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A worthy Quaker thus wrote:—"I expect to pass through this world but once; if, therefore, there can be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

Before in fancy we man the Life-boat, and rush out into the storm, and have the salt spray dashing over us, and the wind singing like suppressed thunder in our ears—before we watch the gallant Storm Warriors of the present day, in their life-and-death struggle, charging in through the raging seas to the rescue of the shipwrecked, let us look back and see how the unfortunate by shipwreck fared in the old time, and then take a hasty glance or two, watching the gradual growth, from age to age, of sympathy for the distressed; humanity becoming more pronounced, and more practical; the progressive adaptation of Maritime Law to the advancing tone of feeling; the gradual organization and development of that most noble Society, "The National Life-boat Institution," which has for its sole object the lessening of the dangers of the sea, and the saving of the shipwrecked; and, lastly, the progress and final triumph of the labours of science, in the invention of a life-boat which is able successfully to defy the efforts of the most raging storms.

The "good old days!" Those who sing too emphatically the glories of the "good old days" must either be influenced by the enchantment distance lends to the view, or guided by the wholesome proverb, "Let nothing, except that which is good, be spoken of the dead."

Human nature seems an inheritance unchanging in its properties, and it was in the old time much as it is now, capable of bringing forth fruit good or bad, in accordance with the training it received, or the associations by which it was surrounded. The old days were very far from being either very golden or very good, the strong arm was too often the strong law, and selfishness was far more likely to make the weak ones a prey for plunder, than was compassion to make them objects for assistance. There was a good deal of the Ishmael curse about the old feudal days; the Baron's hand was too ready to be against every man's, and every man's against his; to plunder and to pillage at all convenient opportunities, as well by sea as by land, seemed very much a leading institution.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Piracy was almost openly recognized; a foreign ship with a rich cargo was too great a temptation for the free sailors of those rough-and-ready days, and there was in reality as much of the spirit of piracy in the rugged justice by which it was endeavoured to suppress the crimes, as in the crimes themselves. Supposing an act of piracy to have been committed, restitution was first demanded from the nation, or maritime town, to which the pirate belonged; and if satisfaction was not obtained, then the aggrieved party was allowed to take out "Letters of Marque," and might sally forth to all intents a pirate, to plunder any ship sailing from the place to which the vessel which had first robbed him belonged. This system was acknowledged under the name of the "Right of Private Reprisal;" and so, what with pirates licensed and unlicensed, ships seeking plunder without any discrimination, and ships seeking revenge without much, Hallam might well write: "In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a rich vessel was never secure from attack, and neither restitution nor punishment of the criminals was to be obtained from Governments, who sometimes feared the plunderer, and sometimes connived at the offence."

To piracy was added the constant petty warfare and feuds that were carried on between maritime nations, and even between towns of the same nation.

Hallam quotes, "The Cinque Ports, and other trading towns of England, were in a constant state of hostility with their opposite neighbours during the reigns of Edward I. and II.; half the instruments of Rymer might be quoted in proof of these conflicts, and of those with the mariners of Norway and Denmark."

Sometimes mutual envy produced frays between different English towns; thus in the year 1254 the Winchilsea mariners attacked a Yarmouth galley, and killed some of her men.

The evil effects of this confusion of might with right, the anxiety occasioned by this constant warfare, and by these petty feuds, lingered longer on sea than on land; and kept the morals of the seafaring population of the coasts at the lowest ebb; and as one consequence, the plundering of vessels wrecked on the shores was in all parts of Europe carried on with as ruthless a hand, as was piracy and privateering afloat.

It may be somewhat interesting to consider the gradual progress of legislation with reference to this very terrible system and crime of wrecking; and while doing so, we shall receive further proof of how the rough mastery of the strong over the weak crept into the Laws, and how full a development it had in such laws, as especially related to wrecks and wreckage.

It is hard in the present day to conceive how, in the name of any government making claim to the administration of justice, such a law could have been passed as that which existed prior to Henry I., which gave the king complete possession of all wrecked property: ownership on the part of the original possessor was supposed to have been lost by the action of the sea. Whether the law originated in that strong instinct for the appropriation of unconsidered trifles, which is rather a snare to all governments, or whether it was found necessary to make the king the owner of wreckage, in order to lessen the temptation to cause vessels to be wrecked, and their crews murdered for the sake of pillage, no unfrequent occurrence in those days, however it was, the law existed, and the shipwrecked merchant might come struggling ashore upon a broken spar, and find the coast strewn with scattered but still valuable goods, so lately his, but now by law his no longer, any more than they belonged to the half dozen rude fishermen who stood watching the torn wreck, and dispersed cargo being wave-lifted high upon the beach.

Henry I., whose declining years were years of tender and deep sadness, on account of his own losses at sea, was somewhat more compassionate in his dealings with the unfortunate by shipwreck.

He decreed that a wreck or wrecked goods should not be considered lost to the owner, or become the property of the Crown, if any man escaped from the wreck with life to the shore.

Henry II. made a feeble enlargement of this scant degree of mercy—he expanded this saving clause, so that if either man or beast came ashore alive, the wreck and goods should still be considered as belonging to the original possessors; but failing this, although the owner should be known beyond all possibility of doubt, all the saved property should belong to the king; so that in those old days, if a cat was supposed to have nine lives, it was quite sufficient to account for its being for so long a popular institution on board ship; for even a cat washing ashore, would become the owner's title-deeds to all of his property that the sea had spared.

Richard I. could be generous in things small as well as great; he could act nobly upon principle as well as upon impulse; it must have been, indeed, only natural to his open unselfish nature and high courage, to spurn the idea of robbing the robbed, of making the victim of the sea's destructive power the further victim of a king's greed; he was prepared to give his laws of chivalry a wide interpretation, and let them ordain succour for the distressed by the rage of waters, as well as for the distressed by the rage of men.

And so when about to take part in the third crusade, King Richard decreed, "For the love of God, and the health of his own soul, and the souls of his ancestors and successors, kings of England.

"That all persons escaping alive from a wreck should retain their goods; that wreck or wreckage should only be considered the property of the king when neither an owner, nor the heirs of a late owner, could be found for it."

For several centuries all European nations had for the foundation of their maritime laws, a certain code, called the Code of Oleron.

There is the usual veil of historical uncertainty clouding the origin of these laws, for while some authorities declare that Richard I. had nothing to do with them, others declare that they were completed and promulgated by Richard, at the Isle of Oleron, as he was returning from one of his crusades, and that they had first and especial reference to the customs on the coasts of some of his continental domains.

The Laws of Oleron contain thirty-seven articles, and make very terrible statements as to the system of wrecking, which in those days disgraced the then civilized nations of the earth, while they show also, that if sinners were then prepared to sin with a high hand, that the authorities were prepared with no less energy to inflict punishment for crime.

Some of the extracts from these laws are as utter darkness compared with light, when you read them beside extracts from the Life-boat journals of the present day, suggesting as they do the customs of the people as regards wrecking, and the scant mercy that was shown to the shipwrecked.

Consider, for instance, the picture as given in the following extracts from the old laws of Oleron:—

"An accursed custom prevailing in some parts, inasmuch as a third or fourth part of the wrecks that come ashore belong to the lord of the manor, where the wrecks take place, and that pilots for profit from these lords, and from the wrecks, like faithless and treacherous villains, do purposely run the ships under their care upon the rocks."

The Code declares, that the lords, and all who assist in plundering the wreck shall be accursed, excommunicated, and punished as robbers. "That all false pilots shall suffer a most rigorous and merciless death, and be hung on high gibbets."

"The wicked lords are to be tied to a post in the middle of their own houses, which shall be set on fire at all four corners, and burnt with all that shall be therein; the goods being first confiscated for the benefit of the persons injured; and the site of the houses shall be converted into places for the sale of hogs and swine."

But if this threat of burning the said wicked lords, and the wholesale confiscation and destruction of their houses and properties, had not sufficient terrors to control such hardened sinners, and if they, or others, were prepared to add murder to robbery, then the laws enacted—

"If people, more barbarous, cruel, and inhuman than mad dogs, murdered shipwrecked folk, they were to be plunged into the sea until half dead, and then drawn out and stoned to death."

Railway directors and others would scarcely like the enforcement of laws parallel to those which dealt with the carelessness of Pilots; which provided, "That if negligence on the part of the Pilot caused shipwreck, he was to make good out of his own means the losses sustained, and if his means were not sufficient, then he should lose his head;" it was meekly suggested; "that some care should be taken by the master and mariners," possibly as much for their own sakes as for the sake of the unfortunate pilot. "That they should be persuaded that the man had not the means to make good the loss, before they cut off his head."

The preamble of an Act of Parliament is generally the summary of the arguments for the necessity of the Bill.

The preamble of a Bill for the repression of crime, may be therefore taken as the expression of the national conviction, that such crimes exist at the time.

If so, during the reign of George II. human nature did not show itself to be one whit better than in earlier days, still were men equally capable of cruel selfishness and wrong, although civilization had done much to curb the outward expression of many of the former evils, and to control, to some extent, the open and virulent barbarities of still darker days.

For we find that the old laws, and barbarous modes of punishment, were not sufficient to cope with the strongly developed tendencies for wrecking, which showed themselves, in various ways, to be existent, and in full activity.

And therefore a new Act was passed, which recited—

"That notwithstanding the good and salutary laws now in being against plundering and destroying vessels in distress, and against taking away shipwrecked, lost, and stranded goods, that still many wicked enormities had been committed to the disgrace of the nation." Therefore certain provisions were enacted, the bearing of which was as follows:—

Death was to be the punishment for the chief of these enormities, such as hanging out false lights for the purpose of bringing vessels into distress.

Death for those who killed, or prevented the escape of shipwrecked persons.

Death for stealing goods from a wreck, whether there be any living creature on board or not.

Acts of Parliament in following years felt the impress of the more merciful spirit of legislation which began to prevail. The punishment of death for theft from a wreck was reduced to imprisonment; while penal servitude for life was made the penalty for a new development of crime, namely, that of wilfully scuttling, or setting on fire, or wrecking a ship for the purpose of defrauding or damaging Insurance Offices or Owners.

The existing Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, and the amendments and additions to it, now form the Code by which all maritime questions are arranged; and most of the barbarities, cruelties, and wrongs which, for so many ages, added to the perils of the sea, both as to life and property, are now sufficiently guarded against.

But still a most subtle cruelty and fatal wrong is left almost altogether untouched, that of sending vessels to sea in an unseaworthy condition, as to hull, or spars, or sails, or rigging, or perhaps dangerously overladen; many a vessel only worthy of being utterly condemned, which no office would think for one moment of insuring, and that would scarcely pay for breaking up, is bought cheap, patched up, and sent, perhaps, to float up and down our coasts as a Collier, a sort of dingy coffin, only waiting to be entombed by the first heavy gale and raging sea in which she is caught, and then to go quickly down to her grave, carrying with her her crew, unless they have taken warning in time, and found some chance of escaping, which they are not slow to take advantage of, knowing the nature of the craft they are in; but many a brave sailor finds no escape, and feels no hope, when once the heavy gale breaks on the crazy craft, and thus dies a victim to one of the treacherous, and permitted, and most fatal cruelties of our most Christian and most enlightened age; but this state of things, we may well believe, will not be permitted to last much longer; the attention of the public has been thoroughly aroused to the subject, more especially by the zealous, energetic, and unselfish action of Samuel Plimsol, Esq., M.P., who having the welfare of the poor sailor most thoroughly at heart, has attacked with every courage the still existing abuses, arising chiefly from the deficiencies in our Maritime Code, and all who have sympathy with the sailor must wish him success, and who has not? but it is hard work to develop legislative action, even from wide-spread national sympathy; but the work is commenced; and as one result of his action, a Royal Commission has been issued by Her Majesty. The following is a synopsis of the opening instructions of the Commission:—

Victoria R.

Whereas—We have deemed it expedient for divers good causes and considerations that a commission should forthwith issue to make inquiry with regard to the alleged unseaworthiness of British Registered Ships; whether arising from overloading, deck-loading, defective construction, form, equipment, machinery, age or improper stowage; and also to inquire into the present system of Marine Insurance; of the alleged practice of undermanning ships; and also to suggest any amendments in the law which might remedy or lessen such evils as may be found to have arisen from the matters aforesaid, &c., &c. Given at our Court at St. James's the 29th day of March, 1873, in the thirty-sixth year of our reign.

By our command,

(Signed) H. A. Bruce.

We may now therefore have great hopes, that there will be speedily some good result, from the spirited manner in which this question of sending unseaworthy vessels to sea has been brought before the public.

Note.—I have to thank a friend for Notes, which he kindly gave me, of extracts which he made from books to which he had access in the British Museum, referring to the Ancient Maritime Laws upon Wrecking. My friend has, since this Chapter was first written, developed his Notes into an Article, which he published in a periodical; I have, nevertheless, not refrained from giving the account, which I think my readers may find interesting.

J. G.