only 1291 tons, commanded by Captain Henning, carried a crew of eighty men, which included five mates, three boatswains, two carpenters, four quartermasters, a number of stewards and cooks, with sixty men before the mast.
These were the last of the frigate-built ships; for when the Navigation Laws were repealed in 1849, and the carrying trade of Great Britain and her colonies was thrown open to all nations, the British merchants and ship-builders found it necessary to construct a very different type of vessel in order to compete in the ocean carrying trade.
Farewell, then, to the gallant old Indiaman, with her hammock nettings, bunt jiggers, rolling tackles, jeers, gammon lashings, bentinck shrouds, and cat harpings, dear to sailors’ hearts; and good-bye to her sailors, too, sons of the men who fought in the victorious fleets of Nelson, fellows who drank gunpowder in their rum before stripping to battle with the enemy, who could stand triced up by the thumbs and take their four-and-twenty of rawhide on the naked back without wetting an eyelash. And farewell to the merry dance and song, the extra dram of grog in the dog-watch, and jovial toasts to sweethearts and wives, as the sun sinks beneath the blue wave and the cool evening trade wind fills the sails.
CHAPTER III
THE NORTH ATLANTIC PACKET SHIPS, 1815-1850
WHILE progress in ship-building in the United States had been constant up to the War of 1812, American ship-owners and builders had been much hampered by the interference of both Great Britain and France, but in 1815, when the smoke of battle had cleared away and the rights of American ships and seamen had been established upon the sea, ship-building was taken up with renewed energy.
The famous New York-Liverpool packets came out in 1816. The pioneer, Black Ball Line, established by Isaac Wright, Francis and Jeremiah Thompson, Benjamin Marshall, and others, led the van for years. The original ships belonging to this line were the Amity, Courier, Pacific, and James Monroe, of about 400 tons; they were followed by the New York, Eagle, Orbit, Nestor, James Cropper, William Thompson, Albion, Canada, Britannia, and Columbia, vessels of from 300 to 500 tons register. For the first ten years the passages of the fleet averaged 23 days outward and 40 days to the westward. The fastest outward passage was made by the Canada in 15 days, 18 hours, and her total averages—19 days outward and 36 days homeward—were the best of that period.
These ships were all flush deck, with a caboose or galley and the housed-over long-boat between the fore-and main-masts. The long-boat, which was, of course, securely lashed, carried the live stock,—pens for sheep and pigs in the bottom, ducks and geese on a deck laid across the gunwales, and on top of all, hens and chickens. The cow-house was lashed over the main hatch, and there were also other small hatch-houses and a companion aft leading to the comfortable, well-appointed cabins, which were lighted by deck skylights, candles, and whale-oil lamps. The steerage passengers lived in the between-decks amidships, and the crew’s forecastle was in the fore-peak. The stores, spare sails, gear, etc., were kept in the lazarette abaft the cabins, with a small hatch leading to the main-deck. The hulls were painted black from the water-line up, with bright scraped bends, which were varnished, and the inner side of the bulwarks, rails, hatch-houses, and boats were painted green. It was said that some of the early Black Ball captains had commanded privateers during the War of 1812. At all events, these little ships, with their full-bodied, able hulls, and their stout spars, sails, and rigging, were driven outward and homeward across the Atlantic, through the fogs and ice of summer and the snow, sleet, and gales of winter, for all the speed that was in them. They were in their day the only regular means of communication between the United States and Europe. Their captains were the finest men whose services money could secure, and to their care were entrusted the lives of eminent men and women, government despatches, the mails and specie. Rain or shine, blow high, blow low, one of the Black Ball liners sailed from New York for Liverpool on the first and sixteenth of each month, and for many years these were the European mail days throughout the United States.
In 1821, Thomas Cope of Philadelphia started his line of packets between that port and Liverpool with the ships Lancaster, of 290 tons, and Tuscarora, of 379 tons, which were soon followed by larger vessels, among them some of the finest ships on the Atlantic.
The Red Star Line of Liverpool packets from New York was also established in 1821 with the Panther, Meteor, Hercules, and second Manhattan, and soon after, the Swallow Tail Line of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., came into existence with the Napoleon, Silas Richards, George, and York. Grinnell, Minturn & Co.’s London Line was established in 1823 with the Brighton, Columbia, Cortes, and Corinthian, of less than 500 tons each, and during this year John Griswold’s London Line was also started with the Sovereign, President, Cambria, Hudson, and the second Ontario.
The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 gave a great impetus to commerce, causing New York to become the eastern gateway of the United States, and from that date to 1850 may be counted the glorious years of the Atlantic packet ships.