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

by W. S. Lindsay

Although steamers occasionally visited the Mediterranean, it was not till 1840 that any attempt was made to establish a line or succession of voyages in the trade with Great Britain, much less among the islands of the Levant, and along the shores of the Black Sea and the Adriatic. Among the earliest attempts may be mentioned that of the Rattler, of 350 tons and 50 horse-power, despatched by Messrs. Vivian, Jones, and Chapple, of Liverpool. About 1840 the Peninsular Company also extended the operations of their steamers to Malta and Alexandria, and soon afterwards to Corfu, the Levant, and Constantinople. In 1845 Mr. A. Mongredian, of Liverpool, attempted to establish a regular line between that port and the Levant with the steamers Osmanli and Levantine, but being unsuccessful, they were transferred in 1849 to Messrs. McKean, McLarty, and Lamont, who employed them between Liverpool, Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Messina, Palermo, and the Adriatic, where they appear to have yielded more remunerative returns.

That of Messrs. Frederick Leyland and Co., &c.

From about this period, steam in those trades, as it has done everywhere else, made its way when fairly established; and, afterwards, increased with extraordinary rapidity, affording greatly improved facilities for the development of ancient branches of maritime commerce, which had long lain dormant, as well as for the creation of others hitherto unknown. Various associations and companies were now formed to carry on the trade of those inland seas by means of steam-vessels from both London and Liverpool. Among the most important belonging to Great Britain, were the lines of steamers sent forth by Messrs. Bibby, Sons, and Company, now Messrs. Frederick Leyland and Company, and by Messrs. Burns and McIver; while the Austrian Lloyd’s Steam Navigation Company trading from Trieste, and the French Messageries Maritimes from Marseilles, were the chief foreign undertakings established to carry on the coasting trade in which the protective character of the Austrian and French navigation laws conferred on them exclusive privileges.

S. S. “BAVARIAN.”

Their fleets.

In the trade from Liverpool, including the Peninsular service, Messrs. Frederick Leyland and Company alone now employ no less than twenty-three large iron steamers, seventeen of them varying in size from 1500 to 3000 tons gross register, bound direct to the Mediterranean ports. These are all propelled by the screw, and are surprising specimens of purely cargo steamers. In this respect, considering their capacity in proportion to their admeasurement, tonnage, and small current expenses, these vessels are, perhaps, unsurpassed by any steam-ships afloat. For instance, the Bavarian, of which an illustration may be seen on the previous page, takes 4800 tons of cargo exclusive of her coal bunkers, though of only 3052 tons gross register, and is navigated by the comparatively small number of forty-eight persons all told.[360] The steamers of this firm and of Messrs. Burns and McIver, as well as those of various other companies, now run in regular lines from London, Liverpool, and elsewhere, to the numerous ports of the Mediterranean, Levant, Adriatic, and Black Sea.

Gibbon, in his brilliant description of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, speaks of the terror of its Senators lest the supply of corn should fail in meeting the requirements of the once all-powerful capital, and create, as usual, violent tumults among the people; but, with the fleet alone of Messrs. Leyland and Company at their command, all apprehension on this score would have vanished, as either of the three vessels I have mentioned could, with the present appliances for loading and discharge, have transported from Egypt to Rome in the course of twelve months, no less than 500,000 quarters, or 4,000,000 bushels, while the whole fleet could have taken 10,000,000 quarters, had Egypt been able to produce within the year that quantity of grain. Such are a few of the changes the application of the motive power of steam has produced within our own time.

Messageries Maritimes Company.

But much the largest maritime undertaking engaged in the trade of the Mediterranean and elsewhere, is that of the Messageries Maritimes, recently the Messageries Imperiales, monopolizing, as this does, nearly the whole of the steam tonnage of France. Indeed, apart from the vessels owned by this association, and one or two other highly subsidized shipping companies in that country, the French may be said to have no steamers.[361] Their protective policy, combined with the depressing influence which large grants of public money to special undertakings must ever exercise on individual energy, has effectually overpowered all private enterprise of this description. It may be true, as has been frequently alleged, that the French people have no natural aptitude for maritime pursuits, and that their children, who are not employed in their vineyards, or in the manufacture of those special articles for which they have long been celebrated, take naturally to the fife and the drum with somewhat of the same avidity that the boys of England seek enjoyment in navigation; but, certain it is that, owing to restrictive laws and enormous subsidies to favoured individuals, the French people, generally, have never yet been allowed the opportunity of showing what they could do in the peaceful paths of maritime commerce.