Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/180

 any port; their dimensions, their rigging, everything about them was admirable; while their commanders and officers inspired respect from their general competency. Their log-books were beautifully kept in English: and, from the education the younger population, who were destined for the sea, received, no better disciplined nor more orderly or sedate crews could be seen than on board these ships.

No doubt, these northern maritime countries could be regarded in no other light than that of formidable rivals. Therefore Mr. Richmond and his fellow-shipowners saw with alarm any efforts made to throw open the trade of the Empire, as the increasing success of these foreign rivals must obviously dispossess English shipowners of an immense portion of the carrying trade. Mr. Richmond, therefore, demanded, that not only the Reciprocity Treaties should be annulled, but that the law of Charles II. should be adopted, which enacted that "no goods or commodities whatsoever of the growth, production, or manufacture of Africa, Asia, or America, or of any part thereof, or which are described, or laid down, in the usual maps or cards of those places, be imported into England, Ireland, or Wales, the islands of Guernsey, Jersey, or the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in any other ship or ships, but in such as do truly, and without fraud, belong only to the people of England," &c.

Such were the extreme views promulgated by many of the advocates of Protection. Indeed, the majority of the shipowners, especially of the eastern ports, would not have hesitated to retaliate on the