Read Ebook: The clipper ship era an epitome of famous American and British clipper ships their owners builders commanders and crews 1843-1869 by Clark Arthur H

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Ebook has 2431 lines and 244135 words, and 49 pages

APPENDICES 349

INDEX 377

PAGE

EAST INDIAMEN, 1720 24

AN EAST INDIAMAN, 1788 30

THE "MARLBOROUGH" AND "BLENHEIM" 36

THE "ENGLAND" 40

THE "MONTEZUMA" 44

THE "YORKSHIRE" 48

JACOB A. WESTERVELT 104

JACOB BELL 104

WILLIAM H. WEBB 106

SAMUEL HALL 106

ROBERT H. WATERMAN 112

N. B. PALMER 112

JOSIAH P. CREESY 122

H. W. JOHNSON 122

DAVID S. BABCOCK 128

GEORGE LANE 128

LAUCHLAN MCKAY 130

PHILIP DUMARESQ 130

THE "SURPRISE" 136

THE "STAG-HOUND" 142

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 148

THE "NIGHTINGALE" 164

THE "CHALLENGE" 186

THE "STORNOWAY" 198

THE "SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS" 218

THE "COMET" 224

THE "YOUNG AMERICA" 232

THE "GREAT REPUBLIC" 242

THE "DREADNOUGHT" 246

THE "BRISK" AND "EMANUELA" 252

DONALD MCKAY 256

THE "RED JACKET" 272

THE "JAMES BAINES" 282

THE "SCHOMBERG" 286

THE "SWEEPSTAKES" 290

THE COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION 322

THE "ARIEL" AND "TAEPING" RUNNING UP CHANNEL, SEPTEMBER 5, 1866 328

THE "LAHLOO" 336

The Clipper Ship Era

AMERICAN SHIPPING TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR OF 1812

The deeds that have made the Clipper Ship Era a glorious memory were wrought by the ship-builders and master mariners of the United States and Great Britain, for the flag of no other nation was represented in this spirited contest upon the sea. In order, therefore, to form an intelligent idea of this era, it is necessary to review the condition of the merchant marine of the two countries for a considerable period preceding it, as well as the events that led directly to its development.

The industry was in a promising and healthy condition, and so continued, until in 1720 the London shipwrights informed the Lords of Trade that the New England shipyards had drawn away so many men "that there were not enough left to carry on the work." They therefore prayed that colonial built ships be excluded from all trade except with Great Britain and her colonies, and that the colonists be forbidden to build ships above a certain size. The Lords of Trade, though fine crusty old protectionists, were unable to see their way to granting any such prayer as this, and so ship-building continued to flourish in America. In the year 1769, the colonists along the whole Atlantic coast launched 389 vessels, of which 113 were square-riggers. It should not, however, be imagined that these vessels were formidable in size. The whole 389 had an aggregate register of 20,001 tons, an average of slightly over 50 tons each. Of these vessels 137, of 8013 tons, were built in Massachusetts; 45, of 2452 tons in New Hampshire; 50, of 1542 tons, in Connecticut; 19, of 955 tons, in New York; 22, of 1469 tons, in Pennsylvania. It is probable that few of them exceeded 100 tons register, and that none was over 200 tons register.

With the advent of the Revolutionary War, the rivalry on the sea between the older and the younger country took a more serious turn. Centuries before clipper ships were ever thought of, England had claimed, through her repeated and victorious naval wars against Spain, Holland, France, and lesser nations, the proud title of Mistress of the Seas, but in the Revolutionary War with her American colonies and the War of 1812 with the United States, her battleships and fleets of merchantmen were sorely harassed by the swift, light-built, and heavily-armed American frigates and privateers. While it cannot be said that the naval power of England upon the ocean was seriously impaired, yet the speed of the American vessels and the skill and gallantry with which they were fought and handled, made it apparent that the young giant of the West might some day claim the sceptre of the sea as his own.

The United States no less than Great Britain was indebted to France for improvements in the models of her ships at this period. During the Revolutionary War, when a treaty was entered into between France and the United States in 1778, a number of French frigates and luggers appeared in American waters. The luggers, rating from one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons and some even higher, belonged to the type used by the privateersmen of Brittany, a scourge upon every sea where the merchant flag of an enemy was to be found. They were the fastest craft afloat in their day. When the French frigates and luggers were dry docked in American ports for cleaning or repairs, their lines were carefully taken off by enterprising young shipwrights and were diligently studied. It was from these vessels that the first American frigates and privateers originated, and among the latter were the famous Baltimore vessels which probably during the War of 1812 first became known as "Baltimore clippers."

A sailing ship is an exceedingly complex, sensitive, and capricious creation--quite as much so as most human beings. Her coquetry and exasperating deviltry have been the delight and despair of seamen's hearts, at least since the days when the wise, though much-married, Solomon declared that among the things that were too wonderful for him and which he knew not, was "the way of a ship in the midst of the sea." While scientific research has increased since Solomon's time, it has not kept pace with the elusive character of the ship, for no man is able to tell exactly what a ship will or will not do under given conditions. Some men, of course, know more than others, yet no one has ever lived who could predict with accuracy the result of elements in design, construction, and rig. History abounds in instances of ships built for speed that have turned out dismal failures, and it has occasionally happened that ships built with no especial expectation of speed have proven fliers. It would seem, after ages of experience and evolution, that man should be able at last to build a sailing ship superior in every respect to every other sailing ship, but this is exactly what he cannot and never has been able to accomplish. A true sailor loves a fine ship and all her foibles; he revels in the hope that if he takes care of her and treats her fairly, she will not fail him in the hour of danger, and he is rarely disappointed.

While all this is true in the abstract, yet it is not difficult to account for the performance of ships in retrospect, and in this particular matter, the superior speed of American frigates during the two wars with the mother country, it is quite easy to do so.

In the first place, British men-of-war and merchantmen were at that time built with massive oak frames, knees, and planking, the timber of which had lain at dockyards seasoning in salt water for many years, and was as hard and almost as heavy as iron, while they were fastened with weighty through-and-through copper bolts; so that the ships themselves became rigid, dead structures--sluggish in moderate winds, and in gales and a seaway, wallowing brutes--whereas the American frigates and privateers were built of material barely seasoned in the sun and wind, and were put together as lightly as possible consistent with the strength needed to carry their batteries and to hold on to their canvas in heavy weather. Also, the British ships were heavy aloft--spars, rigging, and blocks--yet their masts and yards were not so long as those of the American ships, nor did they spread as much sail, although their canvas was heavier and had the picturesque "belly to hold the wind," by which, when close-hauled, the wind held the vessel.

Then the British men-of-war were commanded by naval officers who were brave, gallant gentlemen, no doubt, but whose experience at sea was limited to the routine of naval rules formulated by other gentlemen sitting around a table at Whitehall. The infraction of one of these regulations might cost the offender his epaulets and perhaps his life. In this respect the captains of the American Navy enjoyed a great advantage, for at this early period the United States authorities had their attention fully occupied in preserving the government, and had no time to devote to the manufacture of red tape with which to bind the hands and tongues of intelligent seamen. We think, and rightly, too, of Paul Jones, Murray, Barry, Stewart, Dale, Hull, Bainbridge, and others, as heroes of the navy, yet it is well for us sometimes to remember that all of these splendid seamen were brought up and most of them had commanded ships in the merchant marine. They were thus accustomed to self-reliance, and were filled with resource and expedient; they had passed through the rough school of adversity, and their brains and nerves were seasoned by salted winds, the ocean's brine mingling with their blood.

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