The Story of the American Merchant Marine

by John Randolph Spears

The writer begs the indulgence of intelligent readers while he treats this matter as if for a kindergarten. From the days of McCulloch to the present time no one has sufficiently emphasized the difference between commerce and shipping, a distinction that must be made entirely plain before one can see clearly just how these navigation acts affected the American merchant marine.

Having compelled the colonies to send all their enumerated products to England (it was not necessary to sell them there; they could be reëxported under certain regulations), Parliament went still further in its effort to maintain a "greater correspondence and kindness" between the colonists and the home subjects, by enacting, in 1663, that "no commodity of the growth, production or manufacture of Europe, shall be imported into the British plantations but such as are laden and put on board in England, Wales, or Berwick-upon-Tweed," and in English-built shipping with an English crew.

The export trade of the colonies was to be restricted for the benefit of the merchants of England; so also was this import trade. Whether so intended or not, the restrictions resulted in a lowering of the prices of the colonial enumerated products when sent to England, because the market was glutted. At the same time the prices of the European products, which the colonist wished to buy, were, with few exceptions, greatly enhanced. The colonial producer was robbed by the artificial reduction of the selling price of his products, and the artificial increase of the price he paid for his European goods—robbed twice by arbitrary laws.

In 1672 Parliament passed another act still further to increase the "correspondence and kindness" existing between the colonials and the subjects living in the mother-country. A heavy tax was laid upon the commerce between the colonies.

"By these successive regulations," says Robertson, "the plan of securing to England a monopoly of its colonies ... was perfected."

It should now be interesting to note the actual influence of all this legislation upon the colonial merchant marine. On July 4, 1631, Massachusetts had launched her first ship, a vessel of 30 tons. In 1676 Randolph reported that her people owned 30 ships of from 100 to 250 tons' burden, 200 of from 50 to 100 tons, 200 of from 30 to 50 tons, and 300 of from 6 to 10 tons, the latter being chiefly fishing smacks, though some were engaged in the coasting trade. The colony owned 430 vessels as large or larger than the Blessing of the Bay. Many ships were also owned in the other New England colonies. In 1678 New York owned "5 smale ships and a Ketch" that were in the coasting trade.

Sir Josiah Child, a notable Englishman engaged in the trade with America, said, in a book which he wrote on commercial matters:—

"Of all the American plantations his Majesty has none so apt for building of shipping as New England, nor any comparably so qualified for the breeding of seamen, not only by reason of the natural industry of that people, but principally by reason of their cod and mackerel fisheries." And to this he adds a statement which for the first time gave expression to what has since been known as the "American Peril." He said, "And, in my poor opinion, there is nothing more prejudicial and in prospect more dangerous to any mother kingdom than the increase of shipping in her colonies."

All this is to say that while Parliament had passed three acts that were confessedly intended to prohibit a part, and hamper all of the colonial trade, except that with the mother-country; and while these acts had proved injurious and vexatious to the colonial producers and merchants, the colonial shipping, the merchant marine, had had such a vigorous growth that it was alarming the ship-owners who lived in England.

This condition of affairs becomes all the more interesting when it is remembered that a restriction of colonial trade was likely to affect colonial shipping indirectly, at any rate; that is, through a reduction in the amount of cargo to be carried. This injury was sure to appear in any reduction of trade between the colonies, and it was certain to affect the ships trading on owner's account first of all.