THE PACKET LINES AND THE CLIPPERS
Two results of the War of 1812 are of especial interest here. Through good
fighting the American ship was at last free to sail upon the high seas
unmolested by any power upon earth, and the seafaring people had become
aggressive to a degree that was little short of bumptious. In the weary
years that had passed since the _Trial_ sailed from Boston, our sailors
had been engaged in a struggle for mere existence; now they were to enter
with eager zest into a contest for the supremacy of the seas.
The first work done to this end was the establishment of a packet line
(1816) from New York to Liverpool, by Jeremiah Thompson, Isaac Wright,
Benjamin Marshal, and other capitalists of New York under the name of the
Black Ball Line. It may interest students of psychology to know that the
Quaker religious element prevailed among the stockholders.
The word "packet" had been used theretofore at sea only in connection
with certain small but swift vessels (usually brigs) that the British
government employed to carry the mail to foreign countries. These vessels
sailed from the home port at regular intervals, and the weather was bad
indeed when one of them failed to get away at the advertised hour.
In connection with the Liverpool packet service it is important to
recall the difference between loading a ship "on owners' account," and
carrying freight for any shipper at a rate per ton. The earliest American
ships usually carried cargo that belonged to the owners and crews. The
ships of Derby's time carried goods partly for the owners and partly for
"adventurers," who paid the owners a freight rate. With the further growth
of commerce the amount of freight offered for transportation by merchants
who owned no ships had increased rapidly, and before, as well as after,
the War of 1812 there were ship-owners who made increasing profits by
catering to these merchants. The owners of these vessels, it appears, had
observed that the regularity of the Hudson River packets had increased
the freight and passenger traffic there in a far greater ratio than any
one would have anticipated from the growth of population; and this fact
led to the conclusion that if a regular day of despatch, with the utmost
speed, were provided for the New York-Liverpool trade (the trade in which
the freighting traffic was largest), the ships would be able to command
the best part of the commerce. The event justified the venture; the Black
Ball Line was profitable from first departure. The ships were even able
to command higher rates than the ordinary vessels.
The ships employed were among the largest and swiftest of the period (400
to 500 tons each), and the captains were under orders to drive them to the
limit. The passages from Sandy Hook to Liverpool during the first 9 years
were made on the average in 23 days, the shortest time being 15 days and
18 hours--made by the _New York_ in 1822. The westward passage during that
time was made in 40 days on the average.
In 1821 the Red Star Line (Byrnes, Grimble, & Co.) entered the Liverpool
service with a ship every month on the 24th--a week ahead of the Black
Ball Line. To meet this competition the Black Ball began sending ships
away on the 16th as well as the first, and then the Swallow Tail Line
(Thaddeus Phelps & Co., and Fish, Grinnell, & Co.) made the service
weekly.
In 1821 Thomas Cope & Son began a monthly service from Philadelphia to
Liverpool, and in 1823 the Swallow Tail Line began sending ships monthly
to London. This last service soon had opposition in a line established by
John Griswold. Then between 1822 and 1832 three lines were successfully
established between New York and Havre.
The success of the transatlantic lines led to the formation of coastwise
lines. A number of 180-ton sloops made regular passages from New York to
Boston, beginning in 1818. In 1825 packets began running from New York to
Charleston; the New Orleans line was opened in 1832, and at the same time
another line began running to Vera Cruz, Mexico. These lines added much
to the offerings of freight and passengers to the transatlantic lines,
and helped the growth of New York immensely.
The New Orleans and the Vera Cruz lines were owned by E. K. Collins, a
man of much importance in the history of the American merchant marine,
as shall appear. His success in these two lines led him to sail into the
Liverpool trade with what was known as the Dramatic Line. The New York
_Daily Advertiser_, in announcing this line (September, 1836), said:--
"We notice this new enterprise with pleasure, as it will add another list
of fine ships to the sixteen now built. The ships are all to be 800 tons
and upward, New York built. The Liverpool lines are composed of 20 ships
or about 14,000 tons.... Nor will the establishment of another line injure
in the slightest degree the other lines--the more facilities there are
afforded the more goods and passengers will be transported."
The number of ships in the packet fleets, as here noted, is worth
consideration, for if the ships of the lines to London and to Havre and
that from Philadelphia be added, the whole number was no more than 50,
the tonnage of which was less than 35,000. In that year the American
tonnage in the foreign traffic was 753,094. The packet fleets contained
but a small fraction of the American tonnage, but their influence upon
the contest for supremacy of the seas was wonderful.
The files of the newspapers of the day give many glimpses of the packet
ships as the reporters saw them. Thus the Liverpool Courier, of March 24,
1824, in describing the 500-ton _Pacific_, Captain S. Maxwell, said:--
"This fine vessel has, during the week, been crowded with visitors who
have viewed with feelings of admiration the splendid style in which her
cabins are fitted up. Her dining room is 40 feet by 14. A mahogany table
runs down the centre, with seats on each side formed of the same wood
and covered with black hair cloth. The end of the dining room aft is
spanned by an elliptical arch, supported by handsome pillars of Egyptian
porphyry. The sides of the cabin are formed of mahogany and satin wood,
tastefully disposed in pannels and most superbly polished. The doors
of the staterooms are very neat, the compartments in each being inlaid
with a square of plate glass. An arch extends over the entrance to each
room, supported by delicate pillars of beautiful white Italian marble,
exquisitely polished. The staterooms are seven on each side; they are
fitted up with much taste, and with a studious regard of the comfort and
convenience of the passengers. The sideboard is placed in a recess in the
end of the cabin. An arch is thrown over it by two pillars of American
marble from the state of Vermont.... The _Pacific_ is built of live oak,
copper fastened, and is now coppering in No. 2 Graving-Dock. Nothing can
exceed the politeness of Captain Maxwell in showing her to the public."
In 1838 the New York _Express_, in describing "the last new packet,"
said:--
"We recollect that thirty years ago, when the _Manhattan_ was
launched--she was about 600 tons burden--all New York crowded down to see
her. She was the wonder of the day; and it was then believed that she was
the _ne plus ultra_ in ship building; that she was not only the largest
and finest ever built, but that ever could be built. From that day to
this they have gone on improving and building until they have now got to a
point of perfection that one would hardly suppose could be excelled. Our
ships, and particularly our packets, are admired by all nations wherever
they go; and although we do not admit that we cannot, by our skill,
ingenuity and capital, go on improving, the world admits that America is
without a rival in the noble art of building this description of vessel.
"We have, from time to time, given descriptions of the various ships that
have been put afloat.... We have now another to add--the ship _Roscius_,
built by E. K. Collins, belonging to the Dramatic Line, and to be
commanded by Captain John Collins. She is the largest that has yet been
built, and for strength and beauty is a noble specimen of American ship
building. The following are her dimensions:--
"Burden, 1100 tons; length of main deck, 170 feet; length of spar deck,
180 feet; breadth of beam, 36½ feet; depth of hold, 22 feet; height of
cabin, 6½ feet; height from keelson to main truck, 187 feet; length of
main yard, 75 feet."
Of the velvet used upon the sofas, and the Wilton carpets, the "scarlet
marino" drapery, "with white curtains," nothing more need be said, but
the facts that she cost $100,000 ($90 per ton) and would "stow about 3200
bales of cotton" are, perhaps, memorable.
With a little imagination a picture that warms the blood is found in
the following brief paragraph from a Liverpool paper published in July,
1836:--
"_Ship Race._--Twelve ships sailed from New York for Liverpool on the 8th
instant. Among them were the packet ships Sheffield, Allen; the Columbus,
Palmer; and the George Washington, H. Holdredge, and several first-rate
vessels, the Star, the Congress, the Josephine, &c. Heavy bets were
laid on the respective ships at the time of sailing. The three packet
ships having parted company, fell in with each other on the Banks of
Newfoundland. Here they parted. The George Washington passed Holyhead on
Saturday forenoon; two or three hours afterwards the Sheffield passed the
same place. Both ships entered the Mersey in the course of the afternoon,
after a run of seventeen days from port to port. The Columbus arrived
yesterday morning. None of the other ships have yet appeared."
Fancy a newspaper giving no more space than that to such a magnificent
race! Still, races of the kind were common in those days, and the sailor
can imagine how the ships were handled. The Palmer who commanded the
Columbus, by the way, was Nathaniel Brown Palmer, who discovered the
Antarctic Continent while in command of the _Hero_--"a little rising forty
tons."
[Illustration: Clipper Ship _SYREN_]
In 1837 the papers announced that the _Sheffield_, Captain Allen, that
came in second in the race had, within the past 12 months, made the
eastward passage five times in succession in an aggregate of 91 days,
"being an average of about 18 days each from port to port." In her next
passage out she crossed in 16 days, thus creating a record of six passages
in 103 days, "being a little over 17 days each."
On April 24, 1836, the Liverpool _Albion_, under the heading
"Unprecedented Quick Passage," told how the _Independence_, Captain E.
Nye, had "sailed from New York on the evening of the 8th instant, and
the interval between her leaving and taking the Liverpool pilot was only
_fourteen days_ and five hours."
"The passage from port to port has frequently been made in sixteen days;
in the year 1822 the packet ship _New York_ made it in fifteen days
and three-quarters; but the _Independence_ is the only ship that ever
accomplished it within the fifteen days."
The passengers on the _Independence_, "being desirous of commemorating
the unparalleled short passage," appointed a committee to "procure and
convey" to Captain Nye "a Piece of Plate with a suitable inscription."
The _Independence_ measured only 734 tons. She was built in New York in
1834.
In the course of the packet period five other liners made passages to
Liverpool in fourteen days or less--the _Montezuma_, the _Patrick Henry_,
the _Southampton_, the _St. Andrew_, and the _Dreadnought_. Under
Captain Samuel Samuels the _Dreadnought_ was the most famous of them
all. She ran in the St. George's line--A. Taylor & Co. Samuels was born
in Philadelphia, on March 14, 1823. He ran away to sea when eleven years
old, and at twenty-one, after a venturesome career, was placed in command
of a ship called the _Angelique_. In 1853 the _Dreadnought_ (1413 tons)
was built especially for him, and as he told the writer she was a ship of
"medium full lines." And yet in her first voyage to Liverpool and back[7]
she reached Sandy Hook just as the Cunard steamer _Canada_, which had left
Liverpool one day ahead of her, was arriving at Boston.
On Saturday, February 9, 1856, the Liverpool _Chronicle_, under the
head lines "Important from America. Five days later--Arrival of the
_Dreadnought_," said:--
"The clipper _Dreadnought_, Captain Samuels, ... arrived here this
forenoon from New York after a rapid passage of fourteen days and eight
hours."
[Illustration: Captain Samuel Samuels
By courtesy of _Harper's Magazine_]
It took three years to beat that passage, but in 1859 Samuels drove her
from Sandy Hook to Rock Light, Liverpool, 3000 miles, in 13 days and 8
hours. And in 1860 he ran from Sandy Hook to Queenstown, a distance of
2760 miles, in 9 days and 17 hours, a record never equalled either before
or since.
"She was on the rim of a cyclone, most of the time," said the captain in
describing the passage to the writer. The sailors of the day called her
the "Wild Boat of the Atlantic," and some unremembered forecastle bard
wrote a song of nine stanzas about her, of which the first was:--
"It is of a flash packet,
A packet of fame.
She is bound to New York
And the _Dreadnought's_ her name.
She is bound to the west'ard
Where the stormy winds blow.
Bound away in the _Dreadnought_,
To the west'ard we'll go."
Seafaring people are yet alive who well remember the boisterous vigor
with which the old-time sailors used to roar out "Bound away in the
_Dreadnought_, To the west'ard we'll go," wherein all the crew joined the
chanty man.
The counting-house view of the packets must not be overlooked. The
earliest ships cost about $40,000, or say $80 a ton measurement. The later
ones cost nearer $90 a ton, the _Roscius_, of 1100 tons, as noted above,
costing $100,000. The captain usually owned an eighth of his ship, and
many a man of good reputation who lacked the money to buy such a share
was allowed to buy in with a note that was paid off with his share of the
earnings. The captain, who was part owner, naturally handled the ship with
greater economy on that account. The salary of the captain was usually
$360 a year, but in addition he had 5 per cent of the freight money, a
fourth of the cabin passage money, all the money paid for carrying mails
(twopence a letter from the British government, and two cents from the
American), and the privilege of carrying his wife board free. On the
whole, these captains made not far from $5000 a year.
The number of cabin passengers varied from 30 in the earlier days up to
80 in the later, though there were many passages, of course, when the
cabin was nearly empty. The price of passage was $140 during most of the
time, but competition cut it to $100, now and then. The owners, however,
calculated on an income of from $2000 to $5000 per passage from the cabin.
The income from freights ran from $5000 to $10,000 per passage. Each ship
made six passages a year. Much larger sums were earned in a single passage
at times. The _Orient_, Captain George S. Hill, once made a gross income
of $50,000 for a round voyage, while the _Webster_, Captain Joseph J. Law,
made $60,000.
The proudest seafaring man in the world at that period was the master
of a Liverpool packet. When the wind served at the hour of sailing, he
set all plain sail on his vessel as she lay at her pier, laid all flat
aback, drove her stern first into the stream, turned her around, and then,
while the spectators cheered themselves hoarse, he sent her rippling down
to the sea. And when he returned he sometimes arrived in the river with
royals set and sailed her into her berth with less fuss and jar than the
ferryboat in the near-by slip was making. Indeed, tugs were used before
1835 only when the wind was foul or wholly lacking, and for years after
that it was a matter of pride as well as profit to save the tug bill
($140) whenever possible.
Most of the newspapers that have been quoted in this chapter were
printed in England. It is a significant fact that the English papers,
which represented the attitude of the English merchants of the day, gave
the American packets unstinted praise. The acrid jealousy that English
merchants had shown during all the long years before the War of 1812 was
silenced. How did it happen that these "Yankee" seamen were treated so
well?
The British House of Commons having appointed a committee in 1835 "to
inquire into the cause of shipwrecks in the British merchant service," the
London _Courier_, on August 18 and 20, 1836, printed a number of extracts
from the committee's report. One of the paragraphs in that report is of
special interest:--
"45. _American Shipping._--That the committee cannot conclude its labor
without calling attention to the fact, that the ships of the United
States of America, frequenting the ports of England, are stated by several
witnesses to be superior to those of a similar class amongst the ships of
Great Britain, _the commanders and officers being generally considered
to be more competent_ as seamen 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_; that American ships sailing from Liverpool to New
York, have preference over English vessels sailing to the same port, _both
as to freight and to rate of insurance_; and _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 have increased of
late years in the proportion of 12¾ per cent per annum while the British
shipping have increased within the same period 1½ per cent per annum," the
superior growth of the American merchant marine, as well as the higher
wages paid, was taking the best of the British sailors into the service
of the American ships.
All of this is to say that while only twenty-one years had elapsed since
the American sailor had won, by good fighting, the right to cross the seas
unmolested by foreign war-ships, his chief competitors openly acknowledged
that in the trade between New York and Liverpool (the most important
trade route in the world) he had won unquestioned and even uncontested
supremacy. The American packets received cordial praise in Liverpool
because no British ship-owner so much as thought about entering into
competition with them, and this, too, at a time when the British tonnage,
in the aggregate, was far greater than that of the United States.
In the meantime the American whalemen had won supremacy, as already noted,
in the work of gathering the harvest of the deep seas, and the most
splendid conquest of all, the supremacy of the sea in the trade of the
Far East, was at hand.
The most interesting feature of this contest was the evolution of a class
of ships called clippers. Curiously enough, it appears that one aggressive
naval architect, John W. Griffiths, of New York, was responsible for
the introduction of this remarkable type of ships. Griffiths was of the
opinion that a ship having "hollow" or concave water-lines, especially
at the bow,--"hollow entrance lines,"--would sail more swiftly than one
with ordinary convex lines, no matter how fine the convex lines might
be. In 1841 Griffiths exhibited a model of a ship shaped according to
his ideas, at the American Institute, and he also delivered a number of
lectures on the subject. The nautical world became greatly interested, and
in 1843 William H. Aspinwall ordered a ship of 750 tons built to designs
by Griffiths. She was named the _Rainbow_, and when sent, under Captain
John Land, to Canton on her maiden voyage, she arrived back at the end of
6 months and 14 days. In another voyage she sailed to Canton in 92 days
and made the passage home in 88, breaking the record each way.
The _Howqua_, the _Samuel Russell_, and the _Sea Witch_ were also built
to the new designs,--the clipper model, as it soon came to be called,--and
all made swift passages. The _Russell_ is of special interest because she
was commanded by Captain N. B. Palmer, who now left the packet service to
engage in that of the Far East. His first run was made to Hongkong in 114
days, which was slow time for a racer, but in the course of the voyage
he covered 318 miles in a day; and in 30 consecutive days he sailed 6722
miles. To complete Palmer's record it may be said here that in his last
ship, the _Orient_, he covered 328 sea miles in a day, and made the run
home from Canton in 81 days.
The _Howqua's_ best work was the run from Shanghai to New York in 88 days.
The _Water Witch_, called "the swiftest ship of her day," was commanded
by Captain Robert H. Waterman ("Captain Bob"). She set the pace when she
sailed from New York on December 23, 1846. In 25 days she hove to off Rio
Janeiro long enough to send mail ashore on an inbound ship, and in 104
days she reached Hongkong. Her return run from Canton was made in 81 days.
In the next voyage she returned from Canton in 77 days, her best day's
run being 358 sea miles, something then unheard of.
There were a number of other celebrated clippers in the China trade, but
none of them was swifter than the _Shooting Star_, with a passage record
of 88 days from Canton, and the _Atlanta_ with a record of 84; none
equalled Waterman's passage of 77 days.
When the captains of these clippers, dressed in "lustrous, straw-colored,
raw-silk suits," paraded the water front of New York, they were more
admired and envied by the loungers than any prince or potentate on earth.
They were the kings of the sea by right of conquest. Imagine what Captain
Waterman would have done if told that he reigned by grace of "a system of
national protection deliberately initiated in 1789!"
In 1849 the British government, in a desperate determination to place
British shipping ahead of American in quality as well as quantity,
repealed the old navigation laws. British merchants were not only
permitted to buy American ships, but American ships were permitted to
enter all trades to the United Kingdom. The British ship-builders declared
their business would be ruined; and the building of the old-style wooden
ships was ruined. The ship-owners, too, saw disaster staring them in the
face, and, for a time, there was reason for their fears. For where the
British ships in the tea trade received from £3 to £4 per ton (50 cubic
feet) from Canton to London, the American clippers received six and even
more.
The little Baltimore clipper _Architect_, having made a run from Canton
to London in 107 days, beating the fleet by about a week, she was paid
£8 a ton when next she applied for a cargo of new-crop teas. The ordinary
ships were glad to get the common £4.
In the meantime the California territory was acquired from Mexico by the
treaty proclaimed July 4, 1848. Placer gold had already been discovered
in El Dorado county (January 24), and when official reports confirmed the
wide-spread rumors of the "find," a migration of gold-seekers such as the
world had never seen was begun.
The growth of population in the territory was phenomenal, and the growth
at once created an insistent demand for many products of civilization,
especially for such things as were needed by miners and town-builders; for
the whole region was a wilderness. This demand was backed by gold washed
from the placers, and the prices seem now almost beyond belief.
"On the 1st of July, 1849, lumber was selling at San Francisco for $500
per 1000 feet. A better quality of lumber could be purchased in New York
for $12--in Maine for $10." (Ex. Doc. 2, 32 Cong. 1 sess. p. 306.) At the
same time, (Phil. Quar. Reg., Dec. 1849), eggs were selling as high as $2
a dozen, hens for $4 each, butter at $1.50 a pound, and potatoes, by the
pound, 6 to 8 cents; turnips and cabbages still higher.
The merchants made haste to forward the needed supplies; thousands of
eager gold-hunters sought passage on the outbound ships, and the one
demand of the merchant and the passenger was for speed.
The number of ships obtainable being inadequate, the merchants went to
the shipyards, and it was then that the most famous of all the American
clippers were built.
The records of some of the old ships that were at once put into the
California trade were not bad. The _Colonel Fremont_ reached San
Francisco after a passage of 127 days, and the _Grey Eagle_ in 117. But
the _Flying Cloud_, built by Donald McKay of Boston, and sailed by Captain
Josiah P. Creesy, of Marblehead, in 1851, made the passage in 89 days,
and in one day covered 374 sea miles. The length of this passage is given
as 84 days in some accounts, but _A Description of the New Clipper Great
Republic_, a pamphlet printed at Eastburn's Press, Boston, in 1853, for
Donald McKay, says the time was 89 days. This pamphlet also says that the
outlook for profits led McKay to build the _Sovereign of the Seas_, a ship
of 2400 tons, and then the largest, longest, and sharpest merchant ship in
the world. "Contrary to the advice of his best friends, he built her on
his own account; he embarked all he was worth in her, for no merchant in
this vicinity would risk capital in such a vessel, as she was considered
too large and costly for any trade.... To the surprise of even those who
knew him best, he played the merchant and loaded her himself. And well he
was rewarded. He not only sold her on his own terms, but her performances
exceeded his expectations."
Captain Lachlan McKay, brother of Donald, commanded this famous clipper.
In August, 1851, she left New York for San Francisco, and until well
beyond the Horn made record speed; but off Valparaiso, while the captain
was driving her through a gale by night, an extra heavy squall carried
away her fore and main topmasts. Captain McKay was sitting in an arm-chair
on the quarter-deck at the time, and that chair was his only bed for the
next two weeks. During that time new masts were made and got on end, the
yards were crossed and sail was made. She reached San Francisco in 102
days from New York in spite of the disaster.
Going to Honolulu, the _Sovereign of the Seas_ loaded whale-oil for
New York. In the course of the passage she sailed 3144 sea miles in 10
consecutive days, and arrived in New York in 82 days. There she loaded for
Liverpool, sailed on June 18, 1852, and anchored in the Mersey 13 days and
19 hours later. During this passage she covered 340 sea miles in a day.
Her next voyage was to San Francisco, and during the return passage, "in
24 consecutive hours she ran 430 geographical miles." (Eastburn pamphlet.)
The _Antelope_ and the _Surprise_ are credited with making passages
from San Francisco to New York in 97 days; the _John Gilpin_ and the
_Sweepstakes_ in 94; the _Flying Fish_ and the _Great Republic_ in 92,
and the _Sword Fish_ in 91. Professor J. Russell Smith's _Ocean Carrier_
says the _Comet_ made the passage in 76 days. Her record is disputed
(see _Shipping Illustrated_, New York, April 3, 1909), but the _Nautical
Magazine_, April, 1856, confirms it. It is not disputed that the _Northern
Light_ ran from San Francisco to Boston in 76 days, and Captain A. H.
Clark, in _Harper's Magazine_, June, 1908, says the _Trade Wind_ made the
San Francisco-New York passage in the same number of days.
[Illustration: Clipper Ship _WITCH OF THE WAVE_]
The _Great Republic_, built by Donald McKay, was the largest American
clipper ship. She was "325 feet long, 53 feet wide and her whole depth
is 39 feet." She was "of 4000 tons register and full 6000 tons stowage
capacity." She had four masts, the after, or spanker, mast carrying
fore and aft sails only. Her main-yard was 120 feet long. After she was
loaded at New York for her maiden voyage she was accidentally burned,
the total loss, as insured, amounting to $400,000. The sunken hull was
raised, rebuilt at a cost of $27,000 and she was then rigged as before. In
rebuilding her, a less depth of hull was given, but she was still able to
carry 4000 tons dead weight. With 3000 tons in her hold she ran from New
York to the coast of England in 12 days. In the Guano trade from the west
coast of South America she was credited with making 412 miles in one day.
(Admiral Preble in _U. S. Serv. Mag._, July, 1889.) The _Red Jacket_ once
covered 413 sea miles in a day, and the _Flying Scud_ claimed a day's run
of 449, but this was disputed. (See _Nautical Magazine_, June, 1855.) The
undisputed record day's run was made by the _Lightning_, built by Donald
McKay, for English capitalists. A letter from McKay which appeared in the
_Scientific American_ on November 26, 1859, says:--
"Although I designed and built the clipper ship _Lightning_, and therefore
ought to be the last to praise her, yet such has been her performance
_since Englishmen learned to sail her_, that I must confess I feel proud
of her. You are aware that she was so sharp and concave forward that one
of her stupid captains, who did not comprehend the principle upon which
she was built, persuaded the owners to fill in the hollows of her bows.
They did so, and according to their Bullish bluff notions, she was not
only better for the addition, but would sail faster, and wrote me to that
effect. Well, the next passage to Melbourne, Australia, she washed the
encumbrance away on one side, and when she returned to Liverpool, the
other side was also cleared away. Since then she has been running as I
modelled her. As a specimen of her speed I may say that I saw recorded in
her log (of 24 hours) 436 nautical miles, a trifle over 18 knots an hour."
A few records will give an idea of the profits of the best of the
clippers. The _Sovereign of the Seas_ received $84,000 freight money
for the passage when she was dismasted, and her owner says she earned
$200,000 in the first eleven months. The _Surprise_, Captain Dumaresque,
in a voyage from New York to San Francisco and then by way of China home,
made a net profit of $50,000 above her cost and all expenses. The _Great
Republic_, according to Preble, received $160,000 freight in a passage
from New York to San Francisco. It seems worth noting here that the
insurance rates on these hard-driven clippers were far lower than can now
be obtained by the best of modern sailing ships.
The most interesting period in the history of the American merchant marine
is the clipper ship era. The story has been told over and again, but the
interest never flags. And yet while those ships were sweeping the seas and
lying in port where their captains walked the piers in suits of lustrous
China silks; and while the newspapers of Europe as well as America were
printing in leaded lines the details of their wonderful passages, _the
seafaring people of the United States were living in a fool's paradise_.
The work that was to drive the American flag from the principal trade
routes of the seas had been begun before the keel of the clipper _Rainbow_
was stretched. Our seafaring people saw it, too, and even helped it on,
but with but one notable exception, so far as the record shows, they
utterly failed to comprehend its significance.
The character and effect of that work shall be described in another
chapter. It remains to consider here one other interesting fact about the
clippers. It is demonstrable that the shapes of the much-lauded clipper
hulls had only a trifling, if any, influence upon the speed attained.
Indeed the lines upon which the builders of the most famous of them all
relied for speed were inferior, as modern designers know, to those of some
ordinary ships wholly unknown to the record.
As a first bit of evidence in proof of this assertion here is the story
of the _Natchez_ in which Captain "Bob" Waterman first won fame. In 1843
Waterman sailed her around the world and made the passage from Canton to
New York in 94 days. The whole voyage required only 9 months and 26 days.
In 1844 he drove her from New York to Valparaiso in 71 days, thence to
Callao in 8, and thence to Hongkong in 54. She then loaded teas at Canton
and he drove her from that port to New York, 13,955 miles, in 78 days.
This last passage was but one day longer than Waterman's record passage
of 77 days made in the _Sea Witch_, "the swiftest clipper of her day."
But the _Natchez_ was not a clipper, although she has been described as
one. She was built with full lines and a flat bottom in order that she
might carry huge loads of cotton from New Orleans, across the shoals at
the mouths of the Mississippi, and around to New York; and while engaged
in that trade, she had earned the reputation of being one of the slowest
ships on the American coast!
As to the lines of the clippers note that while Donald McKay supposed that
the _Lightning_ made her great speed because she was "hollow" at the bow,
the modern yacht designers, who have tried out the hollow lines for years,
have entirely abandoned them. The famous _America_ had hollow lines; no
modern yacht has anything of the kind.
The _Dreadnought_, with her unequalled North Atlantic record, was called a
"semi-clipper," in her day. Her lines, as printed in Griffiths's _Nautical
Magazine_, show that she was as full as many ships that were never classed
as anything but plain cargo carriers. In connection with this fact recall
the records of a ship or two built long before the clipper era--Derby's
_Mount Vernon_, for instance, with her passage of 17 days from Salem to
Gibraltar. The _Silas Richards_, formerly a packet between New York and
Liverpool, left New York in June, 1836, for Canton, and she was back in
New York at the end of March, 1837. Her run home was made in 91 days. Even
the old _Desire_ (high in poop and low in spars, when compared with the
clippers) made the passage, away back in 1640, from Boston to Gravesend
in 23 days.
Out of 157 vessels that arrived at San Francisco in 1852, no less than
seventy had been designed as clippers, of which, however, only three or
four made notable passages.
No complete list of the ships built with clipper lines was ever made, nor
can one be made now; but out of the 2656 ships and barks launched between
1843 and 1855, which was the clipper era, it is certain that at least
10 per cent--256--were of the clipper model. But only a few more than a
score ever made better records than the previously built packets had made.
Indeed, many of the leanest and sharpest of the clipper hulls, together
with (curiously enough) others that were built from the drawings of some
of the successful clippers, were absolute failures, so far as speed was
concerned.
This is not to deny that the clippers were in some respects grand ships.
They were superior in the strength of hull, _in the breadth of beam_, and,
consequently, _in the spread of canvas under which they could stand_. In
the _general proportions_ of their hulls many of them were right--as was
the old frigate _Constitution_, which had a bow as round as an apple and
yet had a record of better than 12 knots an hour. But even when all of
that is said, the fact remains that the full-lined _Natchez_ was but a
day behind the record from Canton.
If it was not to the model of the ships, to what, then, were the splendid
records due? The answer is of the utmost importance in any study of the
American merchant marine. The records were due to the fact that our seamen
were the most ambitious and the most efficient sailors _of the sail_ that
the world has ever seen. While the gale permitted the ship to hold her
course, the captain paced the deck the whole night long and caught his
sleep by day in short naps under the weather rail in order that he might
see that she was kept going. The sheets and halyards of the important
sails on those record ships were made of chains, and they were locked
fast in place--held by padlocks, so that frightened sailors, unseen by
the master, could not let them fly when the ship, rolling to the blast at
night, dragged her lee rail through the solid water. When the captain gave
an order, the crew ran with all their might to do the work--or they were
knocked across the deck with a pump-brake in the hands of the nerve-racked
mate. Captain Waterman even shot men off the yards because they seemed to
be handling the sails slowly. Studding sails were spread to the zephyrs
when the ship crossed the equator, and they were yet seen in place while
she sailed with trade-winds so strong that ships from Europe close-hauled
were reefed down to the cap. Indeed, all sail was often carried when
ordinary ships were seen reefed down on the same course. As Clark Russell
notes in one of his novels, the skipper of the ship from Europe, as he
paced the deck with anxious eyes upon his shortened canvas, fearing that
it would be blown from the bolt ropes, very often saw a tiny white speck
upon the horizon, watched it grow into a splendid ship with "every rag
set," saw her fling the Stars and Stripes to the gale, as she went roaring
by, and then with feelings that cannot be described, gazed after her until
she disappeared in the mists far down the lee.
If the two crews thus meeting in mid-ocean could have changed ships, the
bluff-bowed hulk from Europe would soon have gone smoking away while the
clipper would have rolled her spars over the lee rail before her new crew
could have learned the lead of a single sheet or halyard.
It was the man on the quarter-deck--he who had handled ships among the
rocks of the South Shetlands, or had lanced whales in the North Pacific,
or had skimmed the sands of Cape Hatteras, in order to learn the arts
of the sea as handed down from the beginning--it was the master mariner
evolved by two hundred years of battle--with the sea and its people--who
made the American flag supreme upon all the seas of the whole world.