voyages, frequented the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland.[1]
But, however startling these figures as a measure of the immense number of vessels frequenting our coasts, they affect the mind much less than a glance at the actual facts, the fleets themselves. Until I made a course from the Thames to the Tyne, and saw the sea covered with ships, steamers, and fishing boats, of all kinds and sizes, and saw what an industry even the fishing alone employed, I never had clearly in my own mind a notion of what our mercantile marine really was. Let anyone survey from the fort of Tynemouth and ancient churchyard adjoining—a favourite walk of mine when I represented that borough in Parliament—and see from 200 to 300 ships going out at one tide, or watch the passing ships from Flamborough Head or from the cliffs of Dover, or let him steam through the endless crowd of herring boats off the Scotch coast, and he will have a stronger impression of the magnitude of the mercantile marine of Great Britain than can be derived from the most careful study of all our Blue Books on the subject.
In dealing with this question, it becomes our duty
- ↑ The total number of vessels and their tonnage, including their repeated voyages, that entered and cleared at the ports in the United Kingdom with cargoes and in ballast from and to foreign countries and British possessions for the year 1873 was 130,075, of 44,439,986 tons; the entrances and clearance coastwise with cargoes only, 332,148 vessels, of 40,632,014 tons. If I add to these the coasters in ballast and those with the description of cargo of which no note is taken at the Customs, as also the vessels frequenting the Channel, and bound for Hamburg, Bremen, and the Northern ports of Europe, which do not enter any of the ports of the United Kingdom, of which no return is kept, it will be found that I have not over-estimated the number which now annually pass along or frequent our coasts.—'Navigation and Shipping of the United Kingdom for the Year 1873.' Presented to Parliament, 1874.
