Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/407

 is also allowed by law, it is only carried out to a trifling extent in practice, the latter having only advanced from 719,815 to 860,406 tons, while the former has advanced from 2,089,037 to 3,168,105.

It now remains to consider the shipping accounts for 1858. These exhibited a decline as compared with those of the preceding years, and to this extent gave indications of the depression of which Ship-*owners so much complained.

The accounts of December 1858 and January 1859, if taken separately, showed that a favourable reaction had already commenced, and that British shipping