The Bristol Chronicle, 1760, mentions the arrival of the Fame at Rhodes with two prizes, which were ransomed for 2,500 dollars. Subjoined are a few items of later date, narrating the feats of sundry privateers during the war with France. These notices, like the preceding ones, have been culled chiefly from the Bristol newspapers, notably Felix Farley's Bristol Journal. The Tyger, privateer, John Shaw, jun., commander, 22 guns, six and nine-pounders, 100 men, took the Maria on her first cruise; on her second she fell in with a squadron of French men-of-war, and was taken, December, 1779. The Bear, privateer, Joseph Robins, commander, 34 guns, 180 men, sailed on a cruise, August, 1780, unsuccessful; second cruise, commanded by John Shaw, sen., unsuccessful; third cruise, she took the Amazon, French transport, 20 guns, for America, and the Endraycht, a large Dutch ship, from Caraccas to Amsterdam. The Lively (from Virginia to France, prize to the Jupiter, John Marshall, commander, afterwards called the Lively) 16 guns, 90 men, John Marshall, commander, sailed on a cruise. L. M. Virginian, Aselby, 20 guns, 100 men, took the Petite Magdalen, brig, from Bordeaux, for Port-auPrince; was afterwards taken by a French ship-of-war. The Lion, privateer ship-of-war, John Shaw, sen., commander, in company with the Vigilant, fell in with two French line-of-battle ships, one of which, 74 guns, he engaged for two hours, and obliged to sheer off with great loss and damage; the Lion had eight men killed and twenty wounded. The Vigilant, having silenced the ship she engaged, lay to till daylight, when her adversary proved to be a French 74-gun ship, by whom she was taken. The Lion carried 44 guns and had 168 men; the Vigilant carried 30 guns and 180 men; her captain was John Marshall. The following inscription is in Shirehampton churchyard: Sacred to the memory of John Shaw, haven-master at Hung. road, port of Bristol, and formerly captain of the Lion, privateer, of 44 guns and 168 men, which, on the night of the 6th December, 1788, engaged L'Orient, French man-of-war, of 74 guns and 800 The scene of action was the Bay of Biscay, where, after two hours close engagement, the enemy was beaten off with the loss of 237 killed and 244 wounded. The Lion had twenty-two wounded and nine killed. The gallant commander died December 20th, 1796, aged eighty years. men. The lugger Greyhound, Captain Nelson, on her second cruise, 1780, took and re-took several prizes, Sailed on her third cruise the latter end of December, re-took a Liverpool privateer of 74 guns, and, in company with the Casar, took the Amazon, a French transport, from Rhode island for Brest, also a brigantine. She was taken by a French frigate off Belleisle, July, 1781. The ship Active, Captain Hodart, 12 guns, 32 men, went a four months' cruise; returned unsuccessful, 1779. Sailed again for the westward, September, 1779. The ship Mars, John Chilcot, commander, 36 guns, 22 twelve-pounders, 8 carronades, sailed on a cruise, August, 1779, and is supposed to have been cast away amongst the Western islands, as she was never afterwards heard of. The cutter Prince Alfred, John Leisk, commander, 22 six-pounders and 9 carronades, sailed on a cruise, January, 1781; returned unsuccessful in June. Sailed again in July, 1781, and soon afterwards took the Libre Navigateur, a French ship, from France for the East Indies, also the brig Fame, from France for America. She was obliged to take shelter in St. Anders to save the lives of her crew, having lost mainmast and rudder. She was first called the Princess Roberque, of Dunkirk. Prizes to the Lord Cardiff-La Divina Pastora, L'Angelique (afterwards the Squirrel). The Fox, privateer, 14 guns, 80 men, sailed on a cruise, January, 1781; returned unsuccessful, July of the same year. A.D. 1835. BRISTOL PRIVATEERS. 309 Bristol Floating Harbour, showing the "Great Western" on the stocks. The ship Rainbow, 10 three-pounders, 25 men, sailed on a cruise, January, 1781; returned the latter end of the month, having sprung a leak. The Hornet, privateer, 24 six-pounder carronades on one deck, 10 six-pounder carronades on quarter deck; her captain, Mr. David, died April 17th, 1780; she was afterwards commanded by Captain Hinton; took a large ship laden with 370 hogsheads of tobacco and a tier of guns from Virginia; afterwards, in concert with the Mercury and others, took the Fort of Aumeray, and all the ships to the number of twenty. Arrived safe at Bristol, July, 1781. 15. But the ships of Bristol were not confined to privateering; towards the close of the 18th century, seventy large ships were employed in the West India trade, and Bristol became the great mart for sugar, rum and mahogany; the Guinea trade for ivory, gold dust and negroes, was flourishing; a large export trade was carried on with the American coast and Newfoundland, the return freights being tobacco, rice, tar, deerskins, timber, furs, indigo, logwood and fish. The Greenland and South Sea whale fisheries had proved uncertain, and were abandoned. For the better accommodation of the shipping, the Floating harbour and Cumberland and Bathurst basins were constructed (see ante pp. 223-5). The record of the next forty years is one of a fatuous policy, which, by her supineness, reduced Bristol from her proud position of the second seaport in the kingdom, drove the trade from her by exorbitant dues, and suffered Liverpool and other ports to outbid her for the commerce of the world. At the end of the third decade of the present century ships were being built of larger size, and the extra charges for lightering from Hungroad to the city added a heavy item to the dock dues. Steam was revolutionising the coasting trade, and although scientists declared it would be an impracticable feat to cross the Atlantic in a ship propelled by steam alone, there were a few practical men in Bristol who thought otherwise. Dr. Lardner said at the meeting of the British Association in Bristol, in 1836, that it was no more practicable than a journey to the moon. As an auxiliary power it had been used successfully in the Savannah, an American sailing ship, which had performed the voyage from New York to Liverpool in thirty-one days; but the honour of conceiving the idea, and of building a ship whose sole motive power should be steam, and whose destination should be the other side of the Atlantic, belongs to Bristol. A company was formed, in 1835, for this purpose; it was called The Great Western Steamship company, and, undeterred by the ominous assertions of scientific authorities, the first ocean-going steamship, the Great Western, was built of wood by Mr. William Patterson, of Bristol, from a design furnished by Mr. Isambard K. Brunel, for the sum of £63,000. She was launched from the Wapping dock on July 19th, 1837; was of 1,340 tons register, with engines of 440 horse-power. She sailed on April 8th, 1838, for New York, hoping to make the passage out in twenty days, and that home in thirteen days, instead of the thirtysix and twenty-four days usually occupied by sailing packets. Seven adventurous souls went in her as passengers; on her third day she passed a liner seven days out from Liverpool, and in fifteen days and ten hours she was in her berth in New York; on her return she had sixty-eight passengers and 20,000 post office letters; she did the trip in fourteen clear days (May 7th to 22nd). Instead of consuming 1,480 tons of coal, which the scientists asserted would be necessary, she actually used only 450 tons. One hundred thousand persons assembled in New York to witness her departure; it was felt that a great problem had been solved, and the Atlantic narrowed to one half in time. This ship was of insignificant size as compared with the British and American liners of the present day; she measured 212 feet in length by 35 feet 4 inches beam, and 23 feet 2 inches in depth; her engines were on the side lever principle, the cylinders 734 inches in diameter, and 7 feet stroke; she had four distinct boilers, and cycloidal paddles; she drew 8 feet 8 inches aft, 7 feet 8 inches forward, unloaded; she was rigged with four masts, and had a very pronounced funnel; her saloon was decorated by Mr. Parris, painter of the "Panorama of London," in the Coliseum. Letters were charged one shilling each, slips and newspapers, threepence each; passengers out, thirty-five guineas; home, thirty guineas; and small parcels made up at the rate of five pounds per ton. Her passages averaged fifteen days twelve hours out, and thirteen days nine hours home. The St. George's Steampacket company, London, anxious to anticipate the honour of being the first to open the trade, started the Sirius, one of their steamships, which had been employed on the line between London and Cork; she left London on March 28th, and Cork April 4th, 1838, with ninety-four passengers, and reached New York on the 21st of April, after a passage of seventeen days. The Great Western left Bristol on April 8th and arrived at New York on the 22nd, having completed the passage in two days and fourteen hours less than her competitor from Cork. The Sirius on her re turn was placed on a steam line to St. Petersburg. The Atlantic thus bridged by steam, and the regularity of the passages made by the Great Western, induced the Admiralty, in October, 1838, to advertise for tenders for the conveyance of the mails by steamships to America. The Great Western Steamship company anticipated no opposition, but a lower tender than theirs was sent in by the Cunard company, the amount being £55,000, which subsidy was afterwards increased to £81,000, per annum. A better ship never was built than the Great Western; in 1845 Lloyd's surveyor declared her to be as sound in material and as perfect in form as on the day she was launched. She was sold to the ship-breakers, in 1856, by her then owners, the Royal Mail Steamship company, with the Severn, the two fetching £11,500. The great mistake made by the Bristol company was in their attempting to open this new line with a single ship, instead of three or four, which would have ensured regularity of despatch and arrival. Rivals sprang up in London and Liverpool. Messrs. Samuel Cunard, George Burns and David Mac Iver, of Liverpool, formed the Cunard company, and Mr. Napier, of Glasgow, built for them four ships, all exactly alike; a regular service between Liverpool and New York was established, and Bristol lost her opportunity of becoming the great transatlantic steamship harbour of England. But the supremacy was not yielded without a struggle. On the 7th of December, 1839, the President, built by Messrs. Curling and Young, of London, was launched with great éclat ; her career, at first very disappointing as to speed, was brief; on her fourth voyage, in April, 1841, she encountered very heavy weather, and ice being plentiful in the Atlantic, she foundered without leaving a sign. 16. Meanwhile the Great Western Steamship company was not idle. In July, 1839, a ship of still more colossal proportions was laid down under Captain Claxton, managing director, Mr. I. K. Brunel, consulting engineer, Mr. W. Patterson, shipbuilder, and Mr. T. R. Guppy, superintendent engineer under Brunel. This ship, named the Great Britain, was built of iron, with lapped joints, like a clinker-built wooden ship, which gave enormous stability and strength, was the largest that had been constructed for navigation by steam, and in many respects was an entirely new departure in shipbuilding. She had five water-tight partitions; her screw, which was of wrought iron, was of six arms, 15 feet 6 inches in diameter, 25 feet pitch, and weighed four tons; her length on the keel was 289 feet, between perpendiculars 296 feet, over all 322 feet, 51 feet beam, depth of hold 32 feet 6 inches, main load draught of water 16 feet, measurement 2,984 tons, engines 1,000 horse-power, rigged as a six-masted schooner with square yards on A.D. 1843. THE "GREAT BRITAIN" BUILT IN BRISTOL. the second mast only; five of the masts were hinged for being lowered in case of need. Originally intended for a paddle ship, the then little known screw propeller was ultimately adopted for her motive power. These novelties attracted much attention in the scientific world, and called forth many predictions, which, happily, were not fulfilled. The machinery being novel, no engineers were willing to contract for its manufacture; it was therefore constructed by the company. She was launched from the Great Western dock, Bristol, in the presence of H.R.H. Prince Albert and an im mense multitude of people on the 19th July, 1843. The ship's dimensions led to an awkward predicament; it had been calculated that she would have a free passage through the locks of the Bristol dock when light, but when her machinery was put on board she 311 On September 22nd, 1846, at 9.30 p.m., ten hours after leaving Liverpool on her voyage to New York, this noble ship ran aground in Dundrum bay, Ireland, through a mistake as to the lights. She had about one hundred and ninety passengers on board, the largest number that had ever crossed in a steamer, who were all safely landed. For eleven months and four days she lay there comparatively uninjured, being floated off on August 26th, 1847. She had only six holes in her bottom, the smallest 2 feet by 1 foot, the largest 5 feet The Great Western" (the first Ocean-going Steamship built). could not pass. She was therefore detained from sea some months, until the lock was widened by the temporary removal of a portion of the top of the side walls of the locks. The experimental trip was made December 12th, 1844; her speed surpassed that of the fastest paddle ships of the day, and her behaviour during severe weather on the passage to London silenced the opponents of iron ships, and led to the adoption of that material in the royal and mercantile navies. She was placed on the American station, but after a successful voyage her career was interrupted. 9 inches by 1 foot 4 inches, which were stopped with great ingenuity by Mr. John Croome, of Bristol. The me thod used for her protection during the winter was most ingenious. Faggots of furze were sunk in the sand about 40 feet from her stern, which formed a break water 150 yards in length; these were loaded with stones, &c.; between this foundation and the ship 5,800 fascines, 11 feet long by 20 inches diameter, were piled up with their butt ends towards the sea; these were pinned down with iron piles having bent heads, which were from 6 to 9 feet long. This mass was finally weighted and bound down by a sort of cradle of green beech trees, from 45 to 52 feet in length, which were pointed and driven into the seaward foundation and brought thence at an angle of 70° to the ship's gunwale, where they were left free. Eighty of these poles were placed at about eight yards distance from each other; they were connected with chains, and every third chain was secured either to the propeller shaft or to anchors. This elastic breakwater would often bend before the force of the waves from three to four feet, but would instantly recover itself after the blow had passed. The following summer, when it was necessary to remove the breakwater in order to float out the ship, the greatest difficulty was experienced, the foundation being as dense as concrete, and more difficult to remove than granite. For security she was, when floated, taken first to Belfast; but finding that the leakage was inconsiderable, she was, in tow of the Birkenhead, taken to Liverpool, which was reached safely on August 30th, 1874. Repaired and altered to a sailing ship, with auxiliary steam power, and again altered into a sailing ship only, she is still doing good service, being "ship shape and Bristol fashion." had achieved; instead of that a ship was built which had to be sold as a disastrous bargain to ply in the trade of a rival port, where her ingenious engines had to be taken out, her new screw gear got rid of, and the destiny and arrangement of the vessel so changed that she became a new ship of slow speed and auxiliary power. 17. The mistaken policy of the Corporation and Dock company meanwhile was exercising a most injurious influence on the commerce of Bristol. The population was nearly at a standstill, and in all other ways the city was decaying. The Chamber of Commerce investigated the causes, and, finding a great disparity between the port charges of Bristol and those paid elsewhere, did their best to induce the Corporation and Dock company to lower the dues. The following table, which is given from Letters of a Burgess, published in the Bristol Mercury in 1833, will be a sufficient instance of the fatuity of the company to which Bristol had handed over the control of her commerce: CALCULATION OF THE PORT CHARGES PAYABLE ON A CARGO ARTICLES. bale.. 1 4 0 10 £ s. d. 145 146 s. d. £ s. d. 99 0 6 211 6 0 s. d. 9 1 7 01 £ s. d. 105 16 5 1245 19 7 Total paid at each Proportionate .. £1 0 0 .. £1 18 6 On twenty articles given in another table, being goods in ordinary daily consumption, the proportionate taxation for port charges was The late Mr. Scott Russell, delivering a lecture at the Bristol Athenæum, on April 15th, 1863, said that in the building of the Great Britain all the good sense and practical wisdom which had caused the success of the Great Western seemed to have abandoned the company. What was wanted was a sister to the Great Western; what was built was as unlike as it was possible to conceive. While other people were copying the wisdom of the original Bristol shipowners, they themselves forgot Silk, 232 bales, at all their wisdom and took to quite another course. Instead of building a second Great Western, they built a single ship of a new sort, as different from her as possible, so that they had all the disadvantages of two experimental vessels, instead of having a couple of one sort. The second mistake was one of a still more fatal kind; they determined to make their second ship a museum of inventions. The old model and proportions of the Great Western were utterly abandoned, so that there were no two things common between her and her companion. The Great Britain was to be 300 feet long, 50 feet beam, 3,443 tons, and 1,000 horse power. Next in regard to shape; that was entirely revolutionised, and turned into an imitation of Sir W. Symonds' new and empirical form of ship. She was to be made of iron, which was wise for a ship of that magnitude. In regard to her novelties there was no limit, and the whole ship and her machinery was a congregation of experiments. In the middle of her progress she was altered from a paddle-wheel to a screw-propeller ship, and that experiment was not enough, for the propeller must needs be propelled by a kind of chain gearing for communicating the power of the engine to the screw. If she had been a simple companion to the Great Western, and proper dock accommodation at moderate dues provided, Bristol might have retained the advantages she The withdrawal, in 1846, of the Great Western from the port brought matters to an issue. The Chamber of Commerce estimated that the falling off in the exports from £339,728 to £150,883 was mainly due to her removal on account of exorbitant charges. An agitation which was begun in 1839, for the transfer of the privileges and power of the Dock company to the city, kept the question alive. Twelve hundred of the leading men of Bristol, in 1846, signed a memorial, which prayed that the terms of the proposed transfer should be submitted to arbitration, which was presented to the town council and also to the Docks company. The matter became one of account. The average dividend which the company had declared was £2 48. 5d. per cent. The shareholders sought to get compensation on a scale that 1 Letters of a Burgess, XXIX., 1833. |