EARLY ENTERPRISE OF THE UNITED STATES MERCHANT MARINE
WHEN the War of the Revolution came to an end, the territory of the
United States extended along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia, and
westward over the Appalachian Mountains as far as the Mississippi River.
The population, including slaves, numbered no more than 3,500,000. The
settlements have usually been considered in groups--those of New England,
of the Middle states, of the Southern states, and, last of all, that most
interesting group west of the mountains. Virginia, Massachusetts, and
Pennsylvania were the most populous states. Philadelphia, the largest
city, boasted a population of 42,520 in the first census year (1790). New
York was second, Boston third, Charleston fourth, and Baltimore fifth.
Newport and Portsmouth, though small, were yet ports of importance, and
so, too, was Salem.
The interests of the different groups of population of the country
were then supposed to be in some ways antagonistic. The Southern states
produced tobacco, rice, and indigo for export, and had relatively few
ships; wanting low freight rates, they expressed, at times later, the fear
of combinations between owners of ships living elsewhere, by which rates
would be raised. The seeming antagonisms were magnified by the lack of
means of intercourse between them. While roads wide enough for vehicles
had been cut from town to town near the coast as far south as Virginia,
and a few had been opened into the interior along the routes of armies
during the war, the most comfortable way of travelling was by water, and
ships were the only means for transporting freight, save only as some
goods were carried on mules and wagons into the interior--on one route as
far as Pittsburg.
[Illustration: Custom House, Salem
From a print in the possession of the Lenox Library]
On the whole, a bird's-eye view of the United States showed a wilderness,
820,680 square miles in extent, that had a line of settlements along
the coast. The political condition of the country was not unlike its
physical--chaotic. The thirteen colonies, having thrown off allegiance to
the mother-country, had essayed the formation of a ship of state, but had
created only a raft of thirteen logs, if such a simile may be permitted,
which chafed each other with growing friction. Congress was nominally the
executive, the legislative, and the judicial head of a nation, but the
money it issued ceased to circulate, and the bonds, representing borrowed
coin and war material, were little better. As a body, the Congress
consisted of a score or so of respectable gentlemen who met in a hall
hired for the purpose, where they expressed their opinions on matters of
international as well as local concern, and then begged the sovereign
states to take action. They had no power _to do_ anything--not even to
raise the money with which to pay the rent of the hall in which they met.
An examination of the American merchant marine at this time shows that
it had fallen far below that of the colonies. In a communication to
Congress, 19 ship-builders of Philadelphia said (1789) that while they
had launched 4500 tons of shipping per year before the war, "it appears
from an average of three years past that we have built only to the amount
of 1500 tons annually." Similar complaints were made by the shipwrights
of Charleston, Baltimore, and Boston. The Charleston communication was
especial interesting. It said:--
"From the diminished state of ship building in America, and the _ruinous
restrictions_ to which our vessels are subject in _foreign ports_; from
the distressed condition of our commerce, languishing under the _most
disgraceful inequalities_, its benefits transferred to strangers ... who
_neither have treaties with us_ ... nor are friendly to our commerce," it
therefore seemed necessary to ask Congress to consider what ought to be
done in the matter (_Am. State Papers_, VII, 9; X, 5-6).
It will help to a comprehension of the condition of our merchant marine
if we recall once more the feeling of the English public towards the
colonists before the war. While statesmen like Robert Peel fostered the
growth of American shipping and commerce by encouraging them in evading
the navigation laws, the growth thus fostered roused a strong feeling
of ill-will on the part of many patriotic Englishmen. This feeling was
entirely natural and unavoidable. It was not alone that the Americans
were well able to compete with the mother-country for the carrying trade
of the world. Under the influence of environment the Americans were
developing into a distinct people. The successful colonial was often
and perhaps usually self-assertive and boastful; he was necessarily
aggressive. Then, too, he showed a lack of deference in the presence
of rank that seemed shocking to the nobility. Men who were doing the
world's work in the American wilderness made no efforts to conceal their
contempt for royal governors, and the influential part of the people of
England accepted the complaining letters of these baffled governors as
accurate characterizations of the American people. Because of a sort of
race prejudice thus produced, the measures of the king, when coercion was
attempted, were heartily approved by the majority of the English people.
Then, during the war, the expelled American loyalists had _ex parte_
stories to tell that added indignation to animosity. The successful
American cruisers added to the ill feeling. At the same time the British
authorities observed a tendency among the foremost hands in the British
navy that was not a little alarming. While their navy lost, in the years
from 1776 to 1780, 19,788 men through disease and battle, no less than
42,069 deserted. Some of these deserters were, of course, Americans
who had been impressed, but many a good British tar learned about the
opportunities in the new land and made haste to go to meet them.
In short, it was through natural and unavoidable causes that the
influential Britons came to regard their "American cousins" with a feeling
of, say, intense animosity not wholly unmingled with apprehension.
Keeping in mind this mental attitude, recall the fact that a command of
the sea was then absolutely essential to the well-being of the British
people, and further, that the supremacy which the British then boasted
had been obtained, and maintained for a century, by good hard fighting;
and further still, that many British thinkers had been alarmed at such
American progress as had been manifested even a hundred years before the
Declaration of Independence. Bluntly stated, while the British people
had learned to hate the American, they suddenly saw that he alone had
shown an ability to dispute that supremacy upon the sea which seemed
absolutely necessary for the preservation of their national existence. And
as an independent citizen of the world he was in a position to force the
issue. It follows, therefore, that the British were naturally led to do
all they could to oppose all progress in the United States. The "ruinous
restrictions" of which the Charleston ship-builders made mention were a
natural sequence of the success of the Revolution.
While the British were thus hostile upon the sea (they were also holding
American territory in the West, and inciting the Indians to war), the
French and the Spanish were united in an effort to cut off all that part
of the United States west of the Appalachians. For civilization was then
in the primitive state where men, though they talked about international
law, were guided only by unenlightened selfishness, and acknowledged no
other court of appeal than that afforded by the sword.
The story of foreign aggressions upon American shipping and commerce will
be told in the next chapter, but by way of illustrating conditions in the
years following the Revolution, consider one fact regarding the British
work of opposition. All American trade with the British West Indies was
forbidden, and so strictly was this regulation enforced that thousands of
slaves starved to death in those islands for want of the "refuse fish" and
other food which the planters had been accustomed to obtain from America;
and even some of the poorer white people died for the same reason.
Because of ruined industries, and of a chaotic government at home, and
of the ruthless opposition of the nations of Europe, the condition of
the people of the United States seemed almost hopeless. So great was the
depression of the seafaring part of the population, indeed, that even the
optimistic whalers of Nantucket thought about removing their industry to
France, and many of them did migrate.
And yet it was in this period of deepest gloom that the American merchant
marine first reached out for the trade of the Far East. In the _Journals
of Congress_ for 1784 (p. 333) is a paragraph referring to "a letter
of the 23d December, 1783, from Daniel Parker, stating, that a ship
called the '_Empress of China_' will shortly sail from New York for
Canton in China, under the command of Captain John Green, and requesting
sea-letters."[5]
No commercial ventures to the East Indies were made in colonial days
because, in part, of the monopoly of the East India Company, but chiefly
because abundant profitable employment for all available capital was found
in various trades nearer home. The fact that ships in the China trade very
often made cent per cent was, of course, very well known in the colonies,
and colonial merchants had a general knowledge of the cargoes suitable
for that trade. They knew, for instance, that ginseng, a root growing
wild in American forests, was highly valued in China for its supposed
medicinal qualities. Accordingly, when the war ended, and American ships
were excluded from such a large part of the trade which they had enjoyed
in former days, the ship-owners naturally thought of the trade to the Far
East. New York and Philadelphia merchants united in fitting out a vessel
which they renamed the _Empress of China_. She measured 360 tons, and the
chief part of her cargo was ginseng. Sailing from New York on February
22, 1784, with the sea letter noted above for a passport, she arrived at
Canton Roads (Macao) on August 23, and she reached home on May 11, 1785.
The profit on the venture was $30,000, which, being only a little more
than 25 per cent on the investment, was considered small. Other voyages
of the period are worth consideration, if only to illustrate the spirit
of the ship-owners of the day.
The most interesting of the China voyages, in this point of view, was
that of the sloop _Experiment_, a vessel with one mast and a capacity for
eighty tons of cargo, that was built at Albany for the trade of the Hudson
River. Captain Stewart Dean, her master, had served in two privateers
during the Revolution. She carried six cannon, with a liberal supply of
small arms, and her crew numbered fifteen (one account says twenty), men
and boys. "Martial music and the boatswain's whistle were heard on board
with all the pomp and circumstance of war." She carried out ginseng and
brought back tea and silks, with profit; and what is of more importance,
perhaps, in this story is the fact that she made the return voyage in four
months and twelve days. The record shows what a fore-and-aft rig can do
in a round-the-world voyage.
In the same year a Hingham sloop of only forty tons, commanded by a
Captain Hallett, sailed from Boston, bound for Canton, but got as far only
as the Cape of Good Hope. At that point English ship captains offered
Captain Hallett two pounds of good tea for each pound of ginseng he
carried, and he was willing to take the profit thus insured rather than
risk a longer voyage in the hope of a larger one.
The story of the entrance of Elias Hasket Derby, of Salem, into the China
trade is of interest because of the view it affords of a peculiarity
of most of the successful ship-owners of the day. Derby considered the
possibilities of the trade as early as any one, but while the _Empress of
China_ was on her way to Canton, Derby sent his _Grand Turk_ as far as the
Cape of Good Hope only. By trading ginseng and provisions to the English
captains who were found at the Cape, Captain Ingersoll, commanding the
_Grand Turk_, was able to make a fair profit on the voyage; but the main
object in view was to learn all about the demands of the Canton trade;
and in this he was entirely successful. It may be worth mentioning that
Captain Ingersoll also went up the coast of Africa to complete his cargo
with gold-dust, ivory, etc., and that he was under orders not to take on
slaves, even though he should thereby be able to make a paying voyage out
of a losing one. Elias Hasket Derby was one of the few individuals who
were far enough ahead of their age to see the iniquity of the trade, but
the important feature of the story of the voyage is this, that Derby would
take the risks of the voyage to the Cape to obtain information. In the
meantime, too, he sent one of his sons to Europe, where he spent several
months in a study of the India trade of England and France.
[Illustration: Elias Hasket Derby
From a print in the possession of the Lenox Library]
With the knowledge thus gained, Captain Derby despatched the _Grand Turk_
(December 5, 1785) on a voyage to the Far East, but instead of sailing
direct to Canton she called at the Isle of France (Mauritius); then she
went to the coast of India, and thence to Canton. The trade at Mauritius
and on the Indian coast added greatly to the profits of the voyage without
increasing the length of time required to a serious extent.
The trade to China thus initiated was so profitable that in 1789 no
less than fifteen American ships were in the Canton roads, of which four
belonged to Captain Derby. One of the four is worth especial notice. She
was the swift _Astræ_, Captain James Magee, Jr., commanding, and Thomas
Handyside Perkins, supercargo. More than twenty individual ventures were
made in this voyage of the _Astræ_, and a few notes from her outward
manifest (list of cargo) will serve well to show the course of trade in
those days. Thus Tenney and Brown, of Newbury, sent "9 kegs snuff," and
a note in the margin of the manifest tells Captain Magee that "⅓ the net
proceeds you are to credit E. H. D.'s account for freight--the other ⅔
to lay out on account of T. & B. in light goods." Opposite the item "1
phaeton and harness complete, with saddles and bridles &c., cased up" is
a note saying: "This belongs to Folger Pope ... the net proceeds is to be
credited to E. H. D.'s account, as friend Derby is to have the use of the
money for freight." David Seas sent "Boxes containing $15,000, 16 casks
ginseng, 5570 lbs. This at one-fifth for freight." William Cabot sent
a box "containing 21 pieces plate, weight 255 oz. 16 dwts. 12 gr." Rum,
wines, beer, fish, flour, "598 firkins butter 32,055 lbs," and spermaceti
candles were conspicuous items in the manifest.
Some quotations from Derby's letter of instructions to the captain and
supercargo are also interesting. "Make the best of your way for Batavia,
and on your arrival there you will dispose of such a part of the cargo
as you think may be most for my interest. I think you had best sell a few
casks of the most ordinary ginseng if you can get one dollar a pound for
it. If you find the price of sugar to be low you will then take into the
ship as much of the best white kind as will floor her, and fifty thousand
weight of coffee, if it is low as we have heard, ... and fifteen thousand
of salt petre, if it is very low, some nutmegs, and fifty thousand weight
of pepper; this you will store in the fore peak for fear of injuring
the teas. The sugars will save the expense of any stone ballast, and it
will make a floor for the teas &c. at Canton. At Batavia you must, if
possible, get as much freight for Canton as will pay half or more of your
charges.... You must endeavor to be the first ship with ginseng, for be
assured you will do better alone than you will if there are three or four
ships at Canton at the same time with you." As another of the Derby ships
was to be at Batavia on the arrival of the _Astræ_, directions were given
for the loading or the sale of that vessel, according as circumstances
seemed to require, but special stress is laid upon the necessity of making
careful calculations before selling the vessel, in order to be sure that
that course would pay better than bringing her home full of cargo. It
is manifest that Derby did not care to sell her. "Captain Magee and Mr.
Perkins are to have 5 per cent commission for the sales of the present
cargo, and 2½ per cent on the cargo home, and also 5 per cent on the
profit made on goods that may be purchased at Batavia and sold at Canton,
or in any other similar case that may arise on the voyage. They are to
have one-half the passage money--the other half belongs to the ship. The
privilege of Capt. Magee is 5 percent of what the ship carries on cargo
exclusive of adventures. The property of Mr. Perkins, it is understood,
is to be on freight, which is to be paid for like other freighters. It is
orders that the ship's books shall be open to the inspection of the mates
and doctor of the ship, so they may know the whole business" in case of
the death of captain or supercargo. "The Philadelphia beer is put up so
strong that it will not be approved until it is made weaker; you had best
try some of it.... The iron is English weight; ... there is four percent
you will gain if sold Dutch weight.... You are not to pay any moneys to
the crew while absent from home, unless in case of real necessity, and
then they must allow an advance for the money.... It is likewise my order
that in case of your sickness that you write a clause at the foot of
these orders putting the command of the ship into the person's hands that
you think the most equal to it, not having any regard to the station he
at present has in the ship.... Lay out for my account fifteen or twenty
pounds sterling in curiosities."
The sale of the _Astræ_ is forbidden for this voyage, but "if at Batavia
or Canton you can agree to deliver her the next season for $20,000 or
$25,000 you may do it." The final paragraph says that while the orders are
"a little particular" "you have leave to break them in any part where you
_by calculation_ think it for my interest."
As there were fifteen American ships at Canton when the _Astræ_ was
there, the market was flooded with American goods. Her ginseng sold for
$20,000 less than prime cost. Two of Derby's ships were sold; the other
two brought home 728,871 pounds of tea. Although the consumption of the
country at that time was only about a million pounds a year, the total
imports of the year amounted to 2,601,852 pounds. In the meantime the
government had been organized under the Constitution and a duty levied
on imports which, in the case of the _Astræ_, amounted to about $27,000.
On the face of the documents the voyage of the Astræ was disastrous. But
Derby, by petition, obtained the privilege of putting his goods in the
warehouse and paying the duty as they were sold and removed. The system
of bonded warehouses became common later. And according to the biography
of Captain Derby, published in _Hunt's Merchants' Magazine_, his capital
was not impaired seriously, if at all, by the voyage.
Another merchant who reached out for trade in strange seas was Captain
Ebenezer Parsons, who sent ships to the Red Sea, took on cargoes of coffee
for Smyrna, and cleared, in some voyages, from 300 to 400 per cent. A
still larger profit was made by Captain Jonathan Carnes, of Salem, in
a number of ventures to Sumatra. While at Bencoolen, on that island, he
learned by accident that pepper grew wild on its uncivilized northwest
coast. Returning to Salem, Carnes imparted his information to Jonathan
Peele, who at once furnished the money with which a schooner named the
_Rajah_ was built. Carnes armed the _Rajah_ with four guns, shipped a
crew of ten men, loaded her with brandy, gin, tobacco, bar iron, and dried
fish, and then, in November, 1795, cleared out for the East Indies. These
proceedings aroused the greatest curiosity in Boston as well as Salem;
for neither owner nor captain would say a word about the destination of
the schooner; and this curiosity grew, as the months passed and nothing
was heard from the _Rajah_. Accordingly, when, after eighteen months,
the schooner came sailing into port loaded to the hatch coamings with
pepper, she created more excitement in Salem than any other vessel that
entered the port that year. The profit on this voyage amounted to 700 per
cent. When the _Rajah_ was fitted for a second voyage in the same secret
manner, a number of merchants sent other vessels in chase, hoping to find
where she obtained her pepper; but Captain Carnes eluded them all, and
once more brought home a cargo at an immense profit. In the third voyage,
however, his secret buying place was discovered, and thereafter he had to
be contented with the ordinary cent per cent.
One of the most celebrated voyages of the period was that of the ship
_Columbia_, Captain John Kendrick, with the sloop _Washington_, Captain
Robert Gray, as a tender, to the northwest coast of the continent to trade
for furs.
The _Columbia_ was a ship of 240 tons' burden. She could just carry the
cargo of an Erie canal boat of the size in use in 1909. The expedition
was fitted out by Joseph Barrell and four others. It sailed on October
1, 1787, and arrived at Nootka Sound in September, 1788. On July 3, 1789,
Captain Gray sailed for home in the Columbia; and, returning by the way of
China and the Cape of Good Hope, was the first to sail around the world
under the American flag. The work done by these two captains is chiefly
of interest here, however, because of the discoveries made on the coast
and of the use the nation made of the discoveries later. For the Strait of
Juan de Fuca and adjoining waters were thoroughly explored, the Columbia
River was discovered, and its navigable waters were explored. Land was
purchased of the Indians, forts were built, and a vessel called the
_Adventurer_ (of 40 tons' burden) was launched. The claim thus established
by American citizens was used with effect, when it had been made good by
subsequent occupation of the land, in settling the boundary between the
United States and the British possessions to the north thereof.
The trade on the northwest coast was continued by Boston people with
varying results until after the War of 1812, and many interesting stories
have been related by those engaged in it. John Ledyard, the American
traveller, was first to suggest engaging in it. He was with Captain Cook,
when that celebrated explorer was on the northwest coast, and learned that
the sea-otter skins, which the Indians had in abundance, could be sold
for $120 each in China. On returning home, he almost succeeded in getting
Robert Morris to enter the trade, but nothing was done in it until the
_Columbia_ sailed.
The voyage of the _Columbia_ did not pay her owners, but those who
followed her often made large profits. Perhaps the most interesting
venture was one made by William Sturgis. While trading with the Indians
(blankets, cutlery, firearms, molasses, and trinkets were then in demand),
he learned that the Indians used the skin of the ermine in its winter coat
as a currency, and that it was highly valued. Accordingly, Sturgis sent
home a fine specimen of the ermine skin, and ordered as many as could be
obtained. His correspondent secured 5000 at the Leipsic fair, and on the
next voyage Sturgis carried them to the coast, where he traded five, which
had been purchased for thirty cents each, for a sea-otter skin. He thus
obtained a thousand sea-otter skins, which he sold in China for $50 each,
or $50,000 for that part of the venture alone. Mr. Sturgis, in a lecture
delivered in Boston, on January 21, 1846, said that he had known of a
capital of $40,000 yielding a return of $150,000 in that trade, and in one
voyage "an outfit not exceeding $50,000 gave a gross return of $284,000."
In the meantime Captain Derby's young supercargo on the _Astræ_, Thomas
H. Perkins, had established a trading house in Canton. He entered the
northwest coast trade with success, and in the course of twenty-two years
his ships made thirty round-the-world voyages from Boston, by the way of
the Horn, the northwest coast, Canton, and the Cape of Good Hope. It is an
interesting fact that in the years immediately following the War of 1812
"all the supplies for the British [fur-buying] establishments, west of the
Rocky Mountains, were brought from London to Boston, and carried thence to
the mouth of the Columbia in American ships; and all their collections of
furs were sent to Canton consigned to an American house, and the proceeds
shipped to England or the United States in the same vessels." (_Hunt's
Magazine_, XIV, 538.)
In connection with the stories that have been told of these voyages to
the Far East, consider the following facts in the biography of Captain
Nathaniel Silsbee:--
"Among the officers who rose most rapidly to distinction in the service of
Mr. Derby, none is more prominent than the Hon. Nathaniel Silsbee, late
Senator from Massachusetts. His father had enjoyed the entire confidence
of Mr. Derby, and after his death Mr. Derby transferred that confidence
to his son.
"In 1790 he appears as the mate and captain's clerk of a small vessel
bound to Madeira. In 1792 [when but nineteen years old] he is master of
a sloop in the trade to the West Indies, which Mr. Derby impowers him
to sell for $350. In 1793, at the early age of twenty years, he is on
a voyage to the Isle of France in command of the new ship _Benjamin_,
of 142 tons. From the Isle of France he proceeds to the Cape of Good
Hope, returns to the Isle of France, and brings his ship home with large
profits.
"In 1796 Mr. Derby dispatches him in the ship _Benjamin_ to Amsterdam
and thence to the Isle of France, with a credit of $10,000 for his own
private adventure. After selling his ship and cargo at a great profit he
purchases a new ship of 450 tons for his owner and returns to Salem with a
full cargo of East India goods for his owner, and such favorable results
for himself as to enable him to commence business on his own account, in
which he soon achieved fortune."
When Silsbee, at the age of twenty, was master of the _Benjamin_, on the
way to the Isle of France, his first mate, Charles Derby, was nineteen
years old, and his second mate, Richard J. Cleveland, was only eighteen.
In 1799 this Cleveland made a voyage in a fifty-foot sloop from Canton to
the northwest coast of America, and, though hampered by a mutinous crew,
he secured there a cargo of furs which sold, on his return to Canton, for
$60,000. The outfit had cost him $9000.
Although all ships of the day were, by modern standards, dangerous in size
and rig; though scurvy was the plague of crews in long voyages; though
vast breadths of the sea had never been explored, and the wild coasts
visited had never been charted; although the first voyages were made
when the American people were financially prostrate and the symbol of the
American government was utterly powerless, not only in home affairs but in
the face of the open and covert enmity of the leading commercial nations
of the world,--in spite of all this, the American ship-owners reached
out for the commerce of all the earth, and _young men having ambition
and ability worked their way to the command of ships before they were old
enough to vote_.
The picture of one of those boyish sea-captains flinging the Stars and
Stripes to the breeze on the far side of the earth portrays, better than
anything ever said, written, or done, the spirit of America.