CHAPTER XI
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

IN the year 1772 the people of Marblehead, Massachusetts, boasted that "the number of polls was 1203," and that the vessels of all kinds owned in the port measured more than 12,000 tons. In 1780 the number of polls was 544, the tonnage but 1509. Within the borders of the town were 458 widows with 966 fatherless children.

Marblehead was a type of the New England fishing villages of the day. The nation had won freedom, but the fishing industry from which the American merchant marine had originated was ruined. Moreover, there was no immediate return of prosperity after peace was declared. The gross income of the New England cod-fishing vessels for the year 1787 averaged but $483 each; for 1788 it was $456 each, and for 1789 only $273. The average annual expense during this period was $416 each, and the vessels lost on the average $143 each during the year 1789. In that year the fleet measured 19,185 tons. In the next year the tonnage increased to 28,348, for the fishermen hoped for good times following the adoption of the Constitution, and in 1793, when the fleet received a national subsidy of $72,965.32, the tonnage reached 50,163. But in 1794, although the subsidy amounted to $93,768.91, the tonnage was only 28,671. In short, the statistics show that while the tonnage fluctuated from year to year, there was little prosperity for any of our fishermen in the period between the two wars for freedom.

A similar condition prevailed at Nantucket and other whaling ports. So discouraged were the Nantucket men that many of them migrated to England and France. For the British and French governments, to secure them, offered free transportation, free entry for ships and goods, and sums of money with which to begin life anew. Records show that no less than 149 Nantucket men commanded English whalers before the War of 1812.

The foreign aggressions of various kinds account for a large part of the depression of the fisheries during that unhappy period. The losses sustained by our freight carriers at that time were more than made up by the high freight rates received. But when the fish markets of the West Indies and of Europe were closed by adverse legislation, or by wars, there was no way to repair the loss except by national subsidies, and these, when granted, proved inadequate.

There was one other loss to which too little attention has been paid—the loss of men. The Marblehead men who were killed during the War of the Revolution were among the most enterprising of the coast—they were killed because of their courage and dash. Lost ships could be replaced in the course of one winter; the lost men were not replaced until their sons became men. Then, too, the prosperity of the carrier fleet drained away the best men among the fishermen; for the owners of the carriers knew where to get able seamen.

After the War of 1812 the cod fleet averaged somewhat larger than it was before the war, but the increase was not at all commensurate with the growth of the nation. The exports of dried fish declined instead of increasing, and in spite of a protective tariff foreigners began (1812) to sell pickled fish in the United States. These imports increased steadily until 1848, when more than 100,000 barrels were brought in, and the imports thereafter remained above that figure. In describing the situation of these fishermen in 1848, Sabine says:—

"Many crews of fishing vessels owned in Newburyport, on settling with their owners for six and seven months' hard toil at sea, received only about ten dollars per month; and on this miserable pittance they were to eke out the year. They had obtained good fares of fish, but were sufferers from the depressed state of the market. With facts like these before us, can we wonder that the more ambitious young men abandon the employment at every opportunity?"

The vessels in the mackerel and other fisheries were, of course, no more prosperous, on the average, than those fishing for cod. From first to last the fisheries of New England are of interest in the story of the American merchant marine chiefly because they afforded an excellent training school for the sailor of the sail. It was because of the school afforded that these vessels were subsidized between 1792 and 1866. The annual bounty ranged from $1.60 to $4 per ton, according to the size of the vessel. Pay from the national treasury at the rate of $2 per month has also been given to the crews of fishermen in order to create a sort of sea militia. During the Civil War many recruits for the navy were obtained from the fishermen. Impressed by the precedent thus afforded, and failing to distinguish between the requirements of the old-time and the modern man-o'-war, the Merchant Marine Commission of 1904 proposed to pay bounties to the crews now employed in the fisheries. Of course bounties paid to the crews of tugs and other harbor steamers would be far more effective for the end in view. The tenacity with which our people cling to the idea that a modern sailor needs training on a ship of the sail is one of the discouraging features of the outlook for a revival of our merchant marine. No one would suppose that a training on a Dakota wheat farm was essential to the making of a finished hot-house florist.

During the period before the Civil War the whaling fleet was enjoying what has been called the Golden Era of its prosperity. This fact is all the more interesting because the prosperity was due to the character of the whalemen as developed by their environment. Because Nantucket as farm land could afford no more than a bare living to a small number of people, the more ambitious residents were obliged to look elsewhere for a career; and when they looked they saw right whales just beyond—sometimes in—the surf. A storm—a seeming disaster—was the means of leading the right whalers to go in search of sperm whales, and that cultivated enterprise, because it took them ever farther and farther from home.

The spirit of enterprise was also cultivated by the "lay" system of paying the crew. Every man received a share of the oil instead of set wages. The system sharpened the eyes of the lookout, gave strength to the arm of the man at the oars, and cooled the nerves of the man who thrust the lance under the shoulder-blade of the whale.

When Captain James Shields reached the Brazil grounds too late in the season, the system of "no oil, no pay" drove him around Cape Horn in search of a new ground. When, in 1818, Captain George W. Gardener found the grounds on the west coast of South America barren, he boldly headed across the unexplored Pacific in search of others—with success. In 1819 a merchantman from China stopped at the Sandwich Islands and told a number of whalemen there that he had seen great schools of whales on the coast of Japan. Thereupon the whalemen raced away for the new grounds. In 1843 two New Bedford captains found fortune on the coast of Kamchatka and another in the Okhotsk sea. Two years later still, Captain Royce, of the Sag Harbor bark Superior, entered the Arctic by way of Bering's Strait.

The countries of Europe sent naval squadrons at great expense to explore the Seven Seas; the whalemen of America explored the waters of the whole world more thoroughly, if less scientifically, at their own expense, and made money in the quest. One volume of the American State Papers contains a list of more than 400 islands that were discovered by them in the Pacific alone.

Of less importance in its influence, perhaps, but not to be overlooked, was the ease with which the ambitious whalemen obtained promotion. The larger whalers carried three and sometimes four mates, together with a petty officer called a boat steerer for each of the boats. Because the boat steerer hurled the harpoon, his office was important, and many a daring youth who went afloat as a green hand came home wearing the boat steerer's badge. Last of all, but most important in its formation of character, was the danger of the pursuit. The whalers braved the jaws of the vicious sperm bull; they drove their boats under the uplifted flukes, and with a stroke of a boat spade disabled the monster. They pulled to the tune of "A dead whale or a stove boat," and so "made good" in the world's work naturally and easily.

The Golden Era began with the success of the whalers that sailed for the Pacific in 1815, and returned well loaded in 1817. In 1829 the whaling fleet numbered 203 vessels; in 1840, 552; in 1846 there were 680 ships and barks, 34 brigs, and 22 schooners, a total of 736 vessels, hunting the whale under the American flag. New London owned the largest ship of the fleet, the Atlantic, measuring 699 tons, and the smallest, the schooner Garland, of 49 tons, that was at work on the coasts of Desolation Island.

In 1835 the value of the annual product of the whalers exceeded for the first time $6,000,000. In 1845 the sperm-whale fishery reached its highest point in the amount of product—4,967,550 gallons. The price was then 88 cents a gallon. In 1855 the price was $1.772 per gallon, but the amount saved was only 2,228,443 gallons. Right whale-oil reached record figures in 1840, when the amount saved was 11,593,483 gallons. The price was then 33 cents. The highest income received by the whalers in any one year was in 1854, when the take sold for $10,802,594.20. The years 1854 to 1857, inclusive, paid the whalers $51,063,659.59. The average catch was worth about half the estimated value of the fleet, or say near the actual value. It is certain that a well-handled whaler was a most profitable ship until after the petroleum industry was developed.

A picturesque offshoot of the whaling fleet was the fleet of seal-hunters that came into existence at the end of the eighteenth century. When Captains Gamaliel Collins and David Smith, of Cape Cod, went to the Falklands (1774) in search of whales, they found there thousands of seals, both hair and fur, and sea-lions without end. The oil of these animals being of good quality, the whalers carried some of it home, together with the skins, which were found to serve well for covering trunks. The fur-seals as well as the hair sealskins were used for this purpose. Soon after the War of the Revolution a Mrs. Haley, of Boston, sent a large ship to the Falklands especially for seals. The number taken was 13,000, and the skins sold for fifty cents each in New York. This voyage, like that of the Columbia to the Northwest coast, shows well the extraordinary enterprise of the ship-owners of the day.

In 1790 Elijah Austin, of New Haven, sent two vessels to the Falklands for seals, and when they were filled, Captain Daniel Greene, who commanded one of them, took his cargo direct to Canton for sale, because the skins Mrs. Haley's ship had taken had been exported from New York to Canton with profit.

The work of the brig Betsey, of Stonington, Connecticut, is perhaps the most memorable of any of the ships that entered the early trade. Though of but 100 tons' measurement, she made two voyages to the southern seal islands, beginning in 1790, both of which were remarkably profitable—the better voyage paid $52,300 net. The outfit, vessel included, probably cost little more than a tenth of this sum.

The Betsey's success naturally increased the number of vessels in the hunt very rapidly. Mas-a-Fuera, Juan Fernandez, the South Shetlands, the Prince Edward and Crozet islands, Desolation and Heard's islands, all soon became as well known to the sealers as Long Island Sound was to the coasters. Captain Henry Fanning, of the ship Catharine, obtained a manuscript copy of the notes made by the original discoverer of Crozet's Island, and with that as a guide went to the islands and obtained a full cargo.

The most famous of the American seal-hunters was Captain N. B. Palmer, born in Stonington, Connecticut. In 1799 he began his career afloat as the cabin-boy of a coaster at the age of fourteen. At nineteen he was made second mate of the brig Hersilia, Captain J. P. Sheffield, bound from Stonington to the Falklands in search of seals. On reaching the Falklands, Palmer and a number of sailors were landed to search the group for seals, while Captain Sheffield went south to search for another group. According to a story told by "gaming" parties on the whalers of the day, a whale-ship that, in spite of a heavy fog, was cruising through the waters to the south of the Falklands, had sailed out of the fog unexpectedly, and found herself almost on top of a mountainous group of islands, the outlying rocks and the beaches of which were alive with seals. The crew of the ship, animated by the danger of their position, hastily tacked and sailed away. Then the fog enclosed them again, and when the captain thought to chart the strange group he had to guess at the position. Sheffield was in search of this group.

A few days after he was left at the Falklands, Palmer saw the brig Espirito Santo (owned by Englishmen at Buenos Ayres) come to the anchorage in search of water; and when she was anchored, Palmer noted that she carried a sealing outfit. Thereupon he made friends with the mate, and although sealers had the habit of keeping their destination secret, he learned that the brig was bound for the uncharted islands; also the course she was to steer from the Falklands. Accordingly, when the Hersilia returned unsuccessful, Palmer was able to follow the Espirito Santo to the new group. These islands are now known as the South Shetlands.

In the following year (1820) thirty sealers gathered at the South Shetlands, including five belonging to the Stonington South Sea Company. One of the five was the Hero ("but little rising forty tons," according to one old account), of which young Palmer was captain.

While working the group, Captain Isaac Pendleton, commodore of the five vessels mentioned, on climbing a mountain, saw what he thought was the loom of land far away to the south, and in the hope of finding other rookeries, sent Palmer in the Hero exploring.

Land was found, and Palmer soon discovered that it was of continental dimensions. As no seals were found, he finally headed back for the Shetlands, but before he had crossed the intervening water a heavy fog shut him in and he hove to. During the night a ship's bell was heard striking the hour off the port bow, and the stroke was followed by another off to starboard. To the crew these sounds seemed supernatural, for they could not think that real ships were there; but when morning came, they found the Hero lying between two war-ships. The story, as told by Captain E. Fanning, of Stonington, to Secretary of the Navy J. N. Reynolds, in a letter written in 1828, is as follows:—

"The two discovery ships sent out by the late Emperor Alexander, of Russia, being between the South Shetlands and Palmer Land, were becalmed in a thick fog; when the fog cleared away they were surprised to find one of the Stonington South Sea Company's barques, a little vessel of about fifty tons, between the two discovery ships, which immediately run up the United States flag, when the frigate and sloop of war set theirs, and the Russian Commodore despatched a boat and officer, with an invitation to Capt. Palmer, of the American vessel, to come on board, which he readily accepted.

"When he arrived on the commodore's deck he was asked what islands those were in sight, and if he had any knowledge of them. 'Yes, sir,' replied Capt. Palmer, 'those are the Shetland Islands. I am well acquainted with them, and a pilot here. I belong, sir, to a fleet of five sail out of Stonington, under the command of Capt. B. Pendleton, whose ship is now at anchor in a good harbor in that island; and if you wish for water and refreshments, I will pilot you in, and my commodore will be much pleased to render you any assistance.' 'I kindly thank you,' said the Russian, 'but previous to being enveloped in the fog we had sight of those islands, and concluded we had made a new discovery; and behold when the fog lifts, to our utter surprise, a beautiful little American vessel, to all appearance in as fine order as if she had but yesterday left her port in the United States, is discovered alongside of my ships, the master of which readily offers to pilot my vessels into port, where his commodore will tender me every aid for refreshment! We must surrender the palm of enterprise to you Americans,' said the Russian commodore. 'Sir, you flatter me,' replied the American captain; 'but there is an immense extent of land to the south, and when the fog is entirely cleared away, you will have from your masthead a fine sight of its mountains.' 'Indeed,' observed the commodore, 'you Americans are a people that will be before us; and here is, now, in your information, and in what is now before my eyes, an example and pattern of the oldest nation in Europe. Where I expected to make new discoveries I find the American flag, a fleet and a pilot!'"

The commodore then arose from his seat, and placing his hand upon Palmer's shoulder, continued:—

"I name the land, which you have discovered, Palmer Land, in your honor. But what will my august master say, and what will he think of my two years' cruising in search of land that has been discovered by a boy in a sloop but little larger than the launch of my frigate?"

The land thus named was a part of the Antarctic Continent.

Among the interesting stories of the sealers found in Goode's Fishery Industries of the United States is one of the ship Neptune, Captain Daniel Greene, of New Haven, which shows very well something of the peculiarities of this branch of the American merchant marine. The voyage lasted from November 29, 1796, to July 11, 1799.

The Neptune was a ship of 353 tons, and she carried a crew of 36 all told. Going to the Cape de Verde Islands, Captain Greene bought enough salt to preserve all the skins the ship could carry, and then went to the Falklands, where he arrived February 22, 1797. The first work done there was the building of a shallop for working shoal waters. Then seal-hunting was begun in connection with the crew of a ship from Hudson, New York, which, by the way, had brought a Hudson River sloop as a tender.

The seals were found either on beaches which the hunters reached easily, or on outlying rocks upon which the seas broke with tremendous fury even in the most pleasant weather. Ordinary whale-boats were commonly used in hunting the seals, though dories were preferred for the least accessible rocks. When the weather was at its best, the crews worked the easily reached beaches; incredible as it must seem, it was during the worst storms that the almost inaccessible rocks were visited. The most picturesque and daring work known to the sea was that of taking seals on these rocks. Rowing well out to windward, the officer in command of the boat noted carefully the position of the sunken reefs with which all these rocks were surrounded, selected a safe opening, and waited until the high waves that always come in threes appeared. Upon the crest of the last of a set of these the boat was driven in, and as it was swept along beside the rock the hunters, with clubs in hand, leaped forth to land as best they might.

At other times the boat was rowed up from the lee side to meet the crest of a roller at the side of the rock. The method chosen depended upon the situation of the rock.

Taking the men from the rocks after the killing was often more dangerous, if less picturesque, than landing them. For it was impossible to hold the boat beside the rock, and in leaping out the men often fell into the sea. A favorite way of getting men and dead seals was by throwing a line from the boat to the rock and then, while the boat was held in the lee of the rock, the men and carcasses were dragged through the water by the line.

The crews were continually drenched; the cold winds pierced them to the bone; they fell upon the rocks and were cut and bruised; now and then one fell, helpless, into the sea and was drowned. But the crews of those days were composed of youths who were looking ahead,—the most ambitious and courageous of all who lived around the home port,—and without flinching they took the chances until the ship was loaded.

These were the American fur-hunters of the sea. Rarely if at all elsewhere in the history of the nation can a more instructive contrast be found than that afforded when these men, leaping from the crest of the storm-waves to the seal rocks, are compared with those who traded pot-metal muskets and adulterated rum to the Indians in exchange for beaver skins upon the Western frontier.

Another glimpse of life at sea in those days is found in an adventure of the Neptune's men upon the coast of Patagonia. Captain Greene and some of his men went over there looking for seals, and found some Spaniards engaged in seal-hunting not far from Port Desire. The Spaniards said the commandante of the fort at the harbor would be pleased to give Greene permission to hunt seals in the region, and Greene, being a law-abiding man, went to the fort to see about the matter.

The commandante, however, pretended to believe that Greene was an Englishman; and as England and Spain were at war, the Americans were all held as prisoners, while soldiers were placed in charge of the shallop in which the Americans had come to the coast. As it appeared later, it was to get possession of the shallop that the commandante had decided that Americans were Englishmen.

Greene, however, was equal to the emergency. When the priest at the fort gathered the garrison into the chapel at 8 o'clock for the evening services, Greene overpowered the sentinels, ran out of the gate with his men, launched his whale-boat, rowed off to the shallop, set the soldiers ashore, and sailed away.

The Neptune, like all American vessels of the period, carried cannon. After seeing that his guns were in service condition, Greene returned to Port Desire and anchored in the harbor just out of range of the fort, and began to take seals from the rocks. The commandante came down the beach, and with much gesticulation (and nothing more effective) ordered him away. Greene might have defied him, but instead of doing so sent the purser to offer him the shallop (which was no longer needed) for permission in writing to go on with the hunt. The offer was gladly accepted, and Greene cleaned the coast of seals.

Greene's way of dealing with the official is especially interesting because it was characteristic of the American sea captains of the day in their intercourse with bumptious officials everywhere.

Then the Neptune went to Juan Fernandez and Mas-a-Fuera, where the cargo was completed.

"During the latter part of the time ... we frequently stove our boats in the surf," says a letter written by Purser Eben Townsend, and that is the extent of his comment on the dangers of landing on outlying rocks in the midst of a gale.

On June 9, 1798, the Neptune sailed for Canton, where she sold her skins for $2 each, and used the proceeds in buying China goods. This cargo, on reaching New York, paid customs duties amounting to $55,438.71, and sold for $260,000. The foremast hands received a "lay" of $1200 each. A paragraph in one of Purser Townsend's letters regarding these foremast hands is worth quoting:—

"Many of our crew were very smart, ambitious young men.... In our voyage across the Pacific they exerted themselves to be qualified for commanding ships, and the captain gave them as much indulgence as he could for that object, allowing them time and giving them instruction. It was quite a regular good school on board, and the progress was even greater than in some literary institutions on shore. Some men that could not do a sum in addition when we left America could now work lunar observations."

By 1825 the seals were so nearly exterminated that the hunt for skins gave no profit, but the amount of sea-lion oil that could be secured was sufficient to keep a fleet cruising in southern seas until 1870, when three vessels fitted once more for a skin hunt and secured 8000. The next year eight vessels obtained 15,000 good fur seals, and in 1876 Captain Athearn, in the schooner Florence, took a cargo that sold for $100,000. Between 1871 and 1880 the number of skins taken was 92,756. After that date the hunt again became unprofitable, but the sea-lion oil kept a few vessels busy for some years. The year 1880 may be called the last of the employment of the American seal-hunting fleet.

CHAPTER XII
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."

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."

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:—

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.