single handed, with the colossal power of our old inveterate and natural enemy, for all we hold dear to us as men and Britons*.'

Such are the arguments of this very able and well informed writer, which to every man at all concerned with shipping must be convincing, without the intervention of a doubt. His observations on the arbitrary and injurious system of impressing sea apprentices are indeed too true; and we are sorry to add that a similar case exists with regard to watermen's apprentices, who are liable to be impressed after they have served three or four years of their time, just at a period when they are useful to their masters, for it seldom happens that during the first three years they earn sufficient to maintain themselves. This mistaken grievous policy is at the same time ruinous instead of being beneficial to the navy—It checks the nursery of watermen on the river Thames, which has hitherto considerably augmented the number of our sailors, and which has always proved a great advantage at the breaking out of a war, by affording a large supply of skilful hands so near home. At some periods there have been at work on the river Thames between Westminster-bridge and Gravesend more than 30,000 watermen, riggers, and other nautical men, exclusive of the British and foreign seamen on board the shipping; but at present there is not a sixth part of that number, and even that is daily decreasing in consequence of the improvident system of locking up our ships in Wet Docks, the baneful effects of which will plainly appear by the following simple statement, that when five or six hundred ships at a time are shut up in those Docks, twice that number of lightermen are thrown out of employ, because the goods are carted from the Docks to the Merchants' warehouses in town; and watermen, three or four of whom, and sometimes more, that used formerly to be in constant attendance upon each of those vessels while lying in the river, are now unemployed, because there is no occasion for them according to the present regulations in the Docks: and when the East-India Docks are completed how much more severe will this evil be felt amongst those watermen, lightermen, and riggers, whom that class of shipping entire

The letter from which this extract is made, and many others, at different periods, have appeared under the signatures of Amator Patriæ and Nauclerus, and are attributed to one of the committee of ship-owners for the port of London, to whom the public are indebted for his unwearied exer tions to support the shipping interest of the country.

ly support. These men, most of whom have large families, it is very true, may go into the Navy rather than starve: but here ends the policy of this argument, as well as all future supply from this hitherto productive and excellent nursery of

seamen.

The abettors of the Wet Dock system may perhaps say that the expence which the ship owner and merchant before experienced, from employing these men, is now saved to them; but we would ask, are the Dock duties nothing? Is the detention of ships in Dock nothing? Is the maintenance of apprentices and seamen ashore, who are not suffered to live on board, no expence to the owner? And again is it nothing, that the risk of fire is a thousand times greater when ships are collected together in Dock, than when they are lying in the river afloat? But it is unnecessary to argue further on the injurious and pernicious tendency of the Dock system, since the impropriety is clear to all but those who are concerned in its establishment, and by which they expect to realise splendid fortunes. Friendly as we are to any plans that are likely to add to the grandeur and dignity of the nation, yet when they possess obnoxious qualities that overbalance the beneficial effects expected to be derived from them, it is the duty of every man to point them out, and for this reason we would rather see the money of patriotic individuals employed in objects that are more likely to encourage and promote the prosperity of British shipping and the empire of the seas, than speculations in Wet Docks, Tunnels, and Canals. Page 79.

No. XXVIII.

Letters on the new System of East-India Shipping, and its destructive Consequences to the Public, and to the Commanders and Of ficers in the Service.

Extracted from the Morning Chronicle and other
Newspapers.

MR. EDITOR,

LETTER I.

WHEN a man enters into a contract which is to subsist even for a short period of time, we readily give him credit for having called in the aid of preliminary calculation, founded on the variety of contingent circumstances which may operate for and against the undertaking, and on the magnitude of the capital which that undertaking will call into activity.

But this becomes more imperatively necessary, where the duration of the contract may extend to even beyond the term of fifteen years, certainly to not less than twelve years; and when the adventure is not only liable to casualties, of the most unforseen and unbounded nature, but where, inevitably, it will be affected by a most powerful and destructive agent; an agent, however, which, I trust, will long continue to operate with increasing energy in this country, because it is the best proof of the prosperity of the country-I mean the gradual and progressive decrease in the value of money. This reflection, sir, I am drawn into by understanding the general terms of the tenders made to, and accepted by, the East-India company within these few days back; and I must beg leave to preface any thing further I may have to say on this subject by the unqualified declaration, that I am in no shape whatever, either directly or indirectly, concerned as an owner in any of the East-India Company's ships, or desirous of being so. My sole reason for taking up the question I most solemnly avow to be a desire to check, if possible, imprudent and destructive speculation, ultimately tending

(and not in my individual opinion only) to the most serious private injury and public wrong.

The grounds for that opinion I now beg leave to submit to the consideration of those concerned, soliciting, and anxiously inviting gentlemen, acquainted with the nature of the service, to convict me of any inaccuracy that is not in favour of my general position. To those unacquainted with the service, it may appear extraordinary, that there should exist such a wide difference of opinion, on a matter which may be thought, and undoubtedly is, as easily reducible to a mercantile certainty as any other shipping speculation whatever. But the wonder will vanish, in some respect, when we presume to hint, that the scale of calculation is in most, if not all, of these cases, biassed by the eager anxiety of men bred in the service, or their friends, to procure the only possible means, by the only possible way, of remunerating the sacrifice of a life hitherto wasted in that particular line and unfit, from habits, as they are, for almost any other. This I say will operate in a degree to bias the adventuring owner as to the expectations of emolument to be derived from his tender; still, however, that bias will operate but to a certain extent, regulated by the strength of friendship, or, in a moderate degree, by the depth of purse. A friend taking a sixteenth share to serve a friend, may be willing to risk, on the event of the concern, the loss of £500, £600, or even £1000, but here I conceive friendship might be reasonably expected to pause. To what then can I impute the extraordinary nature of the late tenders, which I am induced to think, from the following statement, can have been founded on no previous calculation, far less on a knowledge of the nature of the adventure?

As I do not write for fame, but take up my pen solely to exhibit the folly and destructive tendency of such engagements, both to the individual and the public, I beg leave at once to appeal to the common sense of that public by a calculation sufficiently in detail, founded on the tenders lately accepted by the Directors; and I repeat my challenge to any man to controvert my statement, or to show it defective, except in favour of the general result.

For the better understanding it, I have only these prefatory observations to make, viz.-That I take it up as a mercantile adventure, on common mercantile principles; that I

i

allow two years only for each voyage, with the small interest of only 5 per cent. per annum; that I take the freight at £19 net (rather above the late tenders), in order to avoid fractions, making a large allowance for surplus freight; that I také no notice of the impress, except on the first and last voyages, as in fact immaterial to the calculation; and that I invariably, through the whole six voyages and twelve years, admit not the idea for a moment, that any untoward accident shall occur to disturb the harmony, or precipitate the uniform tendency of the adventure.

There is no man, I believe, who will obstinately dispute, that the building, at the present advanced rate, and the outfit at the present enormous price of every principal naval store, can amount on a ship of 800 tons, properly equipped for the Company's service, to less than £35000, but I am willing to allow every possible advantage which the most rigid economy can procure, and I will fix the

Interest, two years, at 5 per cent. per annum,

3,000

Insure, to cover the same, £35,000 at seven guineas per hundred, with

half per cent. and policy,

2,800

Cost on return from first voyage

35,800

Now the freight of 800 tons, at £19 per ton, is 15,200

Outfit on the second voyage I shall fix at what is
well known to be far under the mark 9,000

14,800

Leaving dividend to owners of

1,400

Cost to sea on second voyage,

34,400

Interest two years, and insurance £41,000 to cover

6,720

Cost on return from second voyage

And taking the freight and disbursements in the same favourable way, there will remain a dividend for the owners, as on the first voyage, of

41,120

1,400

Cost to sea on the third voyage

39,720