After this date the history of Greenock is best told in an account of the numerous harbour extensions rendered necessary by the constantly increasing prosperity and importance of the port. But, before taking up this, some notice must be taken of the burgh of Cartsdyke, which has been already alluded to. In 1636, the date of the first Greenock charter, Cartsdyke (so called from the dyke or quay there, and said to be contracted from Crawfordsdyke) was an important place, so jealous of its neighbour burgh that, when Greenock received a charter, it too got itself erected into a burgh of barony, with the privilege of a weekly fair. The poll tax roll of 1696 bears evidence of the prosperity of the herring trade of Cartsdyke, and a writer describes the burgh, in 1710, as possessing a very convenient harbour for vessels, and the town as chiefly feued by merchants, seamen, or loading men. In 1752 a white-fishing station was established at Cappielow, near Garvel Point, and about the same time some Dutch whalers settled at Cartsdyke, four vessels being despatched to the Greenland seas in one year. The success of this venture was not great enough to justify its continuation, and in 1788 the industry was abandoned altogether. In earlier days the two burghs were separated, not only by jealousy, but by two considerable streams, Dailing or Delling Burn, and Crawford's or Carts Burn. A road between the two townships was maintained at their joint expense, but the extension of both, and the course of time, obliterated the distinction between them, and the fusion was completed in 1840 by an Act of Parliament, which united them in one burgh. While Greenock has practically swallowed up Cartsdyke, the latter possesses all the greater and later harbour works, as will be seen further on.
     The year 1760 deserves to be noted as the date of the launch of the first square-rigged vessel built in Greenock. This was the brig Greenock built by Peter Love. In 1782 the merchants of Greenock became aware of the necessity for a graving-dock, and consultations between the merchants and the town council resulted in the formation of a company with funds to the amount of £3500, of which £580 was subscribed by the town. The dock was completed in 1786, and cost about £4000. It is 220 feet long at the floor-level, 33 feet 11 inches wide at the entrance, and is fitted for vessels drawing 10 feet of water. The next move in the direction of increasing the accommodation for vessels was the erection of what is now known as the Steamboat Quay. A resolution to add a new eastern arm to the E quay was come to in 1788, and the work was carried out at an expense of £3840, which covered the cost of the eastward extension and the reconstruction of the westward arm of the E quay. When these were completed it was found that a rock called the Leo hindered the access of vessels to the quay, and in consequence a new contract for a work to cover this was entered into in 1791. Further improvements on the Steamboat Quay were made between 1809 and 1818, when new breasts were built round all the harbours, and the quays were advanced a few feet riverwards. The quayage of the Steamboat Quay, or Customhouse Quay, as it is sometimes styled, is 1000 feet. A considerable time now elapsed before another actual extension of the harbour was undertaken, and the 29th of May 1805 was signalised by the ceremony of laying, with masonic honours, the foundation-stone of the East India Harbour, extending from the Steamboat Quay on the W to the Dailing Burn on the E. It was designed by John Rennie, who estimated the cost at £43,836 exclusive of the site. Its area was 9 statute acres, and it was built, as its name indicates, for the accommodation of the East India trade. Its extent has been diminished by the broadening of the quays, and by the construction of the New Dry Dock close by. It is now only 6 3/4 acres in area, and the quay frontage is 3380 feet. The next increase of harbour accommodation was brought about by the building of the New Dry Dock begun in 1818. The plan was a modification of another design prepared in 1805 by Mr. Rennie, but rejected by the harbour trustees on account of the estimated expense (£36,000). This dock is situated at the SW corner of the East India Harbour, and cost £20, 000. The work was executed by Mr. Mathieson, the contractor who had built the Custom House. The dock is 356 feet long on the floor-level, 38 feet wide at the entrance, and at high water has a depth on the sill of 11 feet 10 inches. The want of still greater accommodation for vessels began to be felt in course of time, and in 1846 the Victoria Harbour, designed by Mr. Joseph Locke, M.P., and constructed by Messrs. Stephenson, M`Kenzie, and Brassey, was begun. It cost £120,000, and was finished in 1850. The area is over 6 acres, the depth at low water 14 feet, and at high water 24 feet, and the quayage extends to 2350 feet. The soil excavated for this harbour was conveyed to where the Albert Harbour now stands, and when the latter was constructed the earth was taken still farther down the river, where, with a substantial retaining-wall in front, it forms a handsome esplanade, 1 1/4 mile in length and 100 feet broad. Before the commencement of this harbour there was a dispute as to whether it should be made down the river or in the direction of Cartsdyke, and the latter opinion prevailed. The letting-in of the water into the Victoria Harbour, 17 Oct. 1850, was the occasion of a great public demonstration, the foundation-stone of Sir Gabriel Wood's Mariners' Asylum being laid on the same day. The next harbour was built farther seaward than any other, and occupies the site of the Albert Quay and of Fort Jervis, erected to protect the Clyde during the Napoleonic wars. The foundation-stone of the Albert Harbour was laid with great ceremony on 7 Aug. 1862. In its construction some engineering novelties were introduced with successful results. Exclusive of sheds it cost £200,000, and, with the ground, sheds, and other appliances, the expense was over £250,000. Its extent is 10 acres, the quay accommodation 4230 feet, the depth at low water 14 feet, and at high tide 24 feet. The establishment of a railway terminus close by, by the Glasgow and South-Western Railway Company, gave additional importance to this large harbour. In 1882 the harbour trustees resolved to improve and dredge the harbour, to widen its NW arm, and to erect new sheds on the latter at an estimated cost of £15,230. Greenock's next addition to its spreading quay system was the Princes Pier, running W from the Albert Harbour, principally used as a stopping place for railway and river steamers. It has cost nearly £100,000, and the frontage is 2206 feet, of which the sea frontage, available for deep sea steamers, constitutes 1600 feet, the remainder being in the form of an enclosed boat harbour. The depth at low water is fully 16 feet. We have to turn again to Cartsdyke to find a series of stupendous undertakings rendered necessary by the continued increase of the commerce of Greenock, and calculated to still further stimulate that prosperity. First in order of time is the Garvel Graving Dock, built on the Garvel estate, acquired by the harbour trustees in 1868 for £80,000. The foundation-stone of the dock was laid on 6 July 1871. It is a magnificent specimen of marine engineering, and was designed by Mr. W. R. Kinipple, the trustees' engineer. Costing £80,000, it is built of Dalbeattie granite, and has a specially designed caisson at the entrance. It is 650 feet long, 601 feet wide at the gate, and has 20 feet of water on the sill at ordinary spring tides. The James Watt Dock is also built on the Garvel estate, and this work was begun by the cutting of the first sod on 1 Aug. 1879, the foundation-stone being laid on 6 Aug. 1881, on the same day as that of the new municipal buildings, and it was opened for traffic in 1886. The dock was designed by Mr. Kinipple, and built by Mr. John Waddell, of Edinburgh, at a cost of £650,000. It is 2000 feet in length, 400 feet wide, with a depth of 32 feet at low water, and the breadth of the entrance at the coping level is 75 feet. In further extension of the harbour accommodation of Greenock, an Act was obtained in 1880, giving power to build a massive river-wall from Garvel Point to Inchgreen, an extensive work, in the prosecution of which the electric light was for the first time used in Scotland for any public purpose. This wall embraces two large tidal harbours, the Northern Harbour, of 7 acres, and the Great Harbour of 46 acres, both of which have a depth of 25 feet at low water. These later works in all involved an expenditure of about £500,000. The total harbour accommodation of Greenock amounts to upwards of 100 acres, of which the later works will present an average depth of 25 feet at low water, while the James Watt Dock has a depth, as stated, of 32 feet at low water. The Esplanade, formed at a cost of upwards of £20,000, has, as already mentioned, a length of about a mile and a quarter. It has a substantial palisaded parapet, numerous seats along its course, and contains a fountain erected by a number of admirers to the memory of the poet Galt, who resided and is buried in the town. Fort Matilda, with a torpedo battery for the protection of the river, stands at the river side.
      The following table gives the aggregate tonnage of vessels registered as belonging to Greenock at different periods during the present century:--

The increase shown here is due more to the size than to the number of the vessels, this having been 241 in 1825, 386 in 1837, 418 in 1853, 384 in 1867, 444 in 1881, and 300 in 1895, viz., 186 sailing and 114 steam. The next table gives the tonnage of vessels that entered from and cleared to foreign countries and coastwise:--

Of the total, 8558 vessels of 1,697,083 tons, that entered in 1895, 7967 of 1,609,323 tons were steamers, 839 of 104,661 tons were in ballast, and 8317 of 1,483,550 tons were coasters; whilst the total, 8879 of 1,910,418 tons, of those that cleared included 8431 steamers of 1,809,582 tons, 1351 ships in ballast of 257,345 tons, and 8690 coasters of 1,722,614 tons. The total value of foreign and colonial imports was £2,458,588 in 1891, £2,690,598 in 1892, £2,231,797 in 1893, £1,591,643 in 1894, and £1,912,596 in 1895, in which last year they comprised 2,230,536 cwts. of unrefined and 127,342 of refined sugar, 112,766 loads of timber, 24,200 cwts. of corn, etc. Of exports to foreign ports the value in 1831 was £1,493,405, in 1851 £491,913, in 1872 £861,065, in 1880 £423,092, in 1888 £176,585, in 1890 £231,448, in 1892 £259,601, in 1894 £171,146, and in 1895 £200,279, this last including £4153 for refined sugar, £49,790 for coal, £5574 for iron, and £5174 for gunpowder. The customs revenue collected here amounted to £211,081 in 1802, £592,008 in 1831, £410,206 in 1851, £1,484,972 in 1867, £1,006,449 in 1872, £47,034 in 1881, £43,124 in 1891, £37,798 in 1892, £39,053 in 1894, and £35,673 in 1895.
      Greenock is head of the fishery district between those of Rothesay and Ballantrae, in which in 1895 the number of boats was 287, of fishermen and boys 488, of fish-curers 27, and of coopers 38, whilst the value of boats was £2872, of nets £2828, and of lines £681.
      The manufactures of Greenock are various and extensive. Shipbuilding was commenced soon after the close of the American war, and has since risen to great prominence, Caird & Co.'s yard being one of the most complete in the kingdom. A former manager of this work was Mr. Scott Russell, celebrated as the builder of the Great Eastern. The premises of Scott & Co., shipbuilders and engineers, and Russell & Co., shipbuilders, are also of a most extensive kind. During a number of years previous to 1840, from 6000 to 7000 tons of shipping were annually launched; and in that year 21 vessels, of the aggregate tonnage of 7338, were built. The tonnage of vessels built in the port in the last five years, exclusive of those built for firms abroad, was as follows:--(1891) 28,889, (1892) 50,746, (1893) 21,966, (1894) 32,781, (1895) 31,318. Of vessels built for foreign firms in the latter year, there was 1 steel steamship, of 2518 tons. Nearly all the vessels built indeed are either steel or iron, and the majority of them are steamers. A timber sale hall is situated on Princes Pier, and there a large business is transacted in that branch, the timber floats on the margin of the river above Greenock and Port Glasgow being a marked feature in the shore scenery as viewed from railway or steamboat. Iron-working is carried on in numerous establishments for all sorts of cast-iron work and machinery, but particularly for the construction of steam-boilers, steam-engines, locomotives, and steel and iron steam-vessels. The making of anchors and chain-cables is carried on in several separate establishments. Sugar refining is prosecuted here to a greater extent than anywhere else in Scotland. The first house for this purpose was erected in 1765; formerly there were a dozen sugar-refineries, but on account of the decline in this industry the number has been reduced. There are also in the town or neighbourhood sail-cloth factories, roperies, sail-making establishments, woollen and worsted factories, saw-mills, grain-mills, tanneries, a large cooper work, distilleries, a brewery, a dye-work, a pottery, and chemical works. In 1897 the British Aluminium Co. started a factory for the manufacture of carbon.
     In the town the principal central thoroughfare follows the original coast outline, and is in consequence tortuous, and, for the character of the town, narrow. Cathcart Street and Hamilton Street, the chief streets, are separated by Cathcart Square, a small space which, as nearly as possible, marks the centre of the town, and in these paces the best shops are found. Under the Artisans' Dwellings Improvement Scheme the local authorities acquired the property on the west side of East Quay Lane--a narrow thoroughfare that led from Cathcart Street to the Custom-House Quay. This has been widened to 40 feet, rebuilt, and named Brymner Street, in memory of the first chairman of the improvement trust. It is now one of the handsomest streets in the town. The other narrow cross streets leading to the quays, and the partly spacious, partly narrow, and altogether irregular and crowded roadways facing these, from the west side of Brymner Street to the east side of William Street, have almost wholly been swept away and replaced with ranges of modern shops and dwellinghouses. Most of the streets in the W, and some on the face of the rising ground in the centre, are regular, airy, and well built. The western outskirts, abounding in villas, look freely out to the firth, and combine a series of fine foregrounds with a diversified perspective.
     At the corner of Cathcart Square stand the new municipal buildings and town-hall, designed by H. and D. Barclay, Glasgow, which were completed in 1886, a stately Renaissance pile, with a dome-capped tower 300 feet high. Their cost was £225,000, and they embrace town and council halls, municipal and school board offices, and harbour, fire brigade, police, cleansing, and sanitary departments. The old town's buildings, removed to make room for the modern pile, were designed by the father of James Watt, at the time a bailie of the town. The County Buildings, in Nelson Street, were erected in 1867 at a cost of £8500. Designed by Messrs. Peddie and Kinnear in the Scottish Baronial style, they form a three-storied structure 100 feet long, with a massive central tower and spirelet rising to a height of 112 feet. Behind is the new prison, legalised in 1870, and containing 70 cells. The Custom House, fronting the broad open esplanade of the upper steamboat pier, was built in 1818, from designs by Burn of Edinburgh, at a cost of £30,000. It is a spacious edifice, with a fine Doric portico. The Theatre Royal, a plain but commodious house in West Blackhall Street, was opened in 1858 by Mr. Edmund Glover.
      Greenock has 41 places of worship, belonging to 11 denominations, viz., 11 Established, 10 Free, 7 United Presbyterian, 2 Congregational, 2 Roman Catholic, 2 Episcopal, 2 Evangelical Union, 2 Baptist, and 1 Reformed Presbyterian, 1 Wesleyan, and 1 Primitive Methodist. The Middle Kirk, in Cathcart Square, was erected in 1757; its steeple, a notable landmark in the town, 146 feet high, was added in 1787. The West Kirk, situated in Nelson Street, and built in 1840, has also a handsome spire of 1854; and the East Kirk (1853), in Regent Street, is similarly distinguishable in the prospect of the own. The Old West Kirk, near Albert Harbour, built in 1592, was restored in 1864 at a cost of £2500 to serve as a place of worship for the North Church quoad sacra parish. It is a low cruciform structure, with a small belfry; in its churchyard Mary Campbell (Burns's `Highland Mary') was buried in 1786. A monument by Mr. John Mossman was erected over her grave in 1842. It represents the parting at Coilsfield, and above is a figure of `Grief,' whilst beneath are the lines--

St. Paul's, opened in 1893, is built on a site adjoining that of an iron church erected when the congregation was formed in 1878. It consists of a nave 90 feet long and 31 broad, with north and south aisles. There is a gallery at the west end of it, over a spacious vestibule. The tower, at present incomplete, is to be 115 feet high, and 180 to the vane. The cost of the edifice was over £10,000. Of the Free churches the West is a First Pointed edifice of 1862, with French features, whilst the Middle, Grecian in style, was erected in 1870-71 at a cost of £16,000, and has a tower and spire 200 feet high. St. Thomas's Free Church has a hall accommodating 200 persons--the gift of Mr. Erskine Orr, of the Greenock Telegraph--and costing about £2000. One may also notice Greenbank U.P. Church (1881-82); the Baptist Chapel (1878; cost £5000); St. John's Episcopal, rebuilt (1878) from designs by Mr. Anderson in Early Middle Pointed style at a cost of £8000; and St. Mary's Roman Catholic (1862), a plain First Pointed fabric. How exclusively devoted the townsfolk of Greenock were to commerce, and how little countenance they gave to literature or science, is instanced by the following story, which, however, has been challenged as `quite unreliable.' In 1769, when John Wilson, a poet of considerable merit, the author of the well-known piece on `The Clyde,' was admitted as master of the grammar school of Greenock, the magistrates and ministers made it a condition that he should abandon `the profane and unprofitable art of poem-making,'--a stipulation which thirty years afterwards drew from the silenced bard the following acrimonious remarks in a letter addressed to his son George when a student at Glasgow College:--`I once thought to live by the breath of fame, but how miserably was I disappointed when, instead of having my performances applauded in crowded theatres, and being caressed by the great--for what will not a poetaster in his intoxicating delirium of possession dream?--I was condemned to bawl myself to hoarseness to wayward brats, to cultivate sand and wash Ethiopians, for all the dreary days of an obscure life--the contempt of shopkeepers and brutish skippers.' Leyden, writing of this prohibition, says:--`After his unhappy arrangement with the magistrates he never ventured to touch his forbidden lyre, though he often regarded it with the mournful solemnity which the harshness of dependence and the memory of its departed sounds could not fail to inspire.' Since that time a better taste, and more liberality of sentiment, have prevailed, and some attention has been paid to the cultivation of science. In 1783 the Greenock Library was instituted; and with it was incorporated in 1834 the Foreign Library, founded in 1807. Special libraries have since from time to time been added, including the Watt Scientific Library, founded in 1816 on a donation of £100 from James Watt; the Spence Mathematical Library, presented by Mrs. Spence, the collector's widow; the Williamson Theological Library, the gift of the Rev. J. Williamson; the Fairrie Library, bought with a bequest of £100 left by Mr. Thomas Fairrie; the Buchanan Library, mechanical and scientific, presented by Dr. Buchanan of Kilblain Academy; and the Caird Library, chiefly of theological works, presented by Miss Caird. The librarian is Mr. Allan Park Paton, a well-known member of the numerous band of minor lyric poets Scotland has produced. The Greenock Library now contains upwards of 15,000 volumes, and occupies a Tudor edifice, called the Watt Institution and Greenock Library, in Union Street, erected by Mr. Watt, of Soho, son of James Watt, in 1837 at a cost of £3000. The site was given by Sir Michael Shaw Stewart. A fine marble statue of Watt, by Sir Francis Chantry, the expense of which (£2000) was raised by subscription, adorns the entrance to the Institution. On the front of the pedestal of the statue is the following inscription from the pen of Lord Jeffrey:--`The inhabitants of Greenock have erected this statue of James Watt, not to extend a fame already identified with the miracles of steam, but to testify the pride and reverence with which he is remembered in the place of his nativity, and their deep sense of the great benefits his genius has conferred on mankind. Born 19th January 1736. Died at Heathfield in Staffordshire, August 25th, 1819.' On the right of the pedestal is a shield, containing the arms of Greenock, and on the left are emblems of strength and speed. On the back is an elephant, in obvious allusion to the beautiful parallel drawn by the writer of the inscription between the steam-engine and the trunk of that animal, which is equally qualified to lift a pin or to rend an oak. Behind the Institution stand the Watt Museum and Lecture Hall, endowed by Mr. James M`Lean of West Bank, and erected in 1876 at a cost of £7000. The Mechanics' Institute, in Sir Michael Street, was built in 1840, and contains a good library and news-room. The Public Baths occupy part of the same building, but have their entrance in Tobago Street.