached thirty millions; the shipments of raw cotton alone in that year being 1,600,000 bales. During the year ending June 30, 1874, the exports of that article to foreign countries were 2,883,785 bales from the port of New Orleans alone.
[6] In the year ending 30th September, 1822, the tonnage of American vessels entered inwards at New York was 217,538 tons, cleared 185,666, against 22,478, and 17,784 tons foreign vessels, respectively. But for the year ending June 30, 1874, the proportion of entrances at the Port of New York was: American vessels, 1,124,055 tons; foreign vessels, 3,925,563. The clearances were in somewhat the same proportion. The chief causes of these extraordinary changes will appear in the course of this work. In 1850, 2,632,788 tons of American shipping, and 1,728,214 tons of foreign shipping cleared from the ports of the United States. In 1860, the relative proportions were, native vessels, 6,165,924 tons: foreign, 2,624,005; but in 1871, while the clearances of American vessels had fallen to 3,982,852 tons, the clearances of foreign vessels from the ports of the United States had risen to 9,207,396 tons! I take these startling figures, which I wish my readers to bear in mind, from the United States’ official reports, for history is of little value unless it teaches useful lessons.
[7] Among the leading merchants of Boston and Salem then engaged in this lucrative trade may be mentioned the names of Russell, Derby, Cabot, Thorndike, Barrell, Brown, Perkins, Bryant, Sturgis, Higginson, Shaw, Lloyd, Lee, Preble, Peabody, Mason, Jones, and Gray. From 1786 to 1798, Thomas Russell was one of the most enterprising and successful merchants of Boston. His charities were extensive; he was a warm friend to the clergy, and a liberal supporter of all religious institutions. Curiously enough, a member of the families (by the father and mother’s side), of Perkins and of Bryant and Sturgis (Russell Sturgis), now fills the place which Joshua Bates so long occupied as a leading partner in the house of Baring Brothers and Co., of London; Joshua Bates himself having first come to London as agent for Gray, the last name on the list I have given. Towards the close, however, of last century, Brown and Ives of Providence, Peabody of Salem, and T. H. Smith of New York, with Perkins and Co., and Bryant and Sturgis of Boston, carried on nearly all the trade with China.
Stephen Girard, the rich and eccentric American shipowner.
Though altogether unlike Mr. Russell and the other shipowners and merchants of Boston I have just named, I cannot omit to mention, in connexion with the early history of the Merchant Shipping of the United States, the name of Stephen Girard, one of the most prosperous and eccentric of men, who was long known as the “rich shipowner and banker of Philadelphia.” Born near Bordeaux, in 1750, of obscure parents, he, at the age of ten or twelve years, embarked as a cabin boy, with only a very limited knowledge of the elements of reading and writing, on a vessel bound for the West Indies. Thence he sailed in the service of an American shipmaster, to whom he had engaged himself, as an apprentice, for New York. He soon rose to be mate and master, and, after making a little money, he opened a small store in Philadelphia, and also carried on a shipping business with New Orleans and St. Domingo. At the latter place a tragical circumstance occurred strongly illustrative of the troubles of the time, but which contributed materially to swell Girard’s fortune. It chanced that at the moment of the insurrection of St. Domingo, Girard had two vessels lying near the wharf in one of the ports of that island. On the sudden outbreak, the planters, instinctively rushed to the harbour and deposited their most valuable treasures in the ships then there for the purpose of safety; but returned themselves in order to collect more property. As the greater part of them were massacred, few remained to claim the property, and as a large portion of it had been deposited in Girard’s vessels, for which no claims were made, he thus became its owner. In 1791 he commenced building a class of beautiful ships, long the pride of Philadelphia, for the trade with Calcutta and China—their names, however,—the Montesquieu, Helvetius, Voltaire, and Rousseau—too conspicuously reveal the religious dogmas of their owner. By judicious and successful operations in banking, combined with shipowning, Girard made so large a fortune that, in 1813, he was considered the wealthiest trader in the United States. It is told of him that when, in that year, one of his vessels with a cargo consisting of teas, nankeens, and silks from China, was seized on entering the Delaware, he ransomed her from the captors on the spot by a payment of $93,000, paid in doubloons, and by this transaction added half a million of dollars to his fortune! But Girard, with all his wealth, ended his career without a friend or relative to soothe his declining years and close his eyes in death. His legacies were large and numerous, while the largest of them were characteristic of the man. Among these may be named his bequest of 208,000 acres of land and thirty slaves to the city of New Orleans, and other large tracts of land in Louisiana to the Corporation of Philadelphia. To the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania he gave $30,000 for internal improvements; but the most extraordinary of his bequests was $2,000,000, which he left for the erection of an orphan college at Philadelphia—a magnificent building—and the endowment of suitable instructors, requiring and enjoining, however, by his will, “that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college; nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college.” Such was Stephen Girard, master and mariner.
[9] Vide Mr. Calhoun’s report, ‘Executive Documents,’ 2nd Session, 28th Congress, Document No. 95. 1844-45.
[10] Letter addressed by Mr. Sherwood, British Consul for Maine and New Hampshire, U.S., to Foreign Office, July 23, 1847, see Par. Paper, ‘Commercial Marine of Great Britain, 1848,’ p. 382.
[11] Papers relating to the Commercial Marine of Great Britain, 1848, p. 388.
[12] Act of 20th July, 1840, section 3, U.S. Acts, Boston Ed., vol. v. p. 394.
[13] For some very nice points of distinction, the reader may consult ‘Arnold’s Marine Insurance,’ Ed. 1857, where the decisions of Judge Story and Chancellor Kent are laid down with profound learning and judgment.
[14] Act 20th July, 1840, 16th and 17th sections.
[15] In a note to this Act (Statutes at Large U.S., Boston, 1850) will be found an admirable exposition of some decisions of the American Courts respecting the scope of a pilot’s duties. They are excellent, but too long to insert here.