The i8th century was an era of colonization. Shipping created new markets for British goods, and the demands of those markets still further stimulated the activities of shipping. Some relaxa tions had to be made in the oppressive restrictions of the naviga tion laws, and the revolt of the United States made an irreparable breach in the whole colonial system; but British shipping con tinued to expand. The industry was becoming modernized. Ex cept for the East India Company, the chartered companies had mostly faded out, leaving a clear field for the individual ship owner. The underwriters at Lloyd's Coffee House made London the greatest marine insurance market in the world and sys tematized the collection of shipping intelligence. The ships them selves showed no fundamental difference from those of the 17th century, but the invention of the sextant in 1731 and of the chronometer in 1735 made navigation more reliable. Great ex plorers, such as Captain James Cook, built up a mass of informa tion relating to coasts, winds and currents. Charts and sailing directions became more numerous and more reliable. The com pulsory registration of shipping (1786), and a number of laws reg ulating marine insurance and passenger traffic, brought shipping under some measure of control by the State.
The biggest ships, ranging up to i,000 tons or over, were the East Indiamen. Protected by their monopoly, the Company spared no expense in the production of strong, handsome, well armed ships, capable of beating off privateers, and even French frigates, but too costly for any other trade. In the West Indies trade, competition was keen, and a faster, more economical ship was produced, averaging from 25o to 30o tons. The East India men went out one year and came back the next. The West Indies traders, 700 or Boo of which often cleared in a single year, made an average of one round voyage in the year, or slightly better. Ships engaged in the trade with the Mediterranean and the north of Europe were mostly smaller and the average of all ships en gaged in the foreign trade proper works out, for the years 1801, at 195 tons. The average tonnage of vessels in the Irish
traffic—then counted as foreign—was 80. From northern and Scottish ports the whalers, sturdy vessels, often very long-lived, set out, to the number of 10o to 15o a year, for Greenland and the south seas, often to spend two, three or even four years abroad before their return.
Among the cross-trades, those from the West Indies to North America, and from Newfoundland to Portugal with stockfish, were specially important. The coasting trade also reached great dimensions, especially the carriage of coals to London, which dated back to Plantagenet times, and gave employment to vessels larger than many of those employed in foreign trade. In 1798 the average size of colliers arriving in London was 228 tons.
Origins of Steam.—The first years of the 19th century were marked by the emergence of a rival to challenge the universal dominion of sail. The first successful steamer ever constructed was the "Charlotte Dundas," on the Firth and Clyde Canal, in 1802. In 1807 Fulton's "Clermont" began a regular service be tween New York and Albany. In 1812 Bell's passenger steamer "Comet" began to run on the Clyde. For some years, however, the use of steam was confined to tugs and river craft, and small passenger steamers constructed for short voyages, such as coasters and cross-Channel packets. For ocean voyages, steam was re garded as, at most, an auxiliary to sail.
Apart from the early experiments in steam, the first 30 or 40 years after the close of the Napoleonic wars saw little progress in British shipping. Now that British trade was worldwide in its scope, the navigation laws had become a clog on commerce, and a series of reciprocity treaties with various powers, beginning with Prussia and Denmark in 1824, made wide gaps in the system. The laws remained, nevertheless, in general operation, and under their protection, British shipping became lethargic and unenter prising. An obsolete system of tonnage measurement further hampered progress by penalizing breadth, and encouraging the building of deep, flat-sided, full-bottomed ships.
American owners and builders were more progressive. The high profits and big risks of the neutral trade during the Napoleonic wars had stimulated them to the construction of fast-sailing and handy vessels, and after the war they were quick to realize that speed was an asset in the carriage of mails and passengers, with the result that the Atlantic packet trade fell entirely into their hands. Everywhere they were restlessly intent on improving on earlier designs, and in 1843 the "Rainbow," the first extreme clipper ship, was turned out by a New York yard.