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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +THIS BOOK, VOLUME 36 IN THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES, ALLEN +JOHNSON, EDITOR, WAS DONATED TO PROJECT GUTENBERG BY THE JAMES J. +KELLY LIBRARY OF ST. GREGORY'S UNIVERSITY; THANKS TO ALEV AKMAN. + +Scanned by Dianne Bean. Proofed by Carrie Lorenz. + + + + + +THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE, A CHRONICLE OF AMERICAN SHIPS AND SAILORS + +BY RALPH D. PAINE + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. COLONIAL ADVENTURERS IN LITTLE SHIPS +II. THE PRIVATEERS OF '76 +III. OUT CUTLASES AND BOARD! +IV. THE FAMOUS DAYS OF SALEM PORT +V. YANKEE VIKINGS AND NEW TRADE ROUTES +VI. "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS!" +VII. THE BRILLIANT ERA OF 1812 +VIII. THE PACKET SHIPS OF THE "ROARING FORTIES" +IX. THE STATELY CLIPPER AND HER GLORY +X. BOUND COASTWISE +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + +THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE + +CHAPTER I. COLONIAL ADVENTURERS IN LITTLE SHIPS + +The story of American ships and sailors is an epic of blue water +which seems singularly remote, almost unreal, to the later +generations. A people with a native genius for seafaring won and +held a brilliant supremacy through two centuries and then forsook +this heritage of theirs. The period of achievement was no more +extraordinary than was its swift declension. A maritime race +whose topsails flecked every ocean, whose captains courageous +from father to son had fought with pike and cannonade to defend +the freedom of the seas, turned inland to seek a different +destiny and took no more thought for the tall ships and rich +cargoes which had earned so much renown for its flag. + +Vanished fleets and brave memories--a chronicle of America which +had written its closing chapters before the Civil War! There will +be other Yankee merchantmen in times to come, but never days like +those when skippers sailed on seas uncharted in quest of ports +mysterious and unknown. + +The Pilgrim Fathers, driven to the northward of their intended +destination in Virginia, landed on the shore of Cape Cod not so +much to clear the forest and till the soil as to establish a +fishing settlement. Like the other Englishmen who long before +1620 had steered across to harvest the cod on the Grand Bank, +they expected to wrest a livelihood mostly from salt water. The +convincing argument in favor of Plymouth was that it offered a +good harbor for boats and was "a place of profitable fishing." +Both pious and amphibious were these pioneers whom the wilderness +and the red Indian confined to the water's edge, where they were +soon building ships to trade corn for beaver skins with the +Kennebec colony. + +Even more energetic in taking profit from the sea were the +Puritans who came to Massachusetts Bay in 1629, bringing +carpenters and shipbuilders with them to hew the pine and oak so +close at hand into keelsons, frames, and planking. Two years +later, Governor John Winthrop launched his thirty-ton sloop +Blessing of the Bay, and sent her to open "friendly commercial +relations" with the Dutch of Manhattan. Brisk though the traffic +was in furs and wampum, these mariners of Boston and Salem were +not content to voyage coastwise. Offshore fishing made skilled, +adventurous seamen of them, and what they caught with hook and +line, when dried and salted, was readily exchanged for other +merchandise in Bermuda, Barbados, and Europe. + +A vessel was a community venture, and the custom still survives +in the ancient ports of the Maine coast where the shapely wooden +schooners are fashioned. The blacksmith, the rigger, the calker, +took their pay in shares. They became part owners, as did +likewise the merchant who supplied stores and material; and when +the ship was afloat, the master, the mates, and even the seamen, +were allowed cargo space for commodities which they might buy and +sell to their own advantage. Thus early they learned to trade as +shrewdly as they navigated, and every voyage directly concerned a +whole neighborhood. + +This kind of enterprise was peculiar to New England because other +resources were lacking. To the westward the French were more +interested in exploring the rivers leading to the region of the +Great Lakes and in finding fabulous rewards in furs. The Dutch on +the Hudson were similarly engaged by means of the western trails +to the country of the Iroquois, while the planters of Virginia +had discovered an easy opulence in the tobacco crop, with slave +labor to toil for them, and they were not compelled to turn to +the hardships and the hazards of the sea. The New Englander, +hampered by an unfriendly climate, hard put to it to grow +sufficient food, with land immensely difficult to clear, was +between the devil and the deep sea, and he sagaciously chose the +latter. Elsewhere in the colonies the forest was an enemy to be +destroyed with infinite pains. The New England pioneer regarded +it with favor as the stuff with which to make stout ships and +step the straight masts in them. + +And so it befell that the seventeenth century had not run its +course before New England was hardily afloat on every Atlantic +trade route, causing Sir Josiah Child, British merchant and +economist, to lament in 1668 that in his opinion nothing was +"more prejudicial and in prospect more dangerous to any mother +kingdom than the increase of shipping in her colonies, +plantations, or provinces." + +This absorbing business of building wooden vessels was scattered +in almost every bay and river of the indented coast from Nova +Scotia to Buzzard's Bay and the sheltered waters of Long Island +Sound. It was not restricted, as now, to well-equipped yards with +crews of trained artisans. Hard by the huddled hamlet of log +houses was the row of keel-blocks sloping to the tide. In winter +weather too rough for fishing, when the little farms lay idle, +this Yankee Jack-of-all-trades plied his axe and adze to shape +the timbers, and it was a routine task to peg together a sloop, a +ketch, or a brig, mere cockleshells, in which to fare forth to +London, or Cadiz, or the Windward Islands--some of them not much +larger and far less seaworthy than the lifeboat which hangs at a +liner's davits. Pinching poverty forced him to dispense with the +ornate, top-heavy cabins and forecastles of the foreign +merchantmen, while invention, bred of necessity, molded finer +lines and less clumsy models to weather the risks of a stormy +coast and channels beset with shoals and ledges. The square-rig +did well enough for deepwater voyages, but it was an awkward, +lubberly contrivance for working along shore, and the colonial +Yankee therefore evolved the schooner with her flat fore-and-aft +sails which enabled her to beat to windward and which required +fewer men in the handling. + +Dimly but unmistakably these canny seafarers in their rude +beginnings foreshadowed the creation of a merchant marine which +should one day comprise the noblest, swiftest ships driven by the +wind and the finest sailors that ever trod a deck. Even then +these early vessels were conspicuously efficient, carrying +smaller crews than the Dutch or English, paring expenses to a +closer margin, daring to go wherever commerce beckoned in order +to gain a dollar at peril of their skins. + +By the end of the seventeenth century more than a thousand +vessels were registered as built in the New England colonies, and +Salem already displayed the peculiar talent for maritime +adventure which was to make her the most illustrious port of the +New World. The first of her line of shipping merchants was Philip +English, who was sailing his own ketch Speedwell in 1676 and so +rapidly advanced his fortunes that in a few years he was the +richest man on the coast, with twenty-one vessels which traded +coastwise with Virginia and offshore with Bilbao, Barbados, St. +Christopher's, and France. Very devout were his bills of lading, +flavored in this manner: "Twenty hogsheads of salt, shipped by +the Grace of God in the good sloop called the Mayflower . . . . +and by God's Grace bound to Virginia or Merriland." + +No less devout were the merchants who ordered their skippers to +cross to the coast of Guinea and fill the hold with negroes to be +sold in the West Indies before returning with sugar and molasses +to Boston or Rhode Island. The slave-trade flourished from the +very birth of commerce in Puritan New England and its golden +gains and exotic voyages allured high-hearted lads from farm and +counter. In 1640 the ship Desire, built at Marblehead, returned +from the West Indies and "brought some cotton and tobacco and +negroes, etc. from thence." Earlier than this the Dutch of +Manhattan had employed black labor, and it was provided that the +Incorporated West India Company should "allot to each Patroon +twelve black men and women out of the Prizes in which Negroes +should be found." + +It was in the South, however, that this kind of labor was most +needed and, as the trade increased, Virginia and the Carolinas +became the most lucrative markets. Newport and Bristol drove a +roaring traffic in "rum and niggers," with a hundred sail to be +found in the infamous Middle Passage. The master of one of these +Rhode Island slavers, writing home from Guinea in 1736, portrayed +the congestion of the trade in this wise: "For never was there so +much Rum on the Coast at one time before. Not ye like of ye +French ships was never seen before, for ye whole coast is full of +them. For my part I can give no guess when I shall get away, for +I purchast but 27 slaves since I have been here, for slaves is +very scarce. We have had nineteen Sail of us at one time in ye +Road, so that ships that used to carry pryme slaves off is now +forced to take any that comes. Here is seven sail of us Rum men +that are ready to devour one another, for our case is desprit." + +Two hundred years of wickedness unspeakable and human torture +beyond all computation, justified by Christian men and sanctioned +by governments, at length rending the nation asunder in civil war +and bequeathing a problem still unsolved--all this followed in +the wake of those first voyages in search of labor which could be +bought and sold as merchandise. It belonged to the dark ages with +piracy and witchcraft, better forgotten than recalled, save for +its potent influence in schooling brave seamen and building +faster ships for peace and war. + +These colonial seamen, in truth, fought for survival amid dangers +so manifold as to make their hardihood astounding. It was not +merely a matter of small vessels with a few men and boys daring +distant voyages and the mischances of foundering or stranding, +but of facing an incessant plague of privateers, French and +Spanish, Dutch and English, or a swarm of freebooters under no +flag at all. Coasts were unlighted, charts few and unreliable, +and the instruments of navigation almost as crude as in the days +of Columbus. Even the savage Indian, not content with lurking in +ambush, went afloat to wreak mischief, and the records of the +First Church of Salem contain this quaint entry under date of +July 25, 1677: "The Lord having given a Commission to the Indians +to take no less than 13 of the Fishing Ketches of Salem and +Captivate the men . . . it struck a great consternation into all +the people here. The Pastor moved on the Lord's Day, and the +whole people readily consented, to keep the Lecture Day following +as a Fast Day, which was accordingly done . . . . The Lord was +pleased to send in some of the Ketches on the Fast Day which was +looked on as a gracious smile of Providence. Also there had been +19 wounded men sent into Salem a little while before; also a +Ketch sent out from Salem as a man-of-war to recover the rest of +the Ketches. The Lord give them Good Success." + +To encounter a pirate craft was an episode almost commonplace and +often more sordid than picturesque. Many of these sea rogues were +thieves with small stomach for cutlasses and slaughter. They were +of the sort that overtook Captain John Shattuck sailing home from +Jamaica in 1718 when he reported his capture by one Captain +Charles Vain, "a Pyrat" of 12 guns and 120 men who took him to +Crooked Island, plundered him of various articles, stripped the +brig, abused the crew, and finally let him go. In the same year +the seamen of the Hopewell related that near Hispaniola they met +with pirates who robbed and ill-treated them and carried off +their mate because they had no navigator. + +Ned Low, a gentleman rover of considerable notoriety, stooped to +filch the stores and gear from a fleet of fourteen poor fishermen +of Cape Sable. He had a sense of dramatic values, however, and +frequently brandished his pistols on deck, besides which, as set +down by one of his prisoners, "he had a young child in Boston for +whom he entertained such tenderness that on every lucid interval +from drinking and revelling, I have seen him sit down and weep +plentifully." + +A more satisfying figure was Thomas Pounds, who was taken by the +sloop Mary, sent after him from Boston in 1689. He was discovered +in Vineyard Sound, and the two vessels fought a gallant action, +the pirate flying a red flag and refusing to strike. Captain +Samuel Pease of the Mary was mortally wounded, while Pounds, this +proper pirate, strode his quarter-deck and waved his naked sword, +crying, "Come on board, ye dogs, and I will strike YOU +presently." This invitation was promptly accepted by the stout +seamen from Boston, who thereupon swarmed over the bulwark and +drove all hands below, preserving Thomas Pounds to be hanged in +public. + +In 1703 John Quelch, a man of resource, hoisted what he called +"Old Roger" over the Charles--a brigantine which had been +equipped as a privateer to cruise against the French of Acadia. +This curious flag of his was described as displaying a skeleton +with an hour-glass in one hand and "a dart in the heart with +three drops of blood proceeding from it in the other." Quelch led +a mutiny, tossed the skipper overboard, and sailed for Brazil, +capturing several merchantmen on the way and looting them of rum, +silks, sugar, gold dust, and munitions. Rashly he came sailing +back to Marblehead, primed with a plausible yarn, but his men +talked too much when drunk and all hands were jailed. Upon the +gallows Quelch behaved exceedingly well, "pulling off his hat and +bowing to the spectators," while the somber Puritan merchants in +the crowd were, many of them, quietly dealing in the merchandise +fetched home by pirates who were lucky enough to steer clear of +the law. + +This was a shady industry in which New York took the more active +part, sending out supplies to the horde of pirates who ravaged +the waters of the Far East and made their haven at Madagascar, +and disposing of the booty received in exchange. Governor +Fletcher had dirtied his hands by protecting this commerce and, +as a result, Lord Bellomont was named to succeed him. Said +William III, "I send you, my Lord, to New York, because an honest +and intrepid man is wanted to put these abuses down, and because +I believe you to be such a man." + +Such were the circumstances in which Captain William Kidd, +respectable master mariner in the merchant service, was employed +by Lord Bellomont, royal Governor of New York, New Hampshire, and +Massachusetts, to command an armed ship and harry the pirates of +the West Indies and Madagascar. Strangest of all the sea tales of +colonial history is that of Captain Kidd and his cruise in the +Adventure-Galley. His name is reddened with crimes never +committed, his grisly phantom has stalked through the legends +and literature of piracy, and the Kidd tradition still has magic +to set treasure-seekers exploring almost every beach, cove, and +headland from Halifax to the Gulf of Mexico. Yet if truth were +told, he never cut a throat or made a victim walk the plank. He +was tried and hanged for the trivial offense of breaking the head +of a mutinous gunner of his own crew with a wooden bucket. It was +even a matter of grave legal doubt whether he had committed one +single piratical act. His trial in London was a farce. In the +case of the captured ships he alleged that they were sailing +under French passes, and he protested that his privateering +commission justified him, and this contention was not disproven. +The suspicion is not wanting that he was condemned as a scapegoat +because certain noblemen of England had subscribed the capital to +outfit his cruise, expecting to win rich dividends in gold +captured from the pirates he was sent to attack. Against these +men a political outcry was raised, and as a result Captain Kidd +was sacrificed. He was a seaman who had earned honorable +distinction in earlier years, and fate has played his memory a +shabby trick. + +It was otherwise with Blackbeard, most flamboyant of all colonial +pirates, who filled the stage with swaggering success, chewing +wine-glasses in his cabin, burning sulphur to make his ship seem +more like hell, and industriously scourging the whole Atlantic +coast. Charleston lived in terror of him until Lieutenant +Maynard, in a small sloop, laid him alongside in a +hammer-and-tongs engagement and cut off the head of Blackbeard to +dangle from the bowsprit as a trophy. + +Of this rudely adventurous era, it would be hard to find a seaman +more typical than the redoubtable Sir William Phips who became +the first royal Governor of the Massachusetts Colony in 1692. +Born on a frontier farm of the Maine coast while many of the +Pilgrim fathers were living, "his faithful mother," wrote Cotton +Mather, "had no less than twenty-six children, whereof twenty-one +were sons; but equivalent to them all was William, one of the +youngest, whom, his father dying, was left young with his mother, +and with her he lived, keeping ye sheep in Ye Wilderness until he +was eighteen years old." Then he apprenticed himself to a +neighboring shipwright who was building sloops and pinnaces and, +having learned the trade, set out for Boston. As a ship-carpenter +he plied his trade, spent his wages in the taverns of the +waterside and there picked up wondrous yarns of the silver-laden +galleons of Spain which had shivered their timbers on the reefs +of the Bahama Passage or gone down in the hurricanes that beset +those southerly seas. Meantime he had married a wealthy widow +whose property enabled him to go treasure-hunting on the Spanish +main. From his first voyage thither in a small vessel he escaped +with his life and barely enough treasure to pay the cost of the +expedition. + +In no wise daunted he laid his plans to search for a richly +ladened galleon which was said to have been wrecked half a +century before off the coast of Hispaniola. Since his own funds +were not sufficient for this exploit, he betook himself to +England to enlist the aid of the Government. With bulldog +persistence he besieged the court of James II for a whole year, +this rough-and-ready New England shipmaster, until he was given a +royal frigate for his purpose. He failed to fish up more silver +from the sands but, nothing daunted, he persuaded other patrons +to outfit him with a small merchantman, the James and Mary, in +which he sailed for the coast of Hispaniola. This time he found +his galleon and thirty-two tons of silver. "Besides that +incredible treasure of plate, thus fetched up from seven or eight +fathoms under water, there were vast riches of Gold, and Pearls, +and Jewels . . . . All that a Spanish frigot was to be enriched +withal." + +Up the Thames sailed the lucky little merchantman in the year of +1687, with three hundred thousand pounds sterling as her +freightage of treasure. Captain Phips made honest division with +his backers and, because men of his integrity were not over +plentiful in England after the Restoration, King James knighted +him. He sailed home to Boston, "a man of strong and sturdy +frame," as Hawthorne fancied him, "whose face had been roughened +by northern tempests and blackened by the burning sun of the West +Indies . . . . He wears an immense periwig flowing down over his +shoulders . . . . His red, rough hands which have done many a +good day's work with the hammer and adze are half-covered by the +delicate lace rues at the wrist." But he carried with him the +manners of the forecastle, a man hasty and unlettered but +superbly brave and honest. Even after he had become Governor he +thrashed the captain of the Nonesuch frigate of the royal navy, +and used his fists on the Collector of the Port after cursing him +with tremendous gusto. Such behavior in a Governor was too +strenuous, and Sir William Phips was summoned to England, where +he died while waiting his restoration to office and royal favor. +Failing both, he dreamed of still another treasure voyage, "for +it was his purpose, upon his dismission from his Government once +more to have gone upon his old Fishing-Trade, upon a mighty shelf +of rock and banks of sand that lie where he had informed +himself." + + + +CHAPTER II. THE PRIVATEERS OF '76 + +The wars of England with France and Spain spread turmoil upon the +high seas during the greater part of the eighteenth century. Yet +with an immense tenacity of purpose, these briny forefathers +increased their trade and multiplied their ships in the face of +every manner of adversity. The surprising fact is that most of +them were not driven ashore to earn their bread. What Daniel +Webster said of them at a later day was true from the beginning: +"It is not, sir, by protection and bounties, but by unwearied +exertion, by extreme economy, by that manly and resolute spirit +which relies on itself to protect itself. These causes alone +enable American ships still to keep the element and show the flag +of their country in distant seas." + +What was likely to befall a shipmaster in the turbulent +eighteenth century may be inferred from the misfortunes of +Captain Michael Driver of Salem. In 1759 he was in command of the +schooner Three Brothers, bound to the West Indies on his lawful +business. Jogging along with a cargo of fish and lumber, he was +taken by a privateer under British colors and sent into Antigua +as a prize. Unable to regain either his schooner or his two +thousand dollar cargo, he sadly took passage for home. Another +owner gave him employment and he set sail in the schooner Betsy +for Guadaloupe. During this voyage, poor man, he was captured and +carried into port by a French privateer. On the suggestion that +he might ransom his vessel on payment of four thousand livres, he +departed for Boston in hope of finding the money, leaving behind +three of his sailors as hostages. + +Cash in hand for the ransom, the long-suffering Captain Michael +Driver turned southward again, now in the schooner Mary, and he +flew a flag of truce to indicate his errand. This meant nothing +to the ruffian who commanded the English privateer Revenge. He +violently seized the innocent Mary and sent her into New +Providence. Here Captain Driver made lawful protest before the +authorities, and was set at liberty with vessel and cargo--an act +of justice quite unusual in the Admiralty Court of the Bahamas. + +Unmolested, the harassed skipper managed to gain Cape Francois +and rescue his three seamen and his schooner in exchange for the +ransom money. As he was about to depart homeward bound, a French +frigate snatched him and his crew out of their vessel and threw +them ashore at Santiago, where for two months they existed as +ragged beachcombers until by some judicial twist the schooner was +returned to them. They worked her home and presented their long +list of grievances to the colonial Government of Massachusetts, +which duly forwarded them--and that was the end of it. Three +years had been spent in this catalogue of misadventures, and +Captain Driver, his owners, and his men were helpless against +such intolerable aggression. They and their kind were a prey to +every scurvy rascal who misused a privateering commission to fill +his own pockets. + +Stoutly resolved to sail and trade as they pleased, these +undaunted Americans, nevertheless, increased their business on +blue water until shortly before the Revolution the New England +fleet alone numbered six hundred sail. Its captains felt at home +in Surinam and the Canaries. They trimmed their yards in the +reaches of the Mediterranean and the North Sea or bargained +thriftily in the Levant. The whalers of Nantucket, in their +apple-bowed barks, explored and hunted in distant seas, and the +smoke of their try-pots darkened the waters of Baffin Bay, +Guinea, and Brazil. It was they who inspired Edmund Burke's +familiar eulogy: "No sea but is vexed by their fisheries. No +climate that is not a witness to their toils. Neither the +perseverance of Holland nor the activity of France, nor the +dexterous and firm sagacity of England ever carried this most +perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has +been pushed by this recent people--a people who are still, as it +were, but in the gristle and not yet hardened into the bone of +manhood." + +In 1762, seventy-eight whalers cleared from American ports, of +which more than half were from Nantucket. Eight years later there +were one hundred and twenty-five whalers out of Nantucket which +took 14,331 barrels of oil valued at $358,200. In size these +vessels averaged no more than ninety tons, a fishing smack of +today, and yet they battered their way half around the watery +globe and comfortably supported six thousand people who dwelt on +a sandy island unfit for farming and having no other industries. +Every Nantucket lad sailed for his "lay" or share of the catch +and aspired to command eventually a whaler of his own. + +Whaler, merchantman, and slaver were training a host of +incomparable seamen destined to harry the commerce of England +under the new-born Stars and Stripes, and now, in 1775, on the +brink of actual war, Parliament flung a final provocation and +aroused the furious enmity of the fishermen who thronged the +Grand Bank. Lord North proposed to forbid the colonies to export +fish to those foreign markets in which every seacoast village was +vitally concerned, and he also contemplated driving the fishing +fleets from their haunts off Newfoundland. This was to rob six +thousand sturdy men of a livelihood afloat and to spread ruin +among the busy ports, such as Marblehead and Gloucester, from +which sailed hundreds of pinks, snows, and schooners. This +measure became law notwithstanding the protests of twenty-one +peers of the realm who declared: "We dissent because the attempt +to coerce by famine the whole body of the inhabitants of great +and populous provinces is without example in the history of this, +or perhaps, of any civilized nation." + +The sailormen bothered their heads very little about taxation +without representation but whetted their anger with grudges more +robust. They had been beggared and bullied and shot at from the +Bay of Biscay to Barbados, and no sooner was the Continental +Congress ready to issue privateering commissions and letters of +marque than for them it was up anchor and away to bag a +Britisher. Scarcely had a shipmaster signaled his arrival with a +deep freight of logwood, molasses, or sugar than he received +orders to discharge with all speed and clear his decks for +mounting heavier batteries and slinging the hammocks of a hundred +eager privateersmen who had signed articles in the tavern +rendezvous. The timbered warehouses were filled with long-toms +and nine-pounders, muskets, blunderbusses, pistols, cutlases, +boarding-pikes, hand grenades, tomahawks, grape, canister, and +doubleheaded shot. + +In the narrow, gabled streets of Salem, Boston, New York, and +Baltimore, crowds trooped after the fifes and drums with a +strapping recruiting officer to enroll "all gentlemen seamen and +able-bodied landsmen who had a mind to distinguish themselves in +the glorious cause of their country and make their fortunes." +Many a ship's company was mustered between noon and sunset, +including men who had served in armed merchantmen and who in +times of nominal peace had fought the marauders of Europe or +whipped the corsairs of Barbary in the Strait of Gibraltar. Never +was a race of seamen so admirably fitted for the daring trade of +privateering as the crews of these tall sloops, topsail +schooners, and smart square-riggers, their sides checkered with +gun-ports, and ready to drive to sea like hawks. + +In some instances the assurance of these hardy men was both +absurd and sublime. Ramshackle boats with twenty or thirty men +aboard, mounting one or two old guns, sallied out in the +expectation of gold and glory, only to be captured by the first +British cruiser that chanced to sight them. A few even sailed +with no cannon at all, confident of taking them out of the first +prize overhauled by laying alongside--and so in some cases they +actually did. + +The privateersmen of the Revolution played a larger part in +winning the war than has been commonly recognized. This fact, +however, was clearly perceived by Englishmen of that era, as "The +London Spectator" candidly admitted: "The books at Lloyds will +recount it, and the rate of assurances at that time will prove +what their diminutive strength was able to effect in the face of +our navy, and that when nearly one hundred pennants were flying +on our coast. Were we able to prevent their going in and out, or +stop them from taking our trade and our storeships even in sight +of our garrisons? Besides, were they not in the English and Irish +Channels, picking up our homeward bound trade, sending their +prizes into French and Spanish ports to the great terror of our +merchants and shipowners?" + +The naval forces of the Thirteen Colonies were pitifully feeble +in comparison with the mighty fleets of the enemy whose flaming +broadsides upheld the ancient doctrine that "the Monarchs of +Great Britain have a peculiar and Sovereign authority upon the +Ocean . . . from the Laws of God and of Nature, besides an +uninterrupted Fruition of it for so many Ages past as that its +Beginnings cannot be traced out."* + +* "The Seaman's Vade-Mecum." London, 1744. + + +In 1776 only thirty-one Continental cruisers of all classes were +in commission, and this number was swiftly diminished by capture +and blockade until in 1782 no more than seven ships flew the flag +of the American Navy. On the other hand, at the close of 1777, +one hundred and seventy-four private armed vessels had been +commissioned, mounting two thousand guns and carrying nine +thousand men. During this brief period of the war they took as +prizes 733 British merchantmen and inflicted losses of more than +two million pounds sterling. Over ten thousand seamen were made +prisoners at a time when England sorely needed them for drafting +into her navy. To lose them was a far more serious matter than +for General Washington to capture as many Hessian mercenaries who +could be replaced by purchase. + +In some respects privateering as waged a century and more ago was +a sordid, unlovely business, the ruling motive being rather a +greed of gain than an ardent love of country. Shares in lucky +ships were bought and sold in the gambling spirit of a stock +exchange. Fortunes were won and lost regardless of the public +service. It became almost impossible to recruit men for the navy +because they preferred the chance of booty in a privateer. For +instance, the State of Massachusetts bought a twenty-gun ship, +the Protector, as a contribution to the naval strength, and one +of her crew, Ebenezer Fox, wrote of the effort to enlist +sufficient men: "The recruiting business went on slowly, however, +but at length upwards of three hundred men were carried, dragged, +and driven abroad; of all ages, kinds, and descriptions; in all +the various stages of intoxication from that of sober tipsiness +to beastly drunkenness; with the uproar and clamor that may be +more easily imagined than described. Such a motley group has +never been seen since Falstaff's ragged regiment paraded the +streets of Coventry." + +There was nothing of glory to boast of in fetching into port some +little Nova Scotia coasting schooner with a cargo of deals and +potatoes, whose master was also the owner and who lost the +savings of a lifetime because he lacked the men and guns to +defend his property against spoliation. The war was no concern of +his, and he was the victim of a system now obsolete among +civilized nations, a relic of a barbarous and piratical age whose +spirit has been revived and gloried in recently only by the +Government of the German Empire. The chief fault of the +privateersman was that he sailed and fought for his own gain, but +he was never guilty of sinking ships with passengers and crew +aboard, and very often he played the gentleman in gallant style. +Nothing could have seemed to him more abhorrent and incredible +than a kind of warfare which should drown women and children +because they had embarked under an enemy's flag. + +Extraordinary as were the successes of the Yankee privateers, it +was a game of give-and-take, a weapon which cut both ways, and +the temptation is to extol their audacious achievements while +glossing over the heavy losses which their own merchant marine +suffered. The weakness of privateering was that it was wholly +offensive and could not, like a strong navy, protect its own +commerce from depredation. While the Americans were capturing +over seven hundred British vessels during the first two years of +the war, as many as nine hundred American ships were taken or +sunk by the enemy, a rate of destruction which fairly swept the +Stars and Stripes from the tracks of ocean commerce. As prizes +these vessels were sold at Liverpool and London for an average +amount of two thousand pounds each and the loss to the American +owners was, of course, ever so much larger. + +The fact remains, nevertheless--and it is a brilliant page of +history to recall--that in an inchoate nation without a navy, +with blockading squadrons sealing most of its ports, with ragged +armies on land which retreated oftener than they fought, private +armed ships dealt the maritime prestige of Great Britain a far +deadlier blow than the Dutch, French, and Spanish were able to +inflict. In England, there resulted actual distress, even lack of +food, because these intrepid seamen could not be driven away from +her own coasts and continued to snatch their prizes from under +the guns of British forts and fleets. The plight of the West +India Colonies was even worse, as witness this letter from a +merchant of Grenada: "We are happy if we can get anything for +money by reason of the quantity of vessels taken by the +Americans. A fleet of vessels came from Ireland a few days ago. +From sixty vessels that departed from Ireland not above +twenty-five arrived in this and neighboring islands, the others, +it is thought, being all taken by American privateers. God knows, +if this American war continues much longer, we shall all die of +hunger." + +On both sides, by far the greater number of captures was made +during the earlier period of the war which cleared the seas of +the smaller, slower, and unarmed vessels. As the war progressed +and the profits flowed in, swifter and larger ships were built +for the special business of privateering until the game resembled +actual naval warfare. Whereas, at first, craft of ten guns with +forty or fifty men had been considered adequate for the service, +three or four years later ships were afloat with a score of heavy +cannon and a trained crew of a hundred and fifty or two hundred +men, ready to engage a sloop of war or to stand up to the enemy's +largest privateers. In those days single ship actions, now almost +forgotten in naval tactics, were fought with illustrious skill +and courage, and commanders won victories worthy of comparison +with deeds distinguished in the annals of the American Navy. + + + +CHAPTER III. OUT CUTLASES AND BOARD + +Salem was the foremost privateering port of the Revolution, and +from this pleasant harbor, long since deserted by ships and +sailormen, there filled away past Cape Ann one hundred and +fifty-eight vessels of all sizes to scan the horizon for British +topsails. They accounted for four hundred prizes, or half the +whole number to the credit of American arms afloat. This +preeminence was due partly to freedom from a close blockade and +partly to a seafaring population which was born and bred to its +trade and knew no other. Besides the crews of Salem merchantmen, +privateering enlisted the idle fishermen of ports nearby and the +mariners of Boston whose commerce had been snuffed out by the +British occupation. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston sent +some splendid armed ships to sea but not with the impetuous rush +nor in anything like the numbers enrolled by this gray old town +whose fame was unique. + +For the most part, the records of all these brave ships and the +thousands of men who sailed and sweated and fought in them are +dim and scanty, no more than routine entries in dusty log-books +which read like this: "Filled away in pursuit of a second sail in +the N. W. At 4.30 she hoisted English colors and commenced firing +her stern guns. At 5.90 took in the steering sails, at the same +time she fired a broadside. We opened a fire from our larboard +battery and at 5.30 she struck her colors. Got out the boats and +boarded her. She proved to be the British brig Acorn from +Liverpool to Rio Janeiro, mounting fourteen cannon."* But now and +then one finds in these old sea-journals an entry more intimate +and human, such as the complaint of the master of the privateer +Scorpion, cruising in 1778 and never a prize in sight. "This Book +I made to keep the Accounts of my Voyage but God knows beste what +that will be, for I am at this time very Impashent but I hope +soon there will be a Change to ease my Trubled Mind. On this Day +I was Chaced by Two Ships of War which I tuck to be Enemies, but +coming on thick Weather I have lost site of them and so conclude +myself escaped which is a small good Fortune in the midste of my +Discouragements."** A burst of gusty laughter still echoes along +the crowded deck of the letter-of-marque schooner Success, whose +master, Captain Philip Thrash, inserted this diverting comment in +his humdrum record of the day's work: "At one half past 8 +discovered a sail ahead. Tacked ship. At 9 tacked ship again and +past just to Leeward of the Sail which appeared to be a damn'd +Comical Boat, by G-d." + +* From the manuscript collections of the Essex Institute, Salem, +Mass. + +** From the manuscript collections of the Essex Institute, Salem, +Mass. + + +There are a few figures of the time and place which stand out, +full-length, in vivid colors against a background that satisfies +the desire of romance and thrillingly conveys the spirit of the +time and the place. Such a one was Captain Jonathan Haraden, +Salem privateersman, who captured one thousand British cannon +afloat and is worthy to be ranked as one of the ablest +sea-fighters of his generation. He was a merchant mariner, a +master at the outbreak of the Revolution, who had followed the +sea since boyhood. But it was more to his taste to command the +Salem ship General Pickering of 180 tons which was fitted out +under a letter of marque in the spring of 1780. She carried +fourteen six-pounders and forty-five men and boys, nothing very +formidable, when Captain Haraden sailed for Bilbao with a cargo +of sugar. During the voyage, before his crew had been hammered +into shape, he beat off a British privateer of twenty guns and +safely tacked into the Bay of Biscay. + +There he sighted another hostile privateer, the Golden Eagle, +larger than his own ship. Instead of shifting his course to avoid +her, Haraden clapped on sail and steered alongside after +nightfall, roaring through his trumpet: "What ship is this? An +American frigate, sir. Strike, or I'll sink you with a +broadside." + +Dazed by this unexpected summons in the gloom, the master of the +Golden Eagle promptly surrendered, and a prize crew was thrown +aboard with orders to follow the Pickering into Bilbao. While +just outside that Spanish harbor, a strange sail was descried and +again Jonathan Haraden cleared for action. The vessel turned out +to be the Achilles, one of the most powerful privateers out of +London, with forty guns and a hundred and fifty men, or almost +thrice the fighting strength of the little Pickering. She was, in +fact, more like a sloop of war. Before Captain Haraden could haul +within gunshot to protect his prize, it had been recaptured by +the Achilles, which then maneuvered to engage the Pickering. + +Darkness intervened, but Jonathan Haraden had no idea of escaping +under cover of it. He was waiting for the morning breeze and a +chance to fight it out to a finish. He was a handsome man with an +air of serene composure and a touch of the theatrical such as +Nelson displayed in his great moments. Having prepared his ship +for battle, he slept soundly until dawn and then dressed with +fastidious care to stroll on deck, where he beheld the Achilles +bearing down on him with her crew at quarters. + +His own men were clustered behind their open ports, matches +lighted, tackles and breechings cast off, crowbars, handspikes, +and sponge-staves in place, gunners stripped to the waist, +powder-boys ready for the word like sprinters on the mark. +Forty-five of them against a hundred and fifty, and Captain +Haraden, debonair, unruffled, walking to and fro with a leisurely +demeanor, remarking that although the Achilles appeared to be +superior in force, "he had no doubt they would beat her if they +were firm and steady and did not throw away their fire." + +It was, indeed, a memorable sea-picture, the sturdy Pickering +riding deep with her burden of sugar and seeming smaller than she +really was, the Achilles towering like a frigate, and all Bilbao +turned out to watch the duel, shore and headlands crowded with +spectators, the blue harbor-mouth gay with an immense flotilla of +fishing boats and pleasure craft. The stake for which Haraden +fought was to retake the Golden Eagle prize and to gain his port. +His seamanship was flawless. Vastly outnumbered if it should come +to boarding, he handled his vessel so as to avoid the Achilles +while he poured the broadsides into her. After two hours the +London privateer emerged from the smoke which had obscured the +combat and put out to sea in flight, hulled through and through, +while a farewell flight of crowbars, with which the guns of the +Pickering had been crammed to the muzzle, ripped through her +sails and rigging. + +Haraden hoisted canvas and drove in chase, but the Achilles had +the heels of him "with a mainsail as large as a ship of the +line," and reluctantly he wore ship and, with the Golden Eagle +again in his possession, he sailed to an anchorage in Bilbao +harbor. The Spanish populace welcomed him with tremendous +enthusiasm. He was carried through the streets in a holiday +procession and was the hero of banquets and public receptions. + +Such a man was bound to be the idol of his sailors and one of +them quite plausibly related that "so great was the confidence he +inspired that if he but looked at a sail through his glass and +told the helmsman to steer for her, the observation went +round,'If she is an enemy, she is ours.'" + +It was in this same General Pickering, no longer sugar-laden but +in cruising trim, that Jonathan Haraden accomplished a feat which +Paul Jones might have been proud to claim. There lifted above the +sky-line three armed merchantmen sailing in company from Halifax +to New York, a brig of fourteen guns, a ship of sixteen guns, a +sloop of twelve guns. When they flew signals and formed in line, +the ship alone appeared to outmatch the Pickering, but Haraden, +in that lordly manner of his, assured his men that "he had no +doubt whatever that if they would do their duty he would quickly +capture the three vessels." Here was performance very much out of +the ordinary, naval strategy of an exceptionally high order, and +yet it is dismissed by the only witness who took the trouble to +mention it in these few, casual words: "This he did with great +ease by going alongside of each of them, one after the other." + +One more story of this master sea-rover of the Revolution, sailor +and gentleman, who served his country so much more brilliantly +than many a landsman lauded in the written histories of the war. +While in the Pickering he attacked a heavily armed royal mail +packet bound to England from the West Indies, one of the largest +merchant vessels of her day and equipped to defend herself +against privateers. A tough antagonist and a hard nut to crack! +They battered each other like two pugilists for four hours and +even then the decision was still in the balance. Then Haraden +sheered off to mend his damaged gear and splintered hull before +closing in again. + +He then discovered that all his powder had been shot away +excepting one last charge. Instead of calling it a drawn battle, +he rammed home this last shot in the locker, and ran down to +windward of the packet, so close that he could shout across to +the other quarter-deck: "I will give you five minutes to haul +down your colors. If they are not down at the end of that time, I +will fire into you and sink you, so help me God." + +It was the bluff magnificent--courage cold-blooded and +calculating. The adversary was still unbeaten. Haraden stood with +watch in hand and sonorously counted off the minutes. It was the +stronger will and not the heavier metal that won the day. To be +shattered by fresh broadsides at pistol-range was too much for +the nerves of the gallant English skipper whose decks were +already like a slaughterhouse. One by one, Haraden shouted the +minutes and his gunners blew their matches. At "four" the red +ensign came fluttering down and the mail packet was a prize of +war. + +Another merchant seaman of this muster-roll of patriots was Silas +Talbot, who took to salt water as a cabin boy at the age of +twelve and was a prosperous shipmaster at twenty-one with savings +invested in a house of his own in Providence. Enlisting under +Washington, he was made a captain of infantry and was soon +promoted, but he was restless ashore and glad to obtain an odd +assignment. As Colonel Talbot he selected sixty infantry +volunteers, most of them seamen by trade, and led them aboard the +small sloop Argo in May, 1779, to punish the New York Tories who +were equipping privateers against their own countrymen and +working great mischief in Long Island Sound. So serious was the +situation that General Gates found it almost impossible to obtain +food supplies for the northern department of the Continental +army. + +Silas Talbot and his nautical infantrymen promptly fell in with +the New York privateer Lively, a fair match for him, and as +promptly sent her into port. He then ran offshore and picked up +and carried into Boston two English privateers headed for New +York with large cargoes of merchandise from the West Indies. But +he was particularly anxious to square accounts with a renegade +Captain Hazard who made Newport his base and had captured many +American vessels with the stout brig King George, using her for +"the base purpose of plundering his old neighbors and friends." + +On his second cruise in the Argo, young Silas Talbot encountered +the perfidious King George to the southward of Long Island and +riddled her with one broadside after another, first hailing +Captain Hazard by name and cursing him in double-shotted phrases +for the traitorous swab that he was. Then the seagoing infantry +scrambled over the bulwarks and tumbled the Tories down their own +hatches without losing a man. A prize crew with the humiliated +King George made for New London, where there was much cheering in +the port, and "even the women, both young and old, expressed the +greatest joy." + +With no very heavy fighting, Talbot had captured five vessels and +was keen to show what his crew could do against mettlesome +foemen. He found them at last well out to sea in a large ship +which seemed eager to engage him. Only a few hundred feet apart +through a long afternoon, they briskly and cheerily belabored +each other with grape and solid shot. Talbot's speaking-trumpet +was shot out of his hand, the tails of his coat were shorn off, +and all the officers and men stationed with him on the +quarter-deck were killed or wounded. + +His crew reported that the Argo was in a sinking condition, with +the water flooding the gun-deck, but he told them to lower a man +or two in the bight of a line and they pluckily plugged the holes +from overside. There was a lusty huzza when the Englishman's +mainmast crashed to the deck and this finished the affair. Silas +Talbot found that he had trounced the privateer Dragon, of twice +his own tonnage and with the advantage in both guns and men. + +While his crew was patching the Argo and pumping the water from +her hold, the lookout yelled that another sail was making for +them. Without hesitation Talbot somehow got this absurdly +impudent one-masted craft of his under way and told those of his +sixty men who survived to prepare for a second tussle. +Fortunately another Yankee privateer joined the chase and +together they subdued the armed brig Hannah. When the Argo safely +convoyed the two prizes into New Bedford, "all who beheld her +were astonished that a vessel of her diminutive size could suffer +so much and yet get safely to port." + +Men fought and slew each other in those rude and distant days +with a certain courtesy, with a fine, punctilious regard for the +etiquette of the bloody game. There was the Scotch skipper of the +Betsy, a privateer, whom Silas Talbot hailed as follows, before +they opened fire: + +"You must now haul down those British colors, my friend." + +"Notwithstanding I find you an enemy, as I suspected," was the +dignified reply, "yet, sir, I shall let them hang a little bit +longer,--with your permission,--so fire away, Flanagan." + +During another of her cruises the Argo pursued an artfully +disguised ship of the line which could have blown her to kingdom +come with a broadside of thirty guns. The little Argo was +actually becalmed within short range, but her company got out the +sweeps and rowed her some distance before darkness and a favoring +slant of wind carried them clear. In the summer of 1780, Captain +Silas Talbot, again a mariner by title, was given the private +cruiser General Washington with one hundred and twenty men, but +he was less fortunate with her than when afloat in the tiny Argo +with his sixty Continentals. Off Sandy Hook he ran into the +British fleet under Admiral Arbuthnot and, being outsailed in a +gale of wind, he was forced to lower his flag to the great +seventy-four Culloden. After a year in English prisons he was +released and made his way home, serving no more in the war but +having the honor to command the immortal frigate Constitution in +1799 as a captain in the American Navy. + +In several notable instances the privateersmen tried conclusions +with ships that flew the royal ensign, and got the better of +them. The hero of an uncommonly brilliant action of this sort was +Captain George Geddes of Philadelphia, who was entrusted with the +Congress, a noble privateer of twenty-four guns and two hundred +men. Several of the smaller British cruisers had been sending +parties ashore to plunder estates along the southern shores, and +one of them, the sloop of war Savage, had even raided +Washington's home at Mount Vernon. Later she shifted to the coast +of Georgia in quest of loot and was unlucky enough to fall +athwart Captain Geddes in the Congress. + +The privateer was the more formidable ship and faster on the +wind, forcing Captain Sterling of the Savage to accept the +challenge. Disabled aloft very early in the fight, Captain Geddes +was unable to choose his position, for which reason they +literally battled hand-to-hand, hulls grinding against each +other, the gunners scorched by the flashes of the cannon in the +ports of the opposing ship, with scarcely room to ply the +rammers, and the sailors throwing missiles from the decks, hand +grenades, cold shot, scraps of iron, belaying-pins. + +As the vessels lay interlocked, the Savage was partly dismasted +and Captain Geddes, leaping upon the forecastle head, told the +boarders to follow him. Before they could swing their cutlases +and dash over the hammock-nettings, the British boatswain waved +his cap and yelled that the Savage had surrendered. Captain +Sterling was dead, eight others were killed, and twenty-four +wounded. The American loss was about the same. Captain Geddes, +however, was unable to save his prize because a British frigate +swooped down and took them both into Charleston. + +When peace came in 1783, it was independence dearly bought by +land and sea, and no small part of the price was the loss of a +thousand merchant ships which would see their home ports no more. +Other misfortunes added to the toll of destruction. The great +fishing fleets which had been the chief occupation of coastwise +New England were almost obliterated and their crews were +scattered. Many of the men had changed their allegiance and were +sailing out of Halifax, and others were impressed into British +men-of-war or returned broken in health from long confinement in +British prisons. The ocean was empty of the stanch schooners +which had raced home with lee rails awash to cheer waiting wives +and sweethearts. + +The fate of Nantucket and its whalers was even more tragic. This +colony on its lonely island amid the shoals was helpless against +raids by sea, and its ships and storehouses were destroyed +without mercy. Many vessels in distant waters were captured +before they were even aware that a state of war existed. Of a +fleet numbering a hundred and fifty sail, one hundred and +thirty-four were taken by the enemy and Nantucket whaling +suffered almost total extinction. These seamen, thus robbed of +their livelihood, fought nobly for their country's cause. Theirs +was not the breed to sulk or whine in port. Twelve hundred of +them were killed or made prisoners during the Revolution. They +were to be found in the Army and Navy and behind the guns of +privateers. There were twenty-five Nantucket whalemen in the crew +of the Ranger when Paul Jones steered her across the Atlantic on +that famous cruise which inspired the old forecastle song that +begins + + 'Tis of the gallant Yankee ship + That flew the Stripes and Stars, + And the whistling wind from the west nor'west + Blew through her pitch pine spars. + With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys, + She hung upon the gale. + On an autumn night we raised the light + Off the Old Head of Kinsale. + +Pitiful as was the situation of Nantucket, with its only industry +wiped out and two hundred widows among the eight hundred families +left on the island, the aftermath of war seemed almost as ruinous +along the whole Atlantic coast. More ships could be built and +there were thousands of adventurous sailors to man them, but +where were the markets for the product of the farms and mills and +plantations? The ports of Europe had been so long closed to +American shipping that little demand was left for American goods. +To the Government of England the people of the Republic were no +longer fellow-countrymen but foreigners. As such they were +subject to the Navigation Acts, and no cargoes could be sent to +that kingdom unless in British vessels. The flourishing trade +with the West Indies was made impossible for the same reason, a +special Order in Council aiming at one fell stroke to "put an end +to the building and increase of American vessels" and to finish +the careers of three hundred West Indiamen already afloat. In the +islands themselves the results were appalling. Fifteen thousand +slaves died of starvation because the American traders were +compelled to cease bringing them dried fish and corn during +seasons in which their own crops were destroyed by hurricanes. + +In 1776, one-third of the seagoing merchant marine of Great +Britain had been bought or built to order in America because +lumber was cheaper and wages were lower. This lucrative business +was killed by a law which denied Englishmen the privilege of +purchasing ships built in American yards. So narrow and bitter +was this commercial enmity, so ardent this desire to banish the +Stars and Stripes from blue water, that Lord Sheffield in 1784 +advised Parliament that the pirates of Algiers and Tripoli really +benefited English commerce by preying on the shipping of weaker +nations. "It is not probable that the American States will have a +very free trade in the Mediterranean," said he. "It will not be +to the interest of any of the great maritime Powers to protect +them from the Barbary States. If they know their interests, they +will not encourage the Americans to be carriers. That the Barbary +States are advantageous to maritime Powers is certain." + +Denied the normal ebb and flow of trade and commerce and with the +imports from England far exceeding the value of the merchandise +exported thence, the United States, already impoverished, was +drained of its money, and a currency of dollars, guineas, joes, +and moidores grew scarcer day by day. There was no help in a +government which consisted of States united only in name. +Congress comprised a handful of respectable gentlemen who had +little power and less responsibility, quarreling among themselves +for lack of better employment. Retaliation against England by +means of legislation was utterly impossible. Each State looked +after its commerce in its own peculiar fashion and the devil +might take the hindmost. Their rivalries and jealousies were like +those of petty kingdoms. If one State should close her ports is +to English ships, the others would welcome them in order to +divert the trade, with no feeling of national pride or federal +cooperation. + +The Articles of Confederation had empowered Congress to make +treaties of commerce, but only such as did not restrain the +legislative power of any State from laying imposts and regulating +exports and imports. If a foreign power imposed heavy duties upon +American shipping, it was for the individual States and not for +Congress to say whether the vessels of the offending nation +should be allowed free entrance to the ports of the United +States: It was folly to suppose, ran the common opinion, that if +South Carolina should bar her ports to Spain because rice and +indigo were excluded from the Spanish colonies, New Hampshire, +which furnished masts and lumber for the Spanish Navy, ought to +do the same. The idea of turning the whole matter over to +Congress was considered preposterous by many intelligent +Americans. + +In these thirteen States were nearly three and a quarter million +people hemmed in a long and narrow strip between the sea and an +unexplored wilderness in which the Indians were an ever present +peril. The Southern States, including Maryland, prosperous +agricultural regions, contained almost one-half the English- +speaking population of America. As colonies, they had found the +Old World eager for their rice, tobacco, indigo, and tar, and +slavery was the means of labor so firmly established that +one-fifth of the inhabitants were black. By contrast, the +Northern States were still concerned with commerce as the very +lifeblood of their existence. New England had not dreamed of the +millions of spindles which should hum on the banks of her rivers +and lure her young men and women from the farms to the clamorous +factory towns. The city of New York had not yet outgrown its +traffic in furs and its magnificent commercial destiny was still +unrevealed. It was a considerable seaport but not yet a gateway. +From Sandy Hook, however, to the stormy headlands of Maine, it +was a matter of life and death that ships should freely come and +go with cargoes to exchange. All other resources were trifling in +comparison. + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE FAMOUS DAYS OF SALEM PORT + +In such compelling circumstances as these, necessity became the +mother of achievement. There is nothing finer in American history +than the dogged fortitude and high-hearted endeavor with which +the merchant seamen returned to their work after the Revolution +and sought and found new markets for their wares. It was then +that Salem played that conspicuous part which was, for a +generation, to overshadow the activities of all other American +seaports. Six thousand privateersmen had signed articles in her +taverns, as many as the total population of the town, and they +filled it with a spirit of enterprise and daring. Not for them +the stupid monotony of voyages coastwise if more hazardous +ventures beckoned and there were havens and islands unvexed by +trade where bold men might win profit and perhaps fight for life +and cargo. + +Now there dwelt in Salem one of the great men of his time, Elias +Hasket Derby, the first American millionaire, and very much more +than this. He was a shipping merchant with a vision and with the +hard-headed sagacity to make his dreams come true. His was a +notable seafaring family, to begin with. His father, Captain +Richard Derby, born in 1712, had dispatched his small vessels to +the West Indies and Virginia and with the returns from these +voyages he had loaded assorted cargoes for Spain and Madeira and +had the proceeds remitted in bills of exchange to London or in +wine, salt, fruit, oil, lead, and handkerchiefs to America. +Richard Derby's vessels had eluded or banged away at the +privateers during the French War from 1756 to 1763, mounting from +eight to twelve guns, "with four cannon below decks for close +quarters." Of such a temper was this old sea-dog who led the +militia and defiantly halted General Gage's regulars at the North +River bridge in Salem, two full months before the skirmish at +Lexington. Eight of the nineteen cannon which it was proposed to +seize from the patriots had been taken from the ships of Captain +Richard Derby and stored in his warehouse for the use of the +Provincial Congress. + +It was Richard's son, Captain John Derby, who carried to England +in the swift schooner Quero the first news of the affair at +Lexington, ahead of the King's messenger. A sensational arrival, +if ever there was one! This Salem shipmaster, cracking on sail +like a proper son of his sire, making the passage in twenty-nine +days and handsomely beating the lubberly Royal Express Packet +Sukey which left Boston four days sooner, and startling the +British nation with the tidings which meant the loss of an +American empire! A singular coincidence was that this same +Captain John Derby should have been the first mariner to inform +the United States that peace had come, when he arrived from +France in 1783 with the message that a treaty had been signed. + +Elias Hasket Derby was another son of Richard. When his manifold +energies were crippled by the war, he diverted his ability and +abundant resources into privateering. He was interested in at +least eighty of the privateers out of Salem, invariably +subscribing for such shares as might not be taken up by his +fellow-townsmen. He soon perceived that many of these craft were +wretchedly unfit for the purpose and were easily captured or +wrecked. It was characteristic of his genius that he should +establish shipyards of his own, turn his attention to naval +architecture, and begin to build a class of vessels vastly +superior in size, model, and speed to any previously launched in +the colonies. They were designed to meet the small cruiser of the +British Navy on even terms and were remarkably successful, both +in enriching their owner and in defying the enemy. + +At the end of the war Elias Hasket Derby discovered that these +fine ships were too large and costly to ply up and down the +coast. Instead of bewailing his hard lot, he resolved to send +them to the other side of the globe. At a time when the British +and the Dutch East India companies insolently claimed a monopoly +of the trade of the Orient, when American merchant seamen had +never ventured beyond the two Atlantics, this was a conception +which made of commerce a surpassing romance and heralded the +golden era of the nation's life upon the sea. + +His Grand Turk of three hundred tons was promptly fitted out for +a pioneering voyage as far as the Cape of Good Hope. Salem knew +her as "the great ship" and yet her hull was not quite one +hundred feet long. Safely Captain Jonathan Ingersoll took her out +over the long road, his navigating equipment consisting of a few +erroneous maps and charts, a sextant, and Guthrie's Geographical +Grammar. In Table Bay he sold his cargo of provisions and then +visited the coast of Guinea to dispose of his rum for ivory and +gold dust but brought not a single slave back, Mr. Derby having +declared that "he would rather sink the whole capital employed +than directly or indirectly be concerned in so infamous a +trade"--an unusual point of view for a shipping merchant of New +England in 1784! + +Derby ships were first to go to Mauritius, then called the Isle +of France, first at Calcutta, and among the earliest to swing at +anchor off Canton. When Elias Hasket Derby decided to invade this +rich East India commerce, he sent his eldest son, Elias Hasket, +Jr., to England and the Continent after a course at Harvard. The +young man became a linguist and made a thorough study of English +and French methods of trade. Having laid this foundation for the +venture, the son was now sent to India, where he lived for three +years in the interests of his house, building up a trade almost +fabulously profitable. + +How fortunes were won in those stirring days may be discerned +from the record of young Derby's ventures while in the Orient. In +1788 the proceeds of one cargo enabled him to buy a ship and a +brigantine in the Isle of France. These two vessels he sent to +Bombay to load with cotton. Two other ships of his fleet, the +Astrea and Light Horse, were filled at Calcutta and Rangoon and +ordered to Salem. It was found, when the profits of these +transactions were reckoned, that the little squadron had earned +$100,000 above all outlay. + +To carry on such a business as this enlisted many men and +industries. While the larger ships were making their distant +voyages, the brigs and schooners were gathering cargoes for +them, crossing to Gothenburg and St. Petersburg for iron, duck, +and hemp, to France, Spain, and Madeira for wine and lead, to the +French West Indies for molasses to be turned into rum, to New +York, Philadelphia, and Richmond for flour, provisions, and +tobacco. These shipments were assembled in the warehouses on +Derby Wharf and paid for the teas, coffees, pepper, muslin, +silks, and ivory which the ships from the Far East were fetching +home. In fourteen years the Derby ships made one hundred and +twenty-five voyages to Europe and far eastern ports and out of +the thirty-five vessels engaged only one was lost at sea. + +It was in 1785 when the Grand Turk, on a second voyage, brought +back a cargo of silks, teas, and nankeens from Batavia and China, +that "The Independent Chronicle" of London, unconsciously +humorous, was moved to affirm that "the Americans have given up +all thought of a China trade which can never be carried on to +advantage without some settlement in the East Indies." + +As soon as these new sea-trails had been furrowed by the keels of +Elias Hasket Derby, other Salem merchants were quick to follow in +a rivalry which left no sea unexplored for virgin markets and +which ransacked every nook and corner of barbarism which had a +shore. Vessels slipped their cables and sailed away by night for +some secret destination with whose savage potentate trade +relations had been established. It might be Captain Jonathan +Carnes who, while at the port of Bencoolen in 1793, heard that +pepper grew wild on the northern coast of Sumatra. He whispered +the word to the Salem owner, who sent him back in the schooner +Rajah with only four guns and ten men. Eighteen months later, +Jonathan Carnes returned to Salem with a cargo of pepper in bulk, +the first direct importation, and cleared seven hundred per cent +on the voyage. When he made ready to go again, keeping his +business strictly to himself, other owners tracked him clear to +Bencoolen, but there he vanished in the Rajah, and his secret with +him, until he reappeared with another precious cargo of pepper. +When, at length, he shared this trade with other vessels, it +meant that Salem controlled the pepper market of Sumatra and for +many years supplied a large part of the world's demand. + +And so it happened that in the spicy warehouses that overlooked +Salem Harbor there came to be stored hemp from Luzon, gum copal +from Zanzibar, palm oil from Africa, coffee from Arabia, tallow +from Madagascar, whale oil from the Antarctic, hides and wool +from the Rio de la Plata, nutmeg and cloves from Malaysia. Such +merchandise had been bought or bartered for by shipmasters who +were much more than mere navigators. They had to be shrewd +merchants on their own accounts, for the success or failure of a +voyage was mostly in their hands. Carefully trained and highly +intelligent men, they attained command in the early twenties and +were able to retire, after a few years more afloat, to own ships +and exchange the quarterdeck for the counting-room, and the cabin +for the solid mansion and lawn on Derby Street. Every +opportunity, indeed, was offered them to advance their own +fortunes. They sailed not for wages but for handsome commissions +and privileges--in the Derby ships, five per cent of a cargo +outward bound, two and a half per cent of the freightage home, +five per cent profit on goods bought and sold between foreign +ports, and five per cent of the cargo space for their own use. + +Such was the system which persuaded the pick and flower of young +American manhood to choose the sea as the most advantageous +career possible. There was the Crowninshield family, for example, +with five brothers all in command of ships before they were old +enough to vote and at one time all five away from Salem, each in +his own vessel and three of them in the East India trade. "When +little boys," to quote from the memoirs of Benjamin +Crowninshield, "they were all sent to a common school and about +their eleventh year began their first particular study which +should develop them as sailors and ship captains. These boys +studied their navigation as little chaps of twelve years old and +were required to thoroughly master the subject before being sent +to sea . . . . As soon as the art of navigation was mastered, the +youngsters were sent to sea, sometimes as common sailors but +commonly as ship's clerks, in which position they were able to +learn everything about the management of a ship without actually +being a common sailor." + +This was the practice in families of solid station and social +rank, for to be a shipmaster was to follow the profession of a +gentleman. Yet the bright lad who entered by way of the +forecastle also played for high stakes. Soon promoted to the +berth of mate, he was granted cargo space for his own adventures +in merchandise and a share of the profits. In these days the +youth of twenty-one is likely to be a college undergraduate, +rated too callow and unfit to be intrusted with the smallest +business responsibilities and tolerantly regarded as unable to +take care of himself. It provokes both a smile and a glow of +pride, therefore, to recall those seasoned striplings and what +they did. + +No unusual instance was that of Nathaniel Silsbee, later United +States Senator from Massachusetts, who took command of the new +ship Benjamin in the year 1792, laden with a costly cargo from +Salem for the Cape of Good Hope and India, "with such +instructions," says he, "as left the management of the voyage +very much to my own discretion. Neither myself nor the chief +mate, Mr. Charles Derby, had attained the age of twenty-one years +when we left home. I was not then twenty." This reminded him to +speak of his own family. Of the three Silsbee brothers, "each of +us obtained the command of vessels and the consignment of their +cargoes before attaining the age of twenty years, viz., myself at +the age of eighteen and a half, my brother William at nineteen +and a half, and my brother Zachariah before he was twenty years +old. Each and all of us left off going to sea before reaching the +age of twenty-nine years." + +How resourcefully these children of the sea could handle affairs +was shown in this voyage of the Benjamin. While in the Indian +Ocean young Silsbee fell in with a frigate which gave him news of +the beginning of war between England and France. He shifted his +course for Mauritius and there sold the cargo for a dazzling +price in paper dollars, which he turned into Spanish silver. An +embargo detained him for six months, during which this currency +increased to three times the value of the paper money. He gave up +the voyage to Calcutta, sold the Spanish dollars and loaded with +coffee and spices for Salem. At the Cape of Good Hope, however, +he discovered that he could earn a pretty penny by sending his +cargo home in other ships and loading the Benjamin again for +Mauritius. When, at length, he arrived in Salem harbor, after +nineteen months away, his enterprises had reaped a hundred per +cent for Elias Hasket Derby and his own share was the snug little +fortune of four thousand dollars. Part of this he, of course, +invested at sea, and at twenty-two he was part owner of the +Betsy, East Indiaman, and on the road to independence. + +As second mate in the Benjamin had sailed Richard Cleveland, +another matured mariner of nineteen, who crowded into one life an +Odyssey of adventure noteworthy even in that era and who had the +knack of writing about it with rare skill and spirit. In 1797, +when twenty-three years old, he was master of the bark Enterprise +bound from Salem to Mocha for coffee. The voyage was abandoned at +Havre and he sent the mate home with the ship, deciding to remain +abroad and gamble for himself with the chances of the sea. In +France he bought on credit a "cutter-sloop" of forty-three tons, +no larger than the yachts whose owners think it venturesome to +take them off soundings in summer cruises. In this little box of +a craft he planned to carry a cargo of merchandise to the Cape of +Good Hope and thence to Mauritius. + +His crew included two men, a black cook, and a brace of boys who +were hastily shipped at Havre. "Fortunately they were all so much +in debt as not to want any time to spend their advance, but were +ready at the instant, and with this motley crew, (who, for aught +I knew, were robbers or pirates) I put to sea." The only sailor +of the lot was a Nantucket lad who was made mate and had to be +taught the rudiments of navigation while at sea. Of the others he +had this to say, in his lighthearted manner: + +"The first of my fore-mast hands is a great, surly, crabbed, +raw-boned, ignorant Prussian who is so timid aloft that the mate +has frequently been obliged to do his duty there. I believe him +to be more of a soldier than a sailor, though he has often +assured me that he has been a boatswain's mate of a Dutch +Indiaman, which I do not believe as he hardly knows how to put +two ends of a rope together .... My cook . . . a good-natured +negro and a tolerable cook, so unused to a vessel that in the +smoothest weather he cannot walk fore and aft without holding +onto something with both hands. This fear proceeds from the fact +that he is so tall and slim that if he should get a cant it might +be fatal to him. I did not think America could furnish such a +specimen of the negro race . . . nor did I ever see such a +simpleton. It is impossible to teach him anything and . . . he +can hardly tell the main-halliards from the mainstay. + +"Next is an English boy of seventeen years old, who from having +lately had the small-pox is feeble and almost blind, a miserable +object, but pity for his misfortunes induces me to make his duty +as easy as possible. Finally I have a little ugly French boy, the +very image of a baboon, who from having served for some time on +different privateers has all the tricks of a veteran man-of-war's +man, though only thirteen years old, and by having been in an +English prison, has learned enough of the language to be a +proficient in swearing." + +With these human scrapings for a ship's company, the cutter +Caroline was three months on her solitary way as far as the Cape +of Good Hope, where the inhabitants "could not disguise their +astonishment at the size of the vessel, the boyish appearance of +the master and mate, and the queer and unique characters of the +two men and boy who composed the crew." The English officials +thought it strange indeed, suspecting some scheme of French spies +or smuggled dispatches, but Richard Cleveland's petition to the +Governor, Lord McCartney, ingenuously patterned after certain +letters addressed to noblemen as found in an old magazine aboard +his vessel, won the day for him and he was permitted to sell the +cutter and her cargo, having changed his mind about proceeding +farther. + +Taking passage to Batavia, he looked about for another venture +but found nothing to his liking and wandered on to Canton, where +he was attracted by the prospect of a voyage to the northwest +coast of America to buy furs from the Indians. In a cutter no +larger than the Caroline he risked all his cash and credit, +stocking her with $20,000 worth of assorted merchandise for +barter, and put out across the Pacific, "having on board +twenty-one persons, consisting, except two Americans, of English, +Irish, Swedes and French, but principally the first, who were +runaways from the men-of-war and Indiamen, and two from a Botany +Bay ship who had made their escape, for we were obliged to take +such as we could get, served to complete a list of as +accomplished villains as ever disgraced any country." + +After a month of weary, drenching hardship off the China coast, +this crew of cutthroats mutinied. With a loyal handful, including +the black cook, Cleveland locked up the provisions, mounted two +four-pounders on the quarterdeck, rammed them full of grape-shot, +and fetched up the flint-lock muskets and pistols from the cabin. +The mutineers were then informed that if they poked their heads +above the hatches he would blow them overboard. Losing enthusiasm +and weakened by hunger, they asked to be set ashore; so the +skipper marooned the lot. For two days the cutter lay offshore +while a truce was argued, the upshot being that four of the +rascals gave in and the others were left behind. + +Fifty days more of it and, washed by icy seas, racked and +storm-beaten, the vessel made Norfolk Sound. So small was the +crew, so imminent the danger that the Indians might take her by +boarding, that screens of hides were rigged along the bulwarks to +hide the deck from view. Stranded and getting clear, warding off +attacks, Captain Richard Cleveland stayed two months on the +wilderness coast of Oregon, trading one musket for eight prime +sea-otter skins until there was no more room below. Sixty +thousand dollars was the value of the venture when he sailed for +China by way of the Sandwich Islands, forty thousand of profit, +and he was twenty-five years old with the zest for roving +undiminished. + +He next appeared in Calcutta, buying a twenty-five-ton pilot boat +under the Danish flag for a fling at Mauritius and a speculation +in prizes brought in by French privateers. Finding none in port, +he loaded seven thousand bags of coffee in a ship for Copenhagen +and conveyed as a passenger a kindred spirit, young Nathaniel +Shaler, whom he took into partnership. At Hamburg these two +bought a fast brig, the Lelia Byrd, to try their fortune on the +west coast of South America, and recruited a third partner, a +boyish Polish nobleman, Count de Rousillon, who had been an aide +to Kosciusko. Three seafaring musketeers, true gentlemen rovers, +all under thirty, sailing out to beard the viceroys of Spain! + +From Valparaiso, where other American ships were detained and +robbed, they adroitly escaped and steered north to Mexico and +California. At San Diego they fought their way out of the harbor, +silencing the Spanish fort with their six guns. Then to Canton +with furs, and Richard Cleveland went home at thirty years of age +after seven years' absence and voyaging twice around the world, +having wrested success from almost every imaginable danger and +obstacle, with $70,000 to make him a rich man in his own town. He +was neither more nor less than an American sailor of the kind +that made the old merchant marine magnificent. + +It was true romance, also, when the first American shipmasters +set foot in mysterious Japan, a half century before Perry's +squadron shattered the immemorial isolation of the land of the +Shoguns and the Samurai. Only the Dutch had been permitted to +hold any foreign intercourse whatever with this hermit nation and +for two centuries they had maintained their singular commercial +monopoly at a price measured in terms of the deepest degradation +of dignity and respect. The few Dutch merchants suffered to +reside in Japan were restricted to a small island in Nagasaki +harbor, leaving it only once in four years when the Resident, or +chief agent, journeyed to Yeddo to offer gifts and most humble +obeisance to the Shogun, "creeping forward on his hands and feet, +and falling on his knees, bowed his head to the ground, and +retired again in absolute silence, crawling exactly like a crab," +said one of these pilgrims who added: "We may not keep Sundays or +fast days, or allow our spiritual hymns or prayers to be heard; +never mention the name of Christ. Besides these things, we have +to submit to other insulting imputations which are always painful +to a noble heart. The reason which impels the Dutch to bear all +these sufferings so patiently is simply the love of gain." + +In return for these humiliations the Dutch East India Company was +permitted to send one or two ships a year from Batavia to Japan +and to export copper, silk, gold, camphor, porcelain, bronze, and +rare woods. The American ship Franklin arrived at Batavia in 1799 +and Captain James Devereux of Salem learned that a charter was +offered for one of these annual voyages. After a deal of Yankee +dickering with the hard-headed Dutchmen, a bargain was struck and +the Franklin sailed for Nagasaki with cloves, chintz, sugar, tin, +black pepper, sapan wood, and elephants' teeth. The instructions +were elaborate and punctilious, salutes to be fired right and +left, nine guns for the Emperor's guard while passing in, +thirteen guns at the anchorage; all books on board to be sealed +up in a cask, Bibles in particular, and turned over to the +Japanese officials, all firearms sent ashore, ship dressed with +colors whenever the "Commissaries of the Chief" graciously came +aboard, and a carpet on deck for them to sit upon. + +Two years later, the Margaret of Salem made the same sort of a +voyage, and in both instances the supercargoes, one of whom +happened to be a younger brother of Captain Richard Cleveland, +wrote journals of the extraordinary episode. For these mariners +alone was the curtain lifted which concealed the feudal Japan +from the eyes of the civilized world. Alert and curious, these +Yankee traders explored the narrow streets of Nagasaki, visited +temples, were handsomely entertained by officers and merchants, +and exchanged their wares in the marketplace. They were as much +at home, no doubt, as when buying piculs of pepper from a rajah +of Qualah Battoo, or dining with an elderly mandarin of Cochin +China. It was not too much to say that "the profuse stores of +knowledge brought by every ship's crew, together with unheard of +curiosities from every savage shore, gave the community of Salem +a rare alertness of intellect." + +It was a Salem bark, the Lydia, that first displayed the American +flag to the natives of Guam in 1801. She was chartered by the +Spanish government of Manila to carry to the Marianne Islands, as +those dots on the chart of the Pacific were then called, the new +Governor, his family, his suite, and his luggage. First Mate +William Haswell kept a diary in a most conscientious fashion, and +here and there one gleans an item with a humor of its own. "Now +having to pass through dangerous straits," he observes, "we went +to work to make boarding nettings and to get our arms in the best +order, but had we been attacked we should have been taken with +ease. Between Panay and Negros all the passengers were in the +greatest confusion for fear of being taken and put to death in +the dark and not have time to say their prayers." + +The decks were in confusion most of the time, what with the +Governor, his lady, three children, two servant girls and twelve +men servants, a friar and his servant, a judge and two servants, +not to mention some small hogs, two sheep, an ox, and a goat to +feed the passengers who were too dainty for sea provender. The +friar was an interesting character. A great pity that the worthy +mate of the Lydia should not have been more explicit! It +intrigues the reader of his manuscript diary to be told that "the +Friar was praying night and day but it would not bring a fair +wind. His behavior was so bad that we were forced to send him to +Coventry, or in other words, no one would speak to him." + +The Spanish governors of Guam had in operation an economic system +which compelled the admiration of this thrifty Yankee mate. The +natives wore very few clothes, he concluded, because the Governor +was the only shopkeeper and he insisted on a profit of at least +eight hundred per cent. There was a native militia regiment of a +thousand men who were paid ten dollars a year. With this cash +they bought Bengal goods, cottons, Chinese pans, pots, knives, +and hoes at the Governor's store, so that "all this money never +left the Governor's hands. It was fetched to him by the galleons +in passing, and when he was relieved he carried it with him to +Manila, often to the amount of eighty or ninety thousand +dollars." A glimpse of high finance without a flaw! + +There is pathos, simple and moving, in the stories of shipwreck +and stranding on hostile or desert coasts. These disasters were +far more frequent then than now, because navigation was partly +guesswork and ships were very small. Among these tragedies was +that of the Commerce, bound from Boston to Bombay in 1793. The +captain lost his bearings and thought he was off Malabar when the +ship piled up on the beach in the night. The nearest port was +Muscat and the crew took to the boats in the hope of reaching it. +Stormy weather drove them ashore where armed Arabs on camels +stripped them of clothes and stores and left them to die among +the sand dunes. + +On foot they trudged day after day in the direction of Muscat, +and how they suffered and what they endured was told by one of +the survivors, young Daniel Saunders. Soon they began to drop out +and die in their tracks in the manner of "Benjamin Williams, +William Leghorn, and Thomas Barnard whose bodies were exposed +naked to the scorching sun and finding their strength and spirits +quite exhausted they lay down expecting nothing but death for +relief." The next to be left behind was Mr. Robert Williams, +merchant and part owner, "and we therefore with reluctance +abandoned him to the mercy of God, suffering ourselves all the +horrors that fill the mind at the approach of death." Near the +beach and a forlorn little oasis, they stumbled across Charles +Lapham, who had become separated from them. He had been without +water for five days "and after many efforts he got upon his feet +and endeavored to walk. Seeing him in so wretched a condition I +could not but sympathize enough with him in his torments to go +back with him" toward water two miles away, "which both my other +companions refused to do. Accordingly they walked forward while I +went back a considerable distance with Lapham until, his strength +failing him, he suddenly fell on the ground, nor was he able to +rise again or even speak to me. Finding it vain to stay with him, +I covered him with sprays and leaves which I tore from an +adjacent tree, it being the last friendly office I could do him." + +Eight living skeletons left of eighteen strong seamen tottered +into Muscat and were cared for by the English consul. Daniel +Saunders worked his passage to England, was picked up by a +press-gang, escaped, and so returned to Salem. It was the fate of +Juba Hill, the black cook from Boston, to be detained among the +Arabs as a slave. It is worth noting that a black sea-cook +figured in many of these tales of daring and disaster, and among +them was the heroic and amazing figure of one Peter Jackson who +belonged in the brig Ceres. While running down the river from +Calcutta she was thrown on her beam ends and Peter, perhaps +dumping garbage over the rail, took a header. Among the things +tossed to him as he floated away was a sail-boom on which he was +swiftly carried out of sight by the turbid current. All on board +concluded that Peter Jackson had been eaten by sharks or +crocodiles and it was so reported when they arrived home. An +administrator was appointed for his goods and chattels and he was +officially deceased in the eyes of the law. A year or so later +this unconquerable sea-cook appeared in the streets of Salem, +grinning a welcome to former shipmates who fled from him in +terror as a ghostly visitation. He had floated twelve hours on +his sail-boom, it seemed, fighting off the sharks with his feet; +and finally drifting ashore. "He had hard work to do away with +the impressions of being dead," runs the old account, "but +succeeded and was allowed the rights and privileges of the +living." + +The community of interests in these voyages of long ago included +not only the ship's company but also the townspeople, even the +boys and girls, who entrusted their little private speculations +or "adventures" to the captain. It was a custom which flourished +well into the nineteenth century. These memoranda are sprinkled +through the account books of the East Indiamen out of Salem and +Boston. It might be Miss Harriet Elkins who requested the master +of the Messenger "please to purchase at Calcutta two net beads +with draperies; if at Batavia or any spice market, nutmegs or +mace; or if at Canton, two Canton shawls of the enclosed colors +at $5 per shawl. Enclosed is $10." + +Again, it might be Mr. John R. Tucker who ventured in the same +ship one hundred Spanish dollars to be invested in coffee and +sugar, or Captain Nathaniel West who risked in the Astrea fifteen +boxes of spermaceti candles and a pipe of Teneriffe wine. It is +interesting to discover what was done with Mr. Tucker's hundred +Spanish dollars, as invested for him by the skipper of the +Messenger at Batavia and duly accounted for. Ten bags of coffee +were bought for $83.30, the extra expenses of duty, boat-hire, +and sacking bringing the total outlay to $90.19. The coffee was +sold at Antwerp on the way home for $183.75, and Mr. Tucker's +handsome profit on the adventure was therefore $93.56, or more +than one hundred per cent. + +It was all a grand adventure, in fact, and the word was aptly +chosen to fit this ocean trade. The merchant freighted his ship +and sent her out to vanish from his ken for months and months of +waiting, with the greater part of his savings, perhaps, in goods +and specie beneath her hatches. No cable messages kept him in +touch with her nor were there frequent letters from the master. +Not until her signal was displayed by the fluttering flags of the +headland station at the harbor mouth could he know whether he had +gained or lost a fortune. The spirit of such merchants was +admirably typified in the last venture of Elias Hasket Derby in +1798, when unofficial war existed between the United States and +France. + +American ships were everywhere seeking refuge from the privateers +under the tricolor, which fairly ran amuck in the routes of +trade. For this reason it meant a rich reward to land a cargo +abroad. The ship Mount Vernon, commanded by Captain Elias Hasket +Derby, Jr., was laden with sugar and coffee for Mediterranean +ports, and was prepared for trouble, with twenty guns mounted and +fifty men to handle them. A smart ship and a powerful one, she +raced across to Cape Saint Vincent in sixteen days, which was +clipper speed. She ran into a French fleet of sixty sail, +exchanged broadsides with the nearest, and showed her stern to +the others. + +"We arrived at 12 o'clock [wrote Captain Derby from Gibraltar] +popping at Frenchmen all the forenoon. At 10 A.M. off Algeciras +Point we were seriously attacked by a large latineer who had on +board more than one hundred men. He came so near our broadside as +to allow our six-pound grape to do execution handsomely. We then +bore away and gave him our stern guns in a cool and deliberate +manner, doing apparently great execution. Our bars having cut his +sails considerably, he was thrown into confusion, struck both his +ensign and his pennant. I was then puzzled to know what to do +with so many men; our ship was running large with all her +steering sails out, so that we could not immediately bring her to +the wind, and we were directly off Algeciras Point from whence I +had reason to fear she might receive assistance, and my port +Gibraltar in full view. These were circumstances that induced me +to give up the gratification of bringing him in. It was, however, +a satisfaction to flog the rascal in full view of the English +fleet who were to leeward." + + + +CHAPTER V. YANKEE VIKINGS AND NEW TRADE ROUTES + +Soon after the Revolution the spirit of commercial exploration +began to stir in other ports than Salem. Out from New York sailed +the ship Empress of China in 1784 for the first direct voyage to +Canton, to make the acquaintance of a vast nation absolutely +unknown to the people of the United States, nor had one in a +million of the industrious and highly civilized Chinese ever so +much as heard the name of the little community of barbarians who +dwelt on the western shore of the North Atlantic. The oriental +dignitaries in their silken robes graciously welcomed the +foreign ship with the strange flag and showed a lively interest +in the map spread upon the cabin table, offering every facility +to promote this new market for their silks and teas. After an +absence of fifteen months the Empress of China returned to her +home port and her pilgrimage aroused so much attention that the +report of the supercargo, Samuel Shaw, was read in Congress. + +Surpassing this achievement was that of Captain Stewart Dean, who +very shortly afterward had his fling at the China trade in an +eighty-ton sloop built at Albany. He was a stout-hearted old +privateersman of the Revolution whom nothing could dismay, and in +this tiny Experiment of his he won merited fame as one of the +American pioneers of blue water. Fifteen men and boys sailed with +him, drilled and disciplined as if the sloop were a frigate, and +when the Experiment hauled into the stream, of Battery Park, New +York, "martial music and the boatswain's whistle were heard on +board with all the pomp and circumstance of war." Typhoons and +Malay proas, Chinese pirates and unknown shoals, had no terrors +for Stewart Dean. He saw Canton for himself, found a cargo, and +drove home again in a four months' passage, which was better than +many a clipper could do at a much later day. Smallest and bravest +of the first Yankee East Indiamen, this taut sloop, with the +boatswain's pipe trilling cheerily and all hands ready with +cutlases and pikes to repel boarders, was by no means the least +important vessel that ever passed in by Sandy Hook. + +In the beginnings of this picturesque relation with the Far East, +Boston lagged behind Salem, but her merchants, too, awoke to the +opportunity and so successfully that for generations there were +no more conspicuous names and shipping-houses in the China trade +than those of Russell, Perkins, and Forbes. The first attempt was +very ambitious and rather luckless. The largest merchantman ever +built at that time in the United States was launched at Quincy in +1789 to rival the towering ships of the British East India +Company. This Massachusetts created a sensation. Her departure +was a national event. She embodied the dreams of Captain Randall +and of the Samuel Shaw who had gone as supercargo in the Empress +of China. They formed a partnership and were able to find the +necessary capital. + +This six-hundred-ton ship loomed huge in the ayes of the crowds +which visited her. She was in fact no larger than such +four-masted coasting schooners as claw around Hatteras with +deck-loads of Georgia pine or fill with coal for down East, and +manage it comfortably with seven or eight men for a crew. The +Massachusetts, however, sailed in 411 the old-fashioned state and +dignity of a master, four mates, a purser, surgeon, carpenter, +gunner, four quartermasters, three midshipmen, a cooper, two +cooks, a steward, and fifty seamen. The second officer was Amasa +Delano, a man even more remarkable than the ship, who wandered +far and wide and wrote a fascinating book about his voyages, a +classic of its kind, the memoirs of an American merchant mariner +of a breed long since extinct. + +While the Massachusetts was fitting out at Boston, one small +annoyance ruffled the auspicious undertaking. Three different +crews were signed before a full complement could be persuaded to +tarry in the forecastle. The trouble was caused by a +fortune-teller of Lynn, Moll Pitcher by name, who predicted +disaster for the ship. Now every honest sailor knows that certain +superstitions are gospel fact, such as the bad luck brought by a +cross-eyed Finn, a black cat, or going to sea on Friday, and +these eighteenth century shellbacks must not be too severely +chided for deserting while they had the chance. As it turned out, +the voyage did have a sorry ending and death overtook an +astonishingly large number of the ship's people. + +Though she had been designed and built by master craftsmen of New +England who knew their trade surpassingly well, it was discovered +when the ship arrived at Canton that her timbers were already +rotting. They were of white oak which had been put into her green +instead of properly seasoned. This blunder wrecked the hopes of +her owners. To cap it, the cargo of masts and spars had also been +stowed while wet and covered with mud and ice, and the hatches +had been battened. As a result the air became so foul with decay +that several hundred barrels of beef were spoiled. To repair the +ship was beyond the means of Captain Randall and Samuel Shaw, and +reluctantly they sold her to the Danish East India Company at a +heavy loss. Nothing could have been more unexpected than to find +that, for once, the experienced shipbuilders had been guilty of a +miscalculation. + +The crew scattered, and perhaps the prediction of the +fortune-teller of Lynn followed their roving courses, for when +Captain Amasa Delano tried to trace them a few years later, he +jotted down such obituaries as these on the list of names: + + "John Harris. A slave in Algiers at last accounts. + Roger Dyer. Died and thrown overboard off Cape Horn. + William Williams. Lost overboard off Japan. + James Crowley. Murdered by the Chinese near Macao. + John Johnson. Died on board an English Indiaman. + Seth Stowell. Was drowned at Whampoa in 1790. + Jeremiah Chace. Died with the small-pox at Whampoa in 1791. + Humphrey Chadburn. Shot and died at Whampoa in 1791. + Samuel Tripe. Drowned off Java Head in 1790. + James Stackpole. Murdered by the Chinese. + Nicholas Nicholson. Died with the leprosy at Macao. + William Murphy. Killed by Chinese pirates. + Larry Conner. Killed at sea." + +There were more of these gruesome items--so many of them that it +appears as though no more than a handful of this stalwart crew +survived the Massachusetts by a dozen years. Incredible as it +sounds, Captain Delano's roster accounted for fifty of them as +dead while he was still in the prime of life, and most of them +had been snuffed out by violence. As for his own career, it was +overcast by no such unlucky star, and he passed unscathed through +all the hazards and vicissitudes that could be encountered in +that rugged and heroic era of endeavor. Set adrift in Canton when +the Massachusetts was sold, he promptly turned his hand to +repairing a large Danish ship which had been wrecked by storm, +and he virtually rebuilt her to the great satisfaction of the +owners. + +Thence, with money in his pocket, young Delano went to Macao, +where he fell in with Commodore John McClure of the English Navy, +who was in command of an expedition setting out to explore a part +of the South Seas, including the Pelew Islands, New Guinea, New +Holland, and the Spice Islands. The Englishman liked this +resourceful Yankee seaman and did him the honor to say, recalls +Delano, "that he considered I should be a very useful man to him +as a seaman, an officer, or a shipbuilder; and if it was +agreeable to me to go on board the Panther with him, I should +receive the some pay and emoluments with his lieutenants and +astronomers." A signal honor it was at a time when no love was +lost between British and American seafarers who had so recently +fought each other afloat. + +And so Amasa Delano embarked as a lieutenant of the Bombay +Marine, to explore tropic harbors and goons until then unmapped +and to parley with dusky kings. Commodore McClure, diplomatic and +humane, had almost no trouble with the untutored islanders, +except on the coast of New Guinea, where the Panther was attacked +by a swarm of canoes and the surgeon was killed. It was a +spirited little affair, four-foot arrows pelting like hail across +the deck, a cannon hurling grapeshot from the taffrail, Amasa +Delano hit in the chest and pulling out the arrow to jump to his +duty again. + +Only a few years earlier the mutineers of the Bounty had +established themselves on Pitcairn Island, and Delano was able to +compile the first complete narrative of this extraordinary +colony, which governed itself in the light of the primitive +Christian virtues. There was profound wisdom in the comment of +Amasa Delano: "While the present natural, simple, and +affectionate character prevails among these descendants of the +mutineers, they will be delightful to our minds, they will be +amiable and acceptable in the sight of God, and they will be +useful and happy among themselves. Let it be our fervent prayer +that neither canting and hypocritical emissaries from schools of +artificial theology on the one hand, nor sensual and licentious +crews and adventurers on the other, may ever enter the charming +village of Pitcairn to give disease to the minds or the bodies of +the unsuspecting inhabitants." + +Two years of this intensely romantic existence, and Delano +started homeward. But there was a chance of profit at Mauritius, +and there he bought a tremendous East Indiaman of fourteen +hundred tons as a joint venture with a Captain Stewart and put a +crew of a hundred and fifty men on board. She had been brought in +by a French privateer and Delano was moved to remark, with an +indignation which was much in advance of his times: "Privateering +is entirely at variance with the first principle of honorable +warfare . . . . This system of licensed robbery enables a wicked +and mercenary man to insult and injure even neutral friends on +the ocean; and when he meets an honest sailor who may have all +his earnings on board his ship but who carries an enemy's flag, +he plunders him of every cent and leaves him the poor consolation +that it is done according to law . . . . When the Malay subjects +of Abba Thule cut down the cocoanut trees of an enemy, in the +spirit of private revenge, he asked them why they acted in +opposition to the principles on which they knew he always made +and conducted a war. They answered, and let the reason make us +humble, 'The English do so.'" + +In his grand East Indiaman young Captain Delano traded on the +coast of India but soon came to grief. The enterprise had been +too large for him to swing with what cash and credit he could +muster, and the ship was sold from under him to pay her debts. +Again on the beach, with one solitary gold moidore in his purse, +he found a friendly American skipper who offered him a passage to +Philadelphia, which he accepted with the pious reflection that, +although his mind was wounded and mortified by the financial +disaster, his motives had been perfectly pure and honest. He +never saw his native land with so little pleasure as on this +return to it, he assures us, and the shore on which he would have +leaped with delight was covered with gloom and sadness. + +Now what makes it so well worth while to sketch in brief outline +the careers of one and another of these bygone shipmasters is +that they accurately reflected the genius and the temper of their +generation. There was, in truth, no such word as failure in their +lexicon. It is this quality that appeals to us beyond all else. +Thrown on their beam ends, they were presently planning something +else, eager to shake dice with destiny and with courage unbroken. +It was so with Amasa Delano, who promptly went to work "with what +spirits I could revive within me. After a time they returned to +their former elasticity." + +He obtained a position as master builder in a shipyard, saved +some money, borrowed more, and with one of his brothers was soon +blithely building a vessel of two hundred tons for a voyage into +the Pacific and to the northwest coast after seals. They sailed +along Patagonia and found much to interest them, dodged in and +out of the ports of Chili and Peru, and incidentally recaptured a +Spanish ship which was in the hands of the slaves who formed her +cargo. + +This was all in the day's work and happened at the island of +Santa Maria, not far from Juan Fernandez, where Captain Delano's +Perseverance found the high-pooped Tryal in a desperate state. +Spanish sailors who had survived the massacre were leaping +overboard or scrambling up to the mastheads while the African +savages capered on deck and flourished their weapons. Captain +Delano liked neither the Spaniard nor the slavetrade, but it was +his duty to help fellow seamen in distress; so he cleared for +action and ordered two boats away to attend to the matter. The +chief mate, Rufus Low, was in charge, and a gallant sailor he +showed himself. They had to climb the high sides of the Tryal and +carry, in hand-to-hand conflict, the barricades of water-casks +and bales of matting which the slaves had built across the deck. +There was no hanging back, and even a mite of a midshipman from +Boston pranced into it with his dirk. The negroes were well armed +and fought ferociously. The mate was seriously wounded, four +seamen were stabbed, the Spanish first mate had two musket balls +in him, and a passenger was killed in the fray. + +Having driven the slaves below and battened them down, the +American party returned next morning to put the irons on them. A +horrid sight confronted them. Thirsting for vengeance, the +Spanish sailors had spread-eagled several of the negroes to +ringbolts in the deck and were shaving the living flesh from them +with razor-edged boarding lances. Captain Delano thereupon +disarmed these brutes and locked them up in their turn, taking +possession of the ship until he could restore order. The sequel +was that he received the august thanks of the Viceroy of Chili +and a gold medal from His Catholic Majesty. As was the custom, +the guilty slaves, poor wretches, were condemned to be dragged to +the gibbet at the tails of mules, to be hanged, their bodies +burned, and their heads stuck upon poles in the plaza. + +It was while in this Chilean port of Talcahuano that Amasa Delano +heard the tale of the British whaler which had sailed just before +his arrival. He tells it so well that I am tempted to quote it as +a generous tribute to a sailor of a rival race. After all, they +were sprung from a common stock and blood was thicker than water. +Besides, it is the sort of yarn that ought to be dragged to the +light of day from its musty burial between the covers of Delano's +rare and ancient "Voyages and Travels." + +The whaler Betsy, it seems, went in and anchored under the guns +of the forts to seek provisions and make repairs. The captain +went ashore to interview the officials, leaving word that no +Spaniards should be allowed to come aboard because of the bad +feeling against the English. Three or four large boats filled +with troops presently veered alongside and were ordered to keep +clear. This command was resented, and the troops opened fire, +followed by the forts. Now for the deed of a man with his two +feet under him. + +"The chief officer of the Betsy whose name was Hudson, a man of +extraordinary bravery, cut his cable and his ship swung the wrong +way, with her head in shore, passing close to several Spanish +ships which, with every vessel in the harbor that could bring a +gun to bear, together with three hundred soldiers in boats and on +ship's decks and the two batteries, all kept up a constant fire +on him. The wind was light, nearly a calm. The shot flew so thick +that it was difficult for him to make sail, some part of the +rigging being cut away every minute. + +"He kept his men at the guns, and when the ship swung her +broadside so as to bear upon any of the Spanish ships, he kept up +a fire at them. In this situation the brave fellow continued to +lie for three-quarters of an hour before he got his topsails +sheeted home. The action continued in this manner for near an +hour and a half. He succeeded in getting the ship to sea, +however, in defiance of all the force that could be brought +against him. The ship was very much cut to pieces in sails, +rigging, and hull; and a considerable number of men were killed +and wounded on board. + +"Hudson kept flying from one part of the deck to the other during +the whole time of action, encouraging and threatening the men as +occasion required. He kept a musket in his hand most part of the +time, firing when he could find the leisure. Some of the men came +aft and begged him to give up the ship, telling him they should +all be killed--that the carpenter had all one side of him shot +away--that one man was cut in halves with a double-headed shot as +he was going aloft to loose the foretopsail and the body had +fallen on deck in two separate parts--that such a man was killed +at his duty on the forecastle, and one more had been killed in +the maintop--that Sam, Jim, Jack, and Tom were wounded and that +they would do nothing more towards getting the ship out of the +harbor. + +"His reply to them was, 'then you shall be sure to die, for if +they do not kill you I will, so sure as you persist in any such +cowardly resolution,' saying at the same time, 'OUT SHE GOES, OR +DOWN SHE GOES.'" + +By this resolute and determined conduct he kept the men to their +duty and succeeded in accomplishing one of the most daring +enterprises perhaps ever attempted. + +An immortal phrase, this simple dictum of first mate Hudson of +the Betsy, "Out she goes, or down she goes," and not unworthy of +being mentioned in the same breath with Farragut's "Damn the +torpedoes." + +Joined by his brother Samuel in the schooner Pilgrim, which was +used as a tender in the sealing trade, Amasa Delano frequented +unfamiliar beaches until he had taken his toll of skins and was +ready to bear away for Canton to sell them. There were many +Yankee ships after seals in those early days, enduring more peril +and privation than the whalemen, roving over the South Pacific +among the rock-bound islands unknown to the merchant navigator. +The men sailed wholly on shares, a seaman receiving one per cent +of the catch and the captain ten per cent, and they slaughtered +the seal by the million, driving them from the most favored +haunts within a few years. For instance, American ships first +visited Mas a Fuera in 1797, and Captain Delano estimated that +during the seven years following three million skins were taken +to China from this island alone. He found as many as fourteen +vessels there at one time, and he himself carried away one +hundred thousand skins. It was a gold mine for profit while it +lasted. + +There were three Delano brothers afloat in two vessels, and of +their wanderings Amasa set down this epitome: "Almost the whole +of our connections who were left behind had need of our +assistance, and to look forward it was no more than a reasonable +calculation to make that our absence would not be less than three +years . . . together with the extraordinary uncertainty of the +issue of the voyage, as we had nothing but our hands to depend +upon to obtain a cargo which was only to be done through storms, +dangers, and breakers, and taken from barren rocks in distant +regions. But after a voyage of four years for one vessel and five +for the other, we were all permitted to return safe home to our +friends and not quite empty-handed. We had built both of the +vessels we were in and navigated them two and three times around +the globe." Each one of the brothers had been a master builder +and rigger and a navigator of ships in every part of the world. + +By far the most important voyage undertaken by American +merchantmen during the decade of brilliant achievement following +the Revolution was that of Captain Robert Gray in the Columbia, +which was the first ship to visit and explore the northwest coast +and to lead the way for such adventurers as Richard Cleveland and +Amasa Delano. On his second voyage in 1792, Captain Gray +discovered the great river he christened Columbia and so gave to +the United States its valid title to that vast territory which +Lewis and Clark were to find after toiling over the mountains +thirteen years later. + + + +CHAPTER VI. "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS" + +When the first Congress under the new Federal Constitution +assembled in 1789, a spirit of pride was manifested in the swift +recovery and the encouraging growth of the merchant marine, +together with a concerted determination to promote and protect it +by means of national legislation. The most imperative need was a +series of retaliatory measures to meet the burdensome navigation +laws of England, to give American ships a fair field and no +favors. The Atlantic trade was therefore stimulated by allowing a +reduction of ten per cent of the customs duties on goods imported +in vessels built and owned by American citizens. The East India +trade, which already employed forty New England ships, was +fostered in like manner. Teas brought direct under the American +flag paid an average duty of twelve cents a pound while teas in +foreign bottoms were taxed twenty-seven cents. It was sturdy +protection, for on a cargo of one hundred thousand pounds of +assorted teas from India or China, a British ship would pay +$27,800 into the custom house and a Salem square-rigger only +$10,980. + +The result was that the valuable direct trade with the Far East +was absolutely secured to the American flag. Not content with +this, Congress decreed a system of tonnage duties which permitted +the native owner to pay six cents per ton on his vessel while the +foreigner laid down fifty cents as an entry fee for every ton his +ship measured, or thirty cents if he owned an American-built +vessel. In 1794, Congress became even more energetic in defense +of its mariners and increased the tariff rates on merchandise in +foreign vessels. A nation at last united, jealous of its rights, +resentful of indignities long suffered, and intelligently alive +to its shipping as the chief bulwark of prosperity, struck back +with peaceful weapons and gained a victory of incalculable +advantage. Its Congress, no longer feeble and divided, laid the +foundations for American greatness upon the high seas which was +to endure for more than a half century. Wars, embargoes, and +confiscations might interrupt but they could not seriously harm +it. + +In the three years after 1789 the merchant shipping registered +for the foreign trade increased from 123,893 tons to 411,438 +tons, presaging a growth without parallel in the history of the +commercial world. Foreign ships were almost entirely driven out +of American ports, and ninety-one per cent of imports and +eighty-six per cent of exports were conveyed in vessels built and +manned by Americans. Before Congress intervened, English +merchantmen had controlled three-fourths of our commerce +overseas. When Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State, fought +down Southern opposition to a retaliatory shipping policy, he +uttered a warning which his countrymen were to find still true +and apt in the twentieth century: "If we have no seamen, our +ships will be useless, consequently our ship timber, iron, and +hemp; our shipbuilding will be at an end; ship carpenters will go +over to other nations; our young men have no call to the sea; our +products, carried in foreign bottoms, will be saddled with +war-freight and insurance in time of war--and the history of the +last hundred years shows that the nation which is our carrier has +three years of war for every four years of peace." + +The steady growth of an American merchant marine was interrupted +only once in the following decade. In the year 1793 war broke out +between England and France. A decree of the National Convention +of the French Republic granted neutral vessels the same rights as +those which flew the tricolor. This privilege reopened a rushing +trade with the West Indies, and hundreds of ships hastened from +American ports to Martinique, Guadeloupe, and St. Lucia. + +Like a thunderbolt came the tidings that England refused to look +upon this trade with the French colonies as neutral and that her +cruisers had been told to seize all vessels engaged in it and to +search them for English-born seamen. This ruling was enforced +with such barbarous severity that it seemed as if the War for +Independence had been fought in vain. Without warning, unable to +save themselves, great fleets of Yankee merchantmen were +literally swept from the waters of the West Indies. At St. +Eustatius one hundred and thirty of them were condemned. The +judges at Bermuda condemned eleven more. Crews and passengers +were flung ashore without food or clothing, were abused, +insulted, or perhaps impressed in British privateers. The ships +were lost to their owners. There was no appeal and no redress. At +Martinique an English fleet and army captured St. Pierre in +February, 1794. Files of marines boarded every American ship in +the harbor, tore down the colors, and flung two hundred and fifty +seamen into the foul holds of a prison hulk. There they were +kept, half-dead with thirst and hunger while their vessels, +uncared for, had stranded or sunk at their moorings. Scores of +outrages as abominable as this were on record in the office of +the Secretary of State. Shipmasters were afraid to sail to the +southward and, for lack of these markets for dried cod, the +fishing schooners of Marblehead were idle. + +For a time a second war with England seemed imminent. An alarmed +Congress passed laws to create a navy and to fortify the most +important American harbors. President Washington recommended an +embargo of thirty days, which Congress promptly voted and then +extended for thirty more. It was a popular measure and strictly +enforced by the mariners themselves. The mates and captains of +the brigs and snows in the Delaware River met and resolved not to +go to sea for another ten days, swearing to lie idle sooner than +feed the British robbers in the West Indies. It was in the midst +of these demonstrations that Washington seized the one hope of +peace and recommended a special mission to England. + +The treaty negotiated by John Jay in 1794 was received with an +outburst of popular indignation. Jay was damned as a traitor, +while the sailors of Portsmouth burned him in effigy. By way of +an answer to the terms of the obnoxious treaty, a seafaring mob +in Boston raided and burned the British privateer Speedwell, +which had put into that port as a merchantman with her guns and +munitions hidden beneath a cargo of West India produce. + +The most that can be said of the commercial provisions of the +treaty is that they opened direct trade with the East Indies but +at the price of complete freedom of trade for British shipping in +American ports. It must be said, too, that although the treaty +failed to clear away the gravest cause of hostility--the right of +search and impressment--yet it served to postpone the actual +dash, and during the years in which it was in force American +shipping splendidly prospered, freed of most irksome handicaps. + +The quarrel with France had been brewing at the same time and for +similar reasons. Neutral trade with England was under the ban, +and the Yankee shipmaster was in danger of losing his vessel if +he sailed to or from a port under the British flag. It was out of +the frying-pan into the fire, and French privateers welcomed the +excuse to go marauding in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. What it +meant to fight off these greedy cutthroats is told in a newspaper +account of the engagement of Captain Richard Wheatland, who was +homeward bound to Salem in the ship Perseverance in 1799. He was +in the Old Straits of Bahama when a fast schooner came up astern, +showing Spanish colors and carrying a tremendous press of canvas. +Unable to run away from her, Captain Wheatland reported to his +owners: + +"We took in steering sails, wore ship, hauled up our courses, +piped all hands to quarters and prepared for action. The schooner +immediately took in sail, hoisted an English Union flag and +passed under our lee at a considerable distance. We wore ship, +she did the same, and we passed each other within half a musket. +A fellow hailed us in broken English and ordered the boat hoisted +out and the captain to come aboard, which he refused. He again +ordered our boat out and enforced his orders with a menace that +in case of refusal he would sink us, using at the same time the +vilest and most infamous language it is possible to conceive of. +. . . We hauled the ship to wind and as he passed poured a whole +broadside into him with great success. Sailing faster than we, he +ranged considerably ahead, tacked and again passed, giving us a +broadside and furious discharge of musketry, which he kept up +incessantly until the latter part of the engagement. His musket +balls reached us in every direction but his large shot either +fell short or went considerably over us while our guns loaded +with round shot and square bars of iron were plied so briskly and +directed with such good judgment that before he got out of range +we had cut his mainsail and foretopsail all to rags and cleared +his decks so effectively that when he bore away from us there +were scarcely ten men to be seen. He then struck his English flag +and hoisted the flag of The Terrible Republic and made off with +all the sail he could carry, much disappointed, no doubt, at not +being able to give us a fraternal embrace. We feel confidence +that we have rid the world of some infamous pests of society." + +By this time, the United States was engaged in active hostilities +with France, although war had not been declared. The news of the +indignities which American commissions had suffered at the hands +of the French Directory had stirred the people to war pitch. +Strong measures for national defense were taken, which stopped +little short of war. The country rallied to the slogan, "Millions +for defense but not one cent for tribute," and the merchants of +the seaports hastened to subscribe funds to build frigates to be +loaned to the Government. Salem launched the famous Essex, ready +for sea six months after the keel was laid, at a cost of $75,000. +Her two foremost merchants, Elias Hasket Derby and William Gray, +led the list with ten thousand dollars each. The call sent out by +the master builder, Enos Briggs, rings with thrilling effect: + +"To Sons of Freedom! All true lovers of Liberty of your Country! +Step forth and give your assistance in building the frigate to +oppose French insolence and piracy. Let every man in possession +of a white oak tree be ambitious to be foremost in hurrying down +the timber to Salem where the noble structure is to be fabricated +to maintain your rights upon the seas and make the name of +America respected among the nations of the world. Your largest +and longest trees are wanted, and the arms of them for knees and +rising timber. Four trees are wanted for the keel which +altogether will measure 146 feet in length, and hew sixteen +inches square." + +This handsome frigate privately built by patriots of the republic +illuminates the coastwise spirit and conditions of her time. She +was a Salem ship from keel to truck. Captain Jonathan Haraden, +the finest privateersman of the Revolution, made the rigging for +the mainmast at his ropewalk in Brown Street. Joseph Vincent +fitted out the foremast and Thomas Briggs the mizzenmast in their +lofts at the foot of the Common. When the huge hemp cables were +ready for the frigate, the workmen carried them to the shipyard +on their shoulders, the parade led by fife and drum. Her sails +were cut from duck woven in Daniel Rust's factory in Broad Street +and her iron work was forged by Salem shipsmiths. It was not +surprising that Captain Richard Derby was chosen to command the +Essex, but he was abroad in a ship of his own and she sailed +under Captain Edward Preble of the Navy. + +The war cloud passed and the merchant argosies overflowed the +wharves and havens of New England, which had ceased to monopolize +the business on blue water. New York had become a seaport with +long ranks of high-steeved bowsprits soaring above pleasant +Battery Park and a forest of spars extending up the East River. +In 1790 more than two thousand ships, brigs, schooners, and +smaller craft had entered and cleared, and the merchants met in +the coffee-houses to discuss charters, bills-of-lading, and +adventures. Sailors commanded thrice the wages of laborers +ashore. Shipyards were increasing and the builders could build as +large and swift East Indiamen as those of which Boston and Salem +boasted. + +Philadelphia had her Stephen Girard, whose wealth was earned in +ships, a man most remarkable and eccentric, whose career was one +of the great maritime romances. Though his father was a +prosperous merchant of Bordeaux engaged in the West India trade, +he was shifting for himself as a cabin-boy on his father's ships +when only fourteen years old. With no schooling, barely able to +read and write, this urchin sailed between Bordeaux and the +French West Indies for nine years, until he gained the rank of +first mate. At the age of twenty-six he entered the port of +Philadelphia in command of a sloop which had narrowly escaped +capture by British frigates. There he took up his domicile and +laid the foundation of his fortune in small trading ventures to +New Orleans and Santo Domingo. + +In 1791 he began to build a fleet of beautiful ships for the +China and India trade, their names, Montesquieu, Helvetius, +Voltaire, and Rousseau, revealing his ideas of religion and +liberty. So successfully did he combine banking and shipping that +in 1813 he was believed to be the wealthiest merchant in the +United States. In that year one of his ships from China was +captured off the Capes of the Delaware by a British privateer. +Her cargo of teas, nankeens, and silks was worth half a million +dollars to him but he succeeded in ransoming it on the spot by +counting out one hundred and eighty thousand Spanish milled +dollars. No privateersman could resist such strategy as this. + +Alone in his old age, without a friend or relative to close his +eyes in death, Stephen Girard, once a penniless, ignorant French +cabin-boy, bequeathed his millions to philanthropy, and the +Girard College for orphan boys, in Philadelphia, is his monument. + +The Treaty of Amiens brought a little respite to Europe and a +peaceful interlude for American shipmasters, but France and +England came to grips again in 1803. For two years thereafter the +United States was almost the only important neutral nation not +involved in the welter of conflict on land and sea, and trade +everywhere sought the protection of the Stars and Stripes. +England had swept her own rivals, men-of-war and merchantmen, +from the face of the waters. France and Holland ceased to carry +cargoes beneath their own ensigns. Spain was afraid to send her +galleons to Mexico and Peru. All the Continental ports were +begging for American ships to transport their merchandise. It was +a maritime harvest unique and unexpected. + +Yankee skippers were dominating the sugar trade of Cuba and were +rolling across the Atlantic with the coffee, hides, and indigo of +Venezuela and Brazil. Their fleets crowded the roadsteads of +Manila and Batavia and packed the warehouses of Antwerp, Lisbon, +and Hamburg. It was a situation which England could not tolerate +without attempting to thwart an immense traffic which she +construed as giving aid and comfort to her enemies. Under cover +of the so-called Rule of 1756 British admiralty courts began to +condemn American vessels carrying products from enemies' colonies +to Europe, even when the voyage was broken by first entering an +American port. It was on record in September, 1805, that fifty +American ships had been condemned in England and as many more in +the British West Indies. + +This was a trifling disaster, however, compared with the huge +calamity which befell when Napoleon entered Berlin as a conqueror +and proclaimed his paper blockade of the British Isles. There was +no French navy to enforce it, but American vessels dared not sail +for England lest they be snapped up by French privateers. The +British Government savagely retaliated with further prohibitions, +and Napoleon countered in like manner until no sea was safe for a +neutral ship and the United States was powerless to assert its +rights. Thomas Jefferson as President used as a weapon the +Embargo of 1807, which was, at first, a popular measure, and +which he justified in these pregnant sentences: "The whole world +is thus laid under interdict by these two nations, and our own +vessels, their cargoes, and crews, are to be taken by the one or +the other for whatever place they may be destined out of our +limits. If, therefore, on leaving our harbors we are certainly to +lose them, is it not better as to vessels, cargoes, and seamen, +to keep them at home?" + +A people proud, independent, and pugnacious, could not long +submit to a measure of defense which was, in the final sense, an +abject surrender to brute force. New England, which bore the +brunt of the embargo, was first to rebel against it. Sailors +marched through the streets clamoring for bread or loaded their +vessels and fought their way to sea. In New York the streets of +the waterside were deserted, ships dismantled, countinghouses +unoccupied, and warehouses empty. In one year foreign commerce +decreased in value from $108,000,000 to $22,000,000. + +After fifteen months Congress repealed the law, substituting a +Non-Intercourse Act which suspended trade with Great Britain and +France until their offending orders were repealed. All such +measures were doomed to be futile. Words and documents, threats +and arguments could not intimidate adversaries who paid heed to +nothing else than broadsides from line-of-battle ships or the +charge of battalions. With other countries trade could now be +opened. Hopefully the hundreds of American ships long pent-up in +harbor winged it deep-laden for the Baltic, the North Sea, and +the Mediterranean. But few of them ever returned. Like a brigand, +Napoleon lured them into a trap and closed it, advising the +Prussian Government, which was under his heel: "Let the American +ships enter your ports. Seize them afterward. You shall deliver +the cargoes to me and I will take them in part payment of the +Prussian war debt." + +Similar orders were executed wherever his mailed fist reached, +the pretext being reprisal for the Non-Intercourse Act. More than +two hundred American vessels were lost to their owners, a +ten-million-dollar robbery for which France paid an indemnity of +five millions after twenty years. It was the grand climax of the +exploitation which American commerce had been compelled to endure +through two centuries of tumult and bloodshed afloat. There +lingers today in many a coastwise town an inherited dislike for +France. It is a legacy of that far-off catastrophe which beggared +many a household and filled the streets with haggard, broken +shipmasters. + +It was said of this virile merchant marine that it throve under +pillage and challenged confiscation. Statistics confirm this +brave paradox. In 1810, while Napoleon was doing his worst, the +deep-sea tonnage amounted to 981,019; and it is a singular fact +that in proportion to population this was to stand as the high +tide of American foreign shipping until thirty-seven years later. +It ebbed during the War of 1812 but rose again with peace and a +real and lasting freedom of the seas. + +This second war with England was fought in behalf of merchant +seamen and they played a nobly active part in it. The ruthless +impressment of seamen was the most conspicuous provocation, but +it was only one of many. Two years before hostilities were openly +declared, British frigates were virtually blockading the port of +New York, halting and searching ships as they pleased, making +prizes of those with French destinations, stealing sailors to +fill their crews, waging war in everything but name, and enjoying +the sport of it. A midshipman of one of them merrily related: +"Every morning at daybreak we set about arresting the progress of +all the vessels we saw, firing off guns to the right and left to +make every ship that was running in heave to or wait until we had +leisure to send a boat on board to see, in our lingo, what she +was made of. I have frequently known a dozen and sometimes a +couple of dozen ships lying a league or two off the port, losing +their fair wind, their tide, and worse than all, their market for +many hours, sometimes the whole day, before our search was +completed." + +The right of a belligerent to search neutral vessels for +contraband of war or evidence of a forbidden destination was not +the issue at stake. This was a usage sanctioned by such +international law as then existed. It was the alleged right to +search for English seamen in neutral vessels that Great Britain +exercised, not only on the high seas but even in territorial +waters, which the American Government refused to recognize. In +vain the Government had endeavored to protect its sailors from +impressment by means of certificates of birth and citizenship. +These documents were jeered at by the English naval lieutenant +and his boarding gang, who kidnapped from the forecastle such +stalwart tars as pleased their fancy. The victim who sought to +inform an American consul of his plight was lashed to the rigging +and flogged by a boatswain's mate. The files of the State +Department, in 1807, had contained the names of six thousand +American sailors who were as much slaves and prisoners aboard +British men-of-war as if they had been made captives by the Dey +of Algiers. One of these incidents, occurring on the ship Betsy, +Captain Nathaniel Silsbee, while at Madras in 1795, will serve to +show how this brutal business was done. + +"I received a note early one morning from my chief mate that one +of my sailors, Edward Hulen, a fellow townsman whom I had known +from boyhood, had been impressed and taken on board of a British +frigate then being in port .... I immediately went on board my +ship and having there learned all the facts in the case, +proceeded to the frigate, where I found Hulen and in his presence +was informed by the first lieutenant of the frigate that he had +taken Hulen from my ship under a peremptory order from his +commander to visit every American ship in port and take from each +of them one or more of their seamen .... I then called upon +Captain Cook, who commanded the frigate, and sought first by all +the persuasive means that I was capable of using and ultimately +by threats to appeal to the Government of the place to obtain +Hulen's release, but in vain . . . . It remained for me only to +recommend Hulen to that protection of the lieutenant which a good +seaman deserves, and to submit to the high-handed insult thus +offered to the flag of my country which I had no means either of +preventing or resisting." + +After several years' detention in the British Navy, Hulen +returned to Salem and lived to serve on board privateers in the +second war with England. + +Several years' detention! This was what it meant to be a pressed +man, perhaps with wife and children at home who had no news of +him nor any wages to support them. At the time of the Nore Mutiny +in 1797, there were ships in the British fleet whose men had not +been paid off for eight, ten, twelve, and in one instance fifteen +years. These wooden walls of England were floating hells, and a +seaman was far better off in jail. He was flogged if he sulked +and again if he smiled flogged until the blood ran for a hundred +offenses as trivial as these. His food was unspeakably bad and +often years passed before he was allowed to set foot ashore. +Decent men refused to volunteer and the ships were filled with +the human scum and refuse caught in the nets of the press-gangs +of Liverpool, London, and Bristol. + +It is largely forgotten or unknown that this system of recruiting +was as intolerable in England as it was in the United States and +as fiercely resented. Oppressive and unjust, it was nevertheless +endured as the bulwark of England's defense against her foes. It +ground under its heel the very people it protected and made them +serfs in order to keep them free. No man of the common people who +lived near the coast of England was safe from the ruffianly +press-gangs nor any merchant ship that entered her ports. It was +the most cruel form of conscription ever devised. Mob violence +opposed it again and again, and British East Indiamen fought the +King's tenders sooner than be stripped of their crews and left +helpless. Feeling in America against impressment was never more +highly inflamed, even on the brink of the War of 1812, than it +had long been in England itself, although the latter country was +unable to rise and throw it off. Here are the words, not of an +angry American patriot but of a modern English historian writing +of his own nation:* "To the people the impress was an axe laid at +the foot of the tree. There was here no question, as with trade, +of the mere loss of hands who could be replaced. Attacking the +family in the person of its natural supporter and protector, the +octopus system of which the gangs were the tentacles, struck at +the very foundations of domestic life and brought to thousands of +households a poverty as bitter and a grief as poignant as death. +. . . The mutiny at the Nore brought the people face to face with +the appalling risks attendant on wholesale pressing while the war +with America, incurred for the sole purpose of upholding the +right to press, taught them the lengths to which their rulers +were still prepared to go in order to enslave them."* + +* The Press Gang Afloat and Ashore, by J. R. Hutchinson. + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE BRILLIANT ERA OF 1812 + +American privateering in 1812 was even bolder and more successful +than during the Revolution. It was the work of a race of merchant +seamen who had found themselves, who were in the forefront of the +world's trade and commerce, and who were equipped to challenge +the enemy's pretensions to supremacy afloat. Once more there was +a mere shadow of a navy to protect them, but they had learned to +trust their own resources. They would send to sea fewer of the +small craft, slow and poorly armed, and likely to meet disaster. +They were capable of manning what was, in fact, a private navy +comprised of fast and formidable cruisers. The intervening +generation had advanced the art of building and handling ships +beyond all rivalry, and England grudgingly acknowledged their +ability. The year of 1812 was indeed but a little distance from +the resplendent modern era of the Atlantic packet and the Cape +Horn clipper. + +Already these Yankee deep-water ships could be recognized afar by +their lofty spars and snowy clouds of cotton duck beneath which +the slender hull was a thin black line. Far up to the gleaming +royals they carried sail in winds so strong that the lumbering +English East Indiamen were hove to or snugged down to reefed +topsails. It was not recklessness but better seamanship. The +deeds of the Yankee privateers of 1812 prove this assertion to +the hilt. Their total booty amounted to thirteen hundred prizes +taken over all the Seven Seas, with a loss to England of forty +million dollars in ships and cargoes. There were, all told, more +than five hundred of them in commission, but New England no +longer monopolized this dashing trade. Instead of Salem it was +Baltimore that furnished the largest fleet--fifty-eight vessels, +many of them the fast ships and schooners which were to make the +port famous as the home of the Baltimore clipper model. All down +the coast, out of Norfolk, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, and +New Orleans, sallied the privateers to show that theirs was, in +truth, a seafaring nation ardently united in a common cause. + +Again and more vehemently the people of England raised their +voices in protest and lament, for these saucy sea-raiders fairly +romped to and fro in the Channel, careless of pursuit, conducting +a blockade of their own until London was paying the famine price +of fifty-eight dollars a barrel for flour, and it was publicly +declared mortifying and distressing that "a horde of American +cruisers should be allowed, unresisted and unmolested, to take, +burn, or sink our own vessels in our own inlets and almost in +sight of our own harbors." It was Captain Thomas Boyle in the +Chasseur of Baltimore who impudently sent ashore his proclamation +of a blockade of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, +which he requested should be posted in Lloyd's Coffee House. + +A wonderfully fine figure of a fighting seaman was this Captain +Boyle, with an Irish sense of humor which led him to haunt the +enemy's coast and to make sport of the frigates which tried to +catch him. His Chasseur was considered one of the ablest +privateers of the war and the most beautiful vessel ever seen in +Baltimore. A fleet and graceful schooner with a magical turn for +speed, she mounted sixteen long twelve-pounders and carried a +hundred officers, seamen, and marines, and was never outsailed in +fair winds or foul. "Out of sheer wantonness," said an admirer, +"she sometimes affected to chase the enemy's men-of-war of far +superior force." Once when surrounded by two frigates and two +naval brigs, she slipped through and was gone like a phantom. +During his first cruise in the Chasseur, Captain Boyle captured +eighteen valuable merchantmen. It was such defiant rovers as he +that provoked the "Morning Chronicle" of London to splutter "that +the whole coast of Ireland from Wexford round by Cape Clear +to Carrickfergus, should have been for above a month under the +unresisted domination of a few petty fly-by-nights from the +blockaded ports of the United States is a grievance equally +intolerable and disgraceful." + +This was when the schooner Syren had captured His Majesty's +cutter Landrail while crossing the Irish Sea with dispatches; +when the Governor Tompkins burned fourteen English vessels in the +English Channel in quick succession; when the Harpy of Baltimore +cruised for three months off the Irish and English coasts and in +the Bay of Biscay, and returned to Boston filled with spoils, +including a half million dollars of money; when the Prince de +Neuchatel hovered at her leisure in the Irish Channel and made +coasting trade impossible; and when the Young Wasp of +Philadelphia cruised for six months in those same waters. + +Two of the privateers mentioned were first-class fighting ships +whose engagements were as notable, in their way, as those of the +American frigates which made the war as illustrious by sea as it +was ignominious by land. While off Havana in 1815, Captain Boyle +met the schooner St. Lawrence of the British Navy, a fair match +in men and guns. The Chasseur could easily have run away but +stood up to it and shot the enemy to pieces in fifteen minutes. +Brave and courteous were these two commanders, and Lieutenant +Gordon of the St. Lawrence gave his captor a letter which read, +in part: "In the event of Captain Boyle's becoming a prisoner of +war to any British cruiser I consider it a tribute justly due to +his humane and generous treatment of myself, the surviving +officers, and crew of His Majesty's late schooner St. Lawrence, +to state that his obliging attention and watchful solicitude to +preserve our effects and render us comfortable during the short +time we were in his possession were such as justly entitle him to +the indulgence and respect of every British subject." + +The Prince de Neuchatel had the honor of beating off the attack +of a forty-gun British frigate--an exploit second only to that of +the General Armstrong in the harbor of Fayal. This privateer with +a foreign name hailed from New York and was so fortunate as to +capture for her owners three million dollars' worth of British +merchandise. With Captain J. Ordronaux on the quarterdeck, she +was near Nantucket Shoals at noon on October 11, 1814, when a +strange sail was discovered. As this vessel promptly gave chase, +Captain Ordronaux guessed-and as events proved correctly--that +she must be a British frigate. She turned out to be the Endymion. +The privateer had in tow a prize which she was anxious to get +into port, but she was forced to cast off the hawser late in the +afternoon and make every effort to escape. + +The breeze died with the sun and the vessels were close inshore. +Becalmed, the privateer and the frigate anchored a quarter of a +mile apart. Captain Ordronaux might have put his crew on the +beach in boats and abandoned his ship. This was the reasonable +course, for, as he had sent in several prize crews, he was +short-handed and could muster no more than thirty-seven men and +boys. The Endymion, on the other hand, had a complement of three +hundred and fifty sailors and marines, and in size and fighting +power she was in the class of the American frigates President and +Constitution. Quite unreasonably, however, the master of the +privateer decided to await events. + +The unexpected occurred shortly after dusk when several boats +loaded to the gunwales with a boarding party crept away from the +frigate. Five of them, with one hundred and twenty men, made a +concerted attack at different points, alongside and under the bow +and stern. Captain Ordronaux had told his crew that he would blow +up the ship with all hands before striking his colors, and they +believed him implicitly. This was the hero who was described as +"a Jew by persuasion, a Frenchman by birth, an American for +convenience, and so diminutive in stature as to make him appear +ridiculous, in the eyes of others, even for him to enforce +authority among a hardy, weatherbeaten crew should they do aught +against his will." He was big enough, nevertheless, for this +night's bloody work, and there was no doubt about his authority. +While the British tried to climb over the bulwarks, his +thirty-seven men and boys fought like raging devils, with knives, +pistols, cutlases, with their bare fists and their teeth. A few +of the enemy gained the deck, but the privateersmen turned and +killed them. Others leaped aboard and were gradually driving the +Americans back, when the skipper ran to the hatch above the +powder magazine, waving a lighted match and swearing to drop it +in if his crew retreated one step further. Either way the issue +seemed desperate. But again they took their skipper's word for it +and rallied for a bloody struggle which soon swept the decks. + +No more than twenty minutes had passed and the battle was won. +The enemy was begging for quarter. One boat had been sunk, three +had drifted away filled with dead and wounded, and the fifth was +captured with thirty-six men in it of whom only eight were +unhurt. The American loss was seven killed and twenty-four +wounded, or thirty-one of her crew of thirty-seven. Yet they had +not given up the ship. The frigate Endymion concluded that once +was enough, and next morning the Prince de Neuchatel bore away +for Boston with a freshening breeze. + +Those were merchant seamen also who held the General Armstrong +against a British squadron through that moonlit night in Fayal +Roads, inflicting heavier losses than were suffered in any naval +action of the war. It is a story Homeric, almost incredible in +its details and so often repeated that it can be only touched +upon in this brief chronicle. The leader was a kindly featured +man who wore a tall hat, side-whiskers, and a tail coat. His +portrait might easily have served for that of a New England +deacon of the old school. No trace of the swashbuckler in this +Captain Samuel Reid, who had been a thrifty, respected merchant +skipper until offered the command of a privateer. + +Touching at the Azores for water and provisions in September, +1814, he was trapped in port by the great seventy-four-gun ship +of the line Plantagenet, the thirty-eight-gun frigate Rota, and +the warbrig Carnation. Though he was in neutral water, they paid +no heed to this but determined to destroy a Yankee schooner which +had played havoc with their shipping. Four hundred men in twelve +boats, with a howitzer in the bow of each boat, were sent against +the General Armstrong in one flotilla. But not a man of the four +hundred gained her deck. Said an eyewitness: "The Americans +fought with great firmness but more like bloodthirsty savages +than anything else. They rushed into the boats sword in hand and +put every soul to death as far as came within their power. Some +of the boats were left without a single man to row them, others +with three or four. The most that any one returned with was about +ten. Several boats floated ashore full of dead bodies . . . . For +three days after the battle we were employed in burying the dead +that washed on shore in the surf." + +This tragedy cost the British squadron one hundred and twenty men +in killed and one hundred and thirty in wounded, while Captain +Reid lost only two dead and had seven wounded. He was compelled +to retreat ashore next day when the ships stood in to sink his +schooner with their big guns, but the honors of war belonged to +him and well-earned were the popular tributes when he saw home +again, nor was there a word too much in the florid toast: +"Captain Reid--his valor has shed a blaze of renown upon the +character of our seamen, and won for himself a laurel of eternal +bloom." + +It is not to glorify war nor to rekindle an ancient feud that +such episodes as these are recalled to mind. These men, and +others like them, did their duty as it came to them, and they +were sailors of whom the whole Anglo-Saxon race might be proud. +In the crisis they were Americans, not privateersmen in quest of +plunder, and they would gladly die sooner than haul down the +Stars and Stripes. The England against which they fought was not +the England of today. Their honest grievances, inflicted by a +Government too intent upon crushing Napoleon to be fair to +neutrals, have long ago been obliterated. This War of 1812 +cleared the vision of the Mother Country and forever taught her +Government that the people of the Republic were, in truth, free +and independent. + +This lesson was driven home not only by the guns of the +Constitution and the United States, but also by the hundreds of +privateers and the forty thousand able seamen who were eager to +sail in them. They found no great place in naval history, but +England knew their prowess and respected it. Every schoolboy is +familiar with the duels of the Wasp and the Frolic, of the +Enterprise and the Boxer; but how many people know what happened +when the privateer Decatur met and whipped the Dominica of the +British Navy to the southward of Bermuda? + +Captain Diron was the man who did it as he was cruising out of +Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 1813. Sighting an +armed schooner slightly heavier than his own vessel, he made for +her and was unperturbed when the royal ensign streamed from her +gaff. Clearing for action, he closed the hatches so that none of +his men could hide below. The two schooners fought in the veiling +smoke until the American could ram her bowsprit over the other's +stern and pour her whole crew aboard. In the confined space of +the deck, almost two hundred men and lads were slashing and +stabbing and shooting amid yells and huzzas. Lieutenant Barrette, +the English commander, only twenty-five years old, was mortally +hurt and every other officer, excepting the surgeon and one +midshipman, was killed or wounded. Two-thirds of the crew were +down but still they refused to surrender, and Captain Diron had +to pull down the colors with his own hands. Better discipline and +marksmanship had won the day for him and his losses were +comparatively small. + +Men of his description were apt to think first of glory and let +the profits go hang, for there was no cargo to be looted in a +King's ship. Other privateersmen, however, were not so valiant or +quarrelsome, and there was many a one tied up in London River or +the Mersey which had been captured without very savage +resistance. Yet on the whole it is fair to say that the private +armed ships outfought and outsailed the enemy as impressively as +did the few frigates of the American Navy. + +There was a class of them which exemplified the rapid development +of the merchant marine in a conspicuous manner--large commerce +destroyers too swift to be caught, too powerful to fear the +smaller cruisers. They were extremely profitable business +ventures, entrusted to the command of the most audacious and +skillful masters that could be engaged. Of this type was the ship +America of Salem, owned by the Crowninshields, which made +twenty-six prizes and brought safely into port property which +realized more than a million dollars. Of this the owners and +shareholders received six hundred thousand dollars as dividends. +She was a stately vessel, built for the East India trade, and was +generally conceded to be the fastest privateer afloat. For this +service the upper deck was removed and the sides were filled in +with stout oak timber as an armored protection, and longer yards +and royal masts gave her a huge area of sail. Her crew of one +hundred and fifty men had the exacting organization of a +man-of-war, including, it is interesting to note, three +lieutenants, three mates, a sailingmaster, surgeon, purser, +captain of marines, gunners, seven prize masters, armorer, +drummer, and a fifer. Discipline was severe, and flogging was the +penalty for breaking the regulations. + +During her four cruises, the America swooped among the plodding +merchantmen like a falcon on a dovecote, the sight of her +frightening most of her prey into submission, with a brush now +and then to exercise the crews of the twenty-two guns, and +perhaps a man or two hit. Long after the war, Captain James +Chever, again a peaceful merchant mariner, met at Valparaiso, Sir +James Thompson, commander of the British frigate Dublin, which +had been fitted out in 1813 for the special purpose of chasing +the America. In the course of a cordial chat between the two +captains the Briton remarked: + +"I was once almost within gun-shot of that infernal Yankee +skimming-dish, just as night came on. By daylight she had +outsailed the Dublin so devilish fast that she was no more than a +speck on the horizon. By the way, I wonder if you happen to know +the name of the beggar that was master of her." + +"I'm the beggar," chuckled Captain Chever, and they drank each +other's health on the strength of it. + +Although the Treaty of Ghent omitted mention of the impressment +of sailors, which had been the burning issue of the war, there +were no more offenses of this kind. American seafarers were safe +against kidnapping on their own decks, and they had won this +security by virtue of their own double-shotted guns. At the same +time England lifted the curse of the press-gang from her own +people, who refused longer to endure it. + +There seemed no reason why the two nations, having finally fought +their differences to a finish, should not share the high seas in +peaceful rivalry; but the irritating problems of protection and +reciprocity survived to plague and hamper commerce. It was +difficult for England to overcome the habit of guarding her trade +against foreign invasion. Agreeing with the United States to +waive all discriminating duties between the ports of the two +countries--this was as much as she was at that time willing to +yield. She still insisted upon regulating the trade of her West +Indies and Canada. American East Indiamen were to be limited to +direct voyages and could not bring cargoes to Europe. Though this +discrimination angered Congress, to which it appeared as lopsided +reciprocity, the old duties were nevertheless repealed; and then, +presto! the British colonial policy of exclusion was enforced and +eighty thousand tons of American shipping became idle because the +West India market was closed. + +There followed several years of unhappy wrangling, a revival of +the old smuggling spirit, the risk of seizure and confiscations, +and shipping merchants with long faces talking ruin. The theory +of free trade versus protection was as debatable and opinions +were as conflicting then as now. Some were for retaliation, +others for conciliation; and meanwhile American shipmasters went +about their business, with no room for theories in their honest +heads, and secured more and more of the world's trade. Curiously +enough, the cries of calamity in the United States were echoed +across the water, where the "London Times" lugubriously +exclaimed: "The shipping interest, the cradle of our navy, is +half ruined. Our commercial monopoly exists no longer; and +thousands of our manufacturers are starving or seeking redemption +in distant lands. We have closed the Western Indies against +America from feelings of commercial rivalry. Its active seamen +have already engrossed an important branch of our carrying trade +to the Eastern Indies. Her starred flag is now conspicuous on +every sea and will soon defy our thunder." + +It was not until 1849 that Great Britain threw overboard her long +catalogue of protective navigation laws which had been piling up +since the time of Cromwell, and declared for free trade afloat. +Meanwhile the United States had drifted in the same direction, +barring foreign flags from its coastwise shipping but offering +full exemption from all discriminating duties and tonnage duties +to every maritime nation which should respond in like manner. +This latter legislation was enacted in 1828 and definitely +abandoned the doctrine of protection in so far as it applied to +American ships and sailors. For a generation thereafter, during +which ocean rivalry was a battle royal of industry, enterprise, +and skill, the United States was paramount and her merchant +marine attained its greatest successes. + +There is one school of modern economists who hold that the seeds +of decay and downfall were planted by this adoption of free trade +in 1828, while another faction of gentlemen quite as estimable +and authoritative will quote facts and figures by the ream to +prove that governmental policies had nothing whatever to do with +the case. These adversaries have written and are still writing +many volumes in which they almost invariably lose their tempers. +Partisan politics befog the tariff issue afloat as well as +ashore, and one's course is not easy to chart. It is +indisputable, however, that so long as Yankee ships were better, +faster, and more economically managed, they won a commanding +share of the world's trade. When they ceased to enjoy these +qualities of superiority, they lost the trade and suffered for +lack of protection to overcome the handicap. + +The War of 1812 was the dividing line between two eras of salt +water history. On the farther side lay the turbulent centuries of +hazard and bloodshed and piracy, of little ships and indomitable +seamen who pursued their voyages in the reek of gunpowder and of +legalized pillage by the stronger, and of merchant adventurers +who explored new markets wherever there was water enough to float +their keels. They belonged to the rude and lusty youth of a world +which lived by the sword and which gloried in action. Even into +the early years of the nineteenth century these mariners still +sailed--Elizabethan in deed and spirit. + +On the hither side of 1812 were seas unvexed by the privateer and +the freebooter. The lateen-rigged corsairs had been banished from +their lairs in the harbors of Algiers, and ships needed to show +no broadsides of cannon in the Atlantic trade. For a time they +carried the old armament among the lawless islands of the Orient +and off Spanish-American coasts where the vocation of piracy made +its last stand, but the great trade routes of the globe were +peaceful highways for the white-winged fleets of all nations. The +American seamen who had fought for the right to use the open sea +were now to display their prowess in another way and in a romance +of achievement that was no less large and thrilling. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE PACKET SHIPS OF THE "ROARING FORTIES" + +It was on the stormy Atlantic, called by sailormen the Western +Ocean, that the packet ships won the first great contest for +supremacy and knew no rivals until the coming of the age of steam +made them obsolete. Their era antedated that of the clipper and +was wholly distinct. The Atlantic packet was the earliest liner: +she made regular sailings and carried freight and passengers +instead of trading on her owners' account as was the ancient +custom. Not for her the tranquillity of tropic seas and the +breath of the Pacific trades, but an almost incessant battle with +swinging surges and boisterous winds, for she was driven harder +in all weathers and seasons than any other ships that sailed. In +such battering service as this the lines of the clipper were too +extremely fine, her spars too tall and slender. The packet was by +no means slow and if the list of her record passages was superb, +it was because they were accomplished by masters who would sooner +let a sail blow away than take it in and who raced each other +every inch of the way. + +They were small ships of three hundred to five hundred tons when +the famous Black Ball Line was started in 1816. From the first +they were the ablest vessels that could be built, full-bodied and +stoutly rigged. They were the only regular means of communication +between the United States and Europe and were entrusted with the +mails, specie, government dispatches, and the lives of eminent +personages. Blow high, blow low, one of the Black Ball packets +sailed from New York for Liverpool on the first and sixteenth of +every month. Other lines were soon competing--the Red Star and +the Swallow Tail out of New York, and fine ships from Boston and +Philadelphia. With the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 the +commercial greatness of New York was assured, and her Atlantic +packets increased in size and numbers, averaging a thousand tons +each in the zenith of their glory. + +England, frankly confessing herself beaten and unable to compete +with such ships as these, changed her attitude from hostility to +open admiration. She surrendered the Atlantic packet trade to +American enterprise, and British merchantmen sought their gains +in other waters. The Navigation Laws still protected their +commerce in the Far East and they were content to jog at a more +sedate gait than these weltering packets whose skippers were +striving for passages of a fortnight, with the forecastle doors +nailed fast and the crew compelled to stay on deck from Sandy +Hook to Fastnet Rock. + +No blustering, rum-drinking tarpaulin was the captain who sailed +the Independence, the Ocean Queen, or the Dreadnought but a man +very careful of his manners and his dress, who had been selected +from the most highly educated merchant service in the world. He +was attentive to the comfort of his passengers and was presumed +to have no other duties on deck than to give the proper orders to +his first officer and work out his daily reckoning. It was an +exacting, nerve-racking ordeal, however, demanding a sleepless +vigilance, courage, and cool judgment of the first order. The +compensations were large. As a rule, he owned a share of the ship +and received a percentage of the freights and passage money. His +rank when ashore was more exalted than can be conveyed in mere +words. Any normal New York boy would sooner have been captain of +a Black Ball packet than President of the United States, and he +knew by heart the roaring chantey + + 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 to the west'ard, + Good Lord, let her go. + + +There were never more than fifty of these ships afloat, a +trifling fraction of the American deep-water tonnage of that day, +but the laurels they won were immortal. Not only did the English +mariner doff his hat to them, but a Parliamentary committee +reported in 1837 that "the American ships frequenting the ports +of England are stated by several witnesses to be superior to +those of a similar class among 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." + +It was no longer a rivalry with the flags of other nations but an +unceasing series of contests among the packets of the several +lines, and their records aroused far more popular excitement than +when the great steamers of this century were chipping off the +minutes, at an enormous coal consumption, toward a five-day +passage. Theirs were tests of real seamanship, and there were few +disasters. The packet captain scorned a towboat to haul him into +the stream if the wind served fair to set all plain sail as his +ship lay at her wharf. Driving her stern foremost, he braced his +yards and swung her head to sea, clothing the masts with soaring +canvas amid the farewell cheers of the crowds which lined the +waterfront. + +A typical match race was sailed between the Black Ball liner +Columbus, Captain De Peyster, and the Sheridan, Captain Russell, +of the splendid Dramatic fleet, in 1837. The stake was $10,000 a +side, put up by the owners and their friends. The crews were +picked men who were promised a bonus of fifty dollars each for +winning. The ships sailed side by side in February, facing the +wild winter passage, and the Columbus reached Liverpool in the +remarkable time of sixteen days, two days ahead of the Sheridan. + +The crack packets were never able to reel off more than twelve or +fourteen knots under the most favorable conditions, but they were +kept going night and day, and some of them maintained their +schedules almost with the regularity of the early steamers. The +Montezuma, the Patrick Henry, and the Southampton crossed from +New York to Liverpool in fifteen days, and for years the +Independence held the record of fourteen days and six hours. It +remained for the Dreadnought, Captain Samuel Samuels, in 1859, to +set the mark for packet ships to Liverpool at thirteen days and +eight hours. + +Meanwhile the era of the matchless clipper had arrived and it was +one of these ships which achieved the fastest Atlantic passage +ever made by a vessel under sail. The James Baines was built for +English owners to be used in the Australian trade. She was a full +clipper of 2515 tons, twice the size of the ablest packets, and +was praised as "the most perfect sailing ship that ever entered +the river Mersey." Bound out from Boston to Liverpool, she +anchored after twelve days and six hours at sea. + +There was no lucky chance in this extraordinary voyage, for this +clipper was the work of the greatest American builder, Donald +McKay, who at the same time designed the Lightning for the same +owners. This clipper, sent across the Atlantic on her maiden +trip, left in her foaming wake a twenty-four hour run which no +steamer had even approached and which was not equaled by the +fastest express steamers until twenty-five years later when the +greyhound Arizona ran eighteen knots in one hour on her trial +trip. This is a rather startling statement when one reflects that +the Arizona of the Guion line seems to a generation still living +a modern steamer and record-holder. It is even more impressive +when coupled with the fact that, of the innumerable passenger +steamers traversing the seas today, only a few are capable of a +speed of more than eighteen knots. + +This clipper Lightning did her 436 sea miles in one day, or +eighteen and a half knots, better than twenty land miles an hour, +and this is how the surpassing feat was entered in her log, or +official journal: "March 1. Wind south. Strong gales; bore away +for the North Channel, carrying away the foretopsail and lost +jib; hove the log several times and found the ship going through +the water at the rate of 18 to 18 1/2 knots; lee rail under water +and rigging slack. Distance run in twenty-four hours, 436 miles." +The passage was remarkably fast, thirteen days and nineteen and a +half hours from Boston Light, but the spectacular feature was +this day's work. It is a fitting memorial of the Yankee clipper, +and, save only a cathedral, the loveliest, noblest fabric ever +wrought by man's handiwork. + +The clipper, however, was a stranger in the Atlantic and her +chosen courses were elsewhere. The records made by the James +Baines and the Lightning were no discredit to the stanch, +unconquerable packet ships which, year in and year out, held +their own with the steamer lines until just before the Civil War. +It was the boast of Captain Samuels that on her first voyage in +1853 the Dreadnought reached Sandy Hook as the Cunarder Canada, +which had left Liverpool a day ahead of her, was passing in by +Boston Light. Twice she carried the latest news to Europe, and +many seasoned travelers preferred her to the mail steamers. + +The masters and officers who handled these ships with such +magnificent success were true-blue American seamen, inspired by +the finest traditions, successors of the privateersmen of 1812. +The forecastles, however, were filled with English, Irish, and +Scandinavians. American lads shunned these ships and, in fact, +the ambitious youngster of the coastwise towns began to cease +following the sea almost a century ago. It is sometimes forgotten +that the period during which the best American manhood sought a +maritime career lay between the Revolution and the War of 1812. +Thereafter the story became more and more one of American ships +and less of American sailors, excepting on the quarter-deck. + +In later years the Yankee crews were to be found in the ports +where the old customs survived, the long trading voyage, the +community of interest in cabin and forecastle, all friends and +neighbors together, with opportunities for profit and +advancement. Such an instance was that of the Salem ship George, +built at Salem in 1814 and owned by the great merchant, Joseph +Peabody. For twenty-two years she sailed in the East India trade, +making twenty-one round voyages, with an astonishing regularity +which would be creditable for a modern cargo tramp. Her sailors +were native-born, seldom more than twenty-one years old, and most +of them were studying navigation. Forty-five of them became +shipmasters, twenty of them chief mates, and six second mates. +This reliable George was, in short, a nautical training-school of +the best kind and any young seaman with the right stuff in him +was sure of advancement. + +Seven thousand sailors signed articles in the counting-room of +Joseph Peabody and went to sea in his eighty ships which flew the +house-flag in Calcutta, Canton, Sumatra, and the ports of Europe +until 1844. These were mostly New England boys who followed in +the footsteps of their fathers because deep-water voyages were +still "adventures" and a career was possible under a system which +was both congenial and paternal. Brutal treatment was the rare +exception. Flogging still survived in the merchant service and +was defended by captains otherwise humane, but a skipper, no +matter how short-tempered, would be unlikely to abuse a youth +whose parents might live on the same street with him and attend +the same church. + +The Atlantic packets brought a different order of things, which +was to be continued through the clipper era. Yankee sailors +showed no love for the cold and storms of the Western Ocean in +these foaming packets which were remorselessly driven for speed. +The masters therefore took what they could get. All the work of +rigging, sail-making, scraping, painting, and keeping a ship in +perfect repair was done in port instead of at sea, as was the +habit in the China and California clippers, and the lore and +training of the real deep-water sailor became superfluous. The +crew of a packet made sail or took it in with the two-fisted +mates to show them how. + +From these conditions was evolved the "Liverpool packet rat," +hairy and wild and drunken, the prey of crimps and dive-keepers +ashore, brave and toughened to every hardship afloat, climbing +aloft in his red shirt, dungaree breeches, and sea-boots, with a +snow-squall whistling, the rigging sheathed with ice, and the old +ship burying her bows in the thundering combers. It was the +doctrine of his officers that he could not be ruled by anything +short of violence, and the man to tame and hammer him was the +"bucko" second mate, the test of whose fitness was that he could +whip his weight in wild cats. When he became unable to maintain +discipline with fists and belaying-pins, he was deposed for a +better man. + +Your seasoned packet rat sought the ship with a hard name by +choice. His chief ambition was to kick in the ribs or pound +senseless some invincible bucko mate. There was provocation +enough on both sides. Officers had to take their ships to sea and +strain every nerve to make a safe and rapid passage with crews +which were drunk and useless when herded aboard, half of them +greenhorns, perhaps, who could neither reef nor steer. Brutality +was the one argument able to enforce instant obedience among men +who respected nothing else. As a class the packet sailors became +more and more degraded because their life was intolerable to +decent men. It followed therefore that the quarterdeck employed +increasing severity, and, as the officer's authority in this +respect was unchecked and unlimited, it was easy to mistake the +harshest tyranny for wholesome discipline. + +Reenforcing the bucko mate was the tradition that the sailor was +a dog, a different human species from the landsman, without laws +and usages to protect him. This was a tradition which, for +centuries, had been fostered in the naval service, and it +survived among merchant sailors as an unhappy anachronism even +into the twentieth century, when an American Congress was +reluctant to bestow upon a seaman the decencies of existence +enjoyed by the poorest laborer ashore. + +It is in the nature of a paradox that the brilliant success of +the packet ships in dominating the North Atlantic trade should +have been a factor in the decline of the nation's maritime +prestige and resources. Through a period of forty years the pride +and confidence in these ships, their builders, and the men who +sailed them, was intense and universal. They were a superlative +product of the American genius, which still displayed the +energies of a maritime race. On other oceans the situation was no +less gratifying. American ships were the best and cheapest in the +world. The business held the confidence of investors and +commanded an abundance of capital. It was assumed, as late as +1840, that the wooden sailing ship would continue to be the +supreme type of deep-water vessel because the United States +possessed the greatest stores of timber, the most skillful +builders and mechanics, and the ablest merchant navigators. No +industry was ever more efficiently organized and conducted. +American ships were most in demand and commanded the highest +freights. The tonnage in foreign trade increased to a maximum of +904,476 in 1845. There was no doubt in the minds of the shrewdest +merchants and owners and builders of the time that Great Britain +would soon cease to be the mistress of the seas and must content +herself with second place. + +It was not considered ominous when, in 1838, the Admiralty had +requested proposals for a steam service to America. This demand +was prompted by the voyages of the Sirius and Great Western, +wooden-hulled sidewheelers which thrashed along at ten knots' +speed and crossed the Atlantic in fourteen to seventeen days. +This was a much faster rate than the average time of the Yankee +packets, but America was unperturbed and showed no interest in +steam. In 1839 the British Government awarded an Atlantic mail +contract, with an annual subsidy of $425,000 to Samuel Cunard and +his associates, and thereby created the most famous of the +Atlantic steamship companies. + +Four of these liners began running in 1840--an event which +foretold the doom of the packet fleets, though the warning was +almost unheeded in New York and Boston. Four years later Enoch +Train was establishing a new packet line to Liverpool with the +largest, finest ships built up to that time, the Washington +Irving, Anglo-American, Ocean Monarch, Anglo-Saxon, and Daniel +Webster. Other prominent shipping houses were expanding their +service and were launching noble packets until 1853. Meanwhile +the Cunard steamers were increasing in size and speed, and the +service was no longer an experiment. + +American capital now began to awaken from its dreams, and Edward +K. Collins, managing owner of the Dramatic line of packets, +determined to challenge the Cunarders at their own game. Aided by +the Government to the extent of $385,000 a year as subsidy, he +put afloat the four magnificent steamers, Atlantic, Pacific, +Baltic, and Arctic, which were a day faster than the Cunarders in +crossing, and reduced the voyage to nine and ten days. The +Collins line, so auspiciously begun in 1850, and promising to +give the United States the supremacy in steam which it had won +under sail, was singularly unfortunate and short-lived. The +Arctic and the Pacific were lost at sea, and Congress withdrew +its financial support after five years. Deprived of this aid, Mr. +Collins was unable to keep the enterprise afloat in competition +with the subsidized Cunard fleet. In this manner and with little +further effort by American interests to compete for the prize, +the dominion of the Atlantic passed into British hands. + +The packet ships had held on too long. It had been a stirring +episode for the passengers to cheer in mid-ocean when the lofty +pyramids of canvas swept grandly by some wallowing steamer and +left her far astern, but in the fifties this gallant picture +became less frequent, and a sooty banner of smoke on the horizon +proclaimed the new era and the obliteration of all the rushing +life and beauty of the tall ship under sail. Slow to realize and +acknowledge defeat, persisting after the steamers were capturing +the cabin passenger and express freight traffic, the American +ship-owners could not visualize this profound transformation. +Their majestic clippers still surpassed all rivals in the East +India and China trade and were racing around the Horn, making new +records for speed and winning fresh nautical triumphs for the +Stars and Stripes. + +This reluctance to change the industrial and commercial habits of +generations of American shipowners was one of several causes for +the decadence which was hastened by the Civil War. For once the +astute American was caught napping by his British cousin, who was +swayed by no sentimental values and showed greater adaptability +in adopting the iron steamer with the screw propeller as the +inevitable successor of the wooden ship with arching topsails. + +The golden age of the American merchant marine was that of the +square-rigged ship, intricate, capricious, and feminine in her +beauty, with forty nimble seamen in the forecastle, not that of +the metal trough with an engine in the middle and mechanics +sweating in her depths. When the Atlantic packet was compelled to +abdicate, it was the beginning of the end. After all, her master +was the fickle wind, for a slashing outward passage might be +followed by weeks of beating home to the westward. Steadily +forging ahead to the beat of her paddles or the thrash of her +screw, the steamer even of that day was far more dependable than +the sailing vessel. The Lightning clipper might run a hundred +miles farther in twenty-four hours than ever a steamer had done, +but she could not maintain this meteoric burst of speed. Upon the +heaving surface of the Western Ocean there was enacted over again +the fable of the hare and the tortoise. + +Most of the famous chanteys were born in the packet service and +shouted as working choruses by the tars of this Western Ocean +before the chanteyman perched upon a capstan and led the refrain +in the clipper trade. You will find their origin unmistakable in +such lines as these: + + As I was a-walking down Rotherhite Street, + 'Way, ho, blow the man down; + A pretty young creature I chanced for to meet, + Give me some time to blow the man down. + Soon we'll be in London City, + Blow, boys, blow, + And see the gals all dressed so pretty, + Blow, my bully boys, blow. + + +Haunting melodies, folk-song as truly as that of the plantation +negro, they vanished from the sea with a breed of men who, for +all their faults, possessed the valor of the Viking and the +fortitude of the Spartan. Outcasts ashore--which meant to them +only the dance halls of Cherry Street and the grog-shops of +Ratcliffe Road--they had virtues that were as great as their +failings. Across the intervening years, with a pathos +indefinable, come the lovely strains of + + Shenandoah, I'll ne'er forget you, + Away, ye rolling river, + Till the day I die I'll love you ever, + Ah, ha, we're bound away. + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE STATELY CLIPPER AND HER GLORY + +The American clipper ship was the result of an evolution which +can be traced back to the swift privateers which were built +during the War of 1812. In this type of vessel the shipyards of +Chesapeake Bay excelled and their handiwork was known as the +"Baltimore clipper," the name suggested by the old English verb +which Dryden uses to describe the flight of the falcon that +"clips it down the wind." The essential difference between the +clipper ship and other kinds of merchant craft was that speed and +not capacity became the chief consideration. This was a radical +departure for large vessels, which in all maritime history had +been designed with an eye to the number of tons they were able to +carry. More finely molded lines had hitherto been found only in +the much smaller French lugger, the Mediterranean galley, the +American schooner. + +To borrow the lines of these fleet and graceful models and apply +them to the design of a deepwater ship was a bold conception. It +was first attempted by Isaac McKim, a Baltimore merchant, who +ordered his builders in 1832 to reproduce as closely as possible +the superior sailing qualities of the renowned clipper brigs and +schooners of their own port. The result was the Ann McKim, of +nearly five hundred tons, the first Yankee clipper ship, and +distinguished as such by her long, easy water-lines, low +free-board, and raking stem. She was built and finished without +regard to cost, copper-sheathed, the decks gleaming with +brasswork and mahogany fittings. But though she was a very fast +and handsome ship and the pride of her owner, the Ann McKim could +stow so little cargo that shipping men regarded her as +unprofitable and swore by their full-bodied vessels a few years +longer. + +That the Ann McKim, however, influenced the ideas of the most +progressive builders is very probable, for she was later owned by +the New York firm of Howland and Aspinwall, who placed an order +for the first extremely sharp clipper ship of the era. This +vessel, the Rainbow, was designed by John W. Griffeths, a marine +architect, who was a pioneer in that he studied shipbuilding as a +science instead of working by rule-of-thumb. The Rainbow, which +created a sensation while on the stocks because of her concave or +hollowed lines forward, which defied all tradition and practice, +was launched in 1845. She was a more radical innovation than the +Ann McKim but a successful one, for on her second voyage to China +the Rainbow went out against the northeast monsoon in ninety-two +days and came home in eighty-eight, a record which few ships were +able to better. Her commander, Captain John Land, declared her to +be the fastest ship in the world and there were none to dispute +him. + +Even the Rainbow however, was eclipsed when not long afterward +Howland and Aspinwall, now converted to the clipper, ordered the +Sea Witch to be built for Captain Bob Waterman. Among all the +splendid skippers of the time he was the most dashing figure. +About his briny memory cluster a hundred yarns, some of them +true, others legendary. It has been argued that the speed of the +clippers was due more to the men who commanded them than to their +hulls and rigging, and to support the theory the career of +Captain Bob Waterman is quoted. He was first known to fame in the +old Natchez, which was not a clipper at all and was even rated as +slow while carrying cotton from New Orleans to New York. But +Captain Bob took this full-pooped old packet ship around the Horn +and employed her in the China tea trade. The voyages which he +made in her were all fast, and he crowned them with the amazing +run of seventy-eight days from Canton to New York, just one day +behind the swiftest clipper passage ever sailed and which he +himself performed in the Sea Witch. Incredulous mariners simply +could not explain this feat of the Natchez and suggested that Bob +Waterman must have brought the old hooker home by some new route +of his own discovery. + +Captain Bob had won a reputation for discipline as the mate of a +Black Ball liner, a rough school, and he was not a mild man. +Ashore his personality was said to have been a most attractive +one, but there is no doubt that afloat he worked the very souls +out of his sailors. The rumors that he frightfully abused them +were not current, however, until he took the Sea Witch and showed +the world the fastest ship under canvas. Low in the water, with +black hull and gilded figurehead, she seemed too small to support +her prodigious cloud of sail. For her there were to be no +leisurely voyages with Captain Bob Waterman on the quarter-deck. +Home from Canton she sped in seventy-seven days and then in +seventy-nine--records which were never surpassed. + +With what consummate skill and daring this master mariner drove +his ship and how the race of hardy sailors to which he belonged +compared with those of other nations may be descried in the log +of another of them, Captain Philip Dumaresq, homeward bound from +China in 1849 in the clipper Great Britain. Three weeks out from +Java Head she had overtaken and passed seven ships heading the +same way, and then she began to rush by them in one gale after +another. Her log records her exploits in such entries as these: +"Passed a ship under double reefs, we with our royals and +studdingsails set . . . . Passed a ship laying-to under a +close-reefed maintopsail . . . . Split all three topsails and had +to heave to . . . . Seven vessels in sight and we outsail all of +them . . . . Under double-reefed topsails passed several vessels +hove-to." Much the same record might be read in the log of the +medium clipper Florence--and it is the same story of carrying +sail superbly on a ship which had been built to stand up under +it: "Passed two barks under reefed courses and close-reefed +topsails standing the same way, we with royals and topgallant +studding-sails," or "Passed a ship under topsails, we with our +royals set." For eleven weeks "the topsail halliards were started +only once, to take in a single reef for a few hours." It is not +surprising, therefore, to learn that, seventeen days out from +Shanghai, the Florence exchanged signals with the English ship +John Hagerman, which had sailed thirteen days before her. + +Two notable events in the history of the nineteenth century +occurred within the same year, 1849, to open new fields of trade +to the Yankee clipper. One of these was the repeal of the British +Navigation Laws which had given English ships a monopoly of the +trade between London and the British East Indies, and the other +was the discovery of gold in California. After centuries of pomp +and power, the great East India Company had been deprived of its +last exclusive rights afloat in 1833. Its ponderous, +frigate-built merchantmen ceased to dominate the British commerce +with China and India and were sold or broken up. All British +ships were now free to engage in this trade, but the spirit and +customs of the old regime still strongly survived. Flying the +house-flags of private owners, the East Indiamen and China tea +ships were still built and manned like frigates, slow, +comfortable, snugging down for the night under reduced sail. +There was no competition to arouse them until the last barrier of +the Navigation Laws was let down and they had to meet the Yankee +clipper with the tea trade as the huge stake. + +Then at last it was farewell to the gallant old Indianian and her +ornate, dignified prestige. With a sigh the London Times +confessed: "We must run a race with our gigantic and unshackled +rival. We must set our long-practised skill, our steady industry, +and our dogged determination against his youth, ingenuity, and +ardor. Let our shipbuilders and employers take warning in time. +There will always be an abundant supply of vessels good enough +and fast enough for short voyages. But we want fast vessels for +the long voyages which otherwise will fall into American hands." + +Before English merchants could prepare themselves for these new +conditions, the American clipper Oriental was loading in 1850 at +Hong Kong with tea for the London market. Because of her +reputation for speed, she received freightage of six pounds +sterling per ton while British ships rode at anchor with empty +holds or were glad to sail at three pounds ten per ton. Captain +Theodore Palmer delivered his sixteen hundred tons of tea in the +West India Docks, London, after a crack passage of ninety-one +days which had never been equaled. His clipper earned $48,000, or +two-thirds of what it had cost to build her. Her arrival in +London created a profound impression. The port had seen nothing +like her for power and speed; her skysail yards soared far above +the other shipping; the cut of her snowy canvas was faultless; +all clumsy, needless tophamper had been done away with; and she +appeared to be the last word in design and construction, as lean +and fine and spirited as a race-horse in training. + +This new competition dismayed British shipping until it could +rally and fight with similar weapons The technical journal, Naval +Science, acknowledged that the tea trade of the London markets +had passed almost out of the hands of the English ship-owner, and +that British vessels, well-manned and well-found, were known to +lie for weeks in the harbor of Foo-chow, waiting for a cargo and +seeing American clippers come in, load, and sail immediately with +full cargoes at a higher freight than they could command. Even +the Government viewed the loss of trade with concern and sent +admiralty draftsmen to copy the lines of the Oriental and +Challenge while they were in drydock. + +British clippers were soon afloat, somewhat different in model +from the Yankee ships, but very fast and able, and racing them in +the tea trade until the Civil War. With them it was often nip and +tuck, as in the contest between the English Lord of the Isles and +the American clipper bark Maury in 1856. The prize was a premium +of one pound per ton for the first ship to reach London with tea +of the new crop. The Lord of the Isles finished loading and +sailed four days ahead of the Maury, and after thirteen thousand +miles of ocean they passed Gravesend within ten minutes of each +other. The British skipper, having the smartest tug and getting +his ship first into dock, won the honors. In a similar race +between the American Sea Serpent and the English Crest of the +Wave, both ships arrived off the Isle of Wight on the same day. +It was a notable fact that the Lord of the Isles was the first +tea clipper built of iron at a date when the use of this stubborn +material was not yet thought of by the men who constructed the +splendid wooden ships of America. + +For the peculiar requirements of the tea trade, English maritime +talent was quick to perfect a clipper type which, smaller than +the great Yankee skysail-yarder, was nevertheless most admirable +for its beauty and performance. On both sides of the Atlantic +partizans hotly championed their respective fleets. In 1852 the +American Navigation Club, organized by Boston merchants and +owners, challenged the shipbuilders of Great Britain to race from +a port in England to a port in China and return, for a stake of +$50,000 a side, ships to be not under eight hundred nor over +twelve hundred tons American register. The challenge was aimed at +the Stornaway and the Chrysolite, the two clippers that were +known to be the fastest ships under the British flag. Though this +sporting defiance caused lively discussion, nothing came of it, +and it was with a spirit even keener that Sampson and Tappan of +Boston offered to match their Nightingale for the same amount +against any clipper afloat, British or American. + +In spite of the fact that Yankee enterprise had set the pace in +the tea trade, within a few years after 1850 England had so +successfully mastered the art of building these smaller clippers +that the honors were fairly divided. The American owners were +diverting their energies to the more lucrative trade in larger +ships sailing around the Horn to San Francisco, a long road +which, as a coastwise voyage, was forbidden to foreign vessels +under the navigation laws. After the Civil War the fastest tea +clippers flew the British flag and into the seventies they +survived the competition of steam, racing among themselves for +the premiums awarded to the quickest dispatch. No more of these +beautiful vessels were launched after 1869, and one by one they +vanished into other trades, overtaken by the same fate which had +befallen the Atlantic packet and conquered by the cargo steamers +which filed through the Suez Canal. + +Until 1848 San Francisco had been a drowsy little Mexican +trading-post, a huddle of adobe huts and sheds where American +ships collected hides--vividly described in Two Years Before the +Mast--or a whaler called for wood and water. During the year +preceding the frenzied migration of the modern Argonauts, only +two merchant ships, one bark and one brig, sailed in through the +Golden Gate. In the twelve months following, 775 vessels cleared +from Atlantic ports for San Francisco, besides the rush from +other countries, and nearly fifty thousand passengers scrambled +ashore to dig for gold. Crews deserted their ships, leaving them +unable to go to sea again for lack of men, and in consequence a +hundred of them were used as storehouses, hotels, and hospitals, +or else rotted at their moorings. Sailors by hundreds jumped from +the forecastle without waiting to stow the sails or receive their +wages. Though offered as much as two hundred dollars a month to +sign again, they jeered at the notion. Of this great fleet at San +Francisco in 1849, it was a lucky ship that ever left the harbor +again. + +It seemed as if the whole world were bound to California and +almost overnight there was created the wildest, most extravagant +demand for transportation known to history. A clipper costing +$70,000 could pay for herself in one voyage, with freights at +sixty dollars a ton. This gold stampede might last but a little +while. To take instant advantage of it was the thing. The fastest +ships, and as many of them as could be built, would skim the +cream of it. This explains the brief and illustrious era of the +California clipper, one hundred and sixty of which were launched +from 1850 to 1854. The shipyards of New York and Boston were +crowded with them, and they graced the keel blocks of the +historic old ports of New England--Medford, Mystic, Newburyport, +Portsmouth, Portland, Rockland, and Bath--wherever the timber and +the shipwrights could be assembled. + +Until that time there had been few ships afloat as large as a +thousand tons. These were of a new type, rapidly increased to +fifteen hundred, two thousand tons, and over. They presented new +and difficult problems in spars and rigging able to withstand the +strain of immense areas of canvas which climbed two hundred feet +to the skysail pole and which, with lower studdingsails set, +spread one hundred and sixty feet from boom-end to boom-end. +There had to be the strength to battle with the furious tempests +of Cape Horn and at the same time the driving power to sweep +before the sweet and steadfast tradewinds. Such a queenly clipper +was the Flying Cloud, the achievement of that master builder, +Donald McKay, which sailed from New York to San Francisco in +eighty-nine days, with Captain Josiah Creesy in command. This +record was never lowered and was equaled only twice--by the +Flying Cloud herself and by the Andrew Jackson nine years later. +It was during this memorable voyage that the Flying Cloud sailed +1256 miles in four days while steering to the northward under +topgallantsails after rounding Cape Horn. This was a rate of +speed which, if sustained, would have carried her from New York +to Queenstown in eight days and seventeen hours. This speedy +passage was made in 1851, and only two years earlier the record +for the same voyage of fifteen thousand miles had been one +hundred and twenty days, by the clipper Memnon. + +Donald McKay now resolved to build a ship larger and faster than +the Flying Cloud, and his genius neared perfection in the +Sovereign of the Seas, of 2421 tons register, which exceeded in +size all merchant vessels afloat. This Titan of the clipper fleet +was commanded by Donald's brother, Captain Lauchlan McKay, with a +crew of one hundred and five men and boys. During her only voyage +to San Francisco she was partly dismasted, but Lauchlan McKay +rigged her anew at sea in fourteen days and still made port in +one hundred and three days, a record for the season of the year. + +It was while running home from Honolulu in 1853 that the +Sovereign of the Seas realized the hopes of her builder. In +eleven days she sailed 3562 miles, with four days logged for a +total of 1478 knots. Making allowance for the longitudes and +difference in time, this was an average daily run of 378 sea +miles or 435 land miles. Using the same comparison, the distance +from Sandy Hook to Queenstown would have been covered in seven +days and nine hours. Figures are arid reading, perhaps, but these +are wet by the spray and swept by the salt winds of romance. +During one of these four days the Sovereign of the Seas reeled +off 424 nautical miles, during which her average speed was +seventeen and two-thirds knots and at times reached nineteen and +twenty. The only sailing ship which ever exceeded this day's work +was the Lightning, built later by the same Donald McKay, which +ran 436 knots in the Atlantic passage already referred to. The +Sovereign of the Seas could also boast of a sensational feat upon +the Western Ocean, for between New York and Liverpool she +outsailed the Cunard liner Canada by 325 miles in five days. + +It is curiously interesting to notice that the California clipper +era is almost generally ignored by the foremost English writers +of maritime history. For one thing, it was a trade in which their +own ships were not directly concerned, and partizan bias is apt +to color the views of the best of us when national prestige is +involved. American historians themselves have dispensed with many +unpleasant facts when engaged with the War of 1812. With regard +to the speed of clipper ships, however, involving a rivalry far +more thrilling and important than all the races ever sailed for +the America's cup, the evidence is available in concrete form. + +Lindsay's "History of Merchant Shipping" is the most elaborate +English work of the kind. Heavily ballasted with facts and rather +dull reading for the most part, it kindles with enthusiasm when +eulogizing the Thermopylae and the Sir Launcelot, composite +clippers of wood and iron, afloat in 1870, which it declares to +be "the fastest sailing ships that ever traversed the ocean." +This fairly presents the issue which a true-blooded Yankee has no +right to evade. The greatest distance sailed by the Sir Launcelot +in twenty-four hours between China and London was 354 knots, +compared with the 424 miles of the Sovereign of the Seas and the +436 miles of the Lightning. Her best sustained run was one of +seven days for an average of a trifle more than 300 miles a day. +Against this is to be recorded the performance of the Sovereign +of the Seas, 3562 miles in eleven days, at the rate of 324 miles +every twenty-four hours, and her wonderful four-day run of 1478 +miles, an average of 378 miles. + +The Thermopylae achieved her reputation in a passage of +sixty-three days from London to Melbourne--a record which was +never beaten. Her fastest day's sailing was 330 miles, or not +quite sixteen knots an hour. In six days she traversed 1748 +miles, an average of 291 miles a day. In this Australian trade +the American clippers made little effort to compete. Those +engaged in it were mostly built for English owners and sailed by +British skippers, who could not reasonably be expected to get the +most out of these loftily sparred Yankee ships, which were much +larger than their own vessels of the same type. The Lightning +showed what she could do from Melbourne to Liverpool by making +the passage in sixty-three' days, with 3722 miles in ten +consecutive days and one day's sprint of 412 miles. + +In the China tea trade the Thermopylae drove home from Foo-chow +in ninety-one days, which was equaled by the Sir Launcelot. The +American Witch of the Wave had a ninety-day voyage to her credit, +and the Comet ran from Liverpool to Shanghai in eighty-four days. +Luck was a larger factor on this route than in the California or +Australian trade because of the fitful uncertainty of the +monsoons, and as a test of speed it was rather unsatisfactory. In +a very fair-minded and expert summary, Captain Arthur H. Clark,* +in his youth an officer on Yankee clippers, has discussed this +question of rival speed and power under sail--a question which +still absorbs those who love the sea. His conclusion is that in +ordinary weather at sea, when great power to carry sail was not +required, the British tea clippers were extremely fast vessels, +chiefly on account of their narrow beam. Under these conditions +they were perhaps as fast as the American clippers of the same +class, such as the Sea Witch, White Squall, Northern Light, and +Sword-Fish. But if speed is to be reckoned by the maximum +performance of a ship under the most favorable conditions, then +the British tea clippers were certainly no match for the larger +American ships such as the Flying Cloud, Sovereign of the Seas, +Hurricane, Trade Wind, Typhoon, Flying Fish, Challenge, and Red +Jacket. The greater breadth of the American ships in proportion +to their length meant power to carry canvas and increased +buoyancy which enabled them, with their sharper ends, to be +driven in strong gales and heavy seas at much greater speed than +the British clippers. The latter were seldom of more than one +thousand tons' register and combined in a superlative degree the +good qualities of merchant ships. + +* "The Clipper Ship Era." N.Y., 1910. + + +It was the California trade, brief and crowded and fevered, which +saw the roaring days of the Yankee clipper and which was familiar +with racing surpassing in thrill and intensity that of the packet +ships of the Western Ocean. In 1851, for instance, the Raven, Sea +Witch, and Typhoon sailed for San Francisco within the same week. +They crossed the Equator a day apart and stood away to the +southward for three thousand miles of the southeast trades and +the piping westerly winds which prevailed farther south. At fifty +degrees south latitude the Raven and the Sea Witch were abeam of +each other with the Typhoon only two days astern. + +Now they stripped for the tussle to windward around Cape Horn, +sending down studdingsail booms and skysail yards, making all +secure with extra lashings, plunging into the incessant head seas +of the desolate ocean, fighting it out tack for tack, reefing +topsails and shaking them out again, the vigilant commanders +going below only to change their clothes, the exhausted seamen +stubbornly, heroically handling with frozen, bleeding fingers the +icy sheets and canvas. A fortnight of this inferno and the Sea +Witch and the Raven gained the Pacific, still within sight of +each other, and the Typhoon only one day behind. Then they swept +northward, blown by the booming tradewinds, spreading +studdingsails, skysails, and above them, like mere handkerchiefs, +the water-sails and ring-tails. Again the three clippers crossed +the Equator. Close-hauled on the starboard tack, their bowsprits +were pointed for the last stage of the journey to the Golden +Gate. The Typhoon now overhauled her rivals and was the first to +signal her arrival, but the victory was earned by the Raven, +which had set her departure from Boston Light while the others +had sailed from New York. The Typhoon and the Raven were only a +day apart, with the Sea Witch five days behind the leader. + +Clipper ship crews included men of many nations. In the average +forecastle there would be two or three Americans, a majority of +English and Norwegians, and perhaps a few Portuguese and +Italians. The hardiest seamen, and the most unmanageable, were +the Liverpool packet rats who were lured from their accustomed +haunts to join the clippers by the magical call of the +gold-diggings. There were not enough deep-water sailors to man +half the ships that were built in these few years, and the crimps +and boarding-house runners decoyed or flung aboard on sailing day +as many men as were demanded, and any drunken, broken landlubber +was good enough to be shipped as an able seaman. They were things +of rags and tatters--their only luggage a bottle of whiskey. + +The mates were thankful if they could muster enough real sailors +to work the ship to sea and then began the stern process of +whipping the wastrels and incompetents into shape for the perils +and emergencies of the long voyage. That these great clippers +were brought safely to port is a shining tribute to the masterful +skill of their officers. While many of them were humane and just, +with all their severity, the stories of savage abuse which are +told of some are shocking in the extreme. The defense was that it +was either mutiny or club the men under. Better treatment might +have persuaded better men to sail. Certain it is that life in the +forecastle of a clipper was even more intolerable to the +self-respecting American youth than it had previously been aboard +the Atlantic packet. + +When Captain Bob Waterman arrived at San Francisco in the +Challenge clipper in 1851, a mob tried very earnestly to find and +hang him and his officers because of the harrowing stories told +by his sailors. That he had shot several of them from the yards +with his pistol to make the others move faster was one count in +the indictment. For his part, Captain Waterman asserted that a +more desperate crew of ruffians had never sailed out of New York +and that only two of them were Americans. They were mutinous from +the start, half of them blacklegs of the vilest type who swore to +get the upper hand of him. His mates, boatswain, and carpenter +had broken open their chests and boxes and had removed a +collection of slung-shots, knuckle-dusters, bowie-knives, and +pistols. Off Rio Janeiro they had tried to kill the chief mate, +and Captain Waterman had been compelled to jump in and stretch +two of them dead with an iron belaying-pin. Off Cape Horn three +sailors fell from aloft and were lost. This accounted for the +casualties. + +The truth of such episodes as these was difficult to fathom. +Captain Waterman demanded a legal investigation, but nothing came +of his request and he was commended by his owners for his skill +and courage in bringing the ship to port without losing a spar or +a sail. It was a skipper of this old school who blandly +maintained the doctrine that if you wanted the men to love you, +you must starve them and knock them down. The fact is proven by +scores of cases that the discipline of the American clipper was +both famously efficient and notoriously cruel. It was not until +long after American sailors had ceased to exist that adequate +legislation was enacted to provide that they should be treated as +human beings afloat and ashore. Other days and other customs! It +is perhaps unkind to judge these vanished master-mariners too +harshly, for we cannot comprehend the crises which continually +beset them in their command. + +No more extreme clipper ships were built after 1854. The +California frenzy had subsided and speed in carrying merchandise +was no longer so essential; besides, the passenger traffic was +seeking the Isthmian route. What were called medium clippers +enjoyed a profitable trade for many years later, and one of them, +the Andrew Jackson, was never outsailed for the record from New +York to San Francisco. This splendid type of ship was to be found +on every sea, for the United States was still a commanding factor +in the maritime activities of South America, India, China, +Europe, and Australia. In 1851 its merchant tonnage rivaled that +of England and was everywhere competing with it. + +The effects of the financial panic of 1857 and the aftermath of +business depression were particularly disastrous to American +ships. Freights were so low as to yield no profit, and the finest +clippers went begging for charters. The yards ceased to launch +new tonnage. British builders had made such rapid progress in +design and construction that the days of Yankee preference in the +China trade had passed. The Stars and Stripes floated over ships +waiting idle in Manila Bay, at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and Calcutta. +The tide of commerce had slackened abroad as well as at home and +the surplus of deep-water tonnage was world-wide. + +In earlier generations afloat, the American spirit had displayed +amazing recuperative powers. The havoc of the Revolution had been +unable to check it, and its vigor and aggressive enterprise had +never been more notable than after the blows dealt by the +Embargo, the French Spoliations, and the War of 1812. The +conditions of trade and the temper of the people were now so +changed that this mighty industry, aforetime so robust and +resilient, was unable to recover from such shocks as the panic of +1857 and the Civil War. Yet it had previously survived and +triumphed over calamities far more severe. The destruction +wrought by Confederate cruisers was trifling compared with the +work of the British and French privateers when the nation was +very small and weak. + +The American spirit had ceased to concern itself with the sea as +the vital and dominant element. The footsteps of the young men no +longer turned toward the wharf and the waterside and the tiers of +tall ships outward bound. They were aspiring to conquer an inland +empire of prairie and mountain and desert, impelled by the same +pioneering and adventurous ardor which had burned in their +seafaring sires. Steam had vanquished sail--an epochal event in a +thousand years of maritime history--but the nation did not care +enough to accept this situation as a new challenge or to continue +the ancient struggle for supremacy upon the sea. England did +care, because it was life or death to the little, sea-girt +island, but as soon as the United States ceased to be a strip of +Atlantic seaboard and the panorama, of a continent was unrolled +to settlement, it was foreordained that the maritime habit of +thought and action should lose its virility in America. All great +seafaring races, English, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Dutch, have +taken to salt water because there was lack of space, food, or +work ashore, and their strong young men craved opportunities. +Like the Pilgrim Fathers and their fishing shallops they had +nowhere else to go. + +When the Flying Cloud and the clippers of her kind--taut, serene, +immaculate--were sailing through the lonely spaces of the South +Atlantic and the Pacific, they sighted now and then the stumpy, +slatternly rig and greasy hull of a New Bedford whaler, perhaps +rolling to the weight of a huge carcass alongside. With a poor +opinion of the seamanship of these wandering barks, the clipper +crews rolled out, among their favorite chanteys: + + Oh, poor Reuben Ranzo, + Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo, + Oh, Ranzo was no sailor, + So they shipped him aboard a whaler, + Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo. + +This was crass, intolerant prejudice. The whaling ship was +careless of appearances, it is true, and had the air of an ocean +vagabond; but there were other duties more important than +holystoning decks, scraping spars, and trimming the yards to a +hair. On a voyage of two or three years, moreover, there was +always plenty of time tomorrow. Brave and resourceful seamen were +these New England adventurers and deep-sea hunters who made +nautical history after their own fashion. They flourished coeval +with the merchant marine in its prime, and they passed from the +sea at about the same time and for similar reasons. Modernity +dispensed with their services, and young men found elsewhere more +profitable and easier employment. + +The great days of Nantucket as a whaling port were passed before +the Revolution wiped out her ships and killed or scattered her +sailors. It was later discovered that larger ships were more +economical, and Nantucket harbor bar was too shoal to admit their +passage. For this reason New Bedford became the scene of the +foremost activity, and Nantucket thereafter played a minor part, +although her barks went cruising on to the end of the chapter and +her old whaling families were true to strain. As explorers the +whalemen rambled into every nook and corner of the Pacific before +merchant vessels had found their way thither. They discovered +uncharted islands and cheerfully fought savages or suffered +direful shipwreck. The chase led them into Arctic regions where +their stout barks were nipped like eggshells among the grinding +floes, or else far to the southward where they broiled in tropic +calms. The New Bedford lad was as keen to go a-whaling as was his +counterpart in Boston or New York to be the dandy mate of a +California clipper, and true was the song: + + I asked a maiden by my side, + Who sighed and looked to me forlorn, + "Where is your heart?" She quick replied, + "Round Cape Horn." + +Yankee whaling reached its high tide in 1857 when the New Bedford +fleet alone numbered 329 sail and those owned in other ports of +Buzzard's Bay swelled the total to 426 vessels, besides thirty +more hailing from New London and Sag Harbor. In this year the +value of the catch was more than ten million dollars. The old +custom of sailing on shares or "lays" instead of wages was never +changed. It was win or lose for all hands--now a handsome fortune +or again an empty hold and pockets likewise. There was Captain +W.T. Walker of New Bedford who, in 1847, bought for a song a ship +so old that she was about to be broken up for junk and no +insurance broker would look at her. In this rotten relic he +shipped a crew and went sailing in the Pacific. Miraculously +keeping afloat, this Envoy of his was filled to the hatches with +oil and bones, twice running, before she returned to her home +port; and she earned $138,450 on a total investment of eight +thousand dollars. + +The ship Sarah of Nantucket, after a three years' cruise, brought +back 3497 barrels of sperm oil which sold for $89,000, and the +William Hamilton of New Bedford set another high mark by stowing +4181 barrels of a value of $109,269. The Pioneer of New London, +Captain Ebenezer Morgan, was away only a year and stocked a cargo +of oil and whalebone which sold for $150,060. Most of the profits +of prosperous voyages were taken as the owners' share, and the +incomes of the captain and crew were so niggardly as to make one +wonder why they persisted in a calling so perilous, arduous, and +poorly paid. During the best years of whaling, when the ships +were averaging $16,000 for a voyage, the master received an +eighteenth, or about nine hundred dollars a year. The highly +skilled hands, such as the boat-steerers and harpooners, had a +lay of only one seventy-fifth, or perhaps a little more than two +hundred dollars cash as the reward of a voyage which netted the +owner at least fifty per cent on his investment. Occasionally +they fared better than this and sometimes worse. The answer to +the riddle is that they liked the life and had always the +gambling spirit which hopes for a lucky turn of the cards. + +The countless episodes of fragile boats smashed to kindling by +fighting whales, of the attack renewed with harpoon and lance, of +ships actually rammed and sunk, would fill a volume by themselves +and have been stirringly narrated in many a one. Zanzibar and +Kamchatka, Tasmania and the Seychelles knew the lean, sun-dried +Yankee whaleman and his motto of a "dead whale or a stove boat." +The Civil War did not drive him from the seas. The curious fact +is that his products commanded higher prices in 1907 than fifty +years before, but the number of his ships rapidly decreased. +Whales were becoming scarce, and New England capital preferred +other forms of investment. The leisurely old sailing craft was +succeeded by the steam whaler, and the explosive bomb slew, +instead of the harpoon and lance hurled by the sinewy right arm +of a New Bedford man or Cape Verde islander. + +Roving whaler and armed East Indiaman, plunging packet ship and +stately clipper, they served their appointed days and passed on +their several courses to become mere memories, as shadowy and +unsubstantial as the gleam of their own topsails when seen at +twilight. The souls of their sailors have fled to Fiddler's +Green, where all dead mariners go. They were of the old merchant +marine which contributed something fine and imperishable to the +story of the United States. Down the wind, vibrant and +deep-throated, comes their own refrain for a requiem: + + We're outward bound this very day, + Good-bye, fare you well, + Good-bye, fare you well. + We're outward bound this very day, + Hurrah, my boys, we're outward bound. + + + +CHAPTER X. BOUND COASTWISE + +One thinks of the old merchant marine in terms of the clipper +ship and distant ports. The coasting trade has been overlooked in +song and story; yet, since the year 1859, its fleets have always +been larger and more important than the American deep-water +commerce nor have decay and misfortune overtaken them. It is a +traffic which flourished from the beginning, ingeniously adapting +itself to new conditions, unchecked by war, and surviving with +splendid vigor, under steam and sail, in this modern era. + +The seafaring pioneers won their way from port to port of the +tempestuous Atlantic coast in tiny ketches, sloops, and shallops +when the voyage of five hundred miles from New England to +Virginia was a prolonged and hazardous adventure. Fog and shoals +and lee shores beset these coastwise sailors, and shipwrecks were +pitifully frequent. In no Hall of Fame will you find the name of +Captain Andrew Robinson of Gloucester, but he was nevertheless an +illustrious benefactor and deserves a place among the most useful +Americans. His invention was the Yankee schooner of fore-and-aft +rig, and he gave to this type of vessel its name.* Seaworthy, +fast, and easily handled, adapted for use in the early eighteenth +century when inland transportation was almost impossible, the +schooner carried on trade between the colonies and was an +important factor in the growth of the fisheries. + +* It is said that as the odd two-master slid gracefully into the +water, a spectator exclaimed: "See how she scoons!" "Aye," +answered Captain Robinson, "a SCHOONER let her be!" This +launching took place in 1718 or 1714. + + +Before the Revolution the first New England schooners were +beating up to the Grand Bank of Newfoundland after cod and +halibut. They were of no more than fifty tons' burden, too small +for their task but manned by fishermen of surpassing hardihood. +Marblehead was then the foremost fishing port with two hundred +brigs and schooners on the offshore banks. But to Gloucester +belongs the glory of sending the first schooner to the Grand +Bank.* From these two rock-bound harbors went thousands of +trained seamen to man the privateers and the ships of the +Continental navy, slinging their hammocks on the gun-decks beside +the whalemen of Nantucket. These fishermen and coastwise sailors +fought on the land as well and followed the drums of Washington's +armies until the final scene at Yorktown. Gloucester and +Marblehead were filled with widows and orphans, and half their +men-folk were dead or missing. + +* Marvin's "American Merchant Marine," p. 287. + + +The fishing-trade soon prospered again, and the men of the old +ports tenaciously clung to the sea even when the great migration +flowed westward to people the wilderness and found a new American +empire. They were fishermen from father to son, bound together in +an intimate community of interests, a race of pure native or +English stock, deserving this tribute which was paid to them in +Congress: "Every person on board our fishing vessels has an +interest in common with his associates; their reward depends upon +their industry and enterprise. Much caution is observed in the +selection of the crews of our fishing vessels; it often happens +that every individual is connected by blood and the strongest +ties of friendship; our fishermen are remarkable for their +sobriety and good conduct, and they rank with the most skillful +navigators." + +Fishing and the coastwise merchant trade were closely linked. +Schooners loaded dried cod as well as lumber for southern ports +and carried back naval stores and other southern products. +Well-to-do fishermen owned trading vessels and sent out +their ventures, the sailors shifting from one forecastle to the +other. With a taste for an easier life than the stormy, freezing +Banks, the young Gloucesterman would sign on for a voyage to +Pernambuco or Havana and so be fired with ambition to become a +mate or master and take to deep water after a while. In this way +was maintained a school of seamanship which furnished the most +intelligent and efficient officers of the merchant marine. For +generations they were mostly recruited from the old fishing and +shipping ports of New England until the term "Yankee shipmaster" +had a meaning peculiarly its own. + +Seafaring has undergone so many revolutionary changes and old +days and ways are so nearly obliterated that it is singular to +find the sailing vessel still employed in great numbers, even +though the gasolene motor is being installed to kick her along in +spells of calm weather. The Gloucester fishing schooner, perfect +of her type, stanch, fleet, and powerful, still drives homeward +from the Banks under a tall press of canvas, and her crew still +divide the earnings, share and share, as did their forefathers a +hundred and fifty years ago. But the old New England strain of +blood no longer predominates, and Portuguese, Scandinavians, and +Nova Scotia "Bluenoses" bunk with the lads of Gloucester stock. +Yet they are alike for courage, hardihood, and mastery of the +sea, and the traditions of the calling are undimmed. + +There was a time before the Civil War when Congress jealously +protected the fisheries by means of a bounty system and +legislation aimed against our Canadian neighbors. The fishing +fleets were regarded as a source of national wealth and the +nursery of prime seamen for the navy and merchant marine. In 1858 +the bounty system was abandoned, however, and the fishermen were +left to shift for themselves, earning small profits at peril of +their lives and preferring to follow the sea because they knew no +other profession. In spite of this loss of assistance from the +Government, the tonnage engaged in deep-sea fisheries was never +so great as in the second year of the Civil War. Four years later +the industry had shrunk one-half; and it has never recovered its +early importance* + +* In 1882, the tonnage amounted to 193,459; in 1866, to 89,336. + + +The coastwise merchant trade, on the other hand, has been +jealously guarded against competition and otherwise fostered ever +since 1789, when the first discriminatory tonnage tax was +enforced. The Embargo Act of 1808 prohibited domestic commerce to +foreign flags, and this edict was renewed in the American +Navigation Act of 1817. It remained a firmly established doctrine +of maritime policy until the Great War compelled its suspension +as an emergency measure. The theories of protection and free +trade have been bitterly debated for generations, but in this +instance the practice was eminently successful and the results +were vastly impressive. Deepwater shipping dwindled and died, but +the increase in coastwise sailing was consistent. It rose to five +million tons early in this century and makes the United States +still one of the foremost maritime powers in respect to saltwater +activity. + +To speak of this deep-water shipping as trade coastwise is +misleading, in a way. The words convey an impression of dodging +from port to port for short distances, whereas many of the +voyages are longer than those of the foreign routes in European +waters. It is farther by sea from Boston to Philadelphia than +from Plymouth, England, to Bordeaux. A schooner making the run +from Portland to Savannah lays more knots over her stern than a +tramp bound out from England to Lisbon. It is a shorter voyage +from Cardiff to Algiers than an American skipper pricks off on +his chart when he takes his steamer from New York to New Orleans +or Galveston. This coastwise trade may lack the romance of the +old school of the square-rigged ship in the Roaring Forties, but +it has always been the more perilous and exacting. Its seamen +suffer hardships unknown elsewhere, for they have to endure +winters of intense cold and heavy gales and they are always in +risk of stranding or being driven ashore. + +The story of these hardy men is interwoven, for the most part, +with the development of the schooner in size and power. This +graceful craft, so peculiar to its own coast and people, was +built for utility and possessed a simple beauty of its own when +under full sail. The schooners were at first very small because +it was believed that large fore-and-aft sails could not be +handled with safety. They were difficult to reef or lower in a +blow until it was discovered that three masts instead of two made +the task much easier. For many years the three-masted schooner +was the most popular kind of American merchant vessel. They +clustered in every Atlantic port and were built in the yards of +New England, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia,--built by the +mile, as the saying was, and sawed off in lengths to suit the +owners' pleasure. They carried the coal, ice, lumber of the whole +seaboard and were so economical of man-power that they earned +dividends where steamers or square-rigged ships would not have +paid for themselves. + +As soon as a small steam-engine was employed to hoist the sails, +it became possible to launch much larger schooners and to operate +them at a marvelously low cost. Rapidly the four-master gained +favor, and then came the five- and six-masted vessels, gigantic +ships of their kind. Instead of the hundred-ton schooner of a +century ago, Hampton Roads and Boston Harbor saw these great +cargo carriers which could stow under hatches four and five +thousand tons of coal, and whose masts soared a hundred and fifty +feet above the deck. Square-rigged ships of the same capacity +would have required crews of a hundred men, but these schooners +were comfortably handled by a company of fifteen all told, only +ten of whom were in the forecastle. There was no need of sweating +and hauling at braces and halliards. The steam-winch undertook all +this toil. The tremendous sails, stretching a hundred feet from +boom to gaff could not have been managed otherwise. Even for +trimming sheets or setting topsails, it was necessary merely to +take a turn or two around the drum of the winch engine and turn +the steam valve. The big schooner was the last word in cheap, +efficient transportation by water. In her own sphere of activity +she was as notable an achievement as the Western Ocean packet or +the Cape Horn clipper. + +The masters who sailed these extraordinary vessels also changed +and had to learn a new kind of seamanship. They must be very +competent men, for the tests of their skill and readiness were +really greater than those demanded of the deepwater skipper. They +drove these great schooners alongshore winter and summer; across +Nantucket Shoals and around Cape Cod, and their salvation +depended on shortening sail ahead of the gale. Let the wind once +blow and the sea get up, and it was almost impossible to strip +the canvas off an unwieldy six-master. The captain's chief fear +was of being blown offshore, of having his vessel run away with +him! Unlike the deep-water man, he preferred running in toward +the beach and letting go his anchors. There he would ride out the +storm and hoist sail when the weather moderated. + +These were American shipmasters of the old breed, raised in +schooners as a rule, and adapting themselves to modern +conditions. They sailed for nominal wages and primage, or five +per cent of the gross freight paid the vessel. Before the Great +War in Europe, freights were low and the schooner skippers earned +scanty incomes. Then came a world shortage of tonnage and +immediately coastwise freights soared skyward. The big schooners +of the Palmer fleet began to reap fabulous dividends and their +masters shared in the unexpected opulence. Besides their primage +they owned shares in their vessels, a thirty-second or so, and +presently their settlement at the end of a voyage coastwise +amounted to an income of a thousand dollars a month. They earned +this money, and the managing owners cheerfully paid them, for +there had been lean years and uncomplaining service and the +sailor had proved himself worthy of his hire. So tempting was the +foreign war trade, that a fleet of them was sent across the +Atlantic until the American Government barred them from the war +zone as too easy a prey for submarine attack. They therefore +returned to the old coastwise route or loaded for South American +ports--singularly interesting ships because they were the last +bold venture of the old American maritime spirit, a challenge to +the Age of Steam. + +No more of these huge, towering schooners have been built in the +last dozen years. Steam colliers and barges have won the fight +because time is now more valuable than cheapness of +transportation. The schooner might bowl down to Norfolk from +Boston or Portland in four days and be threshing about for two +weeks in head winds on the return voyage. + +The small schooner appeared to be doomed somewhat earlier. She +had ceased to be profitable in competition with the larger, more +modern fore-and-after, but these battered, veteran craft died +hard. They harked back to a simpler age, to the era of the +stage-coach and the spinning-wheel, to the little shipyards that +were to be found on every bay and inlet of New England. They were +still owned and sailed by men who ashore were friends and +neighbors. Even now you may find during your summer wanderings +some stumpy, weatherworn two-master running on for shelter +overnight, which has plied up and down the coast for fifty or +sixty years, now leaking like a basket and too frail for winter +voyages. It was in a craft very much like this that your rude +ancestors went privateering against the British. Indeed, the +little schooner Polly, which fought briskly in the War of 1812, +is still afloat and loading cargoes in New England ports. + +These little coasters, surviving long after the stately merchant +marine had vanished from blue water, have enjoyed a slant of +favoring fortune in recent years. They, too, have been in demand, +and once again there is money to spare for paint and cordage and +calking. They have been granted a new lease of life and may be +found moored at the wharfs, beached on the marine railways, or +anchored in the stream, eagerly awaiting their turn to refit. It +is a matter of vital concern that the freight on spruce boards +from Bangor to New York has increased to five dollars a thousand +feet. Many of these craft belong to grandfatherly skippers who +dared not venture past Cape Cod in December, lest the venerable +Matilda Emerson or the valetudinarian Joshua R. Coggswell should +open up and founder in a blow. During the winter storms these +skippers used to hug the kitchen stove in bleak farmhouses until +spring came and they could put to sea again. The rigor of +circumstances, however, forced others to seek for trade the whole +year through. In a recent winter fifty-seven schooners were lost +on the New England coast, most of which were unfit for anything +but summer breezes. As by a miracle, others have been able to +renew their youth, to replace spongy planking and rotten stems, +and to deck themselves out in white canvas and fresh paint! + +The captains of these craft foregather in the ship-chandler's +shops, where the floor is strewn with sawdust, the armchairs are +capacious, and the environment harmonizes with the tales that are +told. It is an informal club of coastwise skippers and the old +energy begins to show itself once more. They move with a brisker +gait than when times were so hard and they went begging for +charters at any terms. A sinewy patriarch stumps to a window, +flourishes his arm at an ancient two-master, and booms out: + +"That vessel of mine is as sound as a nut, I tell ye. She ain't +as big as some, but I'd like nothin' better than to fill her full +of suthin' for the west coast of Africy, same as the Horace M. +Bickford that cleared t'other day, stocked for SIXTY THOUSAND +DOLLARS." + +"Huh, you'd get lost out o' sight of land, John," is the cruel +retort, "and that old shoe-box of yours 'ud be scared to death +without a harbor to run into every time the sun clouded over. +Expect to navigate to Africy with an alarm-clock and a +soundin'-lead, I presume." + +"Mebbe I'd better let well enough alone," replies the old man. +"Africy don't seem as neighborly as Phippsburg and Machiasport. +I'll chance it as far as Philadelphy next voyage and I guess the +old woman can buy a new dress." + +The activity and the reawakening of the old shipyards, their +slips all filled with the frames of wooden vessels for the +foreign trade, is like a revival of the old merchant marine, a +reincarnation of ghostly memories. In mellowed dignity the square +white houses beneath the New England elms recall to mind the +mariners who dwelt therein. It seems as if their shipyards also +belonged to the past; but the summer visitor finds a fresh +attraction in watching the new schooners rise from the stocks, +and the gay pageant of launching them, every mast ablaze with +bunting, draws crowds to the water-front. And as a business +venture, with somewhat of the tang of old-fashioned romance, the +casual stranger is now and then tempted to purchase a +sixty-fourth "piece" of a splendid Yankee four-master and keep in +touch with its roving fortunes. The shipping reports of the daily +newspaper prove more fascinating than the ticker tape, and the +tidings of a successful voyage thrill one with a sense of +personal gratification. For the sea has not lost its magic and +its mystery, and those who go down to it in ships must still +battle against elemental odds--still carry on the noble and +enduring traditions of the Old Merchant Marine. + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +As a rule, American historians like McMaster, Adams, and Rhodes +give too little space to the maritime achievements of the nation. +The gap has been partially filled by the following special works: + +Winthrop L. Marvin, "The American Merchant Marine: Its History +and Romance from 1620 to 1902" (1902). This is the most nearly +complete volume of its kind by an author who knows the subject +and handles it with accuracy. + +John R. Spears, "The Story of the American Merchant Marine" +(1910), "The American Slave Trade" (1901), "The Story of the New +England Whalers" (1908). Mr. Spears has sought original sources +for much of his material and his books are worth reading, +particularly his history of the slave-trade. + +Ralph D. Paine, "The Ships and Sailors of Old Salem: The Record +of a Brilliant Era of American Achievement" (1912). A history of +the most famous seaport of the Atlantic coast, drawn from +log-books and other manuscript collections. "The Book of Buried +Treasure: Being a True History of the Gold, Jewels, and Plate of +Pirates, Galleons, etc." (1911). Several chapters have to do with +certain picturesque pirates and seamen of the colonies. + +Edgar S. Maclay, "A History of American Privateers" (1899). The +only book of its kind, and indispensable to those who wish to +learn the story of Yankee ships and sailors. + +J. R. Hutchinson, "The Press Gang Afloat and Ashore" (1914). This +recent volume, written from an English point of view, illuminates +the system of conscription which caused the War of 1812. + +Nothing can take the place, however, of the narratives of those +master mariners who made the old merchant marine famous: + +Richard Henry Dana, Jr., "Two Years Before the Mast" (1840). The +latest edition, handsomely illustrated, (1915). The classic +narrative of American forecastle life in the sailing-ship era. + +Captain Richard Cleveland, "Narrative of Voyages and Commercial +Enterprises" (1842). This is one of the fascinating +autobiographies of the old school of shipmasters who had the gift +of writing. + +Captain Amasa Delano, "Narrative of Voyages and Travels" (1817). +Another of the rare human documents of blue water. It describes +the most adventurous period of activity, a century ago. + +Captain Arthur H. Clark, "The Clipper Ship Era" (1910). A +thrilling, spray-swept, true story. Far and away the best account +of the clipper, by a man who was an officer of one in his youth. + +Robert Bennet Forbes, "Notes on Ships of the Past" (1888). Random +facts and memories of a famous Boston ship-owner. It is valuable +for its records of noteworthy passages. + +Captain John D. Whidden, "Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship +Days" (1908). The entertaining reminiscences of a veteran +shipmaster. + +Captain A. W. Nelson, "Yankee Swanson: Chapters from a Life at +Sea" (1913). Another of the true romances, recommended for a +lively sense of humor and a faithful portrayal of life aboard a +windjammer. + +There are many other personal narratives, some of them privately +printed and very old, which may be found in the libraries. +Typical of them is "A Journal of the Travels and Sufferings of +Daniel Saunders" (1794), in which a young sailor relates his +adventures after shipwreck on the coast of Arabia. + +Among general works the following are valuable: + +J. Grey Jewell, "Among Our Sailors" (1874). A plea for more +humane treatment of American seamen, with many instances on +shocking brutalities as reported to the author, who was a United +States Consul. + +E. Keble Chatterton, "Sailing Ships: The Story of their +Development" (1909). An elaborate history of the development of +the sailing vessel from the earliest times to the modern steel +clipper. + +W. S. Lindsay, "History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient +Commerce," 4 vols. (1874-76). An English work, notably fair to +the American marine, and considered authoritative. + +Douglas Owen, "Ocean Trade and Shipping" (1914). An English +economist explains the machinery of maritime trade and commerce. + +William Wood, "All Afloat." In "The Chronicles of Canada Series." +Glasgow, Brook and Co., Toronto, 1914. + +J. B. McMaster, "The Life and Times of Stephen Girard, Mariner +and Merchant," 2 vols. (1918). + +The relation of governmental policy to the merchant marine is +discussed by various writers: + +David A. Wells, "Our Merchant Marine: How It Rose, Increased, +Became Great, Declined, and Decayed" (1882). A political treatise +in defense of a protective policy. + +William A. Bates, "American Marine: The Shipping Question in +History and Politics" (1892); "American Navigation: The Political +History of Its Rise and Ruin" (1902). These works are statistical +and highly technical, partly compiled from governmental reports, +and are also frankly controversial. + +Henry Hall, "American Navigation, With Some Account of the Causes +of Its Former Prosperity and Present Decline" (1878). + +Charles S. Hill, "History of American Shipping: Its Prestige, +Decline, and Prospect" (1883). + +J. D. J. Kelley, "The Question of Ships: The Navy and the +Merchant Marine" (1884). + +Arthur J. Maginnis, "The Atlantic Ferry: Its Ships, Men, and +Working" (1900). + +A vast amount of information is to be found in the Congressional +Report of the Merchant Marine Commission, published in three +volumes (1905). + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg etext of The Old Merchant Marine. + |