Merchant Fleet

Famous quotes containing the words merchant and/or fleet:

    “People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit.... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.”
    —William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    “On the middle of that quiet floor
    sits a fleet of small black ships,
    square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
    their spars like burned matchsticks.”
    —Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)