Earliest formation of wet-docks and bonded warehouses—System of levying duties—Opposition to any change—Excise Bill proposed, 1733—but not passed till 1803—Necessity of docks for London—Depredations from ships in London—The extent of the plunder—Instances of robberies—Scuffle hunters—"Game" ships—Ratcatchers—River-pirates—Their audacity—Light horsemen—Their organisation—"Drum hogsheads"—Long-shore men—Harbour accommodation—Not adequate for the merchant shipping—East and West India ships—Docks at length planned—West India Docks—Regulations—East India Docks—Mode of conducting business at the Docks—London Docks—St. Katharine's Docks—Victoria and Millwall Docks—Charges levied by the Dock Companies—Docks in provincial ports, and bonded warehouses—Liverpool and Birkenhead Docks—Port of Liverpool, its commerce, and its revenue from the Docks—Extent of accommodation—Extension of Docks to the north—Hydraulic lifts and repairing basins—Cost of new works—Bye-laws of the Mersey Board—The pilots of the Mersey—Duties of the superintendent—Conditions of admission to the service—Pilot-boats and rates of pilotage.
The earliest formation of wet-docks Although the wars in which Great Britain had been so long engaged tended very materially to retard her maritime and commercial progress, they gave her, on the other hand, a position among the nations which at that period of her history could perhaps only have been achieved by force of arms; nor, though a sad stumbling-block in her path, did they prevent the development of those inventions which have done so much in our own time to make her the first of
