116 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS [Feb. 6, 
Americans has been lately in Ocean Steam Navigation. Three 
years ago they began : they were inimeasurably behind us at starting ; 
they are already nearly equal to us; their Transatlantic Steam- 
packets equal ours in size, power, and speed. In regularity they are 
still inferior. If they continue to advance at their present ,rate of 
improvement, they will very soon outstrip us. 
Next I come to the trade which has long been peculiarly our own, 
the China trade. The Clipper ships they have recently sent home 
to this country have astonished the fine ships of our own Smiths and 
Greens. Our best ship-owners are now trembling for their trade and 
reputation. 
Finally, it is true that the Americans have sent over to England a 
yacht called the America, which has found on this side of the 
Atlantic no match ; and we only escaped the disgrace of her having 
returned to America, without any of us having had the courage to 
accept her defiance, through the chivalry of one gentleman, who 
accepted the challenge with a yacht of half the size, on this 
principle, so worthy of John Bull, “ that the Yankee, although he 
might say that he had beaten us, should not be able to say that 
we had all run away.” 
Such then at present is our actual position in the matter of Ships, 
Yachts, and Steam Navigation, a position highly creditable to the 
Americans, and which deserves our own very serious consideration. 
I propose to-night to examine a little into the physical causes of 
the naval success of the Americans ; but before doing so, permit me 
to point out a moral one, which later in the evening you will also 
find to lie at the bottom of the physical causes. It is this; — John 
Bull has a prejudice against novelty ; Brother Jonathan has a preju- 
dice equally strong in favour of it. We adhere to tradition, in trade, 
manners, customs, professions, humours; Jonathan despises it. I 
don’t say he is right and we are wrong; but this difference becomes 
very important, when a race of competition is to be run. 
These preliminary remarks find immediate application in the 
causes which have led to our loss of character on the sea. The 
Americans, constantly on the alert, have carried out and applied 
every new discovery to the advancement of navigation ; while with 
the English, naval construction and seamanship is exactly that 
branch of practice in which science has not only been disregarded, 
but is altogether despised and set aside. The American ships shew 
what can be done by modern science unflinchingly put in practice ; 
the English shew what can be done in spite of science and in 
defiance of its principles. 
The immediate cause of the defects of English ships, and the most 
glaring instance of the outrage of all true principle in the practice 
of navigation, was to be found for many years in the English 
Tonnage law. It was simply an Act of Parliament for the effectual 
and compulsory construction of bad ships. Under that law, the 
present fleet of merchant ships and of ship-builders has chiefly 
grown up, and though at length and only recently abrogated, its 
influence is still left behind and is widely prevalent. This Act 
