5 - Winds

Summary

“Ah! why cannot men be content with the blessings Providence places within our immediate reach, that they must make distant voyages to accumulate others!”

“You like your tea, Mary Pratt – and the sugar in it, and your silks and ribbons that I've seen you wear; how are you to get such matters if there's to be no going on v'y'ges? Tea and sugar, and silks and satins don't grow along with the clams on 'Yster Pond” – for so the deacon uniformly pronounced the word ‘oyster.’ Mary acknowledged the truth of what was said, but changed the subject.

–James Fenimore Cooper, The Sea Lions

If The Old World expansionists were to be able to take full advantage of the global opportunities for ecological imperialism prefigured by the European successes in the islands of the eastern Atlantic, they would have to cross the seams of Pangaea – the oceans – in large numbers, along with their servant and parasite organisms. That great endeavor waited on five developments. One of the five was simply the emergence of a strong desire to undertake imperialistic adventures overseas – a prerequisite that may seem too obvious to bother mentioning, but not one we can omit, as the Chinese case, to which we shall refer presently, proves. The other four developments were technological in nature. Vessels were needed that were large enough, fast enough, and maneuverable enough to carry a worthwhile payload of freight and passengers across thousands of kilometers of ocean, past shoals, reefs, and menacing headlands, and back again in reasonable safety. Equipment and techniques were needed to find courses across oceans while out of sight of land for weeks, even months, on voyages far longer than any the Norse ever survived. Weaponry was needed that was portable enough to be carried on board ship and yet effective enough to intimidate the indigenes of the lands across the oceans. A source of energy was needed to drive the vessels across the oceans. Oars would not do: Neither freemen nor slaves could row without fresh water and plenty of calories, and a galley large enough to carry sufficient supplies for an oar-powered crossing of the Pacific would, paradoxically, be too large to row anywhere.