Thus, with glorious traditions behind them, and an equally glorious future in front, the Mercantile Marines of the nations of the maritime world have every reason to be proud of their respective services. Competition there assuredly will be, not merely between British and American, but, presently, German merchant fleets. That is all for the good of the services concerned and for the world in general. The lesson from past history is that maritime legislation in the long run is better omitted except where it is necessary as a reply to that of another country setting up unfair competition. The real freedom of the seas is to allow the merchant ship to pursue her way freely, unhampered; and to find her trade where she can, and be allowed to develop that trade as it has been in the past by Venetian, Spaniard, Dutch, Briton, American and others. To interfere with this system is to court trouble which in the long run fails to benefit the very organisation it was intended to protect. Navigation laws are all very well in intention; but far better still is it to allow free trading over the seas, free flow of emigrants and commerce, fair opportunities for all. The best must win in the last instance, but why not let each marine go about its own business as each trading concern ashore is allowed to carry on its own affairs? The merchant fleets mean too much to be controlled by the State in any country, except under exceptional circumstances and with the most weighty excuse. That is one of the lessons in the history of our subject, and we may leave it at that. APPENDIX SAILS OF THE _ESSEX_ EAST INDIAMAN The following is a list of the sails which the _Essex_ could set, and it is worth placing on record now that the sailing ship is so rapidly becoming a rarity. These details have been taken from a contemporary manuscript which has been kindly sent me by Colonel E. B. Urmston, C.B., whose great-grandfather served in East Indiamen from the time when he joined as a midshipman in 1763, and afterwards commanded several of these ships between 1783 and 1803. In 1795 he brought home, as Commodore, a fleet of thirty East Indiamen without a convoy of any of H.M. ships, and later in the same year was Commodore of the East Indiamen fleet which accompanied Sir Ralph Abercrombie’s expedition to the West Indies. His eldest son, Sir James Urmston, joined the company’s service as a “writer” in 1798, and became President of the company’s factory and affairs in China.