20 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



cal seas, which so rapidly destroy fir and oak shipping. It 

 would occasion the frequent purchase of foreign vessels, when- 

 ever war or similar causes interrupt the trade of the continent^ 

 and thus be continually adding the very implements of foreign 

 commerce to our own. Our wealth would long ago have ob- 

 tained a much larger share of the shipping, and of the at- 

 tached commerce of the world, but for this restriction of the 

 liavigation-law. Besides, if the ships of each country are 

 transferable to every other, a smaller number of ships can ac- 

 complish the business of the world. While the trade of the 

 Baltic becomes inactive from frost, or of the Mediterranean 

 from indolence, the appropriate shipping might be employed 

 in the Atlantic ; but if the proprietors of the Atlantic islands 

 may not employ foreign vessels, they must create native ones; 

 which in their turn will have to repose, while they might 

 bave been sold or let, beyond the Sound or the Streights. The 

 builth, wear, and tear of all this needless shipping must be le- 

 vied on the consumer of removed wares in the price of freight; 

 and thus, in some degree, discourage both the production and 

 removal of such ware. 



'* II. If English-mfl;^??^^/ ships had no peculiar privileges, 

 sailors would be hired where they can be hired cheapest. For 

 tropical voyages, lascars; for arctic voyages, norse-men, would 

 mostly be engaged, and thus the drains of war and climate on 

 our population would imperceptibly be replaced ; and the 



