Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/176



It had been charged against shipowners, as we have seen, that their ships were unseaworthy, while the masters had been condemned in no measured terms. These accusations he indignantly repelled; his explanation as to the permanence of a losing trade being substantially this—that a distinct class of men existed who were shipowners, and not merchants, whose fathers had been shipowners for successive generations, and had left them ships as their only inheritance; and that, as they could not readily divest themselves of this property, and had no means of buying ships of an improved description fit to compete with vessels of more modern date, their commercial career generally ended with the Gazette.

With regard to the qualifications of captains of merchant vessels, Mr. Richmond said that sixty years ago, when he went to sea, very young in life, it was customary for respectable and even wealthy people, in the maritime districts, to send their children to sea: indeed, no matter whether they were shipowners or merchants, agriculturists or manufacturers, one of the family was sent to sea, because it was considered a line in which there was a fair chance of prospering. "But no respectable people send their children to sea now," he exclaimed, "as it is a profession which, in all probability, would lead them to beggary."

of that borough continued to build more vessels, he replied, "Sir, do not you know that Hope is the last thing that forsakes the human breast?"]
 * [Footnote: question of how it was that, in spite of such gloom and ruin, the shipowners