This was not the first voyage of a steamer between England and America. The Savannah made the passage from New York to Liverpool as early as 1819; but steam was only used occasionally during the voyage, In 1825, the Enterprise, with engines by Maudslay, made the voyage from Falmouth to Calcutta in 113 days;and in 1828, the Curacoa made the voyage between Holland and the Dutch West Indies. But in all these cases, steam was used as an auxiliary, and not as the one essential means of propulsion, as in the case of the Sirius and the Great Western, which were steam voyages only.
"In 1862 the steam tonnage of the country was 537,000 tons;in 1872, it was 1,537,000 tons; and in 1882, it had reached 3,835,000 tons."--Mr. Chamberlain's speech, House of Commons, 19th May, 1884.
The last visit of the plague was in 1665.
Roll of Edward the Third's Fleet. Cotton's Library, British Museum.
Charnock's History Of Marine Architecture, ii. 89.
State Papers. Henry VIII. Nos. 3496, 3616, 4633. The principal kinds of ordnance at that time were these:--The "Apostles," so called from the head of an Apostle which they bore; "Curtows," or "Courtaulx"; "Culverins" and "Serpents";"Minions," and "Potguns"; "Nurembergers," and "Bombards" or mortars.
The sum of all costs of the Harry Grace de Dieu and three small galleys, was 7708L. 5s. 3d. (S.P.O. No. 5228, Henry VIII.)Charnock, ii. 47 (note).
Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, ii. 126.
The Huguenots: their Settlements, Churches, and Industries, in England and Ireland, ch. iv.
Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, ii. 156.
Ibid. ii. 85.
Picton's Selections from the Municipal Archives and Records of Liverpool, p. 90. About a hundred years later, in 1757, the gross customs receipts of Liverpool had increased to 198,946L.;whilst those of Bristol were as much as 351,211L. In 1883, the amount of tonnage of Liverpool, inwards and outwards, was 8,527,531 tons, and the total dock revenue for the year was 1,273,752L.!
There were not only Algerine but English pirates scouring the seas. Keutzner, the German, who wrote in Elizabeth's reign, said, "The English are good sailors and famous pirates (sunt boni nautae et insignis pyratae)." Roberts, in his Social History of the Southern Counties (p. 93), observes, "Elizabeth had employed many English as privateers against the Spaniard. After the war, many were loth to lead an inactive life. They had their commissions revoked, and were proclaimed pirates. The public looked upon them as gallant fellows; the merchants gave them underhand support; and even the authorities in maritime towns connived at the sale of their plunder. In spite of proclamations, during the first five years after the accession of James I., there were continual complaints. This lawless way of life even became popular. Many Englishmen furnished themselves with good ships and scoured the seas, but little careful whom they might plunder." It was found very difficult to put down piracy. According to Oliver's History of the city of Exeter, not less than "fifteen sail of Turks" held the English Channel, snapping up merchantmen, in the middle of the seventeenth century! The harbours in the south-west were infested by Moslem pirates, who attacked and plundered the ships, and carried their crews into captivity. The loss, even to an inland port like Exeter, in ships, money, and men, was enormous.
Naval Tracts, p. 294.
This poem is now very rare. It is not in the British Museum.
There are three copies extant of the autobiography, all of which are in the British Museum. In the main, they differ but slightly from each other. Not one of them has been published in extenso. In December, 1795, and in February, 1796, Dr. Samuel Denne communicated to the Society of Antiquaries particulars of two of these MSS., and subsequently published copious extracts from them in their transactions (Archae. xii. anno 1796), in a very irregular and careless manner. It is probable that Dr.
Denne never saw the original manuscript, but only a garbled copy of it. The above narrative has been taken from the original, and collated with the documents in the State Paper Office.
