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XII.
SHIPPING AND NAVIGATION.
The extensive coasts of Sweden with ample supply of harbours,
its many rivers, and innumerable inland lakes have naturally always
made our nation a sea-faring one. Still the history of our foreign
shipping shows many changes, and times of progress have not seldom
been followed by a decided declination. At present the insight in the
need of improvement for our shipping asserts itself more and more, as
well to our tradesmen as also to the legislative authorities.
The short summary given in the preceding, concerning the history
of Swedish commerce, also includes the leading features of that of
shipping. Still the latter shows certain peculiar features, and, on the whole,
it is of course not necessary that the shipping and the commerce of a
people must show a parallel development, though this has as a rule
been the case in our country.
During the famous »Viking time», the sea voyages of the Scandinavians were
longer and more daring than those of all other peoples. When during the latter
part of the Middle Ages, the wars were carried on more by land than by sea,
the naval defence fell into decay, and therewith not only the old superiority at
sea of the Scandinavian peoples ceased, but for a certain time also the
sea-manworthiness of the people and their taste for navigation too. Instead of
the Scandinavians, the Hansards became masters of the Baltic and North Sea,
and possessed themselves of shipping as well as commerce. King Gustavns
Vasa (1523/60) tried to revive in his Swedish people the former skill in
seamanship and naval architecture, and how he partly succeeded is already mentioned above.
During the seventeenth century great efforts were made by regents and
statesmen to help up our shipping, and partly with success. That the result was not
better, depended principally upon the unequal »competition with the Dutch.
The wars of Charles XII (1697/1718) were as ruining for our shipping as
for our other trades. In the beginning of the decade 1721/30 the Swedish
merchant fleet is said to have numbered only about a hundred vessels. After
the issuing of the above mentioned »Proclamation of 1724, it, however, make
such a rapid progress that already towards 1730 it amounted to about five
hundred vessels. Through the East India Company (page 912) our shipping on
distant countries was also considerably advanced. A splendid time was entered
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