The “skippers,� “maties,� and “jackies� alike belonged to the lowest stratum of British social classification, which, according to the chronicles of those days, was pretty low. They were coarse, vulgar, ignorant men, full of lurid oaths; their persons emitted an unpleasant odor of cheap rum and stale tobacco; they had a jargon of their own and were so illiterate as to be unable to speak or write their own language with any degree of correctness. In a certain sense the captains were good sailors, but their knowledge and ambition were limited to dead reckoning, the tar bucket and marlinspike, a wife in every port, and plenty of rum and tobacco with no desire or ability to master the higher branches of navigation and seamanship. Mariners that a landsman delights to refer to as “real old salts,� of the Captain Cuttle and Jack Bunsby species, are amusing enough, perhaps, in the hands of a skilful novelist, but not at all the class of men that one would willingly select to assist in carrying forward the commerce of a great maritime nation.
Then the stupid and obsolete Tonnage Laws encouraged and almost compelled an undesirable type of vessels, narrow, deep, flat-sided, and full-bottomed—bad vessels in a seaway, slow, and often requiring a considerable quantity of ballast, even when loaded, to keep them from rolling over.
It is, of course, always hazardous to deal in generalities, but I think that this may be accepted as a fair description of the merchant marine of Great Britain up to 1834, when the Underwriters at Lloyd’s and the better class of ship-owners founded Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, to provide for the proper survey and classification of the merchant ships of Great Britain. This first important step in a much needed reform was followed in 1837 by the appointment of a committee by Parliament to investigate the general condition of shipping engaged in foreign trade. The committee reported as follows:
“The American ships frequenting the ports of England are stated by several witnesses to be superior to those of a similar class amongst the ships of Great Britain, the commanders and officers being generally considered to be more competent as seamen and navigators, and more uniformly persons of education, than the commanders and officers of British ships of a similar size and class trading from England to America, while the seamen of the United States are considered to be more carefully selected, and more efficient. American ships sailing from Liverpool to New York have a preference over English vessels sailing to the same port, both as to freight and the rate of insurance; and, the higher wages being given, their whole equipment is maintained in a higher state of perfection, so that fewer losses occur; and as the American shipping having increased of late years in the proportion to 12¾% per annum, while the British shipping have increased within the same period only 1½% per annum, the constantly increasing demand for seamen by the rapidly growing maritime commerce of the whole world, the numbers cut off by shipwrecks, and the temptations offered by the superior wages of American vessels, cause a large number of British seamen every year to leave the service of their own country, and to embark in that of the United States; and these comprising chiefly the most skilful and competent of our mariners, produce the double effect of improving the efficiency of the American crews, and in the same ratio diminishing the efficiency of the British merchant service.�
In 1843 a circular was issued from the Foreign Office to all British consuls requesting information on the conduct and character of British shipmasters, especially with regard to the “incompetence of British shipmasters to manage their vessels and crews, whether arising from deficiency of knowledge in practical navigation and seamanship, or of moral character, particularly want of sobriety.� The consular reports revealed a startling condition of affairs, requiring immediate attention, and led to the establishment in 1847, of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, with authority to supervise maritime affairs. From such unpromising material the formation was begun of the greatest merchant marine that has ever existed.
Meanwhile, one of the most important branches of British commerce, the East India trade, had been following an independent career, for the ships of the East India Company, although engaged in commercial pursuits, were under the direct patronage of the government, and cannot be regarded as forming part of the merchant marine of Great Britain. Yet as this Company had an important bearing upon the mercantile affairs of the nation, I propose to review as briefly as possible some of its remarkable exploits.
“The United Company of Merchant Venturers of England trading to the East Indies� was familiarly known as the “John Company,� and among those endowed with a larger bump of reverence, as the “Honorable John Company�; but by whatever name it may be called, this was the most gigantic commercial monopoly the world has ever known, since the days when the merchants of Tyre claimed the exclusive right to send their ships across certain waters known by common consent as Tyrian Seas.
The East India Company was founded in the year 1600, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The subscribed capital of £72,000 was expended on the first voyage in five vessels with their cargoes. This fleet consisted of the Dragon, of 600 tons, her commander receiving the title of Admiral of the squadron; the Hector, 300 tons, with a Vice-Admiral in command; two vessels of 200 tons each; and the Guest, a store ship of 130 tons. Four hundred and eighty men were employed in the expedition, including twenty merchants as supercargoes. The vessels were all heavily armed and were provided with small arms and an abundance of ammunition. They cost, with their equipment, £45,000, and their cargoes £27,000.
Friendly relations were formed with the King of Achin, in Sumatra, and a station, known in those days and long afterward as a “factory,� was established at Bantam, in Java. The fleet returned to England richly laden with silks and spices in 1603. In 1609 the Trades Increase, of 1209 tons, the largest ship launched in England up to that time, was built, but she was wrecked and became a total loss on her first voyage. Sir Henry Middleton, her commander, died soon after. This was an unfortunate expedition and resulted in heavy losses to the Company, but in 1611 the Globe cleared 218%, and in the following year the Globe, Thomas, and Hector turned over profits amounting to 340% upon the capital invested. Other successful voyages followed, so that in 1617 the stock of the Company reached a premium of 203%.
The East India Company had its troubles, to be sure, which were many and great, yet it increased in power, wealth, and strength, until at the close of the eighteenth century it had become possessed of a large portion of the continent of India, maintaining its own armies, forts, palaces, Courts of Directors, Boards of Council, Governors, and Typeans.[3] Eventually, this Company became the ruler of more than one hundred million human beings, not naked savages, but civilized men and women, many of whose ancestors had been learned scholars and merchant princes long prior to the invasion of Britain by the Roman, Dane, and Saxon.