Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/133

 to be deemed British seamen. But by section 21 of the same Act, any number of Lascars might be employed; provided only that there were four British seamen to every hundred tons of the vessel's burden: by section 23, however, it appears that British seamen need not be employed in certain voyages within the limits of the Charter.

On the subject of privileges granted to vessels of foreign countries in the trade with India, reference must be made to Act 37 Geo. III., cap. 117 (still unrepealed in 1847), which authorised the Directors of the East India Company, subject to the approval of the Board of Control, to make such regulations as they thought fit with respect to the trade to be carried on in ships of countries on friendly terms with England. The case, however, of America was peculiar, in this sense, that her ships were enabled to clear out from English ports to China, while English merchants could not send a British ship to that country! Thus, the Act of 59 Geo. III., cap. 54, sect. 6, allowed United States ships "to clear out from any port of the United Kingdom for the principal settlements of the British dominions in the East Indies,—videlicet, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and Prince of Wales Island,—with any articles which could be legally exported from the United Kingdom to the said settlements in British-built ships, subject to the same regulations, &c., as applied to British-built ships.

It was under the security of this clause that the traders of the United States sent their vessels to the port of London, to clear out, not for the special ports mentioned in the above Act, but for China, the only exclusive trade at that time retained by the East