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Chronicles of Canada Volume 31 - All Afloat: A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways

{68} <h3> CHAPTER V </h3> <h3> SAILING CRAFT: UNDER THE UNION JACK </h3> When Canada finally became a British possession in 1763 she was, of course, subject to the navigation laws, or the Navigation Act, as this conglomeration of enactments was usually called. The avowed object of these laws was to gain and keep the British command of the sea. They aimed at this by trying to have British trade done in British ships, British ships manned by British crews, and British crews always available if wanted for British men-of-war. The first law was enacted under the Commonwealth in 1651. The whole series was repealed under Victoria in 1849. Exceptions were often made, especially in time of war; and there was some opposition to reckon with at all times. But, generally speaking, and quite apart from the question of whether they were wise or not, the British government invariably looked upon these navigation laws as a cardinal point of policy down to the close {69} of the wars with the French Empire and the American Republic in 1815. The first laws only put into words what every sea-power had long been practising or trying to practise: namely, the confining of all sea trading to its own ships and subjects. They were first aimed at the Dutch, who fought for their carrying trade but were crushed. They operated, however, against all foreigners. They forbade all coastwise trade in the British Isles except in British vessels, all trade from abroad except in British ships or in ships belonging to the country whence the imported merchandise came, all trade between English colonies by outsiders, and all trade between the colonies and foreign countries, except in the case of a few enumerated articles. The manning clauses were of the same kind. Most of the crew and all the officers were to be British subjects—an important point when British seamen were liable to be 'pressed' into men-of-war in time of national danger. The change of rule in 1763 meant that Canada left an empire that could not enforce its navigation laws and joined an empire that could. Whatever the value of the laws, Canadian shipping and sea trade continued to grow under them. In the eighteenth century {70} there was little internal development anywhere in America; and less in Canada than in what soon became the United States. People worked beside the waterways and looked seaward for their profits. Elias Derby, the first American millionaire, who died in 1799, made all his money, honestly and legally, out of shipping. Others made fortunes out of smuggling. An enterprising smuggler at Bradore, just inside the Strait of Belle Isle, paved his oaken stairs with silver dollars to keep the wood from wearing out; and he could well afford to do so. The maritime provinces of Nova Scotia (then including New Brunswick) and Prince Edward Island had been gradually growing for a quarter of a century before the United Empire Loyalists began to come. Halifax was a garrison town and naval station. There was plenty of fish along the coast; and the many conveniently wooded harbours naturally invited lumbering and shipbuilding. Fish and furs were the chief exports up to the War of 1812; after that, timber. The Loyalists came in small numbers before 1783; in larger numbers during the five years following. From twenty to thirty thousand altogether are said to have settled in the Maritime Provinces. {71} They were poor, but capable and energetic, and by the end of the eighteenth century their 'Bluenose' craft began to acquire a recognized place at sea. Quebec and Montreal did an increasing business. Quebec was the great timber-trade and shipbuilding centre; Montreal the point where furs were collected for export. From Quebec 151 vessels took clearance in 1774. In 1800 there were 21 Quebec-built vessels on the local register. Ten years later there were 54. The Great Lakes had no such early development. Moreover, the days of their small beginnings were full of retarding difficulties. Nor were they free from what was then a disaster of the first magnitude; for in 1780 a staggering loss happened to the infant colony. The Ontario foundered with one hundred and seventy-two souls on the lake after which she was named. During the fourteen years between the Conquest and the Revolution only a few small vessels appeared there. On the outbreak of the Revolution the British government impressed crews and vessels alike, and absolutely forbade the building of any craft bigger than an open boat except for the government service. Subsequently the strained relations on both sides, lasting till after the War of {72} 1812, and the tendency of the Americans to encroach on the frontier trade and settlements, combined to prevent the government from giving up the power it had thus acquired over shipping. The result was that trade was carried on in naval vessels, some of which had originally been built as merchantmen and others as men-of-war. There were frequent complaints of non-delivery from the business community, both on the spot and in England. But 'defence was more important than opulence,' and the burden was, on the whole, cheerfully borne by the Loyalists. In 1793 twenty-six vessels cleared from Kingston. Two years later a record trip was made by the sloop Sophia, which sailed from there to Queenston, well over two hundred miles, in eighteen hours. Two years later again a traveller counted sixty wagons carrying goods from Queenston, beyond the other end of Lake Ontario, to Chippawa, so as to get them past Niagara Falls. Anywhere west from Montreal the unit of measurement for all freight was a barrel of rum, the transport charge for which was over three dollars as far as Kingston, where it was trans-shipped from the bateau to a schooner. There was very little shipping on Lake Erie {73} till after the War of 1812. The first American vessel launched in these waters had a curious history. After a season's work in 1797 she was carted past Niagara and launched on Lake Ontario, where she plied between Queenston and Kingston under the British flag with the name of Lady Washington. The rival Hudson's Bay and North-West Companies each had a few boats on the western Lakes at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the government maintained there a tiny flotilla of its own. But shipping was a very small affair west of Niagara for several years to come. While the War of 1812 killed out the feeble trade on the Lakes, it greatly stimulated the well-established trade in sea-going craft from Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. The British command of the sea had become so absolute by 1814 that the whole American coast was practically sealed to trade, which was thus forced to seek an 'underground' outlet by way of Canada, in spite of the state of war. This, in addition to the transport required by the British forces in Canada, sent freights and tonnage up by leaps and bounds. The only trouble was to find enough ships and, harder still, enough men. Canadian sailing craft in the nineteenth {74} century had a chequered career. Many disturbing factors affected the course of trade: the cholera of '32; the Rebellion of '37; the Ship Fever of '47; the great gold finds in California in '49 and in Australia in '53; Reciprocity with the United States in '54; Confederation in '67; the triumph of steam and steel in the seventies; and the era of inland development which began in the eighties. The heyday of the Canadian sailing ship was the third quarter of the nineteenth century. This period, indeed, was one of great activity in the history of mast and sail all the world over. There was intense rivalry between steam and sail. The repeal of the Navigation Act in England had brought the whole of British shipping into direct competition with foreigners. The Americans were pushing their masterful way into every sea. The rush to California was drawing eager fleets of Yankee, Bluenose, and St Lawrence vessels round the Horn. India, China, and Australia were drawing other fleets round the Cape. The American clippers threatened to oust the slower 'Britishers' and throw the comparatively minor Canadians into the shade. For the first and only time in history American tonnage actually began to threaten British supremacy. {75} But the challenge was met in the proper way, by building to beat on even terms. The British had already regained their lead before the Civil War of the sixties; and the subsequent inland development of the United States, with the momentous change from wood and sails to steel and steam, combined to depress the American mercantile marine in favour of its British rival. Canada played a great part in this brief but stirring era, when the wooden sailing vessel was making its last gallant stand against steam, and the sun of its immemorial day was going down in a blaze of glory which will never fade from the memories of those who love the sea. Canada built ships, sailed ships, owned ships, and sold ships. She became one of the four greatest shipping centres in the world; and this at a time when she had less than half as many people and less than one-tenth as much realized wealth as she has now. Quebec had more than half its population dependent on shipbuilding in the fifties and sixties. In 1864 it launched sixty vessels, many of them between one and two thousand tons. About the same time Nova Scotia launched nearly three hundred vessels and New Brunswick half as many. The Nova Scotians, however, only averaged two {76} hundred tons, and the New Brunswickers four hundred. If the Lakes, Prince Edward Island, the rest of Canada, and Newfoundland are added in, the total tonnage built in the best single year is found to be close on a quarter of a million. Allowing for the difference in numbers of the respective populations, this total compares most favourably with the highest recent totals built in the British Isles, where the greatest shipbuilding the world has ever seen is now being carried on. It was the change from wood to metal that caused the decline of shipbuilding in Canada. It was also partly the change to steam; but only partly, for Canada started well in the race for building steamships. What proves that the disuse of wood was the real cause of the decline is the fact that Canada never even attempted to compete with other countries in building metal sailing vessels. If Canada had developed her metal industries a generation sooner she would have had steel clippers running against 'Yankees,' 'Britishers,' and German 'Dutchmen'; for there was a steel-built sailing-ship age that lasted into the twentieth century and that is not really over yet. Indeed, even wooden and composite sailers are still at work; and with their steel comrades {77} they still make a very large fleet. Singular proof of this is sometimes found. Nothing collects sailing ships like a calm; vessels run into it from all quarters and naturally remain together till the breeze springs up. But, even so, most readers will probably be surprised to learn that, only a few years ago, a great calm off the Azores collected a fleet of nearly three hundred sail. Canadian shipbuilders had some drawbacks to contend with. One was of their own making. Certain builders in the Maritime Provinces, especially at Pictou and in Prince Edward Island, turned out such hastily and ill constructed craft as to give 'Bluenoses' a bad name in the market. By 1850, however, the worst offenders were put out of business, and there was an increasing tendency for the builders to sail their own vessels instead of selling them. A second, and this time a general, drawback was the difficulty of getting Canadian-built vessels rated A1 at Lloyd's. 'Lloyd's,' as every one knows, is the central controlling body for most of the marine insurance of the world, and its headquarters are in London. There were very few foreign 'Lloyd's' then, and no colonial; so it was a serious matter when the {78} English Lloyd's looked askance at anything not built of oak. Canada tried her own oak; but it was outclassed by the more slowly growing and sounder English oak. Canada then fell back on tamarac, or 'hackmatac,' as builders called it. This was much more buoyant than oak, and consequently freighted to advantage. But it was a soft wood, and Lloyd's was slow to rate it at its proper worth. Tamarac hulls went sound for twenty years, and sometimes forty, especially when hardwood treenails were used—a treenail being a bolt that did the service of a nail in woodwork or a rivet in steel plating. At first Canadian vessels were only rated Al for seven years, as compared with twelve for those built of English oak. A year was added for hardwood treenails, and another for 'salting on the stocks.' In 1852 Lloyd's sent out its own surveyor, Menzies, who would guarantee work done under his own eye for twenty-five cents a ton; while Lloyd's, for its part, would give preferential rates to any vessels thus 'built under special survey.' Perhaps Canadian timber is not as lasting as the best European. Certainly it has no such records of longevity; though there is no reason why Canadian records should not be better than they are in this respect. Few {79} people know how long a well-built and well-cared-for ship can live. Lloyd's register for 1913 contains vessels launched before Queen Victoria began to reign. Merchantmen have often outlived their century. Nelson's Victory still flies the flag at Portsmouth, though she was laid down the year before Wolfe took Quebec. And the Konstanz, a thirty-five-ton sloop, still plies along the Danish coast, although her launch took place in 1723—a hundred and ninety years ago. A third drawback for Canadian builders was the lack of capital. Shipbuilding fluctuates more than most kinds of business, and requires great initial outlay as well; so failures were naturally frequent. The firm of Ross at Quebec did much to steady the business by sound finance. But the smaller yards were always in difficulties, and no shipbuilder ever made a fortune. Excellent craft, however, came out of Canadian yards: notable craft wherever they sailed. One of the best builders at Quebec was a French Canadian, whose beautiful clipper ship Brunelle, named after himself, logged over fourteen knots an hour and left many a smart sailer, and steamer too, hull down astern. Mackenzie of Pictou was builder and {80} skipper both. With the help of a friend he began by cutting down the trees and doing all the rest of the work of building a forty-five-ton schooner. By 1850 he had built a fourteen-hundred-tonner, the famous Hamilton Campbell Kidston, which greatly astonished Glasgow, for she was then the biggest ship the Clyde had ever seen. His last ship was launched in the 'record' year of 1865. The Salter Brothers did some fine work at the 'Bend,' as Moncton was then called. Their first vessel, a barque of eight hundred tons, was sold at once in England. Next year they built a clipper ship called the Jemsetgee Cursetgee for an East Indian potentate, who sent out an Oriental figurehead supposed to be a likeness of himself. A peculiar feat of theirs was rigging as a schooner and sending across the Atlantic a scow-like coal barge ordered by a firm in England. The decline of Canadian sailing craft was swifter than its rise; and with the sailing craft went the Canadian-built steamers, because wood was the material used for both, and the use of iron and steel in the yards of the British Isles soon drove the wooden hulls from the greater highways of the sea. Once the palmy days of the third quarter of the century were {81} over the decline went on at an ever-increasing rate. In 1875 Canada built nearly 500 vessels, and, if small craft are included, the tonnage must have nearly reached 200,000. In 1900 she built 29 vessels, of 7751 tons—steam, steel, wood, and sail. Shipowning does not show such a dramatic contrast, but the decline has been very marked. Within twenty-two years, from 1878 to 1900, the Canadian registered tonnage was almost exactly halved. The drop was from a grand total, sail and steam together, of a million and a third, which then made Canada the fourth shipowning country in the world and put her ahead of many nations with more than ten times her population. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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