The Mercantile Marine by E. Keble Chatterton
The Mercantile Marine by E. Keble Chatterton is a historical account written in the early 20th century. It traces the development of merchant shipping from antiquity to the age of great liners, emphasizing how commerce, navigation, ship design, maritime law, and seafaring culture advanced together while setting aside wartime exploits. Readers can expect a wide-ranging, example-rich survey—from Mediterranean traders and Northern herring fleets to convoys, piracy, and the transition from sail to
steam—framed to renew appreciation for the Merchant Service’s civilizing role. The opening of this work sets out the author’s aim to chart the long history of merchant shipping and to show its central place in trade and civilization, deliberately excluding recent war service. It begins with the public’s late awakening during the U-boat crisis, then looks back to Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome, where broad-bellied cargo sailers and constant piracy defined early sea trade. Next come Venice and the Arabs—lateen sails, pilgrimages, crusades, and convoy systems driving tonnage and seamanship—followed by a close look at 14th‑century Mediterranean merchantmen, communal ship management and profit-sharing crews, harsh passenger conditions, and strict state regulation on loading and ballast. The narrative then shifts north to the Laws of Oleron, the “Black Book” of the Admiralty, and the herring fishery and Hanseatic League that built Northern merchant marines amid rampant piracy, including the Victual Brothers and Stertebeker. It sketches the growth toward three-masted ships, English pilgrim voyages, and Iberian discoveries that redirected world trade and stirred English enterprise, before turning to the 16th century with vivid seamanship scenes (via Rabelais) and Hakluyt’s records of Sebastian Cabot’s 1553 venture—its discipline, roles, and practical navigation with pinnaces, soundings, and the globe. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78205.html.images | 570 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78205.epub3.images | 3.0 MB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78205.epub.images | 3.0 MB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78205.epub.noimages | 419 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78205.kf8.images | 3.8 MB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78205.kindle.images | 3.7 MB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78205.txt.utf-8 | 453 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78205/pg78205-h.zip | 3.3 MB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Chatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble), 1878-1944 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 23011631 |
| Title | The Mercantile Marine |
| Original Publication | London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1923. |
| Credits | Bob Taylor, Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | HE: Social sciences: Transportation and communications |
| Subject | Merchant marine -- Great Britain -- History |
| Subject | Merchant marine -- History |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78205 |
| Release Date | Mar 14, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 258 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |