[172] The new law of admeasurement, which came into operation on the 1st of January, 1855, while it produced great improvement in the models of our ships, had the important advantage of creating very little difference in the gross tonnage of the Empire, on which so many dues are levied, and thus rendered unnecessary any change in the long-established scale of charges, which in many cases would have been altogether impracticable. For instance, 1100 vessels, large and small, which were taken promiscuously, measuring under the old law 248,842 tons, were found under the new law to measure 231,277 tons, showing a difference of only 7 per cent. [173] My own firm had somewhere about 100,000 tons of shipping (a large proportion of which consisted of steam-vessels) under our management engaged as transports for the Government of France. It was then that I for the first time met the Emperor. I had occasion to visit Marseilles with regard to the fitting of some of these ships, and, on my return to Paris, I had an interview with Marshal Vaillant, the then Minister of War, which led to an audience with his Majesty. I daresay the Emperor had sent for me to confirm, or otherwise, certain calculations of his own which he had been making as to the number of ships requisite to transport a given number of men, and so forth; for, after a long audience, I remarked at parting, “Sire, you had no need to send for me, as you know more about ships and their capacity than I do.” The fact is, he was thoroughly master of the subject, and could tell me to a man the number of troops to be placed on a given ship, and to an animal the number of horses a ship of 1000 tons could or should carry from Marseilles to Kaemish; the space required for each, and for their fodder and water, the height of deck requisite to allow for the _toss of the head_; and the important, but not generally known fact, that though a horse must feel its own weight on its own legs at sea, it must also be slung, for if it lie down the chances are that it will not be able to get up again. At least, if the Emperor did not know all about these things when I entered the Tuileries, he was the most apt scholar I ever met, for he knew all about them before I left. I mention this circumstance because this audience, subsequently, enabled me to render some assistance in a matter of far greater importance to both France and England and to mankind, to which I shall hereafter refer, viz.: the change in the French navigation laws, which is more to the purpose of this work, than the transport of troops and horses to a field of slaughter. [174] Annual circular of W. S. Lindsay & Co. for 1854, quoted in Tooke’s ‘History of Prices.’