[177] The _Great Republic_ belonged to the well-known mercantile firm of Messrs. A. A. Law & Co., of New York. When launched she registered 4000 tons; but, having unfortunately been partially destroyed by fire shortly after she was built, her upper deck was removed, thus reducing her size to 3400 tons. Her dimensions were 305 feet in length, fifty-three feet extreme breadth, and thirty feet depth of hold. She was fitted with double topsails, an American invention then rare in this country, but now very common; she had on board a steam-engine of eight horse-power for working ship, or loading and discharging cargo. She brought 3000 tons of guano as “ballast” from New York to London, and made the passage to the Scilly Islands in thirteen days, beating up the English Channel thence against an easterly gale in three days to the Downs. But, on her arrival in London, where she was consigned to the care of my firm, I found she was much too large to be employed, profitably, in any of the ordinary channels of commerce; and, had not the French Government, then in want of transports for the Crimean War, been induced, by the large space she afforded for the conveyance of their troops, to engage her for this purpose, she must have remained long after her arrival unemployed. [178] When I was a member of the House of Commons, there was a great brewer, a most excellent man, who sat close to me on the cross benches, who frequently complained of the heavy “losses” he sustained in his trade. I was under the impression that the brewing trade was a very lucrative one, especially to persons like himself, who conducted it on a gigantic scale, and I was puzzled to understand how, in the face of such “losses,” he could continue adding _vat_ to _vat_, and rearing fresh mountains of beer-barrels every year to his brewery yard. Turning one night to a mutual friend who knew him more intimately than I did, I asked, in the simplicity of my heart, if it _really_ was the case that the great establishment of which our friend was the senior was a losing concern. “It is so,” he answered, “according to our friend’s way of calculating; for every pound less than 75,000_l._ per annum, which is estimated as his share of the net profits, is booked as _loss_!” Such must also have been the way in which some of our large shipowners calculated their “losses” after the repeal of the Navigation Laws. [179] See ‘Copies of Address to the Queen from owners of British ships and others interested in the prosperity of British navigation, and of the subsequent correspondence relating thereto.’ Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command, 1859. [180] Table showing the total amount of French and Spanish tonnage which entered and cleared in the United Kingdom in the indirect trade, viz., trade with other countries than France and Spain respectively in each year, from 1853 to 1857 inclusive:—