The Norwegian merchant fleet expanded dramatically during the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century. Between 1850 and 1880 alone it increased more than five-fold, making it not only the fastest-growing but also the third largest fleet in the world by tonnage." This growth also reflected the increasing orientation by Norwegian shipowners towards international freight markets; by 1875, seventy-eight percent of the fleet's earnings came from the cross-trades. 3 The expansion of the Norwegian fleet was part of a broader change in the maritime sector in the second half of the nineteenth century. As a response to improved access to international shipping markets after the repeal of the British Navigation Acts, fleets from nations such as Canada, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Greece all experienced periods of expansion that were more rapid than the growth of world tonnage as a whole, thus reducing the lThe authors would like to thank Even Lange, Skip Fischer and the participants at the European Business History Association's Congress in Bergen, Norway, in August 2008 for comments. We are indebted to Professor Robert Lee for access to the Liverpool Mercantile Database and to Kati Nurmi for excellent assistance.