40 THE MODEL MERCnANT 



Whittington was a mercer is a known fact; but there is no historical 

 warrant for saying that he dealt in coals — it is a mere surmise from 

 the discovery that vessels, called cats, have, at some period, been used 

 in the coal trade, and therefore it appeared a good guess that such 

 were the means by which our hero made his fortune ; and we may 

 say with the old Italian proverb, " Se non e vera e ben trovato.'^ 



Xow let us inquire a little into the subject of these ships. I cannot 

 find that coal- carrying ships were called cats, in England, at all, so far 

 back as Whittington's "^ time. In Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictio- 

 nary, a cat is said to be a sort of ship," and he quotes Bryant's Ohser- 

 vaiions on Rowley'' s Poems. " There are, (says Bryant), vessels at this 

 day which are common upon the northern part of the English coast, 

 and are called cats; part of the harbour at Plymouth is called Catwater, 

 undoubtedly from ships of this denomination, which were once common 

 in those parts." This note ' was made about 1778. We now turn to 

 Rees' Cyclopaedia, to the word. Cat. He says "cat, in sea language, de- 

 notes a ship, formed on the Norwegian model, used by the northern 

 nations of Europe, and sometimes employed in the Enylish coal trade.'" 

 Mark only sometimes. " It has three masts and a bowsprit, rigged 

 like an English ship, having, however, pole masts and no top-gallant 

 sails. The mizcn is with a gaff. These vessels usually carry from 

 four to si.v hundred tons." I appeal to my sea-going friends to say 

 whether a verier tub was ever desciibed. Where is the agility and 

 lightness of the cat so poetically described by Foote .^ There is very 

 great reason to doubt the use of ships of that burden in Whittington's 



X It is singular that ia the liofitU Kormannia, 5 Henry V. 1417, we have the 

 name of almost every kind of shij) then in use; that sovereign having had occasion 

 to hire ships in Ilolland, from his inability to procure sufficient for the transport of 

 his army in England. They are as follows : — Coggeships, Crayeres, Balingcres, 

 Helebotes, Busses, Farecosts, Doggers, Lodeships, or lioldships, Collets, Bargees, 

 Picards, Spinas, Del Skaffs, Niefs de Tourc, Passagers, and Navis. To these may 

 bo added, from Mr. Riley's introduction to the Liber Alius: — Escouts or Scuts, 

 Iloc-scips, Niefs de Scaltcrs, Vessels ovc Bcillcs, Boats en Tholles or Dcinz Ilorlocs, 

 Spindcleres Botes, Mangbotes, and Welkhotcs ; but no Cats. 



y Cattaj inter navium appellationes pouuntur a Gcllio, lib. 10, c. 2.5. — Calepini's 

 Dictionary, sub voce. 



z Wo should be as little disposed to take the authority of the author of Itotvlci/'s 

 Poems as that of Foote. Bryant, however, believed them to be genuine. 



