Doubtless the explanation of this lies in the changed conditions of seafaring as a business.

In the days which I have sketched in the first chapter, the boy of good habits and reasonable education who shipped before the mast, was fairly sure of prompt promotion to the quarter-deck, of a right to share in the profits of the voyage, and of finally owning his own ship.

After 1860 all these conditions changed.

Steamships, always costly to build, involved greater and greater investments as their size increased.

Early in the history of steam navigation they became exclusively the property of corporations.