The Story of the American Merchant Marine

by John Randolph Spears

Hamlin's opposition is especially significant because he represented the great mass of unsubsidized ship-owners whose business was injured by the subsidized ships, and who were hot in their opposition to Collins.

Then it is to be noted that a chief argument urged by these Southern men against the payment of subsidies to the lines then in question was based on the belief that the ships were not fit for war-ships—were, in that respect, the shams they are now known to have been. In short, any candid reading of the speeches shows that in this question they were inspired by a desire to do what was best for the whole nation.

That one kind of sectional jealousy hurt the Collins line has been pointed out by Smith, in The Ocean Carrier—the well-founded jealousy of the ship-owners of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The clipper ship-owners of New York also bitterly opposed the Collins Line. In fact, these unsubsidized ship-owners combined to fight the Collins lobby at Washington, and it was their influence that struck the "terrible blow" which Marvin says was inflicted by the Southern members of Congress.

The influence of the Civil War upon the merchant marine must now have consideration. First of all, the appearance of Confederate privateers upon the ocean at once doubled the rate of insurance on all American merchantmen. Then, when Commander J. D. Bullock, of the Confederate navy, was sent to England to buy iron-clad war-ships with which to raise the blockade of Confederate ports, and was induced to build swift cruisers with which to raid the North's merchant marine, a still heavier blow was struck. In all, the Confederates had 19 cruisers at sea, and they captured 257 merchantmen. The loss of these ships, however, was the smallest part of the injury suffered. The possibility of capture deprived American ships of the opportunity to obtain cargoes, and led to a cessation of building in American shipyards. It led many owners to transfer their vessels to foreign flags. It changed the currents of commerce. Naturally the British merchants took every advantage of their opportunity, as the Americans had done in the troubled days of the war with Napoleon.

One might suppose that the demand for naval ships would have given prosperity to the shipyards and engine works, but John Roach testified before the committee mentioned that "out of ten marine engine shops that were in existence in New York at the commencement of the war, his was the only one remaining in existence."

Though iron was largely used in the government ships, Nathaniel McKay, the ship-builder, told this committee that "we have got to have some experience in building iron ships. We have built but few iron ships, and most of them were failures."

Mere mention only of the transfer of American capital from the sea to the shore need be made here. With the depreciated currency there was plenty of opportunity for "wildcat" speculations; for government contracts, and for other kinds of investments more to the taste of honest capitalists.

The whole seafaring population spent the war period in acquiring new habits, while the British ship-builders were busy perfecting their arts, and the British merchants were establishing themselves firmly in the trades from which the war drove the Americans.

As a final reason for the decadence of the American merchant marine, note that the conditions of life in the American forecastle had greatly changed, and that this change began when the American ships were winning their laurels. With the advent of the packet system the "private venture" method of adding to a sailor's income disappeared, and with it one strong inducement to the young men who thought of going to sea. Then the old custom of making the forecastle a schoolroom, with the ship's officers serving as instructors in navigation, died out. The very prosperity of the American merchant marine served to deteriorate the quality of American seamen, for the number of ships increased much more rapidly than the seafaring population. Foreign sailors were employed for lack of enough Americans. In time even the number of experienced foreigners was insufficient. Captain J. S. Clark testified before the committee of Congress mentioned above that he had taken a ship to sea with "but two men out of a crew of sixty who could steer."

With the employment of foreigners the pleasant relations that had existed between the forecastle and cabin came to an end. The officers who had been shipmates with crews of ambitious young Americans found the foreign sailors, with their lack of ambition—with a certain slowness of movement, in fact—exasperating, especially when topsails were to be reefed after "carrying on" somewhat too long! This exasperation, with race or national prejudices to increase it, was what led to the use of the belaying pin and the pump-brake for the "encouragement" of sailors who failed to "show willing." Naturally, as time passed, the treatment of sailors grew worse, and an American statute which required the sailor to prove malice or revenge on the part of an assailing officer, when he had the officer arrested for ill treatment, did but add to the horrors of a passage on a driven ship. Dana, in his Two Years Before the Mast, describes mildly the treatment which common sailors received in American ships in his day. Jewell's Among Our Sailors describes the cruelty more in detail. It was a common thing for captains to torture men, and men were sometimes killed by the brutality which they could not escape. And while the conditions in the American forecastle were growing worse, those in the British were growing better. In 1869 Captain Cyrus F. Sargeant, the well-known ship-owner, testified that "the wages of sailors are lower in an American ship than in an English ship." It is well known that the port makes the wages for the forecastle, but it was true, then, that seamen on British liners, at least, saved more money in a year than the men on American ships.