Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/450

 conduct of business, these docks will no doubt soon secure a larger proportion of the trade of London than now falls to their lot.

Although the dues vary in the several establishments, except where there is combination, the leading rules and regulations by which their business is conducted are similar. They are all vast stores, where goods and produce subject to duty can be deposited either for home consumption or re-exportation, as well as wet-docks where ships can, at all times, lie afloat, alike free from the risks to which they were formerly subjected on the river by the dangers of its navigation, and the plunder of the combined rogues by whom the Thames was so long infested.

Besides the old Commercial Dock on the south side of the Thames, and the Grand Surrey Canal, both devoted almost exclusively to the reception of ships with cargoes not subject to duty, such as deals and timber, there are now wet-docks in most of the important ports of the kingdom, varying in size according to the trade of the place or district, but, with the exceptions we have named, they are all the creation of the present century. Bristol, Southampton, Hull, Great Grimsby, Cardiff, Newport, Newcastle, Glasgow, Leith, Sunderland, Dundee, Cork, and the Tyne have each their wet-docks, of greater or less capacity, with warehouses where goods subject to duty can be bonded. Besides these there are now forty-eight towns or ports in England, nineteen in Scotland, and eighteen in Ireland, where the privileges of bonding are allowed,