Merchant shipping carried private commerce and sustained national infrastructure. Merchant demand kept shipyards, gun makers, suppliers, and skilled labour active, spreading costs that would otherwise fall directly on the state. Commercial vessels also carried the heavy goods that an age without mass road or rail networks could not move efficiently overland. Royal dockyards depended on that wider maritime economy, and control of coastal transport was itself a form of national power.
Notable Point · 16:27-18:11
Merchant shipping as naval infrastructure
A healthy merchant fleet sustained shipbuilders, dockyards, stores, maritime labour, and the movement of heavy goods around the country.