BOOK REVIEWS

Charles Armour, Shipbuilding in Westmorland County is a publishing first Westmorland County, New Brunswick, for the county. It includes all the salient 1784-1910. Sackville, NB: Tantramar particulars about the vessels (dimensions, Heritage Trust, http://www.heritage.tantra port register, type of rig, original owners mar.com, 2009. vi + 139 pp., illustrations, and reason for demise). Many of the maps, tables, appendices. CDN $28.00, vessels were never registered in larger ports paper: ISBN 978-009784100-5-6. like Saint John or Halifax, especially after the region obtained its own registries in This book is a tribute to the 580 wooden Sackville, Dorchester and Moncton in the sailing ships and the men who built them 1870s, a later period of revitalized, large- during the period 1784-1910 in scale building for the region. This listing is Westmorland County, New Brunswick. significant because the Atlantic Shipping Westmorland County (in southeastern New Project, in their Ships and Seafarers of Brunswick, straddling both the Bay of Atlantic Canada CD-ROM database, Fundy and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence) did excludes the smaller and later ports, thus not have as large a concentration of missing an interesting trend in shipbuilding shipbuilding as Saint John, NB. It did on the periphery of New Brunswick. however, have a significant output (580 of Armour also includes all known 7,750 vessels). The author provides short marine art and photos of these vessels. This biographies of the most prominent builders is another first for the county, putting (Christopher Boultenhouse, Robert Andrew together a variety of source images in one Chapman, William Hickman, Edward Wood place. Nor did the publishers scrimp, Ogden, Gideon Palmer, Henry printing most of the portraits in colour. Boultenhouse Purdy, and Joseph Salter). The book will be most pleasing for While the International Maritime Economic those with an interest in local history, and History Association published an edited should sell well in Westmorland County as version of Joseph Salter’s diary in 1996, the it glorifies their golden period of remainder of the names may be less shipbuilding. That endorsement aside, I familiar. But as the author points out, some found that the book left me wanting a better builders built more intensely or had longer integration of its data into the larger body of production runs than other more famous knowledge provided by Eric Sager and Saint John- area builders. I found this Gerald Panting in Maritime Capital: the section particularly useful as my own Shipping Industry in Atlantic Canada, research into an Albert County shipbuilder 1820-1914, the pre-eminent economic showed he had connections to some of these analysis of shipping and shipbuilding in builders but I did not have the opportunity Atlantic Canada. For example, Armour’s to conduct wider research. This book helps book has a list of the total tonnage produced close that gap for me. in New Brunswick compared to Atlantic The list of all the vessels built in Canada, but for some strange reason, there

The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, XIX No. 4, (October 2009), 434-469 434 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord is not a separate column for Westmorland happened for three or four decades. County or a discussion of whether or not the (Most other local histories focus on a county conformed to general regional major building center like Saint John or St trends. Perhaps the author omitted this Martins.) In the 1990s, the author additional layer of detail and analysis assisted this reviewer with his UNB MA because this book appears to be geared thesis research on Albert County towards a general or local reader. shipbuilding in the same period. What he I also have two minor criticisms did not mention in the resources section relating to geographic spatial awareness of his book is that there is also an — the book lacks a map allowing the unpublished finding aid and index to all reader to identify the location of of the port registers of Atlantic Canada, Westmorland County and its major with a listing of all of the microfilms at centres. When discussing the location of various archives (notably including the towns and villages where ship Library and Archives Canada and The construction occurred, there is usually not National Archives (former Public Record a written description of the location under Office) in Britain). Such information is discussion. A non-local reader will essential when following share ownership require a separate, detailed map for cross- over many years, as the registers can get referencing when reading this book. intermingled between new and older One minor historical point that vessels. A serious student of Atlantic was not clarified in this book is that Canada shipbuilding should bear this Westmorland County was actually split in second golden nugget in mind when two in 1845 with the western bank of the researching the major and, more Petitcodiac River becoming Albert importantly, minor ports of Atlantic County. The author has chosen to exclude Canada. the 69 vessels built on the west bank of Albert County prior to 1845, even though Bradley Shoebottom, some of the names mentioned in this Fredericton, NB account (like Robert Russell of Moncton) also built in the earlier greater Westmorland County. Readers interested Greg Bak. Barbary Pirate: The Life and in a history of Albert County construction Crimes of John Ward, the Most Infamous are invited to look at an online thesis by Privateer of his Time. Stroud, this reviewer at Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing (distributed in North America by Trafalgar The author has chosen to limit Square Publishing), 2006. xiv + 225 pp., himself to a study of the primarily illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. wooden sailing-era as indicated by the CDN $40.00, cloth; ISBN 978-0-7509- 1784-1910 timeframe in the title, although 4350-5. there is still a lively wooden fishing vessel construction industry in the county The play and ballads about privateer-turned- centered in Cap-Pele in the Leger yard. pirate John Ward demonstrate that he Nevertheless, Charles Armour has done captured the imagination of those who lived researchers a great service in publishing in the seventeenth century. His conversion to this county-based history of wooden Islam — “turning Turk” in the parlance of shipbuilding, something that has not the day — was in many ways more shocking Book Reviews 435 to his contemporaries than his many crimes who seemingly rejects Christian Europe at sea. Author Greg Bak believes Ward’s while embracing the Islamic religion and story has the power to captivate readers in Ottoman culture is bound to inspire polarized our own day. opinions. Ward’s story seems hopelessly While Ward’s story is not “untold” intertwined with vitriolic accounts by as the book’s jacket boasts, it may require a horrified Europeans. We should applaud retelling to the current generation. Without Bak’s attempts to extricate Ward from his question, it is a compelling tale. Ward legend but at times he too seems besotted by served in James I’s navy and led a large-scale his dynamic and colourful subject: “Lesser desertion in 1603 that resulted in the stealing nations might vomit forth regional bandits; of a ship. His actions led him outside the England spawned a villain who menaced the boundaries of well-ordered English society commerce of three continents.” (p.192) and he sought to make his livelihood in the Most disturbing is the author’s Mediterranean as a privateer for Ottoman tendency to make a number of sweeping powers and as a pirate. Most remarkably, he statements. Often Bak adopts the popular is given credit for convincing Barbary perception of events and institutions which is corsairs of the value of English square-rigged either incorrect or requires a more nuanced ships as opposed to their own traditional explanation. This tendency is most evident oared galleys. Ward’s skill and ruthlessness in his development of the context in which against his fellow Europeans earned him the Ward lived. He writes of Henry VIII’s ire of Christendom but did not prevent him “Protestantism” which is problematic given from amassing a powerful fleet of Turks and the Act of Six Articles and the king’s Christians, as well as a personal fortune. The theological conservatism of later years. Bak capture of the Venetian vessel, Reniera e asserts that the Anglo-Spanish war was Soderina, enabled him to live like a king, “rooted in religious prejudice” (p.32) when albeit one with a price on his head. Such was commercial rivalries seem closer to the mark. his infamy that his massive wealth could not That Philip II of Spain was Elizabeth I’s buy a pardon from the always financially “sworn enemy” throughout the 1560s and needy King James. That Ward managed to beyond shows that he does not appreciate the evade capture is a testament to his skill and complex and changing relationship between luck: he ultimately succumbed to the plague these former in-laws. (p. 12) rather than any machinations of his many European enemies. We might also question his assertion that it was Elizabeth’s subjects who called Bak’s vivid book brings Ward to out for military action against Spain. (p32) life. Presumably it is aimed at a general No doubt many cringed at wartime taxation audience; Bak does not hesitate to “fill in the and tackling the might of the great Spanish blanks” when the historical record is not empire while others sought to prosper. forthcoming. This is most evident in Ward’s Another questionable statement is that Queen sketchy early life. Although it helps the Elizabeth I rejected traditional naval actions “flow” of his account, the sparse references in favour of privateering. (p.33) This is not in the book make it difficult sometimes to the case. Defensive actions such as the one know how reliable Bak’s information is. in 1588 were very traditional naval This is made even more problematic by the campaigns. She did, however, hope to pay mythology that surrounds his subject. Ward for her considerable debts — naval and had a compelling life which has been otherwise — from her privateers. This era immortalized in a play and ballads. A pirate was hardly the “dawn of English 436 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord privateering” (p.22), and the management of Klaus Bösche, Karl-Heinz Hochhaus, the war extended well beyond Robert Cecil. Herwig Pollem, Jürgen Taggesell u.a. (p.30) (Hrsg.) Dampfer, Diesel und Turbinen. Die Bak claims that Ward obtained the Welt der Schiffsingenieure. Hamburg: rank of captain as “a recognition of his Convent Verlag, Schrifften des Deutschen valuable skills.” (p.24) While this was true Schiffahrtsmuseums, Band 64, in Ward’s case, it would have been useful to http://www.dsm.de, 2005. 592 pp., tell readers that numerous captains of the illustrations, bibliography. EUR €39,90, period required position and pedigree to give cloth; ISBN 3-934613-85-3. “good governance” to a ship. Admiralty Just after the dawning of the age of steam records are full of men who had little another type of crew boarded ship — experience at sea and were accorded the rank marine engineers. Initially, marine “captain” because of their connections or engineering focused on engine design and ownership of the vessels. There were a few propulsion. In the first decades of steam, men like Ward who rose up from humble the engines and fuel took most of the space backgrounds to make their fortune through on board, while generally, passengers and skill and audacity; they were not the norm mail were the prime cargo. A seemingly and this is a testament to Ward’s abilities. unstoppable flow of new ideas resulted in Bak readily acknowledges that to bigger and faster ships. Two major reconstruct Ward’s early life “we need to fall innovations stood out: iron shipbuilding and back on the social history of the lower propellers. orders.” (p.22) Yet Bak seems to be ignorant With the ongoing flow of of the historiography of common seafarers. improvements, inventions and new designs He asserts that it is impossible to write the in steam engines, shipping itself began to story of lesser-known seamen. His change which had a profound effect on bibliography reveals he has not used a society. Shipping created the opportunity number of works which would have for mass transport of cargo and passengers. enhanced his understanding. For instance, The development of marine engines of all Hair and Alsop’s work on the Guinea seamen sorts triggered the education, training and is based on wills and demonstrates that Bak’s development of marine engineers. Their assertion that tracking “individual members life on board and that of their associated within this population is hopeless” is false. crew has always been a somewhat under-lit (p.14) aspect of seafaring. Despite these criticisms, Bak’s book The maritime museum in is a very readable one. Particularly Bremerhaven in Germany has put some interesting is the “AfterWard” which traces effort into filling this gap. The Deutsche the development of Ward’s reputation after Schiffartsmuseum formed a collective of his death. This chapter would have been some thirty experts in the field of marine strengthened if Bak had included Ward’s engineering. Together they produced a solid treatment by more recent historians. Even piece of work: Dampfer, Diesel und with these weaknesses, readers will be Turbinen, a massive 592 pages on the world intrigued by Bak’s telling of John Ward’s of German marine engineers in the age of infamous adventures. steamers, diesel engines and turbines. The authors aimed to make clear the parallel Cheryl Fury development of marine engineering and the Grand Bay-Westfield, New Brunswick institution of German marine engineers. Book Reviews 437 The book highlights the modern builders, the experience gained in this shipping era, the development from engine field of ship model building took him into operator to ship’s engineer developments, a fulfilling aspect of model building national, regional and local institutions, where a model of a sailing vessel is set education and training, careers and unions. into a realistic sea with accurately It is written as a matter of course from the portrayed wave and wind action. He went German perspective but lacks comparison on to document the processes involved, with similar developments in the rest of the in-depth, in this superb book. world. Some of the articles have a very While the few books available on personal or local subject; they will hardly waterline dioramas, most written by some attract large crowds. Every now and then of the world's top miniaturists, describe the authors loose themselves in a very techniques pertaining to very small scale detailed piece on technology. models, this book is aimed at the individual Dampfer, Diesel und Turbine is not already working in the larger scales. It only about marine engineering; it also offers therefore makes the change from static an insight in German history. For anyone model building and display to diorama far with a keen interest in two centuries of easier, presenting a logical and detailed base marine engineering in all its aspects, this is from which to explore the techniques a book you can sink your teeth into. involved. Superbly produced by Seawatch Jacob Bart Hak Books, with excellent photography to Leiden, The Netherlands support the text, the main body of the comprises eight chapters: “Conception and Justin F. Camarata. Waterline Dioramas — Planning,” “Hulls,” “Rigging,” “Sails,” A Modelbuilder's Artform. Florence, OR: “Water – the Real Thing,” “Water – the Seawatch Books, http://www.seawatch Model,” “Figures,” and “Presentation,” books.com, 2009. 228 pp., illustrations, followed by a portfolio highlighting the references, material sources, index. US work of many of the leading creators of $70.00, cloth; ISBN 978-0-9820579-2-6. marine dioramas. Justin Camarata, an award-winning ship Just as with static models, regardless of how the concept for the model model builder, combines an engineering originated, planning for the final background with a wealth of primarily presentation of a model in a diorama setting self-taught model shipbuilding skills to must occur early in the process and to produce superb static, or display-type ship ensure that the model(s) will not only fit and models, including his magnificent fully look good in a complimentary display case, framed, planked and rigged model of the but will deliver the original conceptualised Continental Frigate Confederacy. Feeling idea. Using simple cardboard mock-ups, that his ambitions were no longer being including paper sails, Camarata experiments satisfied and wanting to take that step with possible settings by moving the mock- beyond the standard presentation model, ups around to obtain the best perspective for he did so by experimenting with his first presentation of the finished model(s) in the waterline diorama, Make Ready the Jib display case. Topsails, and in doing so produced a piece Waterline hulls can represent a of three-dimensional art in a realistic sea considerable time saving. The creation of a setting. Rarely considered even by top hull, a large task in a fully framed and 438 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord planked model that includes the full required for best effect. structure, is reduced to what will be seen Chapter 8, “Presentation,” which when set into the sea. In many cases, the was conceptualized in Chapter 1, has the waterline hull can be produced from a solid, completed model set into its sea, ready for or built-up wood block, accurately carved the display case. Case design is vital to and finished to the required specifications. present, frame and protect the model, with Rigging will depend on the scale chosen for not competing with it. Case construction is the model; if it is at a small scale, the well covered, as is studio photography using rigging will likely be twisted up with very film and digital cameras, with interesting fine wire with simulated blocks, etc. with photographic possibilities that combine the the techniques discussed in the relevant model and various backdrops. chapter. A larger scale model will use The builder's portfolio section appropriately scaled line, blocks and fittings illustrates the work of some of the finest with which most builders will already be contemporary dioramists: McNarry, familiar. McCaffery, Hitchcock, Reed, Moore, Chapter 4, which deals with sails, Hunnisett, Ronnberg Jr., Pruneau, Britten, moves into procedures rarely seen, or used, Santos, Dick and, justifiably, Camarata. on static models. Camarata does a superb This book is highly recommended job of presenting interesting approaches to to those who either already have or are creating, painting and setting the sails considering waterline dioramas as an realistically using a variety of materials extension or continuation of their ship ranging from fine papers to fabric, model work, or to simply understand the depending on scale. Photographs of his processes involved. It would also be of work in the book confirm his mastery of the interest to two-dimensional artists techniques. portraying realistic wave action of a vessel The chapters “Water - The Real underway. Thing” and “Water - the Model” present the best material I have seen regarding hull- Roger Cole generated waves, along with a variety of Scarborough, Ontario. materials and techniques used to create the desired action in a modelled seaway. He begins by drawing on Lord Kelvin's Eric Jay Dolin. Leviathan: The History of mathematical formulas of the late 1800s Whaling in America. New York: W.W. regarding bow waves, using a reference Norton, http://www.wwnorton.com, 2007. point rather than a hull, and developed 479 pp., illustrations, maps, references, further by Edward Froude to reflect wave index. CDN $17.50, paper; ISBN 978-0- generation of real hulls. Camarata explains 393-33157-8. the matter further, illustrating it with superb photographs of vessels underway. He The first three pages of Eric Jay Dolin’s indicates that this aspect is somewhat book, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in technical, and takes some study to America, are filled with former reviewers’ understand, but it is time well spent. accolades. Randall Reeves, reviewing for To appear realistic, a diorama Marine Mammal Science believed it to be requires figures. Camarata takes the “an excellent overview of the history of standard approach of using a wire armature whaling.” Timothy Runyan remarked in on which to fill out the figure, using a Sea History that Dolin’s book was “a number of media, and posing the figures as riveting story and one that invites discussion Book Reviews 439 of the history of human predation in the Dolin’s discussion of the “Golden Age of world’s oceans.” Nathaniel Philbrick Whaling, 1775-1860,” becomes slightly perhaps provided the work its best review mired in anecdote and thus loses the broader when he wrote that it was “the best history perspective of the previous section. This of American whaling in a generation.” Is trend toward telling stories rather than Dolin’s work deserving of such high praise? marshalling detail to illuminate broad The answer is a simple, but emphatic, yes. themes continues throughout the rest of the Leviathan is one of the most fascinating, book. best-researched, easily readable and Another slight problem with expertly indexed books that I have ever had Leviathan is its lack of comparative context. the pleasure to read. Dolin’s work focussed on the American Dolin’s study documents the rise whaling trade, but to better understand the and the fall of the whaling industry in the staggering accomplishments and United States from 1614 to 1924. He innovations of American whalers, it would argues that the whaling industry fuelled not have been nice if he had provided some only people’s whale-oil lamps, but also the comparative information on the successes growth of the colonial, and later the and failures of other countries. The lack of American, economy. He further suggests this information, however, does not that studies on the triangular trade and the necessarily hamper the work. cod trade have overshadowed the Dolin might also have discussed importance of whaling to the formation and indigenous participation in the whaling the growth of America. Leviathan attempts trade in more depth. In the colonial period, to highlight the importance of whaling, both he included Native American whalers, but economically and socially, to the people of in the chapters on whaling in the nineteenth the United States, and the book succeeds. and twentieth centuries, he turned a blind Although this is the best study of eye to indigenous whalemen. There is a whaling since Gordon Jackson’s seminal brief mention of native Hawaiians who work, The British Whaling Trade, was worked on American whale ships, but this released in the mid-1970s, there are parts of passing reference did not include the other Dolin’s book that are clearly better than Polynesian peoples—Maori, Samoan, and others. In the acknowledgements, the Tahitian—who plied the oceans in Yankee author states that he originally conceived ships in search of whales. Not only did the project as an examination of whaling in Polynesian peoples serve on whaleships in North America’s colonial period, but his the nineteenth century, but also Native agent suggested he extend the time period Americans continued to crew the whalers. study to encompass the whole of American This, perhaps, is the most glaring omission whaling. That Dolin’s interests lie in the in Dolin’s work. colonial period of American history are With those few criticisms aside, clearly evidenced by the sheer amount of Leviathan is a gem. Each chapter is a detail found in the colonial section of his pleasure to read. Pictures from various work. This section of the book is superb whaling museums and newspapers enhance and deals not only with the formation of each chapter’s visual appeal, while all the whaling stations, whaling ships, and information contained within the chapter is whaling towns, but also with the people meticulously end-noted. Dolin has clearly who went whaling in the colonial period, written a masterpiece. Ever since the both Native and white. Although the publication of Leviathan, Dolin has been quality of his work does not diminish, receiving awards and countless praise for 440 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord this outstanding book. All of these international trade while contributing to accolades have been highly deserved. Japan’s modernization. The established feudal system was turning into a class Kelly Chaves, system, and he imported British weapons to Fredericton, New Brunswick support samurai rebels in toppling their military leader and restoring the Emperor to his throne. With the arrival of national Michael Gardiner. At the Edge of Empire: political stability, Glover brokered the The Life of Thomas Blake Glover. building of the Japanese Imperial Navy’s Edinburgh, UK: Birlinn Ltd., first great ships in Aberdeen and helped http://www.birlinn.co.uk, 2007. vii + 229 Nagasaki develop as the centre of Japan’s pp., illustrations, references, glossary, index. shipbuilding industry. He introduced trawl UK £16.99, cloth; ISBN 978 1 84158 544 4. fishing, organized coal mining, and imported the first steam locomotive. The In 1853, Commodore Perry and the U.S. origin of the modern Mitsubishi Company fleet arrived at Nagasaki in northwestern dates from its acquisition of Glover’s Japan with the purpose of opening trade mining interests. talks. Signing the Treaty of Kanagawa the The first serious book-length following year signalled the end of Japan’s account in English of the entrepreneurial policy of isolation and Nagasaki became the Glover’s fifty years in Japan was a best known of the ports opened to the West. translation by a long-term resident of It was also the site of Japan’s first Naval Nagasaki, Brian Burke-Gaffney, of Hana to Academy and was where Aberdeenshire- Shimo: Gurabaki no Hitobito in 1989. The born Thomas Blake Glover arrived in second was Alexander McKay’s Scottish September 1859 to establish a trading Samurai in 1993. While fifteen years seems business and shipping agency. a relatively short gap between McKay’s and Michael Gardiner works in the Gardiner’s books on Glover’s legacy, Department of English and Comparative Gardiner’s sources include material only Studies at Warwick University. His recently discovered in Japan. In 2001, the previous publications include The Cultural most complete biography was written by Roots of British Devolution, Modern Naito Hatsuho but it has yet to be translated Scottish Culture and From Trocchi to into English. Alan Spence has recently Trainspotting: Scottish Critical Theory published a novelisation of Glover’s life since 1960. His collection of short stories, entitled The Pure Land. Escalator, was published in 2006 and the At the Edge of Empire describes the title story was short listed for the Scotsman complex social and business structure of and Orange Short Story Award. At the Edge Japan in the latter half of the nineteenth of Empire, however, was probably his most century through the eyes of Glover, one of challenging project since he makes the point the founding fathers of modern Japan. that “Glover research” is a relatively new Gardiner argues that it was only after field. Perry’s arrival in Nagasaki that risk-takers Glover was born in Fraserburgh in were encouraged to develop their financial 1838, the fifth son of a former Royal Navy ambitions. Therefore, Glover’s good fortune officer. He joined Jardine Matheson in in turning himself into Japan’s first major 1857 and, like each of his brothers, travelled industrialist was to be in the right place at to the Far East. After settling in Nagasaki, exactly the right time — during the Meiji he prospered in the turbulent world of Restoration of the 1860s. The author credits Book Reviews 441 Glover, with whom he clearly sympathises, Fraserburgh as a tourist attraction at a cost as being one of the few foreigners to realize of £350,000. Glover would also be pleased that the problems of money and power that since 2008 his legacy has been which once troubled the old rulers of Japan acknowledged by the investment house were no longer an issue. Instead, the new Aberdeen Asset Management’s sponsorship rulers were trying to modernize the country of the Thomas Blake Glover scholarship. but were still being treated as part of Managed through the Japan Society of Europe’s own informal empire. Scotland, this is intended to fund travel to Although this thought-provoking Japan and the study of the Japanese view of Anglo-Japanese relations is language. primarily aimed at maritime and economic historians, it would also be enjoyed by Michael Clark general readers of far-eastern history. For London, UK instance, Gardiner examines Glover’s relationship with his wife Tsuru, whom he married in 1867, and dispels the popular Douglas C. Harris. Landing Native image of the couple being the inspiration for Fisheries. Indian Reserves and Fishing Madame Butterfly and Pinkerton to the Rights in British Columbia, 1840-1925. author John Luther Long and, later, Puccini. Vancouver, BC: University of British The author does have a disconcerting habit, Columbia Press, http://www.ubcpress.ca, however, of digressing in mid-chapter with 2008. viii + 266 pp., illustrations, maps, controversial modern socio-political appendix, notes, bibliography, index. CDN comment. $32.95, paper; ISBN 978-0-7748-1420-1. As the first person to introduce western technology to his adopted country, The process of colonialism fundamentally Glover is revered as a national hero in Japan consists of the state dispossessing Native and was the first non-Japanese to be peoples of their lands and resources and presented with the Order of the Rising Sun. divesting them of their cultural heritage, When he died in Tokyo in 1911, aged 73, autonomy, and traditional subsistence his ashes were interred in Nagasaki’s lifeways. In North America, we often think Sakamoto International Cemetery, an of this process as occurring primarily on illustration of how Japan went from land, as Native peoples were marginalized isolation to having an international and concentrated on reservations while cemetery in just 57 years. Glover’s house settler communities transformed Native in Nagasaki, built in 1863, is the oldest landscapes under new property regimes. In western-style building in Japan and is the this brilliant and eloquent study of law and centerpiece of Glover Garden, Western colonialism, University of British Columbia Japan’s top tourist attraction with almost professor Douglas C. Harris shows us that, two million visitors each year. Glover has in British Columbia, the sea and the even appeared in the character of a Scottish fisheries were central to European conquest arms merchant in animé. as the colonial state asserted its sovereignty This recognition is in contrast to his by eliminating the customary rights of profile in Scotland, which is virtually non- Native fishers and consolidating its legal existent. An official list of “Famous Scots” hold over maritime resources. Harris, the wrongly refers to him as “Sir” Thomas. author of Fish, Law, and Colonialism, deftly There is one hopeful sign in the current plan shows us how law, more than military to rebuild his childhood home in power, was used to transfer control of 442 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord British Columbia’s fishery resources from a “common-property” fishery. Passed down Native communities to state authorities. from the Magna Carta, citizens enjoyed the Landing Native Fisheries is framed “public right to fish.” Harris shows how by the story of Domanic Charlie, a this common property doctrine was part of Squamish hereditary chief, who was the consolidation of the modern nation state arrested by Canadian fisheries managers in as local customs and control over land and 1925 for gaffing a chum salmon in the resources gave way to state authority. It Capilano River where it ran through the was the state, ultimately, that granted the Squamish Indian Reserve. Domanic common right to fish to its citizens and Charlie, like other coastal peoples, came therefore, its proponents argued, from a culture whose stability, wealth, and government officials had no right to grant subsistence were derived primarily from the “exclusive fisheries” to Native peoples “that traditional salmon economy. The Indian were contrary to the public’s rights to fish” reserves that were created in British (p.79). The federal Department of Fisheries Columbia were small, fragmentary, and led the charge against exclusive Native hopelessly inadequate for sustaining Native fisheries reserves, arguing that “Fishing populations according to their traditional rights in public waters cannot be made ways. Despite this, there was hope for exclusive excepting under the express Native fishers in British Columbia: the sanction of Parliament, and…Indians are small Indian land reserves at least provided entitled to use the public fisheries only on them access to fisheries resources. In fact, the same conditions as white men, subject to Harris shows how government officials the Fisheries Act and Fishery Regulations” rationalized the inadequate land reserves on (p.82). the basis that British Columbia Natives It is highly ironic that the Anglo were maritime peoples who took their living American “common-property” fishery— from the sea rather than the land. The which sounds so egalitarian and communal reserves that emerged were constructed with —allowed individuals and corporations to access to fisheries in mind, showing, in plunder the fisheries for individual gain, Harris’s words, that “land followed fish” in while Native fishers distributed the benefits the making of British Columbia Indian of their “exclusive” fishing rights to policy. collective networks of kin and clan. The Two early reserve commissioners right to fish, in Native communities, was tried to protect Native fishing rights on not about the right of individuals to profit reserve lands by setting aside exclusive but about the right of First Nations to Native fisheries. Their actions, according to continue to exist. And yet, that right would Harris, were consistent with the recognition become gradually more circumscribed by given to aboriginal fishing rights by the state power as the Fisheries department Douglas Treaties of the 1850s (as well as increasingly confined, controlled, regulated, the modern Canadian Constitution). Those and limited the “Indian Food Fishery.” As commissioners, as Harris so skillfully the economic and political power of explains, were not so much granting Native commercial fishers and non-Indian sports fishers rights as they were simply fishermen grew in the late-nineteenth and recognizing already existing aboriginal early-twentieth centuries, so did the rights to the fishery. arguments against aboriginal fishing rights. Exclusive aboriginal fisheries were Law shifted with the changing tides to the seen by opponents as conflicting with the point where Domanic Charlie could no time-honoured Anglo-American tradition of longer legally gaff a salmon for his dinner Book Reviews 443 “unless he used a sport fisher’s hook and that the fisheries were not absolutely central line” (p.4). to the construction of Indian reserves as By 1925, as Harris shows, the well as to the consolidation of the modern Indian food fishery was no longer an Canadian nation-state. Readers can only exclusive right on Indian reserves—the hope that Harris, with his keen ability to Department of “Fisheries was successful in interpret arcane legal cases for a lay denying the recognition of Native fishing audience, will continue his story beyond rights and confining the food fisheries” 1925. (p.186). Moreover, fisheries managers had opened up the fisheries to non-Indians, David Arnold making it increasingly hard for First Richland, Washington Nations’ peoples to survive as either commercial or subsistence fishers. Landing Native Fisheries is not Mark C. Hunter. To Employ And Uplift only well-written, but it is handsome and Them: The Newfoundland Naval Reserve, user-friendly, containing numerous 1899-1926. St. John’s, NL: ISER Books, excellent maps, charts, and photographs. Memorial University of Newfoundland, Perhaps the best thing about this book, http://www.mun.ca/iser/books, 2009. 243 however, is that it matters. It is amazingly pp., illustrations, maps, tables, notes, relevant to the ongoing struggles of First bibliography, index. CDN $24.95, paper; Nations in British Columbia to claim their ISBN 978-1-894725-07-1. full aboriginal rights to the fisheries. The book will no doubt have a wide readership This edition of The Northern Mariner among civil servants and First Nations features a companion review of Dr. David lawyers who want to understand current-day Parsons’ book, The Best Small-boat Seamen litigation in a broader historical and legal In The Navy, containing his description of context. It will also appeal to historians, the men in the early Newfoundland Royal geographers, and legal scholars trying to Naval Reserve (RNR). It is a highly understand more completely the process of personal narrative of those recruited into the colonization in North America and beyond. Newfoundland Division of the RNR, who Considering the contemporary they were, how they were trained and how implications of his work, it is a testament to they responded to the call in 1914, with a Harris’s outstanding scholarship that his multitude of men’s photos and individual arguments—such as his contention that the tales. It only briefly covers the organization creation of Indian reserves in the of the RNR, the reason for its formation, nineteenth-century “followed the and its eventual demise once the Admiralty identification of important fishing grounds, would no longer provide their share of its establishing a nexus between land and fish funding in 1922 and the Newfoundland that should be recognized and restored”— government could not. It is very much a are made on the basis extensive research people book, full of the stories of rather than reductionist ideological individuals from St. John’s to St. Anthony, commitments (p.196). After reading this concentrating on wartime exploits to quite excellent book, it would be impossible for an extent. any fair reader, of no matter what political This book is a different kettle of stripe, to deny that Domanic Charlie did not fish entirely, yet it serves as a have the legal right to gaff that chum complementary volume to Parson’s history. salmon in the Capilano River in 1925—or Dr. Hunter is a social historian at Memorial 444 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord University, and examines the Newfoundland (who were encouraging, but largely for RNR from a much more academic political reasons, that is to cultivate tangible viewpoint. This is a history of an ties between the Motherland and a self- organization in the context of its social role governing dominion), the Treasury (who in its community and its affect thereon. The anticipated and were concerned about text is only 168 pages, but it is meticulously Newfoundland’s ability to keep up its the supported by some 58 pages of reference financial commitment), and the notes and an extensive bibliography. There Newfoundland government (who, as are also many tables ranging from suspected by the Admiralty, itself population vs. recruitment percentages to chronically short of discretionary budget, pay scales and training hours. The author desperately wanted such an infusion of carefully assesses the reasons for the wages and supply purchases in St. John’s Admiralty’s often reluctant agreement to and the out-ports purely for financial encourage the formation of a local RNR in reasons). For an initial force of only 50 Newfoundland, requiring the local men projected to expand to a maximum of government to contribute the raw material 600, the Newfoundland RNR scheme — men and sites for training facilities — caused quite an inordinate amount of and assist with its financing. He briefly bureaucratic and political to-ing and fro-ing, examines other similar plans elsewhere in as evidenced by the considerable paper trail the wider Empire, particularly in Canada, Dr. Hunter has unearthed. where the reasons for creating a Naval One quite remarkable aspect, which Reserve were completely different, had the author rightly highlights, is how minimal impact on their communities — progressive – modern, in our terms – was and did not really take shape in a sustained the agreement reached between the effort until 1913. The point is well made Newfoundland and British authorities for that from 1900 to 1914 the RNR in the terms of service for the men recruited. Newfoundland contributed to the economy Members who completed the full required by providing very necessary, or at least training of 28 days per year, received an desirable, off-season employment for annual retainer above and beyond their fishermen, and through local contracts in St. regular pay. The regular pay compared John’s to supply the drill ship HMS favourably with the RN seamen’s, and there Calypso. It was a rather unique operation was also a pension granted to qualified compared to similar efforts in Canada and seamen after 20 years of service. If the elsewhere, where the only potential winter training cruises in RN ships ran late, advantage of the RNR was generating a the Newfoundlanders were to be brought very small supply of trained seamen. In home for their fishing season; and there Newfoundland, by contrast, it provided a were courses given in writing and reading social “net” that in itself had little to do with for those who were illiterate. Most recruits the protection of Empire and preparation for were Protestant, largely Anglican, and war. hailed from the outports (part of the stated In the U.K., the Newfoundland aim of the whole exercise) although a Naval Reserve was the subject of sampling of the recruits in the 1902- 1914 considerably divided opinion, even period revealed that 13 percent of the men controversy, among the Admiralty (who were from St. John’s and some men who were being asked to finance what was seen were Catholics. Interestingly, there were as an off-season employment plan of few from the west coast, called the French dubious naval benefit), the Colonial Office Shore, largely the result of the Royal Navy’s Book Reviews 445 role there enforcing ancient French treaty The spirit of David K. Brown, distinguished fishing rights along that shore, to the naval architect and prolific author of annoyance of local Newfoundlanders who exceptional naval books, permeates this as a result apparently had no interest in edition of Warship. D. K. Brown died in naval service no matter how generous the Bath, Somerset, on 15 April 2008, a great terms. loss to the naval history community. In nine Unlike the formation of naval books he has described, with the unique reserves in Canada, and to quite an extent in perspective of a practicing naval architect, other dominions, the creation of the development of the ships of the Royal Newfoundland’s naval reserves represented Navy from the earliest introduction of steam a not-inconsiderable political initiative for a to the end of the Second World War; while truly “imperial” military organization and, in numerous articles in Warship and other for fishermen and others, a substantial publications, he has continued the story into financial benefit within a credit- and the modern era. (In fact, no issue of money-short economy. It is in these broader Warship has ever been without a dimensions where Dr. Hunter’s tale differs contribution from DKB). In this issue he from Dr. Parsons’, and what makes Dr. has an article on Weather and Warship Hunter’s volume a valuable expansion of an casualties 1934-1944. Brown was very important Newfoundland story. The proud of the fact that, unlike all other major Newfoundland RNR ended in 1922. Since navies, no British destroyer-type ship had the organization had been founded to been lost to weather conditions alone. provide seamen for wartime mobilization of He also has an item in the “Note” the fleet, and the First World War had been section; one of his books (on Second World fought “to end all wars,” both the Admiralty War Atlantic escort vessels) is reviewed and and the Newfoundland government were he reviews a book by Norman Goodwin on unwilling to pay for a service presumed to the Castle- Class corvettes. The be no longer necessary. Despite the introduction to the issue starts with tributes Newfoundland RNR’s valiant and very by the editor and six of his colleagues, useful services during the First World War fellow naval architects and historians. The — Parsons’ tale — other imperatives issue also includes an obituary by Alec undercut the impetus that had previously Douglas for CNRS member Daniel G. existed in Newfoundland and the U.K. for Harris, who died in November 2007. Harris the island dominion’s very distinctive naval was recognized for his biography of reserve organization. Swedish naval architect Fredrik af Chapman It is as much a story of maritime as well as a personal memoir of his influence as a naval one, and an unusual one experiences as a British assistant naval at that. attaché in Sweden during the Second World War. Fraser M. McKee Warship 2009 pursues a number of Toronto, Ontario themes typical of past issues. In the field of the development of warship types there are three articles. “The RN and Evolution of the John Jordan (ed.). Warship 2009. London: True Submarine” by Jon Wise describes the Conway Press, Anova Publishing, RN’s experimentation with hydrogen- http://www.anovabooks.com, 2009. 208 pp., peroxide-fueled submarines. This rather illustrations, index. UK £30.00, cloth; ISBN volatile type of propulsion was made 9-781-8448-6089-0. unnecessary by the advent of nuclear power. 446 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord

“Italian Fast Coastal Forces” by Enrico system was supposed to work.Two articles Cernuschi and Vincent P. O’Hara is the focus on the nineteenth-century Royal continuation of a piece that appeared in a Navy. “Fuelling the Victorian Steam previous issue. It covers the period 1934-86 Navy” by Bob Wilson deals with a little- and includes their record in combat during examined subject, the logistical problems the war. “The Soviet Light Cruisers of the of the age of coal-fired steam ships; while Kirov class” by Vladimir Yakubov and Colin Jones compares the turret ships Richard Worth describes the first major ships Monarch and Captain and discusses the designed and built for the Soviet Navy. The errors that led to the loss by capsizing of inexperienced Soviet naval architects turned the latter. Dealing with a later period, “A to the Italian Ansaldo company for guidance, Shipyard at War: John Brown, Clydebank despite ideological differences with 1914-18” by Ian Johnston details the Mussolini’s regime. With the recent release of much previously classified information, a warship production of that famous yard lot of detailed information on Soviet ships is during the First World War, with particular now available. Warship International is also reference to the battlecruiser HMS Repulse running a series of articles on Soviet cruisers, which was begun and completed in record including the Kirovs. time. Two articles deal with Imperial On a lighter note, there is an account Japanese Navy battleships. The of the sail training ship Jadran which was circumstances surrounding the loss of the completed for the Royal Yugoslav Navy in battleship Mutsu, which blew up and sank on 1933, and subsequently served under several 8 June 1943 while at anchor in Hiroshima flags. She was practically destroyed at the Bay, is examined by Mike Williams. While end of the Second World War but was the hasty official enquiry tended to blame salvaged, rebuilt and still sails under the flag sabotage by a discontented crewman, the of Montenegro, though Croatia wants her author concludes that an engine room fire back (Jadran is Croat for Adriatic). This was that spread to the magazine was a more contributed by Dr. Zvonimir Freivogel. likely cause. In another article, Hans Regular features include: a review Lengerer offers a detailed description of the of the progress of world navies during 2008; conversion of the battleships Ise and Hyuga Warship Notes (short contributions on a to hybrid battleship-carriers. This was variety of subject) and book reviews of no considered necessary to compensate partially less than 31 books on naval history published for carrier losses at the Battle of Midway. during late 2007 and in 2008. Finally, The plan was to construct a hangar to carry Warship Gallery features photographs taken 22 carrier-type aircraft intended to be by Mr. B.P. Purches who served in motor launched by catapults and then recovered by minesweepers in the North Sea and the a conventional aircraft carrier in company. Mediterranean in the Second World War. In the event, due to shortage of aircraft, when Warship annuals contain detailed the ships were ready only a smaller number articles of a very high standard. Taken all of float planes were carried and when the together they are a veritable encyclopedia of two ships participated in the Battle of Cape naval knowledge. Engano in October 1944, no aircraft were embarked. The plans and illustration by Manfred Pasch are exceptionally detailed Douglas Maginley and clear and give a good idea of how the Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia Book Reviews 447 Brian Lavery and Geoff Hunt. The Frigate consistently use the former, as did O’Brian, Surprise. The Complete Story of the Ship except when quoting a document that names Made Famous in the Novels of Patrick it otherwise. O’Brian. London: Conway, Anova Books Surprise saw service in the Group Ltd., http://www.anovabooks.com, Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, and the 2008. 144 pp., illustrations, appendices, West Indies. The frigate engaged in convoy bibliography, glossary, index. UK £30.00, duty, diplomatic errands, and cruising for cloth; ISBN 978-1-84486-074-6. prizes under several commanding officers. But the real Surprise’s greatest claim to The key to the content of this book is in the fame was the re-taking of HMS Hermione words of the subtitle: “The Complete commanded by Captain Hugh Pigot, called Story…” Herein is both fact and fantasy, the by Lavery “one of the worst captains in the account of O’Brian’s fictional Surprise in navy.” After a number of episodes of lethal both words and pictures, alongside the misjudgment and injustice in 1797, the crew narrative (and more pictures) of the real mutinied, slaughtered Pigot and nine naval frigate which O’Brian used as a officers, and later donated the vessel to the starting point and inspiration. Many Spanish navy, then at war with Britain. readers, like me, may not have been aware Captain Edward Hamilton of the Surprise that there was an actual HMS Surprise. I (who had had discipline problems of his was sufficiently caught off guard to bring to own) personally led a cutting-out expedition mind C. Northcote Parkinson’s The Life and with the frigate’s six boats and recaptured Times of Horatio Hornblower, by which I Hermione in the fortified harbor of Puerto was horribly suckered as a very young man. Caballo, Venezuela. Hamilton and 103 This time, I used the resources of a men, many of whom did not arrive until late maritime library to assure myself that HMS in the fight, attacked Hermione with about Surprise and her commander were 400 Spanish aboard, and prevailed. Spanish mentioned in works of history before losses were 119 killed and 231 captured (97 Patrick O’Brian was born. of whom were wounded). None of the In fact, there have been nine sailing Surprises were killed, and only thirteen vessels named Surprise or Surprize in the wounded, including Captain Hamilton. Royal Navy. The one in question began its Author Lavery wrote the history of career as a French nine-pounder frigate, the real Surprise in some detail, including L’Unité, launched at Le Havre in 1794. In discussion of its design, and adding for the French navy, L’Unité, with only 28 comparison, a chapter on the history of the guns, was larger than a corvette but too fictional vessel. Author/artist Hunt small for a frigate. Taken by HMS contributed chapters on reconstructing the Inconstant in April 1796, the vessel was appearance of the frigate and the sequence brought into the Royal Navy as a frigate, of artwork he did for the covers of the classed as a fifth rate. In January 1798 she Patrick O’Brian novels, and wrote the was established with 34 guns, mostly nine- picture captions. pounders, but the following month was re- The book is in coffee-table format, armed with 40 guns, all 18- and 32-pounder with most illustrations presented large and carronades. The name was changed to in full colour. Most readers will enjoy avoid confusion with Unité, another French seeing Hunt’s paintings in large size and vessel taken about the same time. uncropped, or at least less cropped than on Documents spell the new name both as the covers of the books. The colour Surprise and Surprize; Lavery and Hunt reproduction values appear to be closer to 448 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord the original paintings than the book covers, O’Brian in making the cover art for the at least for the paperback versions, which novels is fascinating. Best of all, the are noticeably darker. Also, Hunt has artwork is wonderful. painted episodes in the career of the real Surprise. Many other illustrations Nathan R. Lipfert demonstrate Hunt’s search for authentic Woolwich, Maine detail. Here are the British dockyard plans of Surprise and one of her sister ships, La Tourterelle, along with great reconstructed Douglas M. McLean (ed.). Fighting at drawings of the real Surprise and its boats, Sea. Naval Battles from the Ages of Sail as well as the fictional Surprise. Karl Heinz and Steam. Montreal, QC: Robin Brass Marquardt drew these latter, in a style Studio Inc., similar to the drawings in the Anatomy of http://www.rbstudiobooks.com , 2008. xiv the Ship series, although with fewer detail + 337 pp., illustrations, maps, notes, drawings. index. CDN $29.95, US $34.95, paper; Lavery makes a few technical ISBN 978-1-896941-56-1. lapses — hawse pieces are parallel to the stem, not the keel (p.48), the bowsprit did The six lengthy and authoritative papers in not project more than 50 feet beyond the this collection describe how selected naval bow unless considered with the jibboom engagements between 1759 and 1945 were (p.49), the royals were on the main and fore conducted. The authors are all recognized masts as opposed to the main and mizzen experts in the era they dissect. The editor, (p.58). He appears to refer to Capt. Doug McLean, has linked the essays with Hamilton as Edwards once (p.83), perhaps well-crafted introductions (termed thinking of the commander of HMS “interludes”) which deftly establish the Pandora, with a similar attitude towards background of each naval action. The discipline. Saying that standing officers scholarship behind these papers is truly were “of lower deck origin, without the impressive. The Robin Bass Studio of speech and manners appropriate to Toronto, the publisher, has maintained the commissioned officers” (p.44) sounds like a high production standards of its earlier titles class judgment, and calling slaves on a slave on naval topics. The many maps by ship “passengers” (p.77) is a poor choice of Christopher Johnson are models of clarity words, even if they are also qualified as which enhance the text. They are real “unfortunate.” “added value” because they help clarify In general, though, the book is very narratives dense with facts describing well-crafted. Lavery’s chapters are well- complex situations. Well-chosen written. His tour of the vessel is very photographs, unfortunately not in a glossy helpful, and his narrative of the vessel’s format, contemporary engravings, attractive history is clear and accurate. He explains and clear drawings lifted from L.B. Jensen’s Aubrey’s catharpins (p.59) for any O’Brian Tin Hats, Seaboots & Oilskins are scattered reader who is still fuzzy on that point. The through the text. Robin Bass has used an appendices (chronology, crew list, masts, inviting large soft cover format which yards and stores, maintenance history, handles easily. armaments) are very useful. Hunt’s The opening chapter by Donald painstaking labour to get things right in his Graves is about the role of British seapower artwork is made obvious, and his in the seige of Quebec in 1759. While description of the back-and-forth with much has already been published about this Book Reviews 449 campaign, Graves’ study is outstanding. the British blockade of the US eastern This enormous amphibious operation seaboard and of how the Royal Navy involved 13,500 officers and seaman plus responded to the threat posed by the heavy 2,100 marines in 49 warships — one-fifth American frigates. This was done both by of the Royal Navy. This force was cutting down old 74-gun battleships by one supported by 140 merchant vessels taken up deck to become super frigates termed from trade — 20,000 tons chartered in “razees” and by re-arming with heavier Britain plus a further 6000 tons from the guns the very fast frigate Endymion (which American colonies. Graves underlines that had been build in Britain as a copy of a amphibious assaults are among the most French prize). Lambert summarizes how difficult of naval operations. Success came, both sides used intelligence and the he writes, because by 1759 the British, differing frigate fighting tactics of the having learned painful lessons during the opposing navies. Both of the 1812 chapters earlier decades of that century which saw so discuss the captains of the opposing many wars, now for the first time had a frigates. The Royal Navy had by then been workable amphibious warfare doctrine. fighting the French for decades and could Between them, the warships and merchant draw on the pool of hardened professional vessels off Quebec had enough boats to lift fighting naval officers described so well in 3,319 troops ashore without reloading. the Patrick O’Brian novels. The British sea- These craft included special flat-bottomed going commanders were younger than their boats intended for landing operations. The USN opponents. Captain George Douglas, famously successful landings below the at age 27 the senior of the British frigate Plains of Abraham were achieved using 36 captains was defeated by a 37-year-old small craft of which 31 were such flat- Captain Charles Stewart of the USS bottomed boats. Graves sketches in the Constitution, a more powerful ship than the nautical challenges involved in operating two British warships combined The sailing vessels off Quebec, basing his text celebrated American hero, Captain Stephen on studying the log books of the assault Decatur of USS President was 36 when he fleet as well as modern hydrographic was bested by the 27-year-old Captain publications. Tidal currents and the Henry Hope of Endymion who had been prevailing westerly winds were formidable commanding frigates since the age of 22. obstacles overcome by good seamanship. Hope’s superior was Rear Admiral Henry The next two chapters cover frigate Hotham, (described by Lambert on page 97 engagements during the War of 1812. As it as “one of the brightest stars among the happened, both occurred early in 1815 after British junior Flag Officers”) had twenty the combatants had agreed in Ghent on a years of experience fighting the French. treaty to end the war. These papers are by Three of the chapters cover Second Andrew Lambert, the well-known British World War actions. A piece by Michael naval historian, and by William Dudley, Whitby, the DND naval historian, is a former Head of the Historical Research brilliant analysis of British- German Branch of US Navy’s Historical Center. destroyer night encounters in the channel Lambert’s paper describes how one of the starting in 1940 and culminating in an three powerful U.S. 44-gun super frigates, action off Isle de Batz on 9 June 1944. This USS President, was captured off Sandy is a truly rewarding study because Whitby Hook in late January 1815 by the well- describes how night-fighting tactics were handled British frigate HMS Endymion. developed, the role of improved radar This chapter is a masterful summary both of performance, and how Bletchley Park was 450 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord feeding de-encrypted tactical reports by One of the many virtues of this German destroyers to British operational detailed account is the manner in which headquarters virtually in real time. These McLean describes how the tactical situation many details are based on exhaustive use of was confusing for both sides. He makes contemporary records, interviews with good use of the vivid report of proceedings participants or their descendents, and written by the Senior Escort Commander, reflection. One of the issues dissected is Commander Martin James Evans, RN. The internal disagreements in the RN about chapter concludes with a useful summary of whether torpedoes or gunfire would be more the lessons drawn from the battle by both effective in night encounters against enemy sides. destroyers. The final paper is by Malcolm Whitby has written elsewhere about Llewellyn-Jones who, like Doug McLean, is how practising destroyer tactics, including a former naval officer who has earned his manoeuvring at speed in the particularly doctorate and has done extensive research demanding night encounter tactics of the and writing on anti-submarine warfare. His time, dominated the tiny pre-war RCN. In immediate topic is the allied efforts to the 1944 night actions DeWolf, Rayner, and locate, track, and destroy U-247 which Stubbs, along with other officers who had sailed from Norway in May 1944, learned their trade in peacetime, were eventually reached Brest and was handling powerful tribal-class destroyers subsequently hunted to destruction in the against the Germans. channel. Like McLean’s paper, this one The remaining two chapters cover tells a much broader story in the process of anti-submarine engagements in the final 18 tracing individual operations. Drawing on months of the war. Doug McLean describes careful analysis, Llewellyn-Jones has the intense three-day battle around two reconstructed successive allied searches by west-bound convoys against 20 U-boats in shore- and carrier-based aircraft, the September 1943. This action saw the first operations by surface ships, and the use by the Germans of homing torpedoes intelligence on which all of these attempts intended as escort killers and happened to locate the U-boat were based. His during the brief period that submarines with description of the interplay between the enhanced anti-aircraft armament were analysis done by the Admiralty’s attempting to remain on the surface when operational intelligence centre and the area attacked by aircraft. McLean describes headquarters which organized searches is fully the complex factors behind the compelling. The maps by Christopher dispositions of both sides and the Johnson overlaying aircraft and surface technologies involved. By this stage of the search areas on U-247’s track are brilliant war the allies had finally allocated sufficient and the narrative describing these several long-range aircraft to cover the air gap, searches could hardly be improved. This is Liberators flying from Iceland and a story set in the waters around the U.K. but Newfoundland. Poor visibility, however, Llewellyn-Jones has been careful to cite the greatly reduced their effectiveness on two of many Canadians who flew in various RAF the days of the battle. It is noteworthy that Coastal Command aircraft — and the one of the convoys included an organic air occasional American aircraft involved. The capability in the form of three Swordfish story of U-247 ends with a successful biplanes in Merchant Aircraft Carrier search in rock- and wreck-strewn waters off Empire McAlpine. These aircraft were Cornwall by Canadian frigates, in particular equipped with rockets and depth bombs. by HMCS St. John. This recently- Book Reviews 451 commissioned warship exemplifies how Peter Padfield. Maritime Dominion and the RCN had matured into an effective the Triumph of the Free World: Naval ASW navy. She was commanded by a Campaigns that Shaped the Modern determined and skillful seaman, Lt. World, 1852-2001. London, UK: John Commander W. Stacey, RCNR. Murray, http://www.johnmurray.co, 2009. All in all, this chapter is a very 384 pp., illustrations, maps, notes, instructive study of the difficulties which bibliography, index. UK £30.00, cloth; underlie searching for submarines in tricky ISBN 978 0 719 56297 6. in-shore waters, the limitations of aircraft against submerged submarines, and the limitations of trying to react in real time to Peter Padfield has completed his trilogy reports from sea by the allied command regarding the role of the maritime world in centres of the time. It is interesting to again promoting the development and evolution encounter Commander Martin Evans in this of the modern Western world, of democracy chapter. Having played such a prominent and of our free market economies. The role as a sea-going tactical commander in previous two volumes in the series are the convoy battle described by McLean, 1999’s Maritime Supremacy and the Evans was now in charge of anti-submarine Opening of the Western Mind: Naval operations in the key area headquarters in Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, Plymouth. A navigation specialist, Evans 1588 – 1782; and, 2003’s Maritime Power had served in Malta earlier in the war as and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval staff officer, operations. He typifies the Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World seasoned professionals whose experience 1788 – 1851. The first volume deals with was so important in the grinding anti- England’s struggle with Imperial Spain, the submarine war. Llewellyn-Jones’ detailed Dutch Republic, and then the eighteenth- study ends abruptly with the destruction of century wars with France. The second picks U-247 and there is no summary to draw up the story with the Revolutionary and together the many key points. Napoleonic Wars at the end of the eighteenth and turn of the nineteenth Fighting at Sea is an unusual century. This volume covers the Victorian collection which provides a very high era, the eclipse of France as a serious naval quality of analysis of the interplay of factors power and the growth of “aspirant” powers behind successful defeat in individual to replace Great Britain such as Japan, the engagements and protracted operations. Its United States and, critically, Germany. It six compelling papers are written in clear concludes with some thoughts as to what styles but each requires careful reading. the three-volume narrative and analysis has This is a nicely produced and rewarding demonstrated and what it might mean for book but it is not popular history. Highly the future. recommended for those interested in The book opens, after a brief understanding the “whys” behind introduction, with a series of short chapters encounters at sea. that cover off the major naval campaigns of the nineteenth century – the Crimean War (Anglo-French naval power permitted the Jan Drent campaign in the first place), the American Victoria, B.C. Civil War and the Indian Mutiny. Succeeding these chapters is a 452 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord discussion of what British maritime dominance towards the end of the dominance meant. First and foremost, nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Royal Navy dominance permitted the Britain was deprived of its position first by unfettered expansion and development of Germany, then by Japan and the United British trade and commerce. Incidentally, it States. The latter, of course, is essentially in permitted similar expansion and its own class at present, but the former two development of the trade and commerce of were similar in terms of scale to Britain and other powers (e.g. America and France). both played critical roles in knocking Additional benefits to the Western world Britain off its perch, albeit at tremendous included charting and surveying of coasts cost to themselves. for the benefit of all, the support of The heart of the book, after the scientific expeditions of all kinds (most relatively swift opening chapters, covers famously Darwin’s trip aboard HMS how these three countries developed their Beagle), the elimination of piracy, and the naval power, followed by a number of suppression of the slave trade on both sides chapters on the First World War, fewer on of Africa. Finally, British ideas and mores the Second World War and a summary were widely disseminated, with perhaps a chapter on the Cold War and beyond to the little more controversy (e.g. sports, present. The narrative chapters on the two government, probity in public affairs, world wars are sound and take full professional civil service, and law). These advantage of recent scholarship, reinforced are not minor matters. by the author’s trademark trenchant Padfield freely admits that this opinions on controversial or disputable interpretation of events is certainly Anglo- matters. For example, in assessing Jutland, centric and other nations saw much of what Padfield unambiguously concludes that the Britain did as simple self-interest. There is fundamental cause of the destruction of six as much truth in their version, and Britain British warships (three battlecruisers and certainly tarnished her democratic and three armoured cruisers) was sloppy liberal credentials on a regular basis. ammunition handling practices and cordite Nevertheless, the basic positive attributes that was unstable and of poor quality. The remain broadly true and important in the role of armour is deprecated, although not overarching narrative of the West’s all will agree with that assessment. In terms dominance of the globe. of the question of who won, Padfield is Britain’s global dominance, equally firm – material terms, Germany; certainly from the perspective of the tactical abilities were a draw (both had present, was unlikely to prevail forever. excellent and weak tactical aspects in their The history of much of the twentieth management of the engagement); strategic, century is, of course, how this dominance Britain. Not many would disagree with ended and how Britain, like the Dutch that. before them, reverted to perhaps the more Padfield’s conclusion is essentially appropriate status of a significant nation a development of the earlier themes he state on the edge of Europe, with, at most, a introduced in the first two books. While the limited power in the wider world. Simple rise of the Western world was a positive demographics and natural resource thing for the populations involved (Padfield endowments ensured this outcome. attributes it to trade and commerce the rule The narrative then covers the early of law, government limitations, developments of the three nations that transparency, and freedom of expression), would seek to overthrow British naval he perceives the current world structure as Book Reviews 453 untenable and on a downward track. His amateur there are many old friends. view is that the developing world wants Padfield will not be to everyone’s what the West has without any of these taste. For my part, I have no hesitation underlying factors securely in place. He whatsoever in recommending his book and notes that achieving what we have achieved the message he imparts. The book is the has been the result of centuries of evolution, fruit of a lifetime of reflection and analysis not a few decades, and seriously questions and a worthy monument to its writer. the availability of the necessary resources to deliver the standard of living sought. Ian Yeates Padfield arrives at the rather gloomy Regina, Saskatchewan conclusion that in defending what we have, much might be lost and that everyone will be less well off as a result. The role of Claire Puccia Parham. The St. Lawrence naval forces in this struggle will be pivotal, Seaway and Power Project. An Oral but not in the same benign way that the History on the Greatest Construction Royal Navy achieved the Pax Britannica Show on Earth. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse two hundred years ago, ushering in a period University Press, http://www.Syracuse of unprecedented prosperity; a prosperity UniversityPress.syr.edu, 2009. xxxi + 353 shared by all in the West, and to a degree, pp., illustrations, maps, notes, by those elsewhere as well. bibliography, index. US $49.00, cloth; The book includes a very limited ISBN 0-8156-0913-2. selection of maps and battle diagrams, and an assortment of illustrative photographs, Claire Parham’s The St. Lawrence Seaway most of which are well known from other and Power Project: An Oral History of the volumes. A pair of photographs of the Greatest Construction Show on Earth is a German battleship, and Admiral Scheer’s timely publication, not only because it flagship, SMS Friedrich der Grosse and coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the Admiral Jellicoe’s HMS Iron Duke are Seaway, a project virtually ignored over the particularly well chosen. The former is at past half-century by the public and scholars anchor in a tranquil port, with nary a ripple alike, but also because it effectively on the water. The latter, at sea in dirty captures, before they are lost, the voices and weather with spray reaching the top of “B” experiences of those who experienced the turret, symbolises, for this reader, the Seaway project firsthand. strategic outcome of Jutland. The notes are, This is the story of the workers — for the most part, simple references. There 22,000 in total — who toiled on the St. are, however, a goodly number of Lawrence Seaway and Power Project. illuminating comments on controversial Hailed as one of the greatest engineering matters that add much to the point in achievements of the twentieth century, it question. The notes are worth dipping into. indeed lives up to its billing as the “greatest Finally, a quick word on the bibliography: it construction show on earth” and is the is select, unannotated, and hence brief. largest power and navigation project ever There is limited reference to primary constructed by two nations. The $1.2 billion sources, unsurprising in a work of this project was completed cooperatively by nature. Padfield has made good use of Canada and the United States between 1954 secondary works, including material from and 1959. It featured the widening and all eras under study. There is little here for dredging of channels and concomitant the professional historian, but for the taming of rapids, the construction of seven 454 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord locks and an international power dam, and were interviewed. Overall, Parham has the flooding of thousands of acres of land done a strong job of selecting and crafting which necessitated the relocation of the various interview responses into a thousands of people, numerous flowing narrative that includes useful communities, and many miles of commentary and factual information. There transportation networks. are a few points, however, that are An instructor at Sienna College in repetitious. Given the technical nature of New York, Parham was raised and educated the subject, and the large amount of in the St. Lawrence area and has previously technical data in the book, there are written about the region. This familiarity is relatively few factual mistakes. evident as she weaves together the stories of The selection of interviewees is those involved in the creation of the skewed towards men from the American Seaway. As the subtitle suggests, the side, but that is largely excusable on sources employed here are oral interviews pragmatic and logistical grounds. These with 53 American and Canadian workers considerations also explain the generally and their wives, supplemented by heavier emphasis on the American newspaper articles and monthly perspective, even though a greater portion construction reports. In order to find of the Seaway lies in, and was built by, interviewees, Parham publicly advertised Canada. Parham interviewed different types that she was seeking former workers, and and levels of workers, and the inclusion of then found others through the initial their wives provides an extremely respondents. interesting perspective. The first chapter is a political The middle chapters relating the history of the St. Lawrence Seaway and day-to-day experiences of those involved in Power Project penned by the author. The the St. Lawrence project are the most next six chapters are thematic: the project interesting, ranging from details about from a design and mechanical perspective; installing concrete forms to what workers personal, educational, and work histories; did after their shift was finished. Equally daily work lives; construction dilemmas; intriguing are the mixed and varying leisure time for workers and families; the experiences of the guest and permanent experiences of the wives. A concluding residents of the Seaway area between 1954 chapter discusses why the project remains and 1959. The interviews are vivid when so vivid in the memories of those who describing the unforgettable impressions participated while touching on the issue of that the thousands of workers who came why it has never gained national and into the area to live and work for several international recognition. years — and some stayed permanently — The bulk of the book consists of had on the local inhabitants. One of the individual recollections; sometime a few more noteworthy findings is that although a lines, sometimes several paragraphs. The number of those interviewed talk about oral testimony is organized within chapters mistakes, shortcuts, oversights, etc., the by naming each respondent at the beginning workers generally tend to speak of the of his or her recollections. The author has project in very positive terms. At the same linked the personal accounts with short texts time, the book is very engaging when that introduce topics and provide seques revealing that people have differences of between topics. At the beginning of the opinion about similar and shared monograph the author has supplied short experiences. biographies of each of the persons who The St. Lawrence Seaway and Book Reviews 455 Power Project is strongest as regional, Newfoundlanders who served in the labour, social, cultural and gender history. Newfoundland Division of Britain’s Royal It would likely appeal to a popular Naval Reserve (RNR) until its disbandment audience, and could serve as supplement to in 1922. There is a table that names the 192 academic studies. Although the political men who died while on naval service in the and diplomatic aspect is not Parham’s focus, First World War, as well as lists of those she does a creditable job in her background who went to the U.K. in the initial drafts in history of the project, with a few 1914 and 1915 for service, and those who exceptions. In particular, she echoes other earned awards. These tables include the accounts by portraying the 1954 agreement men’s service numbers (sometimes more to build the Seaway as the natural outcome than one if they later joined the Royal of smooth bilateral relations; in fact, Canada Newfoundland Regiment or other RN only reluctantly acquiesced to American services) and their town of origin. This all participation. Granted, Parham relies on will enormously valuable to those with an secondary sources for this chapter rather interest in Newfoundland’s connection with than primary source research, so the the two navies. problem lies with the incompleteness of It all began when the RN, pressed information in the secondary literature. at home with the growing might of navies of This is a well-crafted oral history competing European powers, was looking to that makes a strong contribution to filling a the self-governing colonies to do more for gap in the historiography of an important their own defence rather than relying solely and under-examined subject. on British squadrons. At first, in 1900, there was an appeal from the governor to Daniel Macfarlane local fishermen and other seamen to Ottawa, Ontario participate during the off-season winter months in a training “cruise” south in an RN cruiser, usually an elderly vessel, for a W. David Parsons, Ean Parsons. The Best couple of months. This initiative aimed at Small-Boat Seamen In The Navy: providing a small “ready Reserve” of local Newfoundland Royal Naval Reserve seamen. Some of these stalwarts returned 1900-1922. St. John’s, NF: DRC year after year. In 1902, the governor, on Publishing, [email protected], behalf of the Newfoundland government, 2009. 244 pp., illustrations, sources, agreed to help finance the establishment of appendices, index. CDN $20.00 (post a more permanent local reserve, if the paid), paper; ISBN 978-0-9809369-4-0. Admiralty would also contribute funds and provide for the training of 600 men. The This magnificently researched volume is Admiralty agreed, and sent out an obsolete very much a contribution to the Canadian steam-and-sail screw corvette, HMS Navy’s 100th anniversary. Although it only Calypso (although Parsons refers to her as a touches the history of the Canadian navy cruiser) for use as a floating, stationery drill peripherally, it puts into the public record an hall in St. John’s. The Division never important aspect of the naval history of pre- looked back from that beginning until confederation Newfoundland that became financial woes in the early 1920s brought part of Canada’s naval traditions in 1949. the organization to an end. David Parsons and his son have recorded In peacetime, reservists signed on what must be a majority of the names and for five years, although most of them could many of the activities of those not complete that requirement, which 456 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord included 28 days of drill a year, and one Newfoundland reservists ended up in cruise with an RN ship during the five-year Canadian warships when Ottawa, on several engagement. The men received one shilling occasions, called on the Admiralty for the and one pence a day when on the drill ship loan of expert seamen. and one third of that amount when at sea. This book deserves to be on the Local magistrates received $2 for each new reference shelf of any historian of the recruit attested. In 1900-1901, 101 men Canadian navy, and of the Royal Navy in sailed on the training cruise, and that figure the era of the First World War. remained more or less stable on cruises in following years; the strength of the division Fraser M. McKee reached some 552 perosnnel by 1909. The Toronto, Ontario governor ensured there was an official interest in the operation of the plan, and even provided return warrants if the cruise Elizabeth Peirce. The Pirate Rebel - the ran late and men were required home for the Story of Notorious Ned Jordan. Halifax, fishing season. The book offers many small NS: Nimbus Publishing, http://www.nim vignettes of these early days, as well as buspublishing.com, 2007. $14.95 many photos. Regattas were held in and around St. John’s, especially if an RN ship Did co-authoring Saladin: Piracy, Mutiny & or squadron was visiting. It is intriguing to Murder on the High Seas with the late note that even during the First World War William Crooker give Elizabeth Peirce a Newfoundland Reserves could still opt out taste for maritime mutiny, murder and after their five-year commitment. Many mayhem? Peirce attempts to bring maritime returned to the colony and joined the other history to life by mixing fact with a healthy RNR — the Royal Newfoundland Regiment dose of fiction in the story of Edward (Ned) — in many cases to die at Beaument-Hamel Jordan. In The Pirate Rebel Peirce returns in France on 1 July 1916. with a tale of an Irishman to whom the When the call for recruits went out “Luck of the Irish” didn’t apply. His failed in the summer of 1914 the response was search for a better life in the New World immediate, and passenger liners were would eventually end in a Nova Scotia shortly calling in at St. John’s to take an courtroom and a gibbet on Halifax’s Black initial group of Newfoundland Reserves for Rock Beach. service with the RN, followed by more Ned Jordan’s early life of poverty, every year thereafter. In the words of the an abusive father and an abused mother title, these hardy ex-fisherman (in most made him ripe for membership in the cases) proved to be the most competent of Society of United Irishmen and small-boat handlers, particularly in the sea participation in the disastrous rebellion of boarding service of the 10th Cruiser 1798. Imprisoned by the Crown for treason Squadron that stopped and searched and sedition, Ned escapes the noose by merchant vessels north and west of the turning King’s Evidence. Fearing reprisals British Isles to enforce the maritime by the men to whom he had sworn an oath blockade against Germany. They also of loyalty, he moves to Cork, changes his served in many other places and roles: name to O’Carroll and briefly finds Gallipoli, the Dover Barrage, and in the happiness by marrying Margaret Morran. armed trawler service that greatly expanded Once members of the Brotherhood catch up through the war for anti-submarine and with him, he runs for his life, stowing away minesweeping duties. More than a few with his family on board a ship bound for Book Reviews 457 New York. He is discovered by the ship’s Jordan the necessary supplies to allow crew and put to work as a deck hand to pay him to return to the Gaspé to pick up the for their passage. He discovers a liking for “cargo.” To ensure that he does, the ship-board life and begins to dream of a Tremaines send a young sea captain by having a ship of his own. the name of John Stairs with instructions Arriving destitute in New York, he to execute the bill of sale and take is befriended by the leader of one of the possession of the vessel should Jordan many “Gangs of New York” who offers him abscond. Stairs then recruits a crew employment. Margaret is delighted that consisting of two Halifax sailors, Tom they will have decent lodgings and money Heath and Ben Mathews and a quick- for food but her contentment is soon dashed tempered Irishman, John Kelly. as Ned runs afoul of his murderous Jordan knows that the odds of him employer and they are once more on the keeping his ship are slim and that Stairs run. This time they take ship for Quebec. does not trust him. He resents the attention But Quebec has no streets of gold Stairs pays to his ill-treated family. And it and for five years the now-abusive son of an is becoming evident by his behaviour that abusive father ekes out a living as a Kelly is unbalanced. At Gaspé, Stairs learns fisherman. Hearing tales of the fortunes to that there is no cargo of fish and makes be made in the burgeoning city of Halifax, Jordan sign over the bill of sale and takes he coerces his wife to accompany him to command of the Three Sisters to return to Halifax in 1808. Halifax. Jordan is incensed as all his By now, Jordan is a man grown dreams are dashed. He wants to stay in the hard and driven, “accustomed for years to Gaspé but Margaret pleads with Stairs to living on the verge of starvation, Jordan has take her back to Halifax and Jordan altogether lost any sense of shame about reluctantly accompanies them. Stairs making promises he could not keep — purchases a cargo of fish and on 10 ethical considerations were a luxury September 1809 they set sail for Halifax. afforded only to the wealthy.” He strikes up Three days out, Stairs and Heath are looking an arrangement with the prosperous Halifax at a chart in his cabin, when Jordan armed chandlers, Jonathon and John Tremaine, to with a pistol, aims and fires. The bullet exchange a fictitious cargo of fish in a meant for Stairs kills Heath instead. On warehouse in the Gaspé, for a loan of deck, Stairs confronts Jordan only to find a money to build a fishing schooner. Once dying Matthews lying on the deck. In the the schooner is built he is sure his fortunes ensuing fight, Jordan is aided by Kelly and, will change for the better. But fate is inexplicably, his ill-treated wife. Stairs, unkind. His favourite daughter is injured in facing certain death at Jordan’s hands, an accident and under protest from the long- jumps overboard. Once more captain of his suffering Margaret, he moves the family to own vessel, Jordan yells at Kelly, “Turn her Gaspé to start construction of a schooner around! We’re bound for Newfoundland — named for his daughters, the Three Sisters. the law will never find us there.” Jordan had On completion of the vessel, Jordan sails crossed the line into piracy. her to Halifax, where he learns that his Luckily, Stairs is saved from a fictitious cargo of fish is to be seized for watery grave by a New England fishing non-payment of outstanding debts to the schooner which returns to Boston where Tremaines. In order to salvage their Stairs reports Jordan’s act of piracy to the investment, the Tremaines agree to give British consul. Meanwhile, the Three 458 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Sisters has docked at Bay Bulls, congealed blood...”(p.102). Peirce admits Newfoundland, where Jordan finds a new in the author’s note and acknowledgments crew to sail to Ireland with the cargo of salt “that many characters and events in this cod. Kelly disappears, only to be arrested book are purely and necessarily fictional.” later for his part in the crime. Although I cannot recommend Pirate Jordan’s plan ends when the Three Rebel for the serious reader of maritime Sisters is run down and boarded by a Royal history, I can recommend it for a younger Navy schooner. Jordan, his wife and crew audience or as a light summer read. are taken into custody and to Halifax, where Preteens who enjoy adventure stories with they are charged with murder and piracy. In a little blood and thunder will get a taste 1809 Halifax, the unusual combination of of life in the early nineteenth-century murder and piracy generate a great deal of Maritimes. public interest in the upcoming trial. Many prominent citizens of Halifax played a role in the events including Sir George Provost, Ross Wilson lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, Chief Ottawa, Ontario Justice Sampson Blowers, and the attorney general, Richard Uniacke. Nicholas Rogers. Press Gang: Naval On 13 September 1809, the trial Impressment and its opponents in opens and witnesses, including Stairs and Georgian Britain. London: Continuum, the members of Jordan’s crew, are called. http://www.continuumbooks.com, 2007. After a trial of several days, fortune finally xii + 168 pp., illustrations, tables, notes, smiles on Margaret Jordan. Saved by index. UK £17.99, paper; ISBN 978-1- testimony that she was influenced by her 84714-468-3. brutish husband, she is found not guilty and released. She eventually returns to Ireland Impressment enabled the British navy to with her children and disappears. man its fleets prior to the modern era. This Edward Jordan is found guilty and medieval institution coerced men into condemned to hang. On 23 November 1809 military service for centuries. Historians he is led to the gallows and executed. His such as Denver Brunsman and N.A.M. body is then hung from a gibbet on Point Rodger have examined impressment from Pleasant’s Black Rock Beach as a warning the perspective of naval administrators and to others. John Kelly, arrested in officers. They maintain that it was a Newfoundland and brought to Halifax for necessary evil, a regrettable but regulated trial, is found guilty of piracy, but pardoned business that provided listless men with on the grounds of insanity. Ms. Peirce’s career paths while manning the floating story of Ned Jordan reads like that staple bulwarks that defended an island nation. Other scholars, such as Jesse Lemisch and of nineteenth-century pulp fiction, the Marcus Rediker, have studied impressment “penny dreadful” — complete with a from workers’ perspectives. They argue book cover sporting a human skull. Her that taking men off port streets by force and prose is at times somewhat lurid and making them perform military duties for played for effect, “Jordan gave the deck years on end was akin to slavery. Nicholas hand his death with four crunching blows Rogers contributes to the later camp with to the skull. Blood rained out like a burst his latest book, The Press Gang. water pipe”. . . (p.100) and “where shards Rogers examines impressment of glass sparkled in the pools of Heath’s resistance among British subjects between Book Reviews 459 1739 and 1815. After an introduction in intractability of the manning problem” in which the author takes Rodger to task for these waters was principally due to the fact providing an “incomplete” portrait of that “the local imperatives of commerce did impressment, Rogers discusses the extent to not easily square with the imperatives of which civilians were able to use the British war.” (p.85) Colonial merchants wanted legal system to oppose this naval institution. convoys and safe shipping lanes, but they (p.13) Vessel-owning merchants had the detested the fact that the navy had to press most time and money to bring suit against their workers to make this happen. At the naval officers for confiscating their seamen. end of the book, Rogers interrogates the But, according to Rogers, workers were extent to which labourers who resisted able to “work the system” of legal loopholes impressment during the French Wars were that existed in the form of various patriotic. He argues that recalcitrant seamen exemptions from the press. (p.35) Maritime exhibited “loyalty to family and plebian labourers exploited these loopholes by self-respect, especially if it was colored by posing as masters, mates, and apprentices, new notions of citizenship propagated in and by enlisting in local militias. Seafarers radical circles.” (p.118) Resisting the press also had family members sue them for was, therefore, not necessarily an anti-war debts, which got them off warships and into statement. court. Rogers then quantifies resistance to The great strength of this book is impressment in England over the course of Rogers’ ability to link impressment, which the eighteenth century in order to evaluate only a small demographic can define and the pervasiveness of this opposition. He discuss, to larger social issues. For researched the Admiralty Solicitor’s letters example, he discusses resistance to military and naval officers’ internal communications, service in order to challenge the assertions and he found evidence of 602 “affrays and of historians who have studied nationalism. riots.” (p.39) He calculates that “one in While Linda Colley has argued that the four” impressment affrays resulted in “a Napoleonic Wars promoted patriotic death or serious injury.” (p.48) The military service among workers, Rogers frequency of violent opposition decreased, maintains that workers’ opposition to press however, by the end of the century. The gangs complicates these matters. (pp.105, “number of heavy casualties dropped to 11 111) He also challenges the assertion of per cent” of the affrays during the 1790s, Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker that down from a high water mark of 43.5 per impressment fostered international cent. (p.53) Rogers then spotlights two solidarity among diverse maritime large ports that maintained particularly deep labourers. For Rogers, “little space opened pools of maritime labour, Bristol and up for amicable relations between people of Liverpool. He finds that riots, lawsuits, and different cultures, let alone the cultivation the popularity of privateering constrained of wider solidarities” on board warships. the press in both ports. Liverpool riots were (p.100) Connecting seafarers to wider particularly violent, however, with “66 social issues such as nationalism and serious acts of violence” as opposed to 36 in working-class solidarity reinforces the fact Bristol. (p.73) Such violence was that the sea matters. Whether or not one principally due to the fact that the navy agrees with Rogers, academics interested in pressed more men from Liverpool than naval history and the history of maritime most other ports in England. Rogers then labourers will find broad implications for moves his analysis to Caribbean and North their own research in this book. American waters. He finds that “the Having said this, Rogers could 460 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord have made more of an effort to compare and conferences on the maritime history of the contrast naval impressment in the United region. Papers were subsequently published Kingdom and the colonies. The British in conference proceedings and the most navy did, after all, press men around the recent volume contains papers presented at world. Rogers includes accounts of the eighth North Sea History conference impressment in the Caribbean and North held in Bremerhaven in 2005. The topic of American mainland colonies in a single the volume is Crisis and Transition in the chapter. The bulk of the book focuses on maritime sectors during the period from England. The Canadian provinces and the 1790 to 1940. colonies beyond the Atlantic Ocean are The volume is chronologically completely ignored. A systematic effort to structured and split into four sections. In compare the nature of impressment and its the first section, two papers address crises opposition as it occurred around the globe caused by war. The papers cover the period would have enabled readers to discern from ca. 1790 to 1825, and ask how universal and particular qualities associated European wars influenced maritime trade. with popular resistance to this institution. In the case of Hamburg, Marzagalli Nevertheless, Rogers has done much to convincingly demonstrates that war did not illuminate the ways in which human agency automatically cause a crisis for merchants, constrained the expansion of coercive, who were often able to transfer trade to government-sponsored military conscription neutrals. Similarly, in the Norwegian case, throughout much of the British Atlantic presented by Nilsen, war did not World. He is to be applauded for refusing automatically translate into economic crisis. to yield the human spirit to ubiquitous In the early part of the European wars, structural forces associated with legal, Norwegians profited from neutrality. political, and military institutions such as Massive disruptions came, however, after impressment. 1807 when Norwegians were directly involved in the Napoleonic War and Christopher P. Magra problems continued long after the return of Northridge, California peace in 1814. The second section focuses on crises caused by technological change Lars Scholl & David M. Williams (eds.) between 1860 and 1913. Railways, Crisis and Transition. Maritime Sectors steamships and telegraphs certainly changed in the North Sea Region 1790-1940. 8th the rules of the game in the maritime North Sea History Conference, business, and they contributed to a decline Bremerhaven 2005. Bremen: Verlag H.M. in transportation costs during this period. In Hauschild, http://www.dsm.museum, 2008. a paper on Britain, Armstrong and Fenton 240 pp., illustrations, tables, notes. € discuss the coastal traders’ response to the 36.00, cloth; ISBN 978-3-89757-381-9. emerging competition from railways. In a Dutch case, Gaastra traces the transition Historians around the North Sea have a long from crisis to growth in shipping from 1860 tradition for cooperation, building to 1913, and Neutsch analyses the international bridges within the field of emergence of new infrastructural systems in maritime history. The North Sea History Northern Europe during this period. Association and its forerunner, the North Kaukiainen adds an important aspect to the Sea Society, have contributed greatly to this issue of change in the nineteenth-century tradition, having successfully hosted nine maritime industry, when arguing that free Book Reviews 461 trade policies were also important drivers difficulties encountered both by the behind the decline in transportation costs. presenters and editors in defining the In other words, technological changes were concept of crisis. As stated in the editors’ not alone in forming the transport system. introduction, the word crisis is commonly The third section is on crises and used by historians to draw attention to their economic downturn in the interwar period. own work, but a clear concept of what In his paper on the German fishing sector, constitutes a crisis is rarely presented. Heidbrink argues the perceived crisis of the Unfortunately, this volume does not develop German fishing sector was in fact a return or apply any clear crisis concept either. In to the normal after the First World War. The fact, only one paper within the volume perceived crisis was used by the fishing specifically attempts to formally define a industry to advance political industry crisis. This is Tenold’s paper, which interests. Siemon analyses the social establishes a framework for the analysis for history of seamen during the Great shipping market crises, by comparing the Depression, and the interwar development development of the Norwegian merchant of Norwegian shipping forms the topic of a marine in 1928-39 and 1976-87. Tenold paper by Tenold. clearly documents the 1930s to be a period Finally, the volume contains a of expansion in Norwegian shipping. section of papers by young researchers in Quantitative industry indicators (data sets the field of maritime history. These papers on vessel lay-up rates, average fleet age and are not directly related to the topic of the size and number of company entries to and conference. All of them, however, focus on exits from the shipping sector) convincingly significant changes in the maritime history show that the 1930s was a time of new of the North Sea area, and they clearly opportunities for Norwegian ship-owners. demonstrate that a strong new cohort of Norwegians successfully grasped these researchers is entering the stock of maritime opportunities, establishing a global historians. Daly presents novel dendro- stronghold in the highly important tanker chronological methods in an analysis of sector. Tenold shows that the label crisis maritime contacts in the North Sea region fits better on the period 1976-87, when the before 1500 and Serruys analyzes the city of number of Norwegian shipping companies Antwerp’s attempts to maintain its standing was drastically reduced and the Norwegian as a large European centre of trade in the fleet dwindled markedly. By the use of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. strong industry indicators, comparisons Wilcox presents new findings on the across time periods can yield a better apprenticed labour force in the British understanding of the concept of economic fisheries between 1850 and 1914 and Rack crises. Tenold shows that this can be done. takes the reader on three German polar The editors have done an excellent expeditions in the early decades of the job editing the conference papers into an twentieth century. Finally, Moeyes analyses interesting book. Conference proceedings the development of Dutch shipping and always contain numerous perspectives and shipbuilding from 1900-40, using an the coverage of an extended time period and interesting approach to map business a large region adds to this complexity. networks. While never succeeding in formally The title of the conference was defining a crisis, the authors and editors “Crisis and Response,” but the editors have clearly raise important questions. Hence, broadened the title of the book to “Crisis the volume is a significant contribution to and Transition.” This change indicates the maritime history in Northern Europe. 462 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Maritime history certainly abounds with their exploitation in northern Europe” in a examples of crises, but the discipline as Special Issue of Fisheries Research (Vol. such is not in a state of crisis. 87, nos 2-3) edited by B. R. MacKenzie and H. O. Ojaveer. René Taudal Poulsen The subject of this review is a book Esbjerg, Denmark presenting ten more papers revised for publication. The authors are archaeologists, oceanographers, biologists, ecologists, David J. Starkey, Poul Holm and historians and social scientists from the Michaela Barnard (eds.). Oceans Past: U.S.A., the U.K., Russia, Canada, Australia, Management Insights from the History of and Denmark. The subjects are as diverse Marine Animal Populations. London: as the origins of the common periwinkle, Earthscan, http://www.earthscan.co.uk, social conflict in the Florida sponge fishery, 2008. xxvi + 223 pp., illustrations, maps, the use of restaurant menus to track marine figures, tables, references, index. animal populations, the decline of the Cape UK£65.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-84407- Cod alewife fishery, mapping historic 527-0. fishing grounds in the Gulf of Maine, the rapid decline of the Pacific right whale At the intersection of the disciplines of under fisheries pressure, sperm whaling maritime history and marine biology exists grounds, sperm whale catch and encounter the History of Marine Animal Populations rates, the political history of the concept of (HMAP) research program of the Census of maximum sustained yield, and a review of Marine Life (CoML) project. CoML is a Russian and Scandinavian scientists who grandly-envisioned scheme to explore three attempted to obtain fisheries data from massive questions (What lived in the historical sources in the nineteenth century. oceans? What lives in the oceans? What will The use of menus is particularly live in the oceans?) over a ten-year period, interesting, producing data about the beginning in the year 2000. The destruction of stocks of marine animals that, approximately 2,000 researchers around the in some instances, have left behind no data world who have been working on this are on “boat price” or wholesale price, and little now anticipating the conclusion, the First other information. Glenn A. Jones, author Census of Marine Life in 2010. Public of “‘Quite the Choicest Protein Dish’: The awareness and publication of results are Costs of Consuming Seafood in American lagging behind a bit, and reviews of such Restaurants, 1850-2006” found archived publications are, of course, behind that. collections of menus and bills of fare In October 2005, the HMAP totaling more than 200,000 items across the project held a conference at Kolding, United States. Of these, about five percent Denmark, entitled “Oceans Past: (10,000 menus) contained the necessary Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the nuggets of information — a specific date, History of Marine Animal Populations.” prices of individual items, and restaurant About half-way through the project, the location. Dining establishments that conference provided a venue for researchers appeared to be at the upper and lower ends from the natural sciences and the humanities of the social spectrum were eliminated to to meet and discuss their findings. limit extremes in price unrelated to Participants presented 75 papers. In 2007, wholesale cost. Jones used prices from some of these papers were published as menus to explore the rise in popularity “History of marine animal populations and among the dining public and later species Book Reviews 463 endangerment of canvas-back ducks and Perhaps I have led a sheltered life, but it is abalones, and also explored the situation highly engaging to read a discussion of a regarding lobsters (for which more catch quantifiable paradox coefficient. data is available, and which have not been The papers published here are well endangered). Carefully normalizing the supported with explanatory bits at the dollar values to the Consumer Price Index beginning and end of the book, for general and its pre-1913 equivalent, the author understanding. Editing is well done and showed how the food prices of these species typos are minimal. The volume is generally exceeded the economy-wide inflation rate, well-illustrated, though some maps are too indicating rising popularity meeting small. All the illustrations are in black and decreasing stocks. white, but where the originals were in “Sperm Whale Catches and colour, they can be viewed on a website Encounter Rates during the 19th and 20th noted in the picture captions. Centuries: An Apparent Paradox,” by Tim Altogether, this is an inspiring and D. Smith, Randall R. Reeves, Elizabeth A. earnest attempt to find answers to historical Josephson, Judith N. Lund and Hal questions that really matter. Delving into Whitehead, reached somewhat less other disciplines for help in arriving at those satisfying conclusions, although not for answers should be something that historians want of trying. The paradox is that are used to. If some of the answers are twentieth-century catches of sperm whales vague or ambiguous, that should just on the Japan and Galápagos Grounds stimulate further study. greatly exceeded the nineteenth-century catches there, even though both catches and Nathan Lipfert sightings of sperm had peaked there in the Bath, Maine mid-nineteenth century and then declined markedly. The authors revisited the collection of all the data, and second- Tom Sullivan, AB. (M. Starke, ed.) guessed all the assumptions underlying the Escape to the Sea. Caithness, Scotland: paradox. They did not come up with an Whittles Publishing, http://www.whittles answer. They believe it possible that the publishing.com, 2008. xxv + 102pp., North Pacific whales hunted in the maps, illustrations, appendices, glossary, twentieth century came from populations notes, index. UK £14.99, paper; ISBN not hunted in the nineteenth century. They 978-1-904445-66-1. have ruled out statistical error in the twentieth-century catch figures, and nearly Ray Solly. Mariner’s Voyage. Caithness, ruled it out in the nineteenth-century Scotland: Whittles Publishing, http://www. figures. Need for further research in certain whittlespublishing.com, 2008. xi + 194 areas was pointed out — hunting loss or pp., illustrations. UK £14.99, paper; ISBN struck-and-lost rates, change in behaviour 978-1-904445-50-0. of whales or whalers, and whale population structure. It is certainly not surprising that Whittles Publishing of Scotland appears to the complex oceanic systems of the Pacific be successfully creating a niche market for should temporarily defeat researchers itself where the personal testimony of working with nineteenth- and mid- seafarers’ lives and experiences is twentieth-century data. The math of concerned. Escape to the Sea tells the story Appendix 2 may also defeat some readers, of Tom Sullivan, the orphaned son of Irish but I encourage everyone to read to the end. immigrant parents. Like so many of his 464 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord contemporaries, he chose seafaring as the most people could only imagine, while also only possible escape from a “miserable” providing us with glimpses of some of the existence, in his case as a tailor’s apprentice significant world events of their time. Thus, in mid-nineteenth century London. Such Tom Sullivan witnesses first-hand the lives was the influence of the sea on his life that of freed slaves in post-Civil War America he was determined to record his story, one while also visiting many of the former slave impetus being his attempt to encourage a ports on the east African coast. In Jonathan new generation to follow in his footsteps. Caridia’s case, it is the post-Second World He was in his late sixties when he wrote his War world which provides the backdrop, memoirs, originally titled At Sea under with visits to communist ports and those of Canvas Fifty Years Ago, and this book is his Japan illuminating the story. story, with careful and sympathetic editing While the two accounts belong to by his great grandson. different periods of history, both men also In contrast, Mariner’s Voyage is the held different positions within the merchant second volume of a trilogy narrated by navy hierarchy and thus provide unique Jonathan Caridia, a semi-autobiographical outlooks on their respective maritime account of seafaring during the 1950s- worlds. Tom Sullivan’s account is a rare 1970s, British shipping’s “golden age.” gem, a hand-written account by an educated Through the character of Jonathan Caridia, and literate able bodied seaman, albeit one the author provides a detailed account of a who retired from the sea to follow a young, newly qualified navigating officer successful non-maritime career ashore. and his subsequent development, While the “otherness” of the seafarer is promotions and varied experiences across a often cited as being universal, the reality, as range of trades and a variety of crews. expressed in Sullivan’s account, is that most As one would expect, both books seafarers did not spend their entire working offer interesting insights into the everyday lives at sea, and that seafaring was only one lives of seafarers, but a century apart. career option. Thus, we read of his attempt Despite a sometime romantic public to try his hand at working on the building of perception, life at sea is far from glamorous the Severn Tunnel between Wales and and both books remind us that, whatever the England for, as he notes, it had “nothing to developments in shipping and seafaring do with the sea, but it just shows what a over the last two centuries, many aspects of variety of jobs a seaman will tackle.” Yet the day-to-day seafarers’ experience do not the allure of the sea always appears too change. The ship itself is a demanding great for a young man, with employment workplace, even in the mid-twentieth not the only issue. As is often the case for century when safety measures at sea were someone with the sea in his blood, the far more developed than during the adventure of the sea is tempting — Sullivan Victorian period, and the dangers facing the enjoyed his trip to Quebec and so found seafarer is reflected in both accounts. Yet another ship which sailed there — while the no matter how hard or hazardous life at sea look of certain ships again proved enough to was, and remains, there is also much entice him to seek work on them. As with excitement and camaraderie which, it all such accounts, we get to know Tom appears, remain timeless attractions of this Sullivan as a seafarer but also as a person particular career, especially for many young with all his strengths and weaknesses. He people. Both authors find themselves can be stubborn, heroic, humorous, cunning visiting exotic places and seeing things but also sympathetic, as shown in his which, even in the mid-twentieth century, concern for the wife of a captain who was Book Reviews 465 ill and who Sullivan felt should not have incompetent officers and men at sea during made the voyage from Falmouth to Dublin the 1950s to 1970s whom Tom Sullivan in the first place. would have recognised. While his account of life and work There may be concerns regarding aboard ship is informative, and his the semi-autobiographical nature of experiences of the exotic provide interesting Mariner’s Voyage. The advantage, as the episodes, it is his description of life on author explains, is to provide an opportunity shore which this reviewer found particularly to portray events “which border still interesting. On the one hand they remind us dangerously close to libel” while allowing of the time when Britain was at the centre of the inclusion of events from other relevant world trade with, among others, the south sources. While this may be the case, the Wales ports of Cardiff and Newport question is: where does the author draw the prominent, and the sea routes he follows line where artistic licence is concerned and make interesting comparison with those of to what extent is this, therefore, a socio- the modern seafarer. On a practical level, historical account? Despite such we see clearly that reaching port was not misgivings, it must be emphasised that this necessarily a welcome experience. does not detract from the portrayal of a Certainly Sullivan’s story draws attention to seafarer’s life experience presented while, the need for the seafarer to be wary and one can argue, what seafarer’s life story attentive at all times if he was not to fall does not contain an element of imagination foul of the machinations of others. The and exaggeration? immediate vicinity of the port was no place Both publications reflect the for the naïve or faint-hearted! standard we have come to expect from In contrast to Tom Sullivan, the Whittles Publishing, though there is an central character of Mariner’s Voyage has elementary inconsistency between the two completed his cadetship and the book volumes. While Escape to the Sea contains begins with his joining his first vessel as a detailed index and glossary (the latter third navigating officer. The word which being particularly useful and illuminating), sums up the difference between the life of the absence of both in Mariner’s Voyage is the seafarer during the mid-twentieth to be noted. Similarly, while the former century as opposed to the mid-nineteenth work contains useful maps showing ports century is “professionalism.” By the mid- visited by Sullivan, their inclusion in the twentieth century developments in shipping latter would have been a useful and and ports, if only in terms of technology and attractive addition. the ship’s crew, on the one hand, and the Both books contain a number of introduction of measures to ensure the relevant and interesting illustrations. It is seafarer’s well being, and improved only to be expected that an account of life at working and living conditions, on the other, sea in the mid-twentieth century should meant that professional crews were the contain a larger number of photographs and order of the day. We see Jonathan Caridia’s this is to be commended. Indeed, for this professional development and respect his reviewer, it is the photographs which draw willingness to develop his potential in his attention to the huge changes which had chosen career. This is not to decry the skills taken place from the world Tom Sullivan and competences of Tom Sullivan and his knew and the mid-twentieth century era, but seafaring certainly had changed by seafarer’s world of Jonathan Caridia. the mid-twentieth century. On the other Modern facilities from cabins for individual hand, it is also the case that there were still officers, to on-board libraries, on the one 466 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord hand, and technology beyond the wildest alliterative poetry. Motivated by a curiosity imaginings of the nineteenth-century AB, on about how things were done at sea six the other, remind us of how far the hundred years ago, Ward has talked with a seafarer’s world had changed — and range of scholars, sailors, lawyers and boat- continues to change. builders in preparing for this book. The blurb on the back cover of one In the Middle Ages, maritime law, volume refers to “a working world navigation and trading were not yet separate unimaginable in the modern era” while the occupations and until now, little was known second volume mentions “a way of life of the personal lives, background or training overtaken by events.” In this respect, both of an English medieval shipmaster. Ward’s volumes should be essential reading for the enthusiasm for his subject shines brightly as modern seafarer, the armchair enthusiast he explains the shipmaster’s role and and those maritime historians interested in responsibilities as a manager ashore and the everyday experiences of the ordinary afloat, and examines his options in owning seafarer and his world. and trading with ships. He empathizes with the master who, having acquired a vessel John Robert Evans and found sufficient cargo to earn a Caernarfon, Wales profitable freight, had to deal with the bureaucracy of arranging credit against the charter-party, fitting out and victualling his Robin Ward. The World of the Medieval ship, and paying his crew for the outward Shipmaster: Law, Business and the Sea, c. voyage. This is not to mention abiding by 1350-1450. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: the protocols covering relations with the Boydell Press, http://www.boydellandbre merchant shippers who traveled with their wer.com, 2009. ix + 260 pp., illustrations, cargoes and often acted as seafarers. tables, appendices, bibliography, index. The first known code of maritime US $95.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-84343- law, Lex d’Oléron, was a collection of sea 455-7. customs compiled in the thirteenth century under the authority of Richard Cœur de In spite of war, piracy and legal and Lion to govern the Gascon trade passing by political uncertainties, English merchant the island of Oléron, which had been under shipping flourished between the mid- English control for 220 years. With the fourteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries. Yet, increasing complexity of merchant a seagoing ship was not only an expensive shipping, Edward III set up a record of legal capital investment, it was, before marine decisions in 1375, known as the Inquisition insurance was known in the northern world, of Queenborough, to establish rules for also the riskiest. Antonio in The Merchant contentious maritime issues. N.A.M. of Venice knew the importance of cargo- Rodger notes in his book Safeguard of the spreading: “My ventures are not in one Sea (2001), that a law code is, in its nature, bottom trusted…Therefore my merchandise evidence for what people thought should makes me not sad.” happen rather than what actually did. Ward, Robin Ward holds a Ph.D. in however, argues that these codes and rules history and an Offshore Yachtmaster’s were accepted as current law among English Certificate. He has published papers on seamen and in English courts and, unlike in medieval freighting agreements and the Navy, were responsible for the relaxed navigation and written a thesis on maritime relationship at sea between shipmaster and passages in fourteenth-century English servant. Book Reviews 467 Ward is fascinated by the their word being their bond, as they still do development of navigation from the art of today, but the author has examined and keeping close to the coast and fixing organized a mound of multilingual medieval positions on landmarks in 1350 to a science material, including parliamentary and court in 1450 with the introduction of the magnetic records. Excellent illustrations are coupled compass and the hour-glass. The earliest with photographs of important documents surviving instruction manual on the and those working in merchant shipping may techniques of medieval seamanship is be surprised at how many current documents Bourne’s Regiment for the Sea in 1574 and are descended from ancient times. Five Ward overlooks the contribution of Prince appendices contain the author’s translation Henry of Portugal, born in 1394. In Prince and transcription of Oléron and Henry the Navigator (2001) Russell credits Queenborough and a 16-page select him with creating Europe’s first maritime bibliography includes readily accessible empire and Bethencourt, in his book sources from European maritime nations in Portuguese Oceanic Expansion 1400-1800 Dutch, French, German, Portuguese and (2007) believes Henry’s interest in the Latin. science of marine cartography and an In Robin Ward’s world of the obsession with charting a way around medieval shipmaster, contemporary western Africa, led to the conquest of Ceuta commercial practices influenced the in 1415 and the beginning of the global development of navigation, ship performance Portuguese diaspora. and seamanship and regulated relations The economic historian might feel between merchant, shipowner and crew. But, that the author could have said more about ever the yachtsman, Ward contends that a the effect on shipmasters of the important homeward passage before the wind, with the westward shift of the epicenter of maritime sun on his back, a hold full of wine and not commerce in the late thirteenth century. For another sail in sight, would amply example, Stopford’s book, Maritime compensate any shipmaster for all the harsh Economics (2009), blames the weakened conditions he had faced. economy of the Byzantine Empire for the movement of trade to the growing North Michael Clark West Europe while Allison, in his book London, UK Genoa and the Sea (2005), credits the arrival of the Genoese and Venetians in the North Sea for turning Bruges into the new maritime William D. Wilkinson and Commander entrepôt monopolizing the English wool Timothy Dring, USNR (Ret.). American trade. Coastal Rescue Craft: A Design History of This entertaining product of detailed Coastal Rescue Craft Used by the United States scholarship will fascinate readers of early Life-Saving Service and the United States Coast history as it brings to life ship performance, Guard. Gainesville, FL: University Press of navigation and seamanship. Maritime Florida, http://www.upf.com, 2009, xxxi + 185 historians will appreciate Ward’s meticulous pp, companion CD, illustrations, notes, research, comprehensive appendices, bibliography, appendices, index. US $125.00, transcriptions, translations and dissections of cloth; ISBN 978-0-8130-3334-1. medieval legal texts and an index listing over 33 contemporary merchants. Early written A new volume in the University Press of agreements in merchant shipping are rare Florida’s series New Perspectives on since in matters of trust the parties relied on Maritime History and Nautical 468 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Archaeology, this book provides detailed replacement for the DUKW, the “LARC,” information on the types of coastal rescue beginning in 1963. The LARC suffered craft that have been used by the United from the same shortcomings as the DUKW, States Life-Saving Service (USLSS) and limited to use only under mild surf the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and conditions, as well as material their design histories. It traces the deterioration and maintenance problems, development of the design characteristics and it was retired from use by the early of these coastal rescue craft and how they 1980s. During the 1970s a number of U.S. have been utilized and improved, as well Navy air-cushioned vehicles (ACVs) were as how their design descendents today transferred to the Coast Guard and continue to be used in the humanitarian assigned as high-speed patrol and rescue work of saving lives in peril on the sea. craft but their higher maintenance More than technical and design requirements and lack of towing capability history, this is also a highly readable limited their usefulness. narrative that provides information on key Lieutenant Commander Robert individuals in this development. Sumner I. Witter of the Coast Guard played a key Kimball is singled out as one of the federal role in the ultimate success of the 44-foot government’s best career administrators of lifeboat design, one of the most successful his time, and the individual most boat designs in Coast Guard history. For responsible for developing the U.S. Life- the almost half-century the 44-foot Saving Service into the highly effective lifeboats were in use they were highly life-saving organization that it became. praised for their ruggedness and surf Also lauded are Captains James Merryman capabilities. The final 44-foot Motor and Charles McLellan of the Revenue Lifeboat was retired in May 2009. Cutter Service for their significant impact In the Coast Guard of the 1980s on the designs of rescue craft selected by and 1990s, wooden- and fiberglass-hulled the USLSS for Service use. motor surfboats were replaced by a highly McLellan played a key role in capable type of craft referred to as the ushering in the modern age of coastal rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB). The rescue craft by applying new engineering authors conclude with a discussion of the technology, the gasoline engine, to an 47-foot motor lifeboat as the successor to established hull form developed through the venerable 44-foot motor lifeboat. This hard Service experience at the end of the was to be the first U.S. lifeboat design to nineteenth century. The authors argue that incorporate multi-mission tasking such as the development of the 34-foot and 36-foot law enforcement and military operations. motor lifeboats was the most important The authors conclude that the innovation in the history of American Coast Guard has generally been successful lifeboat design. Its self-righting features at incorporating newer technology into made it one of the best liked boats in the their rescue craft designs, such that the Coast Guard. boats in use today provide much improved One interesting development response times, operational radii, and covered is the Coast Guard’s adoption of protection for crew and survivors than the the Army’s amphibious truck, the pulling/sailing boats of old. “DUKW,” as a motorized rescue craft that In writing this book, Dr. could be used by beachfront stations in Wilkinson, director emeritus of the place of their pulling surf-boat from 1944 Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, to the early 1970s and the later Virginia and Commander Dring, a retired Book Reviews 469 Navy reservist, utilized primary reference maritime historian interested in the U.S. material, including original, official Life-Saving Service or the U.S. Coast documents of the U.S. Life-Saving Service Guard. Many will benefit through the use and U.S. Coast Guard contained in the of the information in this book. National Archives, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office, the Coast C. Douglas Kroll Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland and Palm Desert, California individual Coast Guard district offices. The authors have used photographic evidence where documents were not available. Filled with photographs and boat drawings, this book is a valuable historical reference book. Unfortunately, the boat design and construction data from the Coast Guard era after the late 1930s is almost nonexistent in the National Archives, and very few boat construction records from the Coast Guard’s Curtis Bay Yard could be found. This book, therefore, serves to “capture” and preserve this information for public and maritime historians. While other books provide in- depth information on the history of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and the U.S. Coast Guard, none have provided complete information on probably the most important tools — the boats — that early surfmen and contemporary Coast Guardsmen employ in carrying out their rescue missions. Now, for the first time, detailed design histories, specifications, drawings and station assignment information for each type of coast rescue craft that has been used since the formal establishment of a federal lifesaving service in the mid-1800s is available. An enclosed CD provides complete specification information and plans, along with a tabular listing of all Life-Saving Service and Coast Guard stations and their boat assignments over the years of their operation to the current day. This is an invaluable maritime historical reference work that fills a long- standing gap, and should be in the library of every maritime organization and every 470 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord

Editorial Note – General index Volume XX. Starting with the current Volume, XIX, page numbering of articles, research notes and book reviews is sequential through all four issues. Thus the following general index of this volume does not contain the issue number. Editorial, index and conference announcement pages continued to be placed at the start and end of each issue, using Roman rather than Arabic numerals. This aligns The Northern Mariner/le marin du nord more closely with the standards used by comparable international journals and should facilitate citing of references.

Paul Adamthwaite October 2009