Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 28, 2025
Thus, in becoming a citizen of Venice, Giovanni Caboto the Genoese was leaving the best home of scientific navigation for the best home of sea-borne trade. His very name was no bad credential. Surnames often come from nicknames; and for a Genoese to be called Il Caboto was as much as for an Arab of the Desert to be known to his people as The Horseman.
Cabottággio now means no more than coasting trade. But before there was any real ocean commerce it referred to the regular sea-borne trade of the time; and Giovanni Caboto must have either upheld an exceptional family tradition or struck out an exceptional line for himself to have been known as John the Skipper among the many other expert skippers hailing from the port of Genoa.
The American naval men were intent upon duty and their duty was merely to protect the dignity as well as the safety of our sea-borne commerce. The mercenary element was absent and that Mr. Daniels did well to emphasize this fact was the conviction of the navy as well as of the entire country; while, at the same time, as the secretary said, the spirit underlying the offer was appreciated.
As has been stated already, the defence of our sea-borne trade, being in practice the keeping open of our ocean lines of communication, carried with it the protection, in part at any rate, of our transmarine territories. Napoleon held pertinaciously to the belief that British prosperity was chiefly due to our position in India.
It became necessary for us to make such arrangements that the maritime paths by which a hostile expedition could approach our home-coasts, or hostile cruisers molest our sea-borne trade, or hostile squadrons move to the attack of our trans-marine dependencies that all these paths should be so defended by our navy that either the enemy would not venture to traverse them or, if he did, that he could be driven off.
Both the Navy and the merchant service depended in a very large degree upon the seaman who knew the ropes who could take his turn at the wheel, scud aloft without going through the lubber-hole, and act promptly and sailorly in emergency. To take wholesale such men as these, while it would enormously enhance the effectiveness of His Majesty's ships of war, must inevitably cripple sea-borne trade.
It is obvious that if the object and end of naval warfare is the control of communications it must carry with it the right to forbid, if we can, the passage of both public and private property upon the sea. Now the only means we have of enforcing such control of commercial communications at sea is in the last resort the capture or destruction of sea-borne property.
It is unfortunate that so far we have no large-scale representations of the ships in which these early masters of the ocean conducted the sea-borne commerce of the Ægean world.
And what more natural connection can there be between any two ideas than between those of common defense and general welfare, since the general welfare of no country has ever continued long unless it was defended. Now the general welfare of every maritime power has always been intimately concerned with its sea-borne commerce.
This at once indicates the importance of ocean lines of communication. War is the method adopted, when less violent means of persuasion have failed, to force your enemy to comply with your demands. There are three principal ways of effecting this invasion of his country, raids on his territory, destruction or serious damage of his sea-borne commerce.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking