History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 3 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Mr. Consul Baker.

Consul Baker, of Riga, was more pointed in his charges. He remarked: “I am sorry to state that, in my opinion, the British commercial marine is at present in a worse condition than that of any other nation. Foreign shipmasters are generally a more respectable and sober class of men than the British. I have always been convinced that, while British shipowners gain by the more economical manner in which their vessels are navigated, they are great losers from the serious delays occasioned, while on the voyage, and discharging and taking in cargoes, growing out of the incapacity of their shipmasters, and their intemperate habits. I have had occasion to remark, while consul in the United States, that American vessels, in particular, will make three voyages to two of a British vessel, in this way having an immense advantage over their competitor; and also from the superior education, and consequent business habits, obtaining better freights and employment for their vessels on foreign exchanges.” He further remarked, that, in several instances, he had been compelled, on the representations of the consignees, to take from shipmasters the command of their vessels in a foreign port, and to appoint others for the return voyage; their constant state of intoxication rendering them wholly “unfit to carry on their duties.”

Mr. Consul Yeames.

Consul-General Yeames, writing from Odessa on the 1st December, 1843, stated, that though in his experience he had known many unexceptionable and respectable persons in command of British vessels, they, as a rule, fell very far below the character of commanders of foreign vessels, more especially those of Austria. He attributed this inferiority in a great measure to the want of education and an absence of discipline. “Some of these shipmasters,” he added, “are shamefully illiterate, and are not qualified to do justice to the interest of owners in common transactions that occur in this port. There is, too, an impression here (and certainly among all the foreign merchants) that British shipmasters are indifferent to the condition of their cargoes, and careless of their preservation, which is prejudicial at least to our interests in the carrying trade.”

The Consul of Dantzig.

Somewhat similar accounts were received from Gottenburg, and numerous other ports. “Taken as a whole,” remarked the consul at Dantzig, “there is not—and I say it with regret—a more troublesome and thoughtless set of men, to use the mildest term, to be met with than British merchant-seamen. Only very lately, a master left his vessel, which was loaded with a valuable cargo and ready for sea, and was, after several days’ search, found in a house of ill-fame; his mate was very little better than himself; and his people, following this example, a set of drunkards.” He added, that occurrences nearly as bad as these were by no means rare, and that a Prussian vessel was sure to obtain a preference when freights were remunerative.

The Consuls of Genoa, Ancona, and Naples.

From the Mediterranean ports the accounts received were hardly more favourable to the character of British seamen. The consul at Genoa stated that it was quite common for captains of vessels at that port to take up their abode at a tavern; leaving the entire charge of the vessel in the hands of an ignorant mate, whose whole learning was not a whit superior to that of a man before the mast, and whose quarrels with the men or those among themselves were forced upon the consul for adjustment. At Ancona, the greater part of the masters who frequented the port were considered by the consul there to be unequal to the responsible trust imposed in them, not so much from the want of nautical skill as of sobriety. Out of the shipwrecks which had occurred during his residence at that port, he considered one to have arisen from incompetency, one from the inebriety of the master, and one from causes beyond control. At Naples, the consul spoke of the masters of British vessels being, on the average, ignorant and uneducated—“little superior in mental or literary acquirements to the seamen they are placed over;” and though, on the whole, good seamen, “few of them understand navigation beyond the mere power of keeping the ship’s reckoning. Nothing,” he added, “could be more truly disgraceful or discreditable than the manner of keeping the log-books of the vessels that resort to this port.”

Mr. Consul Sherrard.

Mr. Consul MacTavish.