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 vessels of our own time, the cost of construction, speed, and capacity for cargo, will be fully described, as well as the number and duties of the crew, and the expenses of management. I shall endeavour to supply every material fact connected with the business of the shipowner, which nowadays is separated from that of the merchant, so that hereafter a complaint may not be urged against me for having followed the example of other writers, and by so doing omitted interesting and instructive knowledge, simply because it was of a character hitherto considered beyond the province of the historian.

Many years have already been employed in collecting materials for this work, but hitherto time has been wanting for the study and elucidation of a subject which, from the nature of my avocations, can hardly fail to prove interesting to myself, whatever it may be to my readers. To trace the origin of navigation, and to detail the numerous steps by which the merchant vessels of the great trading nations of the world have reached their present state of perfection; to record those discoveries in science and art connected with navigation, which enable the mariner to cross the ocean without fear and with unerring certainty; to dilate upon those triumphs of man's genius and skill whereby he can bid defiance to the elements; and to enter in these pages the names of the men who have benefited mankind by their maritime discoveries, or by affording greatly increased facilities for intercourse between nations, is to me a task of the most gratifying description.