The whole amount of tonnage of the American mercantile manner may be taken, in round numbers, at 2,000,000 tons, which may be subdivided as follows:
| Registered | |
| Tons | |
| Foreign trade | 700,000 |
| Whale fishery | 130,000 |
| Enrolled | |
| Coasting trade | 920,000 |
| Steam | 150,000 |
| Coast Fisheries | 100,000 |
| Total | 2,000,000 |
The American merchant vessels are generally sailed with fewer men than the British calculate five men to one hundred tons, which I believe to be about the just proportion. Mr Carey, in his work, estimates the proportion of seamen in American vessels to be 44 to every one hundred tons, and I shall assume his calculation as correct. The number of men employed in the American mercantile navy will be as follows:—
| Men | |
| Foreign trade | 30,333 |
| Whale fishery | 5,000 |
| Coasting trade | 39,000 |
| Steam | 6,500 |
| Coast fisheries | 4,333 |
| Total | 85,790 |
And now I will submit, from the examinations I have made, the proportions of American and British seamen which are contained in this aggregate of 85,799 men.
In the foreign trade we have to deduct the masters of the ships, the mates, and the boys who are apprenticed to learn their duty, and rise to mates and masters (not to serve before the mast). These I estimate at:—
| Masters | 1,500 |
| Mates | 3,000 |
| Apprentices | 1,500 |
| Ditto, co'ld men, as cooks, stewards, etcetera | 2,000 |
| Total | 8,000 |
which, deducted from 30,333, will leave 22,333 seamen in the foreign trade; who, with a slight intermixture of Swedes, Danes, and, more rarely, Americans, may be asserted to be all British seamen.
The next item is that of the men employed in the whale fishery; and, as near as I can ascertain the fact, the proportions are two-thirds Americans to one-third British. The total is 5,633; out of which 3,756 art Americans, and 1,877 British seamen.
The coasting trade employs 39,000 men; but only a small proportion of them can be considered as seamen, as it embraces all the internal river navigation.