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As touching their tunnage, I thinke it may be neere fiue or sixe thousand tunne. But of Portugals there are not lightly aboue 50 saile, and they make all wet in like sorte, whose tunnage may amount to three thousand tuns, and not vpwarde.
To encourage and promote domestic navigation, an act was passed by the first congress conferring special privileges upon vessels built and owned by citizens of the United States. This was done by laying duties on tunnage. Tunnage means the content of a ship, or the burden that it will carry, which is ascertained by measurement, 42 cubic feet being allowed to a tun.
The caracke being in burden by the estimation of the wise and experienced no lesse then 1600 tunnes had full 900 of those stowed with the grosse bulke of marchandise, the rest of the tunnage being allowed, partly to the ordinance which were 32 pieces of brasse of all sorts, partly to the passengers and the victuals, which could not be any small quantity, considering the number of the persons betwixt 600 and 700, and the length of the nauigation.
But the necessity of discriminating duties no longer exists. By the stipulations of existing treaties between the principal commercial nations, each is to admit into her ports the vessels of the others on equal terms with her own. Our government having become a party to this agreement, discriminating tunnage duties have been abolished.
It contains the name of the vessel and that of her master, her tunnage, and the number of her crew, certifying that she belongs to the subjects of a particular state, and requiring all persons at peace with that state, to suffer her to proceed on her voyage without interruption. In this country the form of a passport is prepared by the secretary of state, and approved by the president.
The last restrictions upon the power of the states contained in this section, are: "No state shall, without the consent of congress, lay any duty of tunnage; keep troops or ships of war in time of peace; enter into any agreement or compact with any other state, or with a foreign power; or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay."
A vessel is measured by a surveyor to ascertain her tunnage, and the collector records or registers in a book her name, the port to which she belongs, her burden or tunnage, and the name of the place in which she was built, and gives to the owner or commander a certificate of such registry.
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