umf. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE m^' *^^y . ^, f/jt (riHL-aiJi68=^ ,^-^ mr^ ■rawcw ■lllfe T r^HBT ^ 1 nnaaH flciy .-?^:M. &u flfffTT- Iftrtji MMca..-:.'.. ■"^.^ _^^, :^H9i^a:«i^='.:.:j| 1 — 1 » i Cornell University Library HE 745.C59 The clipper ship era; an epitome o' *31]°" 3 1924 020 891 416 B Cornell University M Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924020891416 The Clipper Ship Era An Epitome of Famous American and British Clipper Ships, Their Owners, Builders, Commanders, and Crews 1843-1869 By Arthur H. Qlark Late Commander of Ship " Verena," Barque "Agnes," Steamships " Manchu," " Suwo Nada," "Venus," and "Indiana. (1863-1877) Author of "The History of Yachting" With 39 Illustratioas G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London Zbe Ifcnlcftcrbocker press 1911 Fs Copyright, 1910 BY ARTHUR H. CLARK Published, November, 1910 Reprinted, January, igii ; March, igii (twice) May, 1911 TTbe Ifmicfierbocliec ipress, mew ^orft ^0 THE MEMORY OF A FRIEND OF MY BOYHOOD DONALD McKAY BUILDER OF SHIPS PREFACE THE Clipper Ship Era began in 1.8i3„as a result of the growing demand for a more rapid de- livery of tea from China; continued under the stimulating influence of the discovery of gold in California and Australia in 1849 and 1851, and ended with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. These memorable years form one of the most im- portant and interesting periods of maritime his- tory. They stand between the centuries during which man navigated the sea with sail and oar — ^ a slave to unknown winds and currents, helpless alike in calm and in storm — and the successful introduction of steam navigation, by which man has obtained mastery upon the ocean. After countless generations of evolution, this era witnessed the highest development of the wooden sailing ship in construction, speed, and beauty. Nearly all the clipper ships made records which were not equalled by the steamships of their day; and more than a quarter of a century elapsed, de- voted to discovery and invention in perfecting the marine engine and boiler, before the best clipper ship records for speed were broken by steam ves- sels. During this era, too, important discoveries VI Preface were made in regard to the laws governing the winds and currents of the ocean; and this know- ledge, together with improvements in model and rig, enabled sailing ships to reduce by forty days the average time formerly required for the outward and homeward voyage from England and America to Australia. In pursuing this narrative we shall see the stately, frigate-built Indiaman, with her batteries of guns and the hammocks stowed in nettings, disappear, and her place taken by the swift China, Califor- nia, and Australian clippers, which in their turn, after a long and gallant contest, at last vanish before the advancing power of steam. Many of the clipper ships mentioned in this book, both American and British, were well known to me; some of the most celebrated of the American clippers were built near my early home in Boston, and as a boy I saw a number of them constructed and launched; later, I sailed as an officer in one of the most famous of them, and as a young sea- captain knew many of the men who commanded them. I do not, however, depend upon memory, nearly all the facts herein stated being from the most reliable records that can be obtained. So far as I am aware, no account of these vessels has ever been written, beyond a few magazine and news- paper articles, necessarily incomplete and often far from accurate; while most of the men who knew these famous ships have now passed away. It seems proper, therefore, that some account of this re- markable era should be recorded by one who has a personal knowledge of the most exciting portion Preface vii of it, and of many of the men and ships that made it what it was. Of late years there has been a confusing mixture of the terms knot and mile as applied to the speed of vessels. As most persons are aware, there are three kinds of mile: the geographical, statute, and sea mile or knot. The geographical mile is based on a measure upon the surface of the globe, and is a mathematical calculation which should be used by experts only. The statute mile, instituted by the Eomans, is a measure of 5280 feet. The sea mile or knot is one sixtieth of a degree of latitude; and while this measurement varies slightly in dif- ferent latitudes, owing to the elliptical shape of the globe, for practical purposes the knot may be taken as 6080 feet. The word knot is now frequently used to express long distances at sea. This is an error, as the term knot should be used only to denote an hourly rate of speed; for instance, to say that a vessel is making nine knots means that she is going through the water at the rate of nine knots an hour, but it would be incorrect to say that she made thirty- six knots in four hours ; here the term miles should be used, meaning sea miles or knots. The term knot is simply a unit of speed, and is derived from the knots marked on the old-fashioned log line and graduated to a twenty-eight-second log glass which was usually kept in the binnacle. In this book the word mile means a sea mile and not a geographical or statute mile. I wish to make my grateful acknowledgment to the Hydrographic Office at Washington, the British viii Preface Museum, Lloyd's Register of Shipping, the Ameri- can Bureau of Shipping, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Astor Library, for much of the data contained in this book. A. H. Q New York, 1910. CONTENTS I. American Shipping to the Close of the War op 1812 1 II. British Shipping after 1815 — The East India Company 19 III. The North Atlantic Packet Ships, 1815-1850 38 IV. Opium Clippers and Early Clipper Ships, 1838-1848 • . 67 V. Two Early Clipper Ship Commanders . 73 VI. The Repeal of the British Navigation Laws — The " Oriental " . . . 88 VII. The Rush for California — A Sailing Day 100 VIII. The Clipper Ship Crews .... 119 IX. California Clippers of 1850 and their Commanders — Maury's Wind and Current Charts .... 134 X, California Clippers op 1851 and their Commanders — A Day on Board the " Witch op the Wave " . . 151 XI. California Clipper Passages in 1851 . 173 XII. American Competition with Great Britain in the China Trade . . 195 Contents CHAPTEK XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. California Clippers op 1852 — The " Sov- ereign OF THE Seas" California Clippers of 1853 . The " Great Republic " and the " Dread- nought" American Clippers of 1854 and 1855 Australian Voyages, 1851-1854 Australian Clippers, 1854-1856 Last Years of the American Clipper Ship Era — Summary op California Passages The Greatness and the Decline of the American Merchant Marine . The Later British Tea Clippers . The Fate of the Old Clipper Ships . Appendices Index 211 224 235 248 260 273 289 308 318 340 349 377 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The " Flying Cloud "... Frontispiece East Indiamen, 1720 24 An East Indiaman, 1788 30 The " Marlborough " and " Blenheim " . . 36 The " England " 40 The " Montezuma " . 44 The " Yorkshire " 48 Jacob A. Westervelt 104 Jacob Bell 104 William H. Webb 106 Samuel Hall 106 Robert H. Waterman 112 N. B. Palmer 112 Josiah p. Creipsy 122 H. W. Johnson 122 David S. Babcock 128 George Lane 128 Lauchlan McKay 130 Philip Dumaresq 130 si xii Illustrations PAGE The "Surprise" . 136 The " Stag-Hound " 142 Matthew Fontaine Mauby 148 The " Nightingale " 164 The "Challenge" 186 The " Stornoway " 198 The " Sovereign op the Seas " . . . . 218 The "Comet" 224 The " Young America " 2^2 The " Great Republic " 242 The " Dreadnought " 246 The " Brisk " and " Emanuela " . , . . 252 Donald McKay 256 The " Red Jacket " 272 The "James Baines" 282 The " Schomberg " 286 The " Sweepstakes " 290 The Composite Construction 322 The "Ariel" and "Taeping" Running up Channel, September 5, 1866 .... 328 The " Lahloo " 33g The Clipper Ship Era THE CLIPPER SHIP ERA CHAPTER I AMERICAN SHIPPING TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAE OF 1812 THE deeds that have made the Clipper Ship Era a glorious memory were wrought by the ship- bni]f|prs.^,n d. mastfi E-marippT-s nf-thp T7nitp'!^^^i^tpg and Great Britain, f or the flag of no other nation was represented in this spirited contest upon the sea. In order, therefore, to form an intelligent idea of this era, it is necessary to review the con- dition of the merchant marine of the two countries for a considerable period preceding it, as well as the events that led directly to its development. Prom the earliest colonial days, ship-building has been a favorite industry in America. The first vessel built within the present limits of the United States was the Virginia, a pinnace of thirty tons, constructed in 1607 by the Popham colonists who had arrived during the summer at Stage Island, near the mouth of the Kennebec Eiver, on board the ships Gift of God and Mary and John. When these vessels returned to England, leaving forty- 2 The Clipper Ship Era five persons to establish a fishing station, and a severe winter followed, the colonists became dis- heartened and built the Virginia which carried them home in safety and which subsequently made several voyages across the Atlantic. The Onrust, of sixteen tons, was built at Man- hattan in 1613-14, by Adrian Block and his com- panions, to replace the Tiger, which had been damaged by Are beyond repair. After exploring the coasts of New England and Delaware Bay, she sailed for Holland with a cargo of furs. The Blessing of the Bay, a barque of thirty tons, was built by order of Governor John Winthrop at Med- ford, near Boston, and was launched amid solemn rejoicings by the Puritans on July 4, 1631. This little vessel was intended to give the New England colonists a means of communication with their neighbors at New Amsterdam less difficult than that through the wilderness. So we see that ship- building was begun in America under the pressure of necessity, and it was fostered by the conditions of life in the new country. In the year 1668, the ship-building in New Eng- land, small as it may now seem, had become suffi- ciently important to attract the attention of Sir Josiah Child, sometime Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, who in his Discourse on Trade protests with patriotic alarm: " Of all the American plantations, His Majesty has none so apt for building of shipping as New Eng- land, nor any comparably so qualified for the breed- ing of seamen, not only by reason of the natural industry of that people, but principally by reason American Shipping up to 1812 3 of their cod and mackerel fisheries, and, in my poor opinion, there is nothing more prejudicial, and in prospect more dangerous, to any mother kingdom, than the increase in shipping in her colonies, planta- tions, and provinces." The apprehension of the worthy Sir Josiah was well founded, for at that period most of the spars and much of the timber which went into the con- struction of the East Indiamen and the fighting ships of his royal master. King Charles II., had grown in American soil, and of 1332 vessels regis- tered as built in New England between 1G74 and 1714, no less than 289 were built for or sold to merchants abroad. Not that they were better than foreign built vessels, but on account of the plentiful supply of timber they could be built more cheaply in America than in Great Britain and on the Continent. The industry was in a promising and healthy condition, and so continued, until in 1720 the Lon- don shipwrights informed the Lords of Trade that the New England shipyards had drawn away so many men " that there were not enough left to carry on the work." They therefore prayed that colonial built ships be excluded from all trade ex- cept with Great Britain and her colonies, and that the colonists be forbidden to build ships above a certain size. The Lords of Trade, though fine crusty old protectionists, were unable to see their way to granting any such prayer as this, and so ship-building continued to flourish in America. In the year 1769, the colonists along the whole Atlantic coast launched 389 vessels, of which 113 were square- 4 The Clipper Ship Era riggers. It should not, however, be imagined that these vessels were formidable in size. The whole 389 had an aggregate register of 20,001 tons, an average of slightly over 50 tons each. Of these vessels 137, of 8013 tons, were built in Massa- chusetts; 45, of 2452 tons in New Hampshire; 50, of 1542 tons, in Connecticut; 19, of 955 tons, in New York; 22, of 1469 tons, in Pennsylvania. It is probable that few of them exceeded 100 tons register, and that none was over 200 tons register. With the advent of the Revolutionary War, the rivalry on the sea between the older and the younger country took a more serious turn. Centuries before clipper ships were ever thought of, England had claimed, through her repeated and victorious naval wars against Spain, Holland, France, and lesser nations, the proud title of Mistress of the Seas, but in the Revolutionary War with her American colo- nies and the War of 1812 with the United States, her battleships and fleets of merchantmen were sorely harassed by the swift, light-built, and heavily-armed American frigates and privateers. While it cannot be said that the naval power of England upon the ocean was seriously impaired, yet the speed of the American vessels and the skill and' gallantry with which they were fought and handled, made it apparent that the young giant of the West might some day claim the sceptre of the sea as his own. During the latter half of the eighteenth century, however, the leading nation in the modelling and construction of ships was France, and during this period the finest frigates owned in the British Navy American Shipping up to 1812 5 were those captured from the French. The frigate was indeed invented in England, the first being the Constant Warwick, launched in 1647, by Peter Pett, who caused the fact of his being the inventor of the frigate to be engraved upon his tomb; but in the improvement of the type, England had long been outstripped by her neighbor across the channel. William James,i the well known historian of the British Navy, makes mention of the French forty- gun frigate Heie which was captured by the British frigate Bainhow in 1782, and records that " this prize did prove a most valuable acquisition to the service, there being few British frigates even ol the present day (1847) which, in size and exterior form, are not copied from the Hebe." As late as 1821 the Arrow, for many years the fastest yacht owned in England, was modelled from the lines of a French lugger, recently wrecked upon the Dorset coast, which proved to be a well known smuggler that had for years eluded the vigilance of H. M. excise cutters, always escaping capture, although often sighted, through her superior speed. 1 A frigate was a ship designed to be a fast, armed cruiser and mounted from twenty to fifty guns; when a naval vessel mounted less than twenty guns she became a sloop of war, and when she mounted more than fifty guns she became a line-of-battle ship. The frigate was always a favorite type of vessel with the officers and men of the navy, as she was faster and more easily handled than a line-of-battle ship, and was at the same time a more powerful fighting and cruising vessel than a sloop of war. Frigate-built means having the substantial con- struction, arrangement of the decks, masts, spars, rigging, and guns of a frigate. 6 The Clipper Ship Era The United States no less than Great Britain was indebted to France for improvements in the models of her ships at this period. During the Eevolu- tionary War, when a treaty was entered into be- tween France and the United States in 1T78, a number of French frigates and luggers appeared in American waters. The luggers, rating from one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons and some even higher, belonged to the type used by the pri- vateersmen of Brittany, a scourge upon every sea where the merchant flag of an enemy was to be found. They were the fastest craft afloat in their day. When the French frigates and luggers were dry docked in American ports for cleaning or re- pairs, their lines were carefully taken off by enter- prising young shipwrights and were diligently studied. It was from these vessels that the first American frigates and privateers originated, and among the latter were the famous Baltimore ves- sels which probably during the War of 1812 first became known as " Baltimore clippers." Congress ordered four frigates and three sloops of war to be built in 1778, and almost countless privateers suddenly sprang into existence at ports along the Atlantic seaboard, most of them copied from models of the French vessels. One of the frigates, the Alliance, named to commemorate the alliance between France and the United States, was built at Salisbury, Massachusetts, by William and John Hatkett. Her length was 151 feet, breadth 36 feet, and depth of hold 12 feet 6 inches, and she drew when ready for sea 14 feet 8 inches aft and 9 feet forward. She was a favorite with the whole American Shipping up to 1812 7 navy by reason of her speed and beauty, and on her first voyage she had the honor of conveying Lafayette to France, At the close of the war she was sold by the Government and became a merchant- man famous in the China and India trade. Sev- eral of the privateers were built and fitted out at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Those in which Nathaniel Tracy was interested captured no less than 120 vessels, amounting to 23,360 tons, which with their cargoes were condemned and sold for 3,950,000 specie dol- lars; and with these prizes were taken 2220 prison- ers of war. Many other instances of this nature might, of course, be mentioned, but the important point is the fact that in the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nine- teenth, as well, the fastest vessels owned or built in the United States and Great Britain were from French models.^ ^ When peace was declared in 1783, the Government of the United States sold or otherwise disposed of all its vessels, a fact that was quickly taken advantage of by the Barbary corsairs. They at once began to prey upon American merchant shipping in the Mediterranean and even in the Atlantic, and made slaves of the captured crews. The French and English, too, in their wars with each other, by no means respected the neutrality of American commerce, the former being the worse of- fenders. It was not, however, until 1794 that Congress again authorized the formation of a navy, under the Secretary of War, and in 1798 the oflBce of Secretary of the Navy was created. Among the vessels built in 1794- 98 was the frigate Constitution, the famous " Old Iron- sides " which still survives. The separate States had meanwhile maintained vessels for the protection of their 8 The Clipper Ship Era The characteristics of the French model were a beautifully rounded bow, by no means sharp along the water-line, easy sectional lines developing into a full, powerful forebody and midship section, and great dead rise at half floor. The greatest breadth was well forward of amidships and at the water- line, with a slight, gracefully rounded tumble home to the plank-sheer. The after-body was finely moulded, clean, sharp, and long, with a powerful transom and quarters. The time-honored cod's head and mackerel's tail: the figureheads and orna- mentation of the quarters and stern, were veritable works of art. By comparing the models of the British frigates of that day to be seen in the Naval Museum at Greenwich, and the lines of the Ameri- can frigates and Baltimore clippers of the same period, with the models still preserved in the Louvre, it is easy to trace a family likeness among them all, the parent being of French origin. The grandparent also might easily be identified, in the Italian galleys of Genoa and Venice, though this is of no importance to our present purpose. That the American vessels showed a marked su- periority in point of speed over British men-of-war and merchant ships during these two wars is the more remarkable from the fact that frigates had been built in England for a century and a half, as we have seen, and, while it is true that two vessels for the British Government were built at Ports- mouth previous to the Revolutionary War — the own coasts, and, of course, there had been no cessation in the building of merchant ships during the period preceding the War of 1812. American Shipping up to 1812 9 FaulJcland, fifty-four guns, in 1690, and the America, fifty guns, in 1740 — still, at the outbreak of the Revolution, the shipwrights of America scarcely knew what a frigate was, and much less had thought of building one. It had been the policy of Great Britain to keep her American colonies as much as possible in ignorance concerning naval affairs, doubtless from fear of their growing ambition. They were therefore led to copy the models of French vessels, not only from choice, on account of their excellence, but from necessity as well. Thus it came about that the frigates of Great Britain and the United States were developed from the same source. A sailing ship is an exceedingly complex, sensi- tive, and capricious creation — quite as much so as most human beings. Her coquetry and exasperat- ing deviltry have been the delight and despair of seamen's hearts, at least since the days when the wise, though much-married, Solomon declared that among the things that were too wonderful for him and which he knew not, was " the way of a ship in the midst of the sea." While scientific research has increased since Solomon's time, it has not kept pace with the elusive character of the ship, for no man is able to tell exactly what a ship will or will not do under given conditions. Some men, of course, know more than others, yet no one has ever lived who could predict with accuracy the result of elements in design, construction, and rig. His- tory abounds in instances of ships built for speed that have turned out dismal failures, and it has occasionally happened that ships built with no lo The Clipper Ship Era especial expectation of speed have proven fliers. It would seem, after ages of experience and evolution, that man should be able at last to build a sailing ship superior in every respect to every other sailing ship, but this is exactly what he cannot and never has been able to accomplish. A true sailor loves a fine ship and all her foibles; he revels in the hope that if he takes care of her and treats her fairly, she will not fail him in the hour of danger, and he is rarely disappointed. While all this is true in the abstract, yet it is not difficult to account for the performance of ships in retrospect, and in this particular matter, the superior speed of American frigates during the two wars with the mother country, it is quite easy to do so. In the first place, British men-of-war and mer- chantmen were at that time built with massive oak frames, knees, and planking, the timber of which had lain at dockyards seasoning in salt water for many years, and was as hard and almost as heavy as iron, while they were fastened with weighty through-and-through copper bolts ; so that the ships themselves became rigid, dead structures — sluggish in moderate winds, and in gales and a seaway, wal- lowing brutes^whereas the American frigates and privateers were built of material barely seasoned in the sun and wind, and were put together as lightly as possible consistent with the strength needed to carry their batteries and to hold on to their canvas in heavy weather. Also, the British ships were heavy aloft— spars, rigging, and blocks — yet their masts and yards were not so long as American Shipping up to 1812 ii those of the American ships, nor did they spread as much sail, although their canvas was heavier and had the picturesque "belly to hold the wind," by which, when close-hauled, the wind held the vessel. Then the British men-of-war were commanded by naval officers who were brave, gallant gentlemen, no doubt, but whose experience at sea was limited to the routine of naval rules formulated by other gentlemen sitting around a table at Whitehall. The infraction of one of these regulations might cost the offender his epaulets and perhaps his life. In this respect the captains of the American Navy enjoyed a great advantage, for at this early period the United States authorities had their attention fully occupied in preserving the government, and had no time to devote to the manufacture of red tape with which to bind the hands and tongues of intelligent seamen. We think, and rightly, too, of Paul Jones, Murray, Barry, Stewart, Dale, Hull, Bainbridge, and others, as heroes of the navy, yet it is well for us sometimes to remember that all of these splendid seamen were brought up and most of them had commanded ships in the merchant marine. They were thus accustomed to self- reliance, and were filled with resource and expedi- ent; they had passed through the rough school of adversity, and their brains and nerves were sea- soned by salted winds, the ocean's brine mingling with their blood. What wonder then that the American frigates, so built and so commanded, proved superior in point of speed to the British men-of-war? Less 12 The Clipper Ship Era wonder still that the American privateers, whose men in the forecastle had in many instances com- manded ships, should sweep the seas, until the de- spairing merchants and ship-owners of Great Bri- tain, a nation whose flag had for a thousand years "hraved the battle and the breeze" and which boasted proudly and justly that her home was upon the sea, compelled their goTernment to acknowledge as political equals a people who had proved them- selves superior upon the ocean. So in the struggle for a national existence and rights as a nation, the foundations of the maritime power of the United States were laid. The ship- builders and the seamen of the Eevolution and the War of 1812 were the forefathers of the men who built and commanded the American clipper ships. After the Eevolutionary War the merchants of Salem, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia vied with each other in sending their ships upon dis- tant and hazardous voyages. Notwithstanding the natural difficulties of navigating, what to their captains were unknown seas, and the unnatural ob- stacles invented by man in the form of obstructive laws, the merchant marine of the United States steadily increased not only in bulk, but what was of far more importance, in the high standard of the men and ships engaged in it. Salem took the lead, with her great merchant, Elias Hasket Derby, who sent his barque Light Horse to St. Petersburg in 1784, and soon after sent the Orand Turk first to the Cape of Good Hope and then to China. In 1789, the Atlantic, commanded by his son, Elias Hasket Derby, Jr., was the^first American Shipping up to 1812 13 ship to hoist the Stars and Stripes at Calcutta and Bombay, and she was soon followed by the Peggy, another of the Derby ships, which brought the first cargo of Bombay cotton into Massachusetts Bay. Mr. Derby owned a fleet of forty vessels, and hpon his death in 1799 left an estate valued at more than $1,000,000, the largest fortune at that time in America, as well as a name honored for integrity throughout the mercantile world. William Gray, another famous Salem merchant, owned in 1807 fifteen ships, seven barques, thirteen brigs, and one schooner, his fleet representing one quarter of the total tonnage of Salem at that time. Then there were Joseph Peabody, Benjamin Pickman, and Jacob Crowninshield, all ship-owners who contri- buted to the fame of this beautiful New England seaport. Many of the merchants had been sea-captains in their youth, and it was the captains who really made Salem famous. These men, from the train- ing of the New England schoolroom and meeting- house, went out into the world and gathered there the fruits of centuries of civilization, which they brought home to soften the narrow self-righteous- ness of their fellow-citizens. In later years these captains carried missionaries to India, China, and Africa, unconscious that they were themselves the real missionaries, whose influence had wrought so desirable a change in New England thought and character. When Nathaniel Hawthorne served in the Custom House at Salem, the friends in whom he most delighted were sea-captains, for it was through their eyes that he looked out upon the 14 The Clipper Ship Era great world, and gathered the knowledge of human nature that enabled him to portray in such grim reality the hidden springs of human thought and action. These captains were the sons of gentle- men, and were as a class the best educated men of their time in the United States, for they could do more important and difficult things, and do them well, than the men of any other profession. The old East India Museum at Salem is a monument to their taste and refinement. Nowhere else, perhaps, can be found another little museum as unique and beautiful, of treasures brought home one by one from distant lands and seas by the hands that gave them. Boston, too, had her ships and seamen. From that port were sent out in 1788 the ColumMa, a ship of two hundred and thirteen tons, and the sloop Washington, of ninety tons, commanded by Captains John Kendrick and Robert Gray, who took them round Cape Horn to the northwest coast of America, and then after trading for cargoes of furs, went across to China. The Columbia returned to Boston by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and was the first vessel to carry the United States en- sign round the globe. Subsequently she discovered the majestic river that bears her name, and so won the great Northwest for the flag under which she sailed. The Massachusetts, of six hundred tons, the largest merchant vessel built in America up to her time, was launched at Quincy in 1789 and was owned in Boston. She sailed for Canton and was sold there to the Danish East India Company for $65,000. American Shipping up to 1812 15 Ezra Weston was the most famous of the old time Boston ship-owners. He began business in 1764, and owned his own shipyard, sail-loft, and extensive rope-walk at Duxbury, Massachusetts, where his vessels were built and equipped. In 1798 his son Ezra became a partner, and this firm continued until the death of the father in 1822. The son Ezra then went on in his own name until 1842, when his sons Gersham, Alden, and Ezra, were taken into the firm, and they continued it until 1858, in all some ninety-three years, the last place of business being Nos. 37 and 38, Commercial Wharf. From the year 1800 to 1846 the Westons owned twenty-one ships, ranging in tonnage from the Hope, of 880 tons, to the Minerva, of 250 tons ; one barque, the Pallas, of 209 tons; thirty brigs, from the Two Friends, of 240 tons, to the Federal Eagle, of 120 tons; thirty-five schooners, from the St. Michael, of 132 tons, to the Star, of 20 tons; and ten sloops, from the Union, of 63 tons, to the Linnet, of 50 tons. The brig Smyrna, one of the Weston fleet, built in 1825, of 160 tons, was the first American vessel to bear the flag of the United States into the Black Sea after it was opened to commerce. She arrived at Odessa July 17, 1830. The Westons were easily the largest ship-owners of their time in the United States, and not only built but loaded their own vessels. Their house- flag was red, white, and blue horizontal stripes. In the year 1791, Stephen Girard, who was born near Bordeaux in 1750 and had risen from cabin- boy to be captain of his own vessel, built four beautiful ships at Philadelphia for the China and i6 The Clipper Ship Era India trade — the Helvetia, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire. These vessels, long the pride of Philadelphia, greatly enriched their owner. The sloop Enterprise, of eighty tons, built at Albany and commanded by Captain Stewart Dean, was sent from New York to China in 1785. This was the first vessel to make the direct voyage from the United States to Canton. She returned during the following year with her crew of seven men and two boys all in excellent condition. When she warped alongside the wharf at New York, Captain Dean and his crew were in full uniform, and the scene, which was witnessed by an admiring throng, was enlivened by " martial music and the boat- swain's whistle." Thomas Cheesman was one of the first ship- builders in New York, and he was succeeded in business, before the end of the eighteenth century, by his son Forman, born in 1763. The latter built the forty-four-gun frigate President, launched in the year 1800 at Corlear's Hook— by far the largest vessel built in New York up to that time. Pre- vious to this, however, he had built the Briganza and the Draper, each of three hundred tons, and the Ontario, of five hundred tons. Thomas Vail, Wil- liam Vincent, and Samuel Ackley also built several vessels prior to the year 1800. The ships Eugene, Severn, Manhattan, Sampson, Echo, Hercules, Re- source, York, and Oliver Ellsworth were launched from their yards. In 1804 the Oliver Ellsworth, built by Vail & Vincent and commanded by Cap- tain Bennett, made the passage from New York to Liverpool in fourteen days, notwithstanding that American Shipping up to 1812 17 she carried away her foretopmast, which was replaced at sea. All of these shipyards were below Grand Street, on the East River. Samuel Ackley's yard was at the foot of Pelham Street, and here the Manhattan, of six hundred tons, was built for the China and East India trade. She was regarded as a monster of the deep, and when she sailed upon her first voy- age in 1796, it took nearly all the deep water sea- men in the port to man her. Henry Eckford opened a shipyard at the foot of Clinton Street in 1802. From this yard he launched, in 1803, John Jacob Astor's famous ship Beaver, of four hundred and twenty-seven tons. It was on board this ship that Captain Augustus De Peyster made his first voy- age as a boy before the mast. Subsequently he commanded her, and upon retiring from the sea in 1845 he became the Governor of the Sailors' Snug Harbor at Staten Island. The Beaver once made the homeward run from Canton to Bermuda in seventy-five days. Christian Bergh began ship- building in 1804 with the ship North America, of four hundred tons, built for the Atlantic trade, and the brig Gipsey, of three hundred tons, a very sharp vessel for those days. She was dismasted off the Cape of Good Hope upon her first voyage to Ba- tavia, and afterwards foundered in a heavy squall, all hands being lost. The Trident, of three hundred and fifty tons, was built by Adam and Noah Brown in 1805, and the Triton, of three hundred and fifty tons, by Charles Brown during the same year, both for the China and India trade. John Floyd began ship-building in 1807, and launched the Carmelite, i8 The Clipper Ship Era a ship of four hundred tons, during that year, but was soon appointed naval constructor at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Until 1794 ships had been built from skeleton models composed of pieces that showed the frames, keel, stem, and stern post, but were of little use in giving an accurate idea of the form of a vessel, while it required much time and labor to transfer the lines of the model to the mould loft. In this year, however, Orlando Merrill, a young ship- builder of Newburyport, at that time thirty-one years old, invented the water-line model, which was composed of lifts joined together, originally by dowels and later by screws. These could be taken apart ancj the sheer, body, and half-breadth plans easily transferred to paper, from which the working plans were laid down in the mould loft. This in- genious though simple invention, for which, by the way, Mr. Merrill never received any pecuniary re- ward, revolutionized the science of ship-building. The original model made by him in 1794 was pre- sented to the New York Historical Society in 1853. Mr. Merrill died in 1855 at the age of ninety-two. CHAPTEE II BRITISH SHIPPING AFTER 1815 THE EAST INDIA COMPANY GEEAT BRITAIN and the United States signed a treaty of peace and good-will at Glient in 1814. During the following year the wars of Eng- land and France ended on the field of Waterloo. And so at last the battle flags were furled. The long-continued wars of England had, through neg- lect, reduced her merchant marine to a low stand- ard of efficiency, and both men and ships were in a deplorable condition. There was no government supervision over British merchant shipping except taxatibn, the only check, and that but partially effective, being the Underwriters at Lloyd's. Un- scrupulous ship-owners might and often did send rotten, unseaworthy vessels to sea, poorly provi- sioned, short of gear and stores, with captains, mates, and crews picked up from low taverns along the docks. These vessels were fully covered by insurance at high rates of premium, with the hope, frequently realized, that they would never be heard from again. The " skippers," " maties," and " jackies " alike belonged to the lowest stratum of British social classification, which, according to the chronicles 19 20 The Clipper Ship Era of those days, was pretty low. They were coarse, vulgar, ignorant men, full of lurid oaths ; their per- sons emitted an unpleasant odor of cheap rum and stale tobacco; they had a jargon of their own and were so illiterate as to be unable to speak or write their own language with any degree of correctness. In a eertain sense the captains were good sailors, but their knowledge and ambition were limited to dead reckoning, the tar bucket and marlinspike, a wife in every port, and plenty of rum and tobacco with no desire or ability to master the higher branches of navigation and seamanship. Mariners that a landsman delights to refer to as " real old salts," of the Captain Cuttle and Jack Bunsby species, are amusing enough, perhaps, in the hands of a skilful novelist, but not at all the class of men that one would willingly select to assist in carrying forward the commerce of a great maritime nation. Then the stupid and obsolete Tonnage Laws en- couraged and almost compelled an undesirable type of vessels, narrow, deep, flat-sided, and full-bottomed — bad vessels in a seaway, slow, and often requiring a considerable quantity of ballast, even when loaded, to keep them from rolling over. It is, of course, always hazardous to deal in gen- eralities, but I think that this may be accepted as a fair description of the merchant marine of Great Britain up to 1834, when the Underwriters at Lloyd's and the better class of ship-owners founded Lloyd's Register of Shipping, to provide for the proper survey and classification of the merchant ships of Great Britain. This first important step British Shipping after 1815 21 in a much needed reform was followed in 1837 by tlie appointment of a committee by Parliament to investigate the general condition of shipping en- gaged in foreign trade. The committee reported as follows : " The American ships frequenting the ports of England are stated by several witnesses to be su- perior to those of a similar class amongst the ships of Great Britain, the commanders and officers being generally considered to be more competent as sea- men and navigators, and more uniformly persons of education, than the commanders and officers of British ships of a similar size and class trading from England to America, while the seamen of the United States are considered to be more carefully selected, and more efficient. American ships sail- ing from Liverpool to New York have a preference over English vessels sailing to the same port, both as to freight and the rate of insurance; and, the higher wages being given, their whole equipment is maintained in a higher state of perfection, so that fewer losses occur; and as the American shipping having increased of late years in the proportion to 12% fo per annum, while the British shipping have increased within the same period only 1%% per annum, the constantly increasing demand for sea- men by the rapidly growing maritime commerce of the whole world, the numbers cut off by shipwrecks, and the temptations offered by the superior wages of American vessels, cause a large number of Brit- ish seamen every year to leave the service of their own country, and to embark in that of the United States; and these comprising chiefly the most skil- 22 The Clipper Ship Era ful and competent of our mariners, produce the double efifect of improving the efficiency of the American crews, and in the same ratio diminish- ing the efficiency of the British merchant service." In 1843 a circular was issued from the Foreign Office to all British consuls requesting information on the conduct and character of British shipmasters, especially with regard to the " incompetence of British shipmasters to manage their vessels and crews, whether arising from deficiency of know- ledge in practical navigation and seamanship, or of moral character, particularly want of sobriety." The consular reports revealed a startling condition of affairs, requiring immediate attention, and led to the establishment in 1847, of the Marine Depart- ment of the Board of Trade, with authority to supervise maritime affairs. From such unpromis- ing material the formation was begun of the great- est merchant marine that has ever existed. Meanwhile, one of the most important branches of British commerce, the East India trade, had been following an independent career, for the ships of the East India Company, although engaged in com- mercial pursuits, were under the direct patronage of the government, and cannot be regarded as form- ing part of the merchant marine of Great Britain. Yet as this Company had an important bearing upon the mercantile affairs of the nation, I propose to review as briefly as possible some of its remarkable exploits. " The United Company of Merchant Venturers of England trading to the East Indies " was familiarly known as the " John Company,"" and among those The East India Company 23 endowed with a larger bump of reverence, as the " Honorable John Company " ; but by whatever name it may be called, this was the most gigantic commercial monopoly the world has ever known, since the days when the merchants of Tyre claimed the exclusive right to send their ships across certain waters known by common consent as Tyrian Seas. The East India Company was founded in the year 1600, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The subscribed capital of £72,000 was expended on the first voyage in five vessels with their cargoes. This fleet consisted of the Dragon, of 600 tons, her commander receiving the title of Admiral of the squadron; the Hector, 300 tons, with a Vice- Ad- miral in command; two vessels of 200 tons each; and the Quest, a store ship of 130 tons. Four hun- dred and eighty men were employed in the expedi- tion, including twenty merchants as Supercargoes. The vessels were all heavily armed and were provided with small arms and an abundance of ammunition. They cost, with their equipment, £45,000, and their cargoes £27,000. Friendly relations were formed with the King of Achin, in Sumatra, and a station, known in those days and long afterward as a " factory," was es- tablished at Bantam, in Java. The fleet returned to England richly laden with silks and spices in 1603. In 1609 the Trades Increase, of 1209 tons, the largest ship launched in England up to that time, was built, but she was wrecked and became a total loss on her first voyage. Sir Henry Middle- ton, her commander, died soon after. This was an unfortunate expedition and resulted in heavy losses 24 The Clipper Ship Era to the Company, but in 1611 the Glole cleared 218%, and in the following year the Gloie, Thomas, and Hector turned over profits amounting to 340% upon the capital invested. Other successful voyages fol- lowed, so that in 1617 the stock of the Company reached a premium of 203%. The East India Company had its troubles, to be sure, which were many and great, yet it increased in power, wealth, and strength, until at the close of the eighteenth century it had become possessed of a large portion of the continent of India, main- taining its own armies, forts, palaces, Courts of Directors, Boards of Council, Governors, and Ty- peans.i Eventually, this Company became the ruler of more than one hundred million human beings, not naked savages, but civilized men and women, many of whose ancestors had been learned scholars and merchant princes long prior to the invasion of Britain by the Roman, Dane, and Saxon. It is not, however, with the political affairs of this Company that I wish to deal, but rather with the ships and the men who navigated them. The princely emoluments known as " indulgences " in which the captains and officers of these ships parti- cipated, naturally attracted the attention of parents and guardians, so that younger sons, otherwise des- tined for a life of ill-requited repose in the church, the Army, or the Navy, found lucrative service with the East India Company. These perquisites, which were handed out by the Honorable Court of Di- 1 A typean was the head merchant of one of the Com- pany's "factories" or mercantile houses, such as were later known in China as " hongs." B a aq The East India Company 25 rectors, were no doubt intended to be of pleasing variety and magnitude. The Company adhered strictly to promotion by seniority as vacancies oc- curred, from ship to ship when necessary. Captains were appointed to their ships before launching, in order that they might superintend their equipment and get them ready for sea. Midshipmen were ap- pointed by the Court of Directors, and no youth of less than thirteen or over eighteen years was eligible. Second mates were required to be at least twenty-two, chief mates twenty-three, and com- manders twenty-flve years of age. Captains were entitled to fifty-six and one half tons of space on board the ships commanded by them, which they might use at their discretion, either to collect the freight or to carry cargo on their own account, credit being furnished by the company for the latter purpose at the usual in- terest. The rate of freight ranged from £35 to £40 per ton, though in 1796 the Admiral Gardner, a ship of 813 tons, commanded by John Woolmore, Esq., was chartered for " six voyages certain " from London to India and return, at £50 for every ton of cargo carried. Even at the lowest rate of £35 per ton, the voyage out and home of about eighteen months yielded a captain some £3955, and if he carried goods on his own account, as was usually the case, he realized a much larger sum. Captains were also allowed primage, which was a percentage upon the total gross freight earned by the ship, and the passage money for passengers car- ried, except the Company's troops, less the cost of living. Considering that the passage money to or 26 The Clipper Ship Era from India or China was for a subaltern £95, and for a general officer £234, to say nothing of di- rectors and governors and their families, and that these ships usually carried from twenty to thirty passengers, we may conclude that this also was a considerable source of revenue. Then captains were permitted to own the dunnage used for the protection of homeward cargoes, which they supplied in the form of stone and chinaware, canes, bamboos, rattans, sapan-wood, horns, nankins, etc. All of these goods might in those days be bought at very low prices in India and China, and under the monopoly of the East India Company, they sold at very high prices in London. Most of this " dunnage," however, came to the captains in the form of presents, known in the fragrant lan- guage of the Far East as " cumshaws," from ad- miring Indian and Chinese merchants. Naturally all of the cargoes were well dunnaged, so much so, indeed, as finally to attract the- at- tention of the benevolent Court of Directors, who deemed it expedient to restrain the zeal of their captains in this direction by issuing an order that " as dunnage has been brought home in the Com- pany's ships far beyond what is necessary for the protection of the cargo and stores, occupying ton- nage to the exclusion of goods, or cumbering the ship, the court have resolved that unless what is brought home of those articles appears absolutely and bona fide necessary for and used as dunnage, the exceeding of such requisite quantity shall be charged against the tonnage of the commanders and oflfleers." This dunnage business had been progress- The East India Company 27 ing favorably for about two centuries when this mandate was issued, and had enriched many a deserving mariner. It was estimated that an India- man's captain received in one way or another from £6000 to £10,000 per annum, and there is a record of one ship that made what was known as a double voyage — that is, from London to India, China, and return — a twenty-two months' cruise — whose com- mander made profits amounting to the tidy sum of £30,000. The mates and petty officers were also well pro- vided for, having forty and one half tons of space allotted among them to do with as they pleased, and all hands were supplied with wines, spirits, and beer in quantities which if stated might seem like an attempt to impose upon the reader's credulity. A more showy if less substantial honor was con- ferred by the distinctive dress of the company's servants. The captains were arrayed in a pic- turesque uniform consisting of a blue coat with black velvet lapels, cuffs and collar, bright gold embroidery, and yellow gilt buttons engraved with the Company's crest, waistcoat and breeches of deep buflE, black stock, or neck-cloth, cocked hat and side-arms. The chief, second, third, and fourth officers wore uniforms of a similar though less gor- geous character, and all were particularly requested "not on any account to appear in boots, black breeches, and stockings " and " to appear in full dress when attending the Court of Directors." The charter of the East India Company provided that its ships should fly the long coach-whip pen- nant of the Royal Navy. During the last quarter 28 The Clipper Ship Era of the eigliteenth and first part of the nineteenth centuries, the ships were built, rigged, equipped, armed, manned, and handled like the frigates of the Royal Navy, though they were beautifully and luxuriously fitted for passengers, many of whom were personages of high social and oflQcial rank. They differed, however, from the frigates in one important particular. Whereas, the navy con- structors, as we have seen, profited by the models of the French frigates, the builders of the Indiamen kept to the full-bodied, kettle-bottomed model, in order that these ships might carry large cargoes. They were of quite as bad a type as the ships of the more humble merchant marine. I have before me the particulars of one of the East India Com- pany's ships that carried four hundred and nineteen tons of general cargo, and required eighty tons of iron kentledge to keep her on her legs. They were nevertheless grand, stately-looking ships, and were well cared for. The crews were divided into the usual two watches, but the officers had three watches, four hours on and eight hours off. The watches were divided into messes of eight men each, who had a space allotted to them between the guns in the between-decks. Here their hammocks were slung and their chests, mess-kids, copper pots, kettles, and tin pannikins were stowed, clean and bright, under the inspection of the commander and the surgeon, who were assisted in their duties by wearing white gloves with which to test the appearance of cleanliness. The crews slept in hammocks which were stowed in nettings at seven bells in the morning watch, to The East India Company 29 the pipe of the boatswain's whistle. The decks were washed and holystoned in the morning watch, and at eight bells all hands breakfasted. On Wednes- days and Saturdays, the between-decks were turned out, washed, and holystoned. On Sunday morn- ings the crew was mustered and inspected by the chief officer, and then assembled for Divine service, which was read by the commander, as the Court of Directors required the captains " to keep up the worship of Almighty God, under a penalty of two guineas for every omission not satisfactorily ac- counted for in the log-book." The crews were drilled at the guns and with cut- lass, musket, and boarding-pikes, and other small arms. Courts-martial were held on board and the rawhide cat-o'-nine-tails was freely used by the boatswain upon the naked backs and shoulders of triced-up seamen — one, two, three dozen, perhaps, with a bucket of salt water to rinse off the blood. This was not so brutal a form of punishment as may perhaps appear to landsmen, and was probably the best method of enforcing proper discipline among the reckless men who for the most part formed the crews of ships at that period. These vessels carried large crews, whose work was easy and who were well looked after and provided for. They had plenty of the best food and quite as much rum as was good for them. In the dog- watches they were allowed and even encouraged to enjoy themselves in the manner known on board ship as " skylarking." Saturdays they had to them- selves to wash and mend their clothes, and in the dog-watches of that day they were given an extra 30 The Clipper Ship Era allowance of grog, with which to drink long life and happiness to sweethearts and wives, with music, dance, and song. Seamen who had served eight years in the Company's ships were entitled to liberal pensions, as were also the wives and children of those who had been killed in the service of the Company, or who had been so maimed or wounded as to be unable to perform further service. There can be no question that the directors of the East India Company took good care of those who served them faithfully. The East Indiamen were always fine, strong ships, built of oak, elm, and teak, copper-fastened through- out, their cost being £40 per ton ready for sea; but they were very slow, and their passages were reck- oned not by days but by months. Every evening, no matter how fine the weather, royals and all light sails were taken in and stowed, and the royal yards sent on, deck. If the weather looked at all ■'• as if it might become threatening during the night, the topgallantsails and mainsail were stowed and a single reef put in the topsails. Safety and com- fort were the watchwords, with no desire or effort j |i y for speed. No one ever knew how fast these vessels really could sail, as they never had any one on board who tried to get the best speed out of them, f 1 1 but without doubt their passages might have been considerably shortened with even a moderate amount of vigilance and energy. All we know is, how slow they were. Yet these ships were fought through many a desperate battle upon the sea, with | foreign men of war, privateers, and other foes, and the skill and valor of their captains, officers, and T3 13 4 The East India Company 31 crews shed a new lustre upon the ensign under which they sailed. Indeed, the maritime records of the East India Company read more like a naval history than the annals of ships engaged in com- mercial pursuits. In some respects these Indiamen were remarkable ships, and they should, like men, be judged by the standards of the times in which they existed. They were owned by a company which for more than two centuries held a monopoly of the British China and East India trade without the spur of competi- tion urging them to perfect their vessels and to exact vigorous service from the officers and crews who sailed them. Under such a system there could be no marked progress in naval science. It would, of course, be an exaggeration to say that there had been no improvement in British shipping from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Victorian era, but it was so gradual as to be perceptible only when measured by centuries. Thus we speak of the ships of th§ sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth cen- turies, and upon examination are surprised to find how few and slight were the improvements made during these three hundred years in the design and construction of hulls or in spars, rigging, and sails. The only striking improvement was a modification of the really beautiful ornamentation which embel- lished and at the same time lumbered up the lofty hulls of the earlier ships. Some of the Indiamen were built in Wigram's famous yard at Blackwall on the Thames, which was in existence for more than two centuries. In- deed, some of the first ships owned by the East 32 The Clipper Ship Era India Company, the Dragon, Susannah, and Mer- chants' Hope were launched there. During the reigns of Elizabeth, James, Charles I., Charles II., and the Georges, this yard turned out many of the ships owned in the Royal Navy, and through all these years it had in time of need been a faithful standby of the British Government. Some of the ships of the Company were, however, built in other yards and in their own building establishment at Bombay. During the years 1819 and 1820 the Company sent to their different stations in Bengal, Madras, Bombay, China, Ceylon, and Penang, twenty-three of their own ships aggregating 26,200 tons, besides twenty-one chartered vessels measuring 10,948 tons. Among the Company's ships were the Canning, Duke of York, Eellie Castle, Lady Melville, Thomas Coutts, and Waterloo, built by Wigram, and all from 1325 to 1350 tons, each mounting 26 guns with a crew of 130 men. The Buckinghamshire, Earl of Balcarras, Herefordshire, Thomas Granville, Min- erva, and Charles Grant, all from 923 to 1417 tons, 26 guns, and 130 men with the exception of the Minerva and Thomas Granville which mounted the same number of guns but had 115 and 107 men, respectively, were built by the Company at Bom- bay. The Asia, Dorsetshire, Duneira, Marquis of Wellington, Prince Regent, Princess Amelia, and Windsor, which were all over 1000 tons and mounted 26 guns with crews of from 115 to 130 each, were built in the Barnard yard, also on the Thames. The London, Lowther Castle, Marquis of Camden, and Perseverance, all from 1329 to 1408 tons. 26 guns, The East India Company 33 and 130 men each, were built in the Pitcher yard at Northfleet in Kent. The Earl of Balcarras, of 1417 tons, built in 1815 at Bombay, was the largest ship owned by the Company, She was built of In- dia teak, copper-fastened throughout, and mounted batteries on two decks. Her crew of 133 men was made up as follows: Commander, 6 mates, 2 sur- geons, 6 midshipmen, purser, gunner, carpenter, master-at-arms, armour, butcher, baker, poulterer, caulker, cooper, 2 stewards, 2 cooks, 8 boatswains, gunner's, carpenter's, caulker's, and cooper's mates, 6 quartermasters, sailmaker, 7 servants for the com- mander and officers, and 78 seamen before the mast. These facts illustrate not only the manner in, which the ships of the East India Company were officered and manned, but also the extravagant scale upon which the affairs of the Company were administered. Of course, a gross monopoly like this, legalized though it was by Acts of Parliament, could not continue indefinitely among a free and intelligent people. For many years mutterings of discontent, gathering in force and volume, had been heard from all parts of Great Britain, indicating the disap- proval of the people concerning the methods of the Company. At last, in 1832, these mutterings burst into a storm of indignation from the people through their representatives in Parliament, which swept the frigates of the Honorable John Company off the face of the deep; for in that year commerce to the Orient was thrown open to all British ships, and knowing their utter inability to compete success- fully with free and intelligent personal energy, the East India Company condemned or sold their 34 The Clipper Ship Era entire fleet. Sixteen ships were broken np for their massive copper fastenings and other valuable mate- rial, while forty-six were sold, and no finer tribute can be offered to the excellent construction of these vessels than the figures which they realized at what may justly be called a forced sale. Naturally these ships were not all sold at the some moment, as some of them were on their way to China and India when the crash came; in fact, it required about three years to close them all out; still, it was well known that the Court of Directors had decreed that they must all be sold, and this gave bargain hunters a chance to practise their wiles. At first two or three of the ships were put up at public auction ; the bids were few and meagre, indicating an assumed and perhaps preconcerted apathy. Negotiations of a less public nature en- sued, which resulted as follows: The Buckingham- shire, of 1369 tons, then eighteen years old, was sold to Thacker & Mangels for £10,550. The Canning, 1326 tons, seventeen years old, sold for breaking up to Joseph Somes at £5750. The Minerva, 976 tons, eighteen years old, ready for sea, to Henry Templer, at £11,800; this ship, after thirty-seven years of service in the India trade was wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope in 1850. The Earl of Bal- carras, 1417 tons, nineteen years old, to Thomas A. Shuter for £15,700 ; this ship after fifty-two years' service, became a receiving hulk on the west coast of Africa. The Bombay, 1246 tons, twenty-two years old, sold to Duncan Dunbar for £11,000, was wrecked after fifty-nine years of service. The Lowther Castle, 1408 tons, nineteen years old, went The East India Company 35 to Joseph Somes for £13,950. The Waterloo, 1325 tons, eighteen years old, was sold for breaking up at £7200. The Thames, 1360 tons, thirteen years old, went to James Chrystall at £10,700. The re- maining ships of the fleet brought equally good prices. Thus ended the maritime exploits of the " United Company of Merchant Venturers of Eng- land trading to the East Indies " ; although its influence upon the merchant marine of Great Britain continued for many years. With the opening of the China and India trade to all British ships, there came the long-wished for competition — one of the hinges upon which com- merce swings — and a number of British ship-owners, hardly known before, now came into prominence. Among them were Green, Wigram, Dunbar, and Somes, of London, and the Smiths, of Newcastle. So strongly was the example of the East India Company impressed upon their minds that they still continued to construct frigate-built ships, though with some slight effort toward economy and speed. Many of the former captains, officers, and seamen of the East India Company sailed for the private firms, and so the personnel of the British merchant marine was much benefited. The private ships, of course, were not permitted to fly the naval pennant, but in other respects the service remained pretty nearly, the same. Much of the wasteful extrava- gance was naturally eliminated, and the " indul- gences " were substantially reduced, but the time-honored practice of " making snug for the night" was too ancient and comfortable a custom to be very speedily abolished. 36 The Clipper Ship Era Joseph Somes, one of the promoters of Lloyd's Register, bought a number of the Company's old ships, as we have seen, and in addition he built the Maria Somes, Princess Boyal, Sir George Sey- mour, and Castle Eden. Thomas and William Smith, of Newcastle, were an old ship-building firm, who had in 1808, at their yard in St. Peter's, constructed the frigate Bucephalus, 970 tons, 52 guns, for the Eoyal Navy, while in later years they built many merchant vessels. The finest of their new ships were the Marlborough and the Blenheim, of 1350 tons each, built under special government survey and granted certificates as frigates equipped for naval service. This firm also built the Qlori- ana, 1057 tons, Hotspur, 1142 tons, and St. Law- rence, 1049 tons, all of the frigate type, though employed as merchantmen. Duncan Dunbar owned a number of fine ships and eventually became the largest ship-owner of his time in Great Britain. Many of his vessels were built in India. The Marion, 684 tons, built in Calcutta in 1834, was in active service until 1877, when she was wrecked on the Newfoundland coast. The David Malcolm was built in 1839, and the Cressy, 720 tons, and the Hyderabad, 804 tons, in 1843, at Sunderland. Eobert Wigram and Richard Green, at one time partners, built and owned their own ships, known as the "Blackwall frigates." In 1834-35, they brought out the Malabar, Monarch, and Windsor Castle, and subsequently the Carnatic, Prince of Wales, Agamemnon, Alfred, and others, from 1200 to 1400 tons each. As late as 1849 the Alfred, of J3 a XI S T3 43 3 o a J3 The East India Company 37 only 1291 tons, commanded by Captain Henning, carried a crew of eighty men, which included five mates, three boatswains, two carpenters, four quartermasters, a number of stewards and cooks, with sixty men before the mast. These were the last of the frigate-built ships; for when the Navigation Laws were, repealed in 1849, and the carrying trade of Great Britain and her colonies was thrown open to all nations, the British merchants and ship-builders found it necessary to construct a very different type of vessel in order to compete in the ocean carrying trade. Farewell, then, to the gallant old Indiaman, with her hammock nettings, bunt jiggers, rolling tackles, jeers, gammon lashings, bentinck shrouds, and cat harpings, dear to sailors' hearts; and good-bye to her sailors, too, sons of the men who fought in the victorious fleets of Nelson, fellows who drank gun- powder in their rum before stripping to battle with the enemy, who could stand triced up by the thumbs and take their four-and-twenty of rawhide on the naked back without wetting an eyelash. And fare- well to the merry dance and song, the extra dram of grog in the dog-watch, and jovial toasts to sweethearts and wives, as the sun sinks beneath the blue wave and the cool evening trade wind fills the sails. OHAPTEE III THE NORTH ATLANTIC PACKET SHIPS, 1815-1850 WHILE progress in ship-building in the United States had been constant up to the War of 1812, American ship-owners and builders had been much hampered by the interference of both Great Britain and France, but in 1815, when the smoke of battle had cleared away and the rights of Ameri- can ships and seamen had been established upon the sea, ship-building was taken up with renewed energy. The famous New York-Liverpool packets came out in 1816. The pioneer, Black Ball Line, estab- lished by Isaac Wright, Francis and Jeremiah Thompson, Benjamin Marshall, and others, led the ran for years. The original ships belonging to this line were the Amity, Courier, Pacific, and James Monroe, of about 400 tons; they were followed by the New York, Eagle, Orbit, Nestor, James Cropper, William Thompson, Albion, Canada, Britannia, and Columbia, vessels of from 300 to 500 tons register. For the first ten years the passages of the fleet averaged 23 days outward and 40 days to the west- ward. The fastest outward passage was made by the Canada in 15 days, 18 hours, and her total averages — 19 days outward and 36 days homeward — were' the best of that period. .18 Packet Ships, 1815-1850 39 These ships were all flush deck, with a caboose or galley and the housed-over long-boat between the fore- and main-masts. The long-boat, which was, of course, securely lashed, carried the live stock, — pens for sheep and pigs in the bottom, ducks and geese on a deck laid across the gunwales, and on top of all, hens and chickens. The cow-house was lashed over the main hatch, and there were also other small hatch-houses and a companion aft lead- ing to the comfortable, well-appointed cabins, which were lighted by deck skylights, candles, and whale- oil lamps. The steerage passengers lived in the be- tween-decks amidships, and the crew's forecastle was in the fore-peak. The stores, spare sails, gear, etc., were kept in the lazarette abaft the cabins, with a small hatch leading to the main-deck. The hulls were painted black from the water-line up, with bright scraped bends, which were varnished, and the inner side of the bulwarks, rails, hatch-houses, and boats were painted green. It was said that some of the early Black Ball captains had com- manded privateers during the War of 1812. At all events, these little ships, with their full-bodied, able hulls, and their stout spars, sails, and rigging, were driven outward and homeward across the Atlantic, through the fogs and ice of summer and the snow, sleet, and gales of winter, for all the speed that was in them. They were in their day the only regular means of communication between the United States and Europe. Their captains were the finest men whose services money could secure, and to their care were entrusted the lives of eminent men and women, government despatches, the mails and specie. 40 The Clipper Ship Era Rain or shine, blow high, blow low, one of the Black Ball liners sailed from New York for Liver- pool on the first and sixteenth of each month, and for many years these were the European mail days throughout the United States. In 1821, Thomas Cope of Philadelphia started his line of packets between that port and Liverpool with the ships Lancaster, of 290 tons, and Tusca- rora, of 379 tons, which were soon followed by larger vessels, among them some of the finest ships on the Atlantic. The Red Star Line of Liverpool packets from New York was also established in 1821 with the Panther, Meteor, Hercules, and second Manhattan, and soon after, the Swallow Tail Line of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., came into existence with the Napo- leon, Silas Richards, George, and York. Grinnell, Minturn & Co.'s London Line was established in 1823 with the Brighton, Columbia, Cortes, and Corinthian, of less than 500 tons each, and during this year John Griswold's London Line was also started with the Sovereign, President, Cambria, Hudson, and the second Ontario. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 gave a great impetus to commerce, causing New York to become the eastern gateway of the United States, ; and from that date to 1850 may be counted the ' glorious years of the Atlantic packet ships. The Dramatic Line to Liverpool was started in 1836 with the Siddons, Shakespeare, Garrick, and Roscius, under the management of E. K. Collins. These vessels did not much exceed 700 tons, and when, in 1837, Isaac Webb & Co. built the Sheridan, 13 a