Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/149

 of fact, were nullified as regards goods, while the shipowners alone reaped the advantage of this useless and protracted voyage, was surely a climax of absurdity! Nevertheless, it is within my own personal experience that a large amount of business was transacted in this way, all the expenses incurred being, in an economical point of view, a total waste of capital.

Again, on the part of the old law, the want of adaptability to the changing conditions of different markets was often a serious difficulty. Thus, it often happened that the state of these markets in different parts of the world presented favourable mercantile prospects; but no suitable vessel could be found to carry the goods to the market where they were required. For instance, hostilities being about to break out between France and the United States in 1834, the price of French brandy rose enormously in America, while, at the same time, the large quantities of that article then in England rendered it unsaleable in the London market. At the time there was not an American vessel to be chartered in the Thames, and the American Navigation Laws precluded the brandy from being carried in a British vessel. On the other hand, palm-oil, at times, could not be brought from the United States, there being no British vessel available for charter on the spot. In such cases, the merchants complained in their letters in doleful terms, "I have lost my commission, and some British vessel the freight." Instances of such occurrences were multiplied from all parts of the world. Much was said at the time about the difficulty of bringing cochineal from the Canary Islands, where the cactus, on which it feeds, had recently been cultivated