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INTRODUCTION

THE following pages have been written with the view of showing some of the causes why British seamen have been gradually drifting out of the Mercantile Marine, and seeking employment in other paths of life, in order to gain a livelihood for themselves and those dependent on them.

Their places are being taken on our ships by foreigners-men of every nation-and a strong feeling is clearly rising in Great Britain that this state of things, besides being most unsatisfactory, might, in the eventuality of a great war, constitute a national danger.

This book refers mainly to one port, San Francisco, a great rendezvous of the largest British sailing-ships. In spite of the increase of steamers, there still remain many hundreds of these sailing-ships, manned by thousands of men and boys, and it is about those longvoyage ships that these pages are written.

The facts recorded are written on the responsibility of the author alone, and refer

to what happened between the years 1892 to 1898.

Since this book was written, a Blue Book has been issued by the Foreign Office, containing reports from a number of H.M. Consuls abroad on the subject of the large number of desertions from ships in foreign ports.

A remarkable consensus of opinion may be observed, especially in distant ports, amongst these Consular reports, which goes far to prove that the cause of a very large number of these desertions may be found in the conditions under which men live and work on many vessels.

Several Consuls complain of the food supplied to the men, the small allowance of pocket-money in port, withholding liberty from men, and-on a certain number of ships -efforts made to 'run the men out' of those vessels.

The author can confidently recommend any readers who may think his statements are overdrawn to carefully peruse the Blue Book, and they will find much that is written in this book more than borne out by official statements from H.M. representatives in foreign ports.

JAMES FELL.

BRITISH MERCHANT SEAMEN

IN SAN FRANCISCO

CHAPTER I.

SAN FRANCISCO.

FEW cities have risen to such a prominent place with the same rapidity as San Francisco. Both as regards population and commercial importance, it is pressing its position more and more upon the attention of the world. It is hard to realize that the great extent of country now covered by the city of San Francisco, with its 400,000 inhabitants, not half a century ago was merely waste ground, sand-hills and woods; or that the bay, where now so frequently are seen fleets of the largest and finest sailing-ships in the world, was of little importance to the merchants who do business on the waters of the

ocean.

It is well known that what directed the attention of the outside world to California was the discovery of gold in 1849. Thousands of all nations at once turned their steps in that direction. Many came overland, and great numbers came by sea. The gold mines were not very distant from San Francisco bay. Ships bringing miners ended their long voyage in the bay, and landed their passengers there; and they, witnessing the magnificent anchorage, its extent, and its comparative nearness to the mines, naturally, as it were, settled upon its shores as the site of the future metropolis which is surely rising into existence.

No one can deny that San Francisco, considering its youth, is a marvellous city. Great brains, energy, and determination have been at work there overcoming difficulties, many of a trying nature. No one except themselves know what these early pioneers went through in founding that great city. It requires now no prophet to foretell what awaits San Francisco from a commercial point of view. The natural outlet of a state of marvellous richness-with gold, silver, and other minerals in its mountains, probably lying there at present undiscovered in great

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