Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/493

 carried, an imperfection arising, in a great measure, from the fact that many vessels, which in 1816 had ceased to exist, were still retained on the registry. Though the entries and clearances of British ships engaged in trade between the United Kingdom and her colonies, and foreign countries, could at both periods be obtained with accuracy, there were no certain returns of the amount of tonnage and of the number of men engaged in the Coasting trade, as the Customs did not take any notice of vessels sailing in ballast or with cargoes of a certain description. Nor do we even now know the actual amount of the shipping and men engaged in this particular trade with anything like perfect accuracy.

Thus it was impossible to arrive at a correct comparative estimate of the increase, or otherwise, of the loss of life at sea at any given periods previous to 1835. I may, however, state that the Committee, with the best information they could obtain, arrived at the conclusion that while the loss of life for the three years previous to 1818 had averaged 763 persons per annum, it had increased to 894 per annum for the three years previous to 1835, though the tonnage of vessels belonging to the United Kingdom was actually less at the latter than it had been at the former period.

The amount of tonnage, however, in itself, even when correct, is an imperfect criterion; indeed, to