Replies to charges against the ship owners.
It had been charged against shipowners, as we
have seen,[1] that their ships were unseaworthy, while
the masters had been condemned in no measured
terms. These accusations he indignantly repelled;
his explanation as to the permanence of a losing
trade being substantially this—that a distinct class
of men existed who were shipowners, and not
merchants, whose fathers had been shipowners
for successive generations, and had left them ships
as their only inheritance; and that, as they could
not readily divest themselves of this property, and
had no means of buying ships of an improved description
fit to compete with vessels of more modern
date,[2] their commercial career generally ended with
the Gazette.
Views as to captains of merchant ships. With regard to the qualifications of captains of merchant vessels, Mr. Richmond said that sixty years ago, when he went to sea, very young in life, it was customary for respectable and even wealthy people, in the maritime districts, to send their children to sea: indeed, no matter whether they were shipowners or merchants, agriculturists or manufacturers, one of the family was sent to sea, because it was considered a line in which there was a fair chance of prospering. "But no respectable people send their children to sea now," he exclaimed, "as it is a profession which, in all probability, would lead them to beggary."
- [Footnote: question of how it was that, in spite of such gloom and ruin, the shipowners
of that borough continued to build more vessels, he replied, "Sir, do not you know that Hope is the last thing that forsakes the human breast?"]
