Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/319

 shipping, and bade fair, with the special advantages they now possessed, to surpass it in amount ere many years had elapsed. Under such circumstances, unusual efforts were necessary to maintain our position as the first of maritime nations. We had, however, one advantage which our great American competitors did not possess. We had iron in abundance; and, about this period, we were specially directing our attention to the construction of iron ships to be propelled by the screw.

Various of these vessels, to which I shall hereafter fully refer, were launched about the year 1850, and placed in competition with the American liners, which had long, all but monopolised the trade between the United States and Europe. Even if we could not build wooden ships, as was then feared, at as low a cost as the Americans, we had the advantage in labour, in the cost of equipment, and in being able to produce a superior class of vessels suited for the China and other distant trades, from our English oak. *